On April 22, the Valdai Club held a discussion “Global ‘Greening’: A Threat or New Opportunities for Russia and the World?”
On April 22–23, US President Joe Biden will host a multilateral online climate summit. This summit should answer whether a roadmap for the global transition to carbon-neutral energy will be developed. The past pandemic year has led to a significant intensification of green transformation projects. Following the EU stating its intention to move towards carbon neutrality by 2050-60, the same was declared by the largest countries of the Asia-Pacific region: Japan, South Korea and China. With Joe Biden in power, the United States is also turning to the same agenda.
The global green transformation includes the progressive phasing-out of hydrocarbon fuel and the introduction of a carbon tax on products with a high carbon footprint. It is obvious that both of these steps can affect both the volumes of oil and gas exports from Russia and the competitiveness of Russian goods in the world.
How should Russia respond to the global green transformation? What opportunities does Russia have to integrate into this process in a meaningful way? How important will the US-sponsored summit be to the international green agenda? Will the green transformation become a new factor of global inequality? These and other questions were answered by the participants of the discussion.
Speakers:
Nikolay Durmanov, Special Representative for Biological and Environmental Security, Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation
Nuritdin Inamov, Assistant to the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation
Mikhail Kuznetsov, Director of the Federal Autonomous Scientific Institution “Eastern State Planning Center”
Anatol Lieven, Senior Research Fellow, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Christof Van Agt, Director of Energy Dialogue, International Energy Forum
Moderator:
Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.