Russia joins Paris Agreement on climate

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a government order accepting the conditions of the Paris Agreement, RIA Novosti reported. The agreement was initially drafted in 2015 to provide an international framework for combating the climate crisis.

The Russian government’s ratification order emphasizes the importance of preserving natural resources but also notes that Moscow would disapprove of any efforts to use the Paris Agreement to inhibit economic growth.

Russia was among the initial signatories of the agreement in 2016. However, RBC noted, after the country’s UN climate representative said the Kremlin would not consider significantly reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, President Vladimir Putin said the agreement would only be ratified domestically after a “comprehensive analysis.” On September 22, Bloomberg described Putin’s increasing acceptance of the pact as a “cold calculus.”

Russia’s induction into the agreement coincides with the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York City and worldwide climate protests. A new scientific report released ahead of the summit indicated that climate targets must be made drastically more ambitious on a global scale if they are to reduce the impact of a runaway climate catastrophe. The report also detailed the disastrous consequences of global heating within the last five years.

Update: The Telegraph noted that the Climate Action Tracker continues to rate Russia’s climate commitments as “critically insufficient” to hold average global temperatures below catastrophic levels.