Russian Economy and Mechanisms of Global Climate Regulation

The article analyzes the approaches for anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions estimation. Existing mechanisms of climate regulation register only production-based emissions and do not take into account the international carbon flows in the form of goods that have been produced in one country and consumed in another one. As a result, many developing countries regard the theme of greenhouse gas emissions limiting as a way to restrict their economic and technological development, as well as maintain leadership of developed countries in the world market. Consumption-based method of emissions estimation provide a higher quality way to consider the issue about separation of intercountry responsibility to reduce the anthropogenic impact on the climate of the planet. However, it requires us to obtain quantitative estimates of emissions related to the production of exported and imported goods. We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the approaches for calculating such indicators. Then we estimate anthropogenic emissions for Russia using different methods. Acceptability of using such evaluations to form binding limits on anthropogenic emissions for Russia is analyzed. On the basis of scenario forecasting we make a conclusion that with the Russia's GDP growth rate comparable to that of world economy up to 2030 the volume of emissions will significantly increase. Consequently, our emissions limit goals as well as the methodology of their calculation may become the additional constraints for rapid modernization of Russian economy.