ROME, October 31. /TASS/. Russia will not adhere to the timeframes for reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 that are imposed by Western countries as it thinks that this goal can be attained ten years later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday after the Group of Twenty summit in Rome.
"Russia doesn’t think that the year 2050 is a magic date which is not subject to argument," he noted. "If the European Union has set this ambitious goal (to reach carbon neutrality - TASS), it doesn’t mean that other countries have no right to their own ambitions. No one can convince us that 2050 is a mandatory benchmark for all. We in Russia do not want to be guided by shallow promises and on the basis of our own calculations we have set the year 2060 as a deadline for reaching carbon neutrality."
The Russian top diplomat said he is convinced that Russia will be able to attain this goal because it is not guided by populist statements, unlike the Western partners, who once pledged to stop using Russian pipeline gas in favor of spot trade. "You know what has become of it," he noted.
He also explained why 2050 was used in the G20 declaration as a deadline for reaching carbon neutrality. "The matter is that the draft declaration was preliminarily agreed by the Group of Seven and only after that submitted for discussion within the Group of Twenty," Lavrov said. "It is disrespectful for other G20 members and the entire international community. It is not polite to use such negotiations tricks and we would like them not to be used later on.".