Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping did not go to the G20 climate change conference because they did not want to deal with uncomfortable questions there, environmentalist Pavel Sukhonin believes.
US President Joseph Biden claimed that many climate activists were disappointed with G20 summit resolutions because of Russia and China. The two countries, Biden believes, did not show their willingness to take on any environmental obligations, Biden said Sunday, October 31, following еру two-day G20 summit in Rome.
"You're going to see we've made significant progress, and more has to be done, but it's going to require us to continue to focus on what China's not doing, what Russia is not doing and what Saudi Arabia is not doing," Biden said.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping did not go to Rome for the summit and took part in it via video link.
Vladimir Putin in his speech called on his counterparts to elaborating "uniform, transparent and fair rules" in the field of environmental protection.
The President of the Russian Federation noted that the carbon footprint of solar energy is four times greater than that of nuclear energy. According to him, the share of non-hydrocarbon (nuclear, hydro, solar and wind power plants) energy sources in the Russian energy sector currently exceeds 40 percent.
The President added that forest protection projects in Russia and Latin American countries could prove to be much more effective than investments in renewable energy sources in a number of countries of the world.
Putin believes that one should draw up a rating of environmental projects that would reflect the ratio between the reduction of greenhouse gases and every dollar of investment.
"In our opinion, in order to solve the problem of global warming, it is not enough to simply reduce CO2 emissions. We should increase the absorption of greenhouse gases," the Russian president said.
Pavel Sukhonin, professor of the Institute of Applied Ecology, member of the Supreme Ecological Council, told Pravda.Ru that in 2020, exports of Siberian timber (according to the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation) were evaluated at 50 billion rubles ($700 million), of which 80 percent accounted for China.
"Naturally, they would ask Russia and China why they were destroying the lungs of the planet. This is an uncontrollable and catastrophic process based on nothing but elementary stupidity and greed," said Pavel Sukhonin.
In his opinion, the people who hold the reins of power in today's Russia are limited in their global outlook. They only think of their own future. They are convinced that the future of future generations is not their business.
Pavel Sukhonin believes that all the talking about transparent measures and fair rules is nothing but meaningless words that contradict to real actions. For example, Russia's consumer rights watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, allowed and regulated the content of antibiotics and hormonal drugs in water, allegedly in accordance with WHO standards.
"This is absolutely unacceptable either from a scientific or a human point of view. One should eliminate the content of antibiotics and hormonal drugs in drinking water," the expert noted.
The content of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in water is also unacceptable, the specialist said. Therefore, 99 percent of all water treatment facilities in the Russian Federation have to be upgraded to be able to purify water from PCBs. The industrial lobby is unwilling to do it.
Pavel Sukhonin also drew attention to the fact that not a single water service company in Russia exists to provide the population with healthy and pure drinking water. Instead, their charters say that those companies exist to derive profit from their activities.
"In the Russian Federation, there is no state policy in the field of ecology and health protection – this is the biggest problem. All these statements about the need to improve, develop and deepen — all this is the Gorbachev-style rhetoric. He used to say a lot and do little.
"President Putin is a human being, and a human being is incapable of understanding everything. He can be a good intelligence officer, a good leader, whatever, but he has little knowledge of ecology and healthcare. He has advisers, and here we go do to the level of competence of those advisers. To put it mildly, this level leaves much to be desired. These are the people whose last visit to the laboratory took place 30 years ago," Pavel Sukhonin told Pravda. Ru.
At the G20 summit in Rome, world's leading economic powers failed to agree on common climate targets to reduce global warming to 1.5 degrees.
The final declaration does not contain specific target dates either for "zero emissions” or for the moment, when the world ceases to use coal-powered electricity.
By and large, these international summits are primarily held to coordinate national interests between their participants.
China is the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, but it claims that per capita CO2 emissions in the US are much higher.
The goal of the Russian Federation is to ensure carbon neutrality by 2060, and Russia will move towards this goal, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Meanwhile, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said at the Eurasian Economic Forum in Verona that climate change would take place regardless of all the efforts taken for the purpose of carbon neutrality.
"Pressure from climate activists stalls the implementation of joint projects with international companies, forcing corporations to cut their investments in oil and gas production and direct assets to renewable energy sources. It is the climate agenda that has been putting pressure on the global oil and gas industry today," Sechin said.