UNITED NATIONS, September 23. /TASS/. The governmental decree on Russia's accession to the Paris Agreement on climate action has been signed, and now a law on regulating greenhouse gas emissions should be adopted by the end of 2020, Russian presidential envoy for climate change Ruslan Edelgeriev told reporters on Monday.
"It is symbolic that the Paris Agreement on climate action was ratified by Russia at the time when the UN summit on climate has opened," Edelgeriev said. "There were significant and serious approval procedures. We wanted to announce it at the summit, and we succeeded. Today [Russian Prime Minister] Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvedev] said that he signed the relevant decree," he added.
"Russia has once again proved to the international community that the Russian Federation is a responsible and consistent state that fulfills the commitments it takes upon itself, and it is predictable," Edelgeriev noted. "The Russian president said that we will join the Paris Agreement, and this is exactly what happened," he stressed.
"When it comes to further actions, we will have to do a lot of work within the state," he continued. "We will need to adopt a main law on regulating greenhouse gas emissions. After adopting this law, we will see what we need to do next. This is precisely the law that will require a lot of serious work on the part of specialists, the academic community, and the business community," he added.
According to Edelgeriev, the law on greenhouse gas emissions should be adopted no later than by the end of 2020. "I think that if there are difficulties, we may have to postpone the deadline since this document is very serious and should not be rushed," he stressed. "We need to carefully consider everything, consider different sectors of the economy. Only after this we can start considering issues of regulation," he concluded.