Russia Joins Pledge to End Deforestation by 2030

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the COP21 conference in 2015 (Flickr).

Russia signed on to a pact to end deforestation by 2030, joining more than 100 countries in the first major agreement of the COP26 international climate conference in Glasgow. Announced on November 2, the deal apportions nearly $20 billion to protect woodlands on a global scale, reports the Moscow Times. 

Moscow’s support for the agreement is especially significant given its status as the world’s most heavily-forested country, containing more than 800 million hectares of forest, per the Moscow Times. According to the Climate Council, climate scientists consider large forests such as those found in the Russian heartland to be “carbon sinks.” In case of their absence or degradation, a greater quantity of carbon dioxide would advance towards the atmosphere, exacerbating the greenhouse effect and rising global temperatures, finds the Rainforest Alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin adopted a tone of urgency when endorsing the agreement. “Russia supports the draft joint declaration on forests and land-use proposed for approval at today’s meeting,” Putin said in a video statement to the conference. “We expect its implementation to facilitate closer partnership between all interested states in forest conservation.” 

Putin praised his government’s recent steps to curb deforestation, including an increase in Moscow’s forest management budget and a tightening in the enforcement of anti-logging laws. “We are taking the strongest and most vigorous measures to preserve [our forests],” Putin told the assembled delegates.

Russian support for the agreement comes amid a trend of increasing environmental consciousness within the Kremlin. According to the Moscow Times, in October, Putin announced that Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, would aim for net-zero carbon emissions by 2060. For the first time, the Moscow Times reports that Putin stated that the role of oil and gas in the Russian economy would necessarily wane given the imperative of climate change. The move shocked climate and energy policy experts, many of whom believed that Russia would not attempt to reach carbon neutrality for more than 80 years.

While Moscow is lauding itself as a climate change leader, others are highly skeptical of Russia’s motives. While many of the world’s leaders attended the conference, Putin did not attend, reports Deutsche Welle. While Putin’s climate envoy has signed on to the deforestation pact, they declined to sign on to a pledge for the reduction of methane emissions. Other critics point out that Moscow’s pledge to become net-zero by 2060 is entirely reliant on the absorption of greenhouse gas by Russia’s vast forests, and not by the reduction of carbon or methane emissions, per the Moscow Times. 

With this pact, world leaders hope to avoid a repeat of the failed New York Declaration on Forests of 2014. According to the BBC, this agreement, like the one signed during COP26, aimed to put an end to deforestation by 2030 and garnered the support of 40 countries. However, the global area of forest cover has continued to fall in the years since, although the rate of deforestation has slowed, per the BBC.

This time, leaders believe there may be more reason for hope. Russia, home to massive forest reserves, was not present among the parties to the New York Declaration. The BBC reports that Russia has signed on to the Glasgow agreement. In fact, according to the Moscow Times, the signatories to the more recent deal account for more than 85 percent of the world’s forest cover.