Deputy Events Editor Grace Fitzgerald-Diaz and Guest Writer Emma Melnikov attended an event Friday centered around Russia’s growing climate crisis.

Russia is a key player in global energy markets. It consistently leads in gas exports and is among the top global exporters of oil and coal. But as the world tries to reduce emissions and decarbonize the energy sector, Russia, whose economy is dominated by energy exports, is being forced to confront this change. At an event on Friday, co-hosted by the Harriman Institute and the Center on Global Energy Policy, Dr. Tatiana Mitrova, a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Energy Policy, and an expert on global and Russian energy markets, said, “the story I want to tell you is really evolving right now.”

For Russia, climate change is very visible and happening much faster than in the rest of the world. Its effects are already having a sustainable impact on the country, particularly its permafrost regions. For all the possible positive effects discussed, the negative effects already being felt will almost certainly outweigh any potential benefits. More and more people and businesses in the country are considering it a legitimate threat and acknowledging the reality of it because of its encroachment on everyday life.

Russia has announced moderate climate targets—but there’s a catch. The country has announced a target of 30% reduction compared to 1991 levels, but this would actually mean a 20% increase in emissions. The country was already 50% below 1991 levels, just before the Soviet Union fell. While Russia has also pledged net-zero by 2060, it is currently involved in an intense debate with the international community about how the carbon absorbed by its boreal forests should be accounted for. If the consensus that is reached is that the boreal forests absorb a substantial amount of carbon, they will have virtually no requirement to reduce emissions. While the government has announced that it will slowly grow its use of renewable energy to 4% of its energy consumption by 2030, compared to less than 1% now, there has been nearly no activity in making progress towards this goal.

Dr. Mitrova noted that one of the potential determinants of this success is the development of new technology, and said that while Russia is good at developing new technologies, it often struggles to apply and then scale up projects while still maintaining quality. This could pose a challenge as Russia looks to decarbonize its energy sector by becoming a leader in hydrogen production. Many companies have already announced investments in hydrogen production, and the government has recently allocated money to the project as well. These premature investments are being made in hopes that Russia will be able to emerge at the forefront of hydrogen production, if it takes off as a global industry, and thus combat obstruction to their economic prosperity that comes with the potential worldwide decrease in non-renewable energy usage. However, uncertainties in how it will be transported and distributed as a major source of energy are still unclear leaving the project an overzealous idea hanging in the air. 

There is some anxiety that the energy transition will give Russia new political leverage, a concern that has been exacerbated by the current gas crisis in Europe that has caused prices to surge 400%. While Dr. Mitrova noted that the current gas crisis is a more classical hydrocarbon crisis demonstrating improper management of current markets, not a result of the energy transition, in terms of new political leverage she said that it is dependent on “scale and level of success” by Russia in transitioning its energy markets. 

As the world tries to decarbonize the energy sector and move towards zero emissions, Russia is a make-or-break player. What Russia does will not only impact global energy markets but also our ability to meet climate goals and stave off the worst effects of climate change. 

Russian landscape via Pixabay