MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to lay the foundation for global cooperation on monitoring all types of harmful emissions.

"It would be rather important to establish far-reaching and effective international cooperation on calculating and monitoring all types of harmful emissions into the atmosphere. We invite all interested countries to join in collaborative research, to jointly invest in climate projects of practical value and work more actively on developing low-carbon technologies to alleviate the consequences and to adapt to climate change," he said during the online climate summit.

According to Putin, "all factors causing global warming should be considered without exception." "For example, methane causes 20% of anthropogenic emissions. Every tonne of it causes a greenhouse effect that is 25 to 28 times higher that a tonne of CO2. If, say, in the next 30 years, we managed to cut methane emissions in half, then, according to experts, the global temperature would decrease by 0.18 degrees. Which, by the way, amounts to up to 45% of the difference between the current temperature and the goal of the Paris Agreement," the Russian leader said.

Putin also assured that Russia is ready to give preferences to foreign companies intending to pour investment into clean technologies in the country. "I am confident the struggle to preserve the climate must unite the efforts of the entire world community. Russia is ready to offer a whole range of joint projects and even consider the opportunity for preferences to foreign companies that would like to invest in clean technologies, including in our country," he said.

Cooperation with other states

Russia is interested in developing cooperation with other countries in solving acute global issues, including climate change, Vladimir Putin told the US-hosted virtual climate summit on Thursday.

"I would like to stress once again that the Russian Federation is sincerely interested in stepping up international cooperation in order to continue searching for effective solutions to the problem of climate change," the head of the Russian state said.

"This also relates to all other acute global problems," Putin said.

In Putin’s opinion, the results of the climate summit should contribute to these efforts. The Russian leader also stressed that global development should be "not simply green" but also sustainable as this notion fully implies."

"Moreover, this should be relevant to all countries without any exception," the Russian leader noted.

Agreements achieved on the UN platform in emission control

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the agreements achieved on the UN platform provide reliable basis for greenhouse gas emission control.

"We believe that the universal agreements achieved on the United Nations platform serve as a reliable legal basis for joint work by countries to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Putin stated.

Putin stressed that Russia was fully aware of its responsibility for complying with international commitments in this field. First and foremost, this concerned the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. He added that Russia was conducting vigorous work to provide up-to-date legislation in the country to enforce control of carbon emissions and stimulate their reduction.

Putin said that in his annual message to Parliament among other priorities he mentioned the task of considerably reducing the accrued emissions by 2050. "Despite Russia’s size and the specifics of its geography, climate and structure of the economy this is an achievable goal, I am pretty certain about that," Putin said.

He pointed out that in contrast to 1990 Russia reduced greenhouse emissions to a far greater extent than many other countries. Its emissions halved, from 3.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to 1.6 billion tonnes.

"This is a result of fundamental reorganization of the Russian industry and energy, carried out over the past twenty years," Putin said. "As a result, low emission sources of energy, including nuclear power generation, account for 45% of our energy balance. As is known, the level of greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power plants throughout their lifecycle is close to zero."

Putin stressed the fact that the climate discussion by world leaders was a clear sign how deeply all countries were concerned about climate change and how much everybody was interested in stepping up international discussions on ways of handling this problem.

"The future of the globe, development prospects of each individual country and the wellbeing and quality of people’s life largely depend on the success of these efforts," he said in conclusion.