Putin signals increased Russia role in climate effort in UN speech

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his first address to the United Nations in over a decade on Monday and suggested that Russia will adopt an enhanced role in the climate change debate, making a cryptic offer to host a climate change summit.

Putin said that Moscow was ready to sponsor a forum to address natural resource management, biodiversity and climate change, in a widely-anticipated speech.

The Russian President suggested that current plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions as part of the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris later this year were faltering and advocated a change of approach.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, Putin said: “We might defuse the problem for a while for a while by setting quotas on harmful emissions… but we need a completely different approach. New technologies inspired by nature.”

The announcement has surprised most observers as Russia has remained largely quiet on the topic of climate change in recent years, and has reportedly had little involvement with efforts to agree a global deal at the COP21 meeting in the French capital in December.

The country was, however, one of the first to submit its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) climate plan to the UN in March, and pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent to 30 per cent on 1990 levels by 2030.