Russia Hopes to Stabilize CO2 Emissions by 2010
The Russian Federation is in second place as an emitter of greenhouse
gases with its share of total world emissions at 11 percent, stated
Vladimir Kh. Berdin, Chief of the Climate Change Division of Russian's
Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring Service. (More recent
data put China slightly ahead of Russia. The U.S. share stands
at 23 percent.) However, if Russia's hopes and plans are followed,
the country sees the possibility of stabilizing emissions at 1990
levels by 2010.
Russia's energy sector is a major source of GHG emissions: up
to 98 percent of CO2 and more than 50 percent of methane and N2O.
Many strategies to limit emissions, therefore, involve the energy
sector.
A Russian federal energy power policy looks forward to reducing
emissions and increasing energy efficiency by using new technologies
in fuel and power resources, both in production and consumption.
Currently, this strategy estimates that 40 - 45 percent of potential
energy resources are consumed inefficiently, one-third of them
in the fuel and energy sector. Greatest losses are in electropower
and heating supply, next in industry, and the rest in the municipal
sector and in agriculture and transport. Much greater use of natural
gas is suggested to improve this record, with gas's share targeted
to rise from 41 percent in 1990 to 48 - 53 percent by 2010. Other
measures include wider use of hydropower (a "traditional"
energy supplier in the Russian Federation) and "non-traditional"
renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass.
Updating power station technologies - gas-turbine and steam-gas
equipment - would also be used, to yield potential energy savings
of 30 to 100 million tons of carbon equivalent a year by 2000,
and 220 - 360 mtce/yr by 2010. Beyond these structural changes,
legislative, financial and other measures will be employed to
save 50 - 80 Mtce/yr by the turn of the century and 80 - 110 by
the end of the next decade.
Energy-saving strategies are expected to reduce emissions 45
- 100 million tons of carbon annually by the year 2000 and 168
- 264 by 2010, according to estimates of the Russian Institute
of Global Climate and Ecology. Two scenarios have been used to
calculate C02 emissions by 2010. One, under the First National
Communication, shows that reducing GHG emissions 20 percent, partly
as a result of the country's economic depression from 1991 - 1995
plus the increasing share of gas in the energy balance and special
measures for reducing methane losses, will stabilize emissions
in the future.
Another scenario, the fruit of research carried out both domestically
and under the US-Russian Country Study Program, takes into account
expected changes in GDP, with the share of goods production falling
from 61 to 41 percent and the service share rising from 33 to
52 percent by 1995. Natural gas consumption in this scenario is
expected to increase to nearly 50 percent of primary energy consumption,
and oil and coal to fall to 20 and 12 percent. Per capita GHG
emissions will decline by 22 percent between 1990 and 1995. As
a result of all these calculations, energy consumption and CO2
emissions are predicted not to exceed the levels of 1990.
Two US-Russian joint implementation projects have already been
adopted: one in the forestry sector and another involving gas
pipeline leak stoppage. Two more are under consideration, one
for district heating and another for forest planning/restoration.
Robert Dixon who directs the US Country Studies Program pointed
out that Russia has given a high priority to its country study,
assigning to the project leading experts in the climate and energy
fields. A third panel member, Ronald Muller, who heads REM Capital
Corporation, described his experiences in a joint venture to sterilize
logs and eliminate the need for methyl bromide. To succeed in
small and mid-size renewable energy projects, Muller said, it
helps to overcome an "expertise gap" resulting from
the lack of integration of "developers" (those with
ideas, management resources and entrepreneurial desire) and "financiers"
(those agents - funds, banks, multilaterals, bilateral sources,
etc. - possessing financial resources to "make things happen").
The expertise of risk capital should be integrated with the expertise
of management and other technical skill to overcome a critical
bottleneck in developing these smaller projects.
