RUSSIALINK: “What Did Russia Achieve at COP26?” – Moscow Times

Siberian River, Forest, Mountain

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nov. 16, 2021) Now that the United Nations’ COP26 climate summit has ended, opinions are split over whether world leaders made the commitments needed to keep global warming from passing a catastrophic threshold. Here’s a look at things Russia did — and did not do — at the landmark summit in Glasgow: Deforestation pledge Russia, […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Rosneft announces energy transition strategy as climate conference approaches” – bne Intellinews

File Photo of Rosneft and Russian Flags Next to Rosneft Banner

“Oil giant Rosneft announced the creation of a plan to transition to green energy, but also warned that fossil fuels would never fully be replaced.” “Russian state oil major Rosneft is developing a new strategy centred on the transition to renewable energy resources. … [according to] CEO Igor Sechin …. However, … [he] stress[ed] that oil and gas would continue […]

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Russian Company Pays Largest Legal Award In History — Almost $2 Billion — For Devastating Arctic Fuel Spill

File Photos of Law Books and Gavel, adapted from image at fjc.gov

… [T]he Krasnoyarsk City Court of Arbitration ruled that almost all of the sum, the largest legal award in Russian history, must go to the federal treasury […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Diesel Spill In Russian Arctic Could Be Putin’s Exxon Valdez” – Forbes/ Ariel Cohen

Map of Arctic Highlighting Permafrost, adapted from image at nasa.gov

“… Putin ordered a state of emergency … in the Taymyr region near the Arctic Ocean, after 20,000 tons (150,000 barrels) of diesel fuel spilled from a Russian power plant into … soil and a nearby river. The accident occurred in the Siberian city … Norilsk … [T]he plant’s fuel reservoir collapsed into thawing permafrost, releasing its contents. Diesel is […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Russians See Pollution as a Greater Threat Than Terrorism – Poll” – Moscow Times

File Photo of Smokestacking Spewing Cloud of Discharge

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 23, 2020) [Photo caption in original: Nationwide protests rocked Russia in 2019 over unpopular plans to build landfills in remote parts of the country to take in waste from more populous areas.Sergei Bobylev / TASS] Russians believe that environmental pollution poses a greater threat to humanity than terrorism, according to the results of an […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Half of Russians Are Worried About the Environment Where They Live – Survey” – Moscow Times

Russian Landfill; adapted from image at epa.gov

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 5, 2019) Almost half of Russians are concerned about the environment in their regions, according to a study by the Moscow-based NAFI Research Center obtained by the state-run TASS news agency. Environmental issues have taken center stage at protest rallies across Russia over the past year, with citizens drawing attention to concerns including landfills, […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Putin reaffirms Russia’s plans to ratify Paris Agreement on climate change” – Interfax

File Photo of Smokestacking Spewing Cloud of Discharge

ST. PETERSBURG. April 9 (Interfax) – Russia is committed to ratifying the Paris Agreement on climate change after comprehensively analyzing it, but Russia’s role in maintaining environmental security in the Arctic should not be overestimated, President Vladimir Putin said. Speaking at the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, Putin corrected the mediator, who said that Russia is the […]

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Moscow’s waste wars; The “rubbish riots” that are taking place in the Moscow area demonstrate Muscovites’ distrust of their regional government.

Moscow Aerial View Satellite Image File Photo, adapted from image at jpl.nasa.gov

(opendemocracy.net – Natalya Paramonova – May 3, 2018) Natalya Paramonova is a journalist. Since graduating from Moscow’s Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, she has worked in the Science, Environment and Technology department of the RIA Novosti news agency, written for the GEO Rossiya and Ecology and Law journals and worked for the Colta.ru, +1 and LookBio internet portals. She is also […]

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More Than 16 Million Russians Are Breathing Polluted Air

File Photo of Smokestacking Spewing Cloud of Discharge

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 21, 2017) More than 16 million residents of Russia’s largest cities are breathing polluted air, an annual Natural Resources and Environment Ministry report cited by the Kommersant daily on Thursday suggests. Russia’s fledgling post-Soviet environmental protection movement has been hampered in recent years by corruption, lax enforcement of laws and a crackdown on advocacy […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Russia Says Still Likely to Back Paris Climate Deal Despite U.S. Withdrawal” – Reuters

Arkady Dvorkovich file photo

“… #Russia has signed the Paris climate pact but is the biggest emitter of global greenhouse gases not to have yet ratified it. Russian officials have said they need more time to assess its potential impact on their economy and have spoken of drafting a strategy for low-carbon development, fuelling fears among green campaigners Moscow may not ratify the agreement. […]

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Most densely populated part of Russia environmentally unfavorable – document

Moscow Roads

MOSCOW. April 20 (Interfax) – Environmental conditions in the most densely populated part of #Russia remain unfavorable, according to the Russian environmental security strategy for the period through 2025. The strategy was endorsed with an executive order of the president on April 19. “Environmental conditions in cities and surrounding territories populated by 74% of the country’s residents are experiencing a […]

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NEWSLINK: “He dared to speak the truth: Alexey Yablokov, scientific hero of Chernobyl” – The Ecologist (UK)/Chris Busby

Chernobyl File Photo

“Alexey V. Yablokov (1933-2017) was a scientific giant of the post-Chernobyl age, writes Chris Busby. It was he who brought together the work of dissident Soviet scientists and revealed to the world, in English language, the true health impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. ….”

