Sovereign climate – a commentary by Alexander Kurdin, expert of the Institute for Energy and Finance to the internet portal Expert-Online

The President Dmitry Medvedev signed the Russian Climate Doctrine. This is the first official document on climate. But the fight against global warming is not the main goal of the doctrine, experts say. Russia declares that it is ready to follow the path of economic modernization and will defend its interests in the development of a global climate doctrine even if it goes against the wishes of the world community.

At the same time, economists doubt that the given benchmarks can be achieved. «Russia reduced the energy intensity of its GDP from 1995 to 2008 by 40% thanks to structural reforms. But now this potential has been largely exhausted (there are no global structural reforms), besides, the crisis is making its contribution — after all, investments have decreased, which means that the pace of re-equipment of enterprises is also decreasing. I think that by 2020 the increase in energy efficiency can be, at best, no more than 20–30%," Alexander Kurdin, an expert from the Institute of Energy and Finance says, and notes that Europe has set itself more modest goals: to reduce emissions by 20% in the period from 2005 to 2020.

According to Kurdin, the emphasis in reducing the energy intensity of the economy can be placed on the growth of tariffs and energy conservation, as well as modernization of housing and communal services.