UNITED NATIONS, May 21. /TASS/. In the next five or six years Russia plans to increase the number of green power plants (using renewable energy resources) 10-fold, First Deputy Minister of Energy Alexey Teksler said at the UN Sustainable Energy for All Forum Thursday.
"We are actively engaged in renewable energy. In the next five or six years we plan to increase power generating facilities based on renewable energy - water, sun, biomass - 10 times," he said.
According to him, Russia plans to slash GDP energy intensity by at least 40% by 2020 despite abundance of hydrocarbon resources. "If you analyze what we have done, the energy-output ratio since 2000 has reached 34%," he said, adding that the figure "is higher than in many developed countries." "However, we have to deal with the effect of low base, we started from a low point," Teksler said.
Teksler added that Russia is currently "the largest producer and exporter of primary energy resources." "Questions of global energy security, fighting against energy poverty is extremely important to us, and Russia, in our opinion, plays a great part in resolving those issues," he said.
According to the Program of support for green energy adopted in Russia in 2013, wind power and small hydroelectric power plants of total capacity of around 6 GW should start working in Russia by 2020.
Sustainable Energy for All forum is held in the framework of the eponymous initiative launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2011. It states that in 2030 the international community doubles the share of renewable energy in the global energy balance, as well as increases twice the level of energy efficiency. According to the World Bank, in order to achieve these goals, investment in the energy sector needs to increase more than 3-fold - from the current $400 bln to $1.25 trillion.
Speaking at a forum on Wednesday, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson pointed out "a huge responsibility" of the international community in the field of environmentally friendly energy, independent of the drying up of natural resources. "Future generations will hold us accountable, if we cannot fulfill our moral and historic duty," he warned. Eliasson urged the governments, the private sector and civil society to unite efforts in the implementation of the initiative.