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Russia prepared to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 70% by 2030

File Photo of Smokestacking Spewing Cloud of Discharge

(Interfax – December 10, 2015) Russia is prepared to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by another 5 percentage points, or to 70 percent of the 1990 level by 2030, the Russian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry reported Minister Sergei Donskoi as saying at the UN climate conference (COP21) in Paris. Donskoi sai that combating climate change is a national priority […]

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Russia is swimming in oil; Russia’s oil industry lacks the infrastructure to avoid spills and leaks; and the environmental consequences are horrific

Oil Wells File Photo

(opendemocracy.net – July 28, 2015) Georgy Borodyansky is an Omsk-based correspondent for Novaya Gazeta. Russian oil giant Rosneft has dumped on us northerners once again. It’s unlikely that anyone apart from the locals would have heard about the pipeline which burst on the outskirts of Nefteyugansk if not for photos of the aftermath on social media. The pictures were taken […]

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Russian Polluters Evading Huge Environmental Fines

Hand Pulling Cash from Envelope

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anastasia Bazenkova – May 12, 2015) Russia’s environmental protection watchdog is failing to collect penalties imposed on polluters worth tens of millions of dollars per year. Penalties worth 2 billion rubles ($40 million) ordered by the Federal Service for Supervising Natural Resources, or Rosprirodnadzor, went unpaid in 2014, Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov told […]

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Majority of Russia’s Urban Population Is Breathing Highly Polluted Air

Aerial View of Moscow From Beyond Stadium, file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 4, 2014) The majority of Russia’s urban population is breathing highly polluted air, including at least 14 million people in 38 cities where pollutant concentrations are 10 times above acceptable levels, according to a recent report by the national weather and environment service. Moscow was among cities that rated high on air pollution, mostly […]

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A Russian City Where Life Expectancy has Declined to 38 Years

Map of Russia

(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 9, 2014) Karabash, a copper-smelting company town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, has seen the life expectancy of its residents fall to 38 years, the result of massive environmental pollution by a highly profitable company that has turned this city of 13,000 into a kind of hell, “one of the dirtiest in the […]

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Russians call waste dumps, litter worst ecological problem – poll

Russian Landfill; adapted from image at epa.gov

MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax) – Household waste is the biggest environmental danger in the eyes of 58% of Russians. Half of the respondents polled by the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) put the blame on transportation vehicles and 49% criticized industrial waste. Litter and household waste equally bother people in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities with a population […]

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Chemfest in Russia’s ‘chemical capital’

Map of Russia

(opendemocracy.net – Ola Cichowlas – November 28, 2013) Ola Cichowlas is a British-Polish freelance journalist. She covers Russian regional politics and the arts in provincial Russia. Russia’s industrial cities are more than a blot on the landscape. They are the source of appalling chemical pollution, a problem that neither the authorities nor the oligarch owners seem to have any interest […]

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Two Russian Cities on Top 10 Most Polluted Places List

File Photo of Smokestacking Spewing Cloud of Discharge

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 6, 2013) Contaminants in the air, water and soil, and the staggering cancer rates place the Russian cities of Dzerzhinsk and Norilsk among the 10 most polluted places on earth for 2013, a joint report by Swiss and U.S organizations said. Dzerzhinsk, once the Soviet Union’s major site for producing chemical […]

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Gazprom’s Bric-a-Brac Rig Called a Risk to the Arctic

Polar Map Showing Permafrost Areas, Adapted From NOAA.gov Graphic

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – October 24, 2013) Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya platform, the advance guard of the coming expansion of Russia’s state energy corporations into the Arctic, is a cobbled together bric-a-brac of second-hand parts, some of which date to 1984, environmentalists said. The very presence of the Prirazlomnaya rig in the icy Pechora Sea is the result […]

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Penalties for environmental pollution rise by degree of magnitude in Russia

File Photo of Smokestacking Spewing Cloud of Discharge

(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 8, 2013) Penalties for violating the rules of water use and harmful emissions in Russia, which aim to stimulate energy conservation and environmentally clean technologies, have grown by a degree of magnitude, the Russian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry said in a press release. The administrative fine for violating water use rules when taking water without […]

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WWF Identifies Threatened Areas

Map of Russia

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 6, 2013) Ten ecologically pristine zones in Russia are at risk of becoming polluted, according to a report that the World Wildlife Fund released Wednesday, as the nation celebrates ecologist day. Krasnodar, Irkutsk and Kamchatka regions lead the list with two endangered areas each. The paper mill at Baikalsk on Lake Baikal is the […]

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$3.3 Billion to Clean Up Soviet Pollution

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Roland Oliphant – January 23, 2013) The government is preparing to allocate 100 billion rubles ($3.3 billion) to clean up pollution left over by Soviet-era industry. Natural Resources and Environment Minister Sergei Donskoi told President Vladimir Putin that a bill to allocate that sum as well as define responsibilities for cleaning up decades-old industrial waste […]

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