FACTBOX: Russian Offer Deepens Rich Nations' CO2 Cuts
Date: 20-Nov-09
Country: NORWAY
Author: Reuters
OSLO - A Russian plan to toughen curbs on greenhouse gas emissions deepens combined cuts offered by industrialized nations to at most 17 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, Reuters calculations show.
Russia offered to tighten curbs from 1990 levels to between 22 and 25 percent by 2020, according to Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to the European Union, in some rare good news before a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen next month.
Russia is the world's number three greenhouse gas emitter behind China and the United States. Its previous offer had been to aim for curbs of 10 to 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
The offer, at a summit with the EU in Stockholm, would d eepen overall cuts by developed nations to between 13 and 17 percent below 1990 levels, from 11 to 15 percent before Moscow's announcement.
It was unclear how far Russia will seek to exploit the natural ability of its vast forests to soak up carbon dioxide as part of its new target.
Russia's emissions, down since the collapse of inefficient smokestack industries of the former Soviet Union, were 34 percent below 1990 levels in 2007 so its goal means a rise in emissions in coming years.
In 2007, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlined a scenario of cuts of between 25 and 40 percent by 2020 to avoid the worst of global warming such as droughts, heatwaves, species extinctions and rising seas.
Many developed nations such as China and India are demanding cuts of at least 40 percent by the rich by 2020.
Excluding the United States, which is the only industrialized nation outside the U.N.'s existing Kyoto Protocol, the Russian offer deepens overall cuts to 19 to 26 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- inside the IPCC range for a first time.
