The Russian government approved a 221 million Euro energy efficiency programme in October 2010. The programme will try to address the efficiency of factories and how the buildings are run. Russia has finally developed a growing consensus that climate change is really happening, and thus there is a will to develop a more efficient economy.

Until quite recently, many in Russia, including the elite where sceptical about global warming and frowned at scientific data. Today this is different and with the weather related anomalies and other unprecedented droughts and floods around the world, Russia has bowed down and finally accepted that something needs to be done.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once quipped that global warming meant Russians would need to spend less on fur coats, but thankfully President Dmitry Medvedev is taking a much tougher approach. The World Bank says that increasing energy efficiency will improve the country’s productivity and competitiveness, which has helped improve the attitude towards climate change, global warming and the need to make change.

There is also the obvious economic reason as the investment into the sector could save Russia almost 70 million tonnes of oil equivalent a year according to Medvedev ($38.5bn). Paradoxically, the pace of negotiations and actions around the world has slowed, leaving the public dumbfounded and frustrated at the ability of governments to effectively address the clime change problem.

Despite the backsliding in other countries (UK being a prominent backslider) Russia appears to have realised that investment makes economic sense, whilst it moves to help combat global warming. Medvedev is reported to have aims to make Russia’s economy 40% more energy efficient by 2020.

Just4theplanet has recently published information on China, and their increasing investment into these new sustainable technologies, but Russia lags far behind China. However, Russia is moving in the right direction and the government has plans to build eight plants that will produce energy-saving lamps as well as the first Russian solar plant expected in the city of Kislovodsk in 2011.

Rostovteploelektroprovekt, a Russian company who designs energy plants and equipment, reports to have plans to develop wind and solar power worth almost $300 million in the Krasnodar region, with Siemens looking to cooperate in the project. Russian energy giant RusHydro also has plans to build a wind-power park in the city of St Petersburg. Hydro power and Biofuels development are also making progress in Mother Russia.

In August 2010, The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry drafted a bill to promote recycling meaning that factories will have to start recycling the material they currently throw away. Living examples of this means that pulp and paper factories could easily sell waste to Biofuels plants with obvious win/win outcomes.

To finish the story of hope, this year Russia’s carbon trading sector has also got off the ground with the government penning 15 project to the value of $30 million and more in the pipeline.

As a global nation, we may feel that the Copenhagen conference did not live up to expectations. The considerable divide between developed and developing nations may have stood in the way of the main ambitions of a global climate deal. However, it is a pleasing notion that the mighty Mother Russia has made an environmental U turn for the better that will help combat climate change and global warming, whilst also making economic sense. Баснословный !

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