ARKHANGELSK, March 30. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has reiterated Moscow’s commitment to the Paris climate accords.
"I will say what may seem to be not a very popular thing. I believe it was Sauli (Niinisto) who said that we will comply with all the agreements reached in Paris. Russia is determined to do that too, just as we complied with the Kyoto Protocol," the president said at a plenary session of The Arctic - Territory of Dialogue International Forum.
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At the same time, the Russian president stressed that global warming will continue anyway. "I visited Franz Josef Land yesterday. Austrian explorer Mr. Bayer visited it in the early 1930s, in 1932," Putin went on to say. "Then he left, depicting in his report what was there, which included the glaciers. About twenty years later, the future King of Italy appeared there. He took some photos later showing them to Mr. Bayer. The latter found that the number of glaciers had decreased within twenty years." Global warming thus started at the beginning of the past century, even though there were no anthropological factors and atmospheric emissions that exist now.
"The issue is not how to prevent it. That’s impossible, it can be linked to some global cycles on earth and so on. I agree that the question is how to adapt to this," Putin emphasized.
The northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk is hosting The Arctic - Territory of Dialogue International Forum on March 29-30. TASS news agency is the forum’s general media partner.
The event is one of key platforms for discussing issues and prospects that the Arctic region faces. Its goal is to pool efforts by the international community to efficiently develop the Arctic. The participants of the forum, held since 2010, hash over ways of improving the quality of life in the Arctic territories, developing the transport system and environmental issues.