September 23, 2019

Russia has joined the Paris Climate Accord. The Russian Prime-Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a resolution on accepting the Paris Climate Accord. He announced it on the opening day of the UN Climate Summit. Russia signed the Paris Climate Accord back in April 2016. Russia becomes a party to the Accord without approval of the ratification law by the State Duma.

D.A. Medvedev announced the ratification of the Accord at the RF Government meeting. He explained that the climate change is dangerous for agriculture and the citizens, who live in permafrost conditions.

Recently Bloomberg wrote that the President of Russia Vladimir Putin might ratify the Accord based on “cold political calculus” and lobbyism by the leaders of France and Germany.

The Climate Accord was signed in 2015 by 195 countries, however, not all the countries ratified subsequently. Now 186 states are members of the Paris Accord. In 2017, the USA had to withdraw from the Accord for the fear of losing millions of jobs.

The Accord is to come to force in 2021. This document assumes reduction of carbon oxide emissions and maintaining temperature rise below 2 degrees.

Translated by Muhiddin Ganiev