Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signed a decree ordering the Russian government to work towards meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement to fight climate change, but stressed any action must be balanced with the need to ensure strong economic development.
In a decree published on Wednesday, a public holiday in Russia, Putin formally ordered the government to work towards a cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 of up to 30% below emission levels in 1990.
Putin said any action to cut emissions must take account of the need to ensure steady and balanced socio-economic development, and ordered the government to draw up and ratify a socio-economic strategy up to 2050 that factored in lower emissions.
He has praised the Paris pact in the past, while saying it would require countries to modernise industry, something likely to cost big business billions of dollars and incur job losses, an eventuality he said had to be properly planned for.
