A regular session of the UN climatic negotiations was over in Bonn (Germany). In the opinion of public environmental organizations’ representatives, all countries, including Russia, should strengthen their climatic activities: reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a more active manner, introduce low-carbon technologies, adapt to climate change, and help the most vulnerable countries.
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Due to climate change Russia will face weather phenomena never seen before - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published the first part of the Sixth Assessment Report. According to experts and representatives of public organizations, measures to reduce emissions and adaptation should be taken immediately.
In Madrid, Spain, on December 2nd the 25th round of international negotiations of the Parties to the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP25) has opened. The COP25 conference of the parties gathered more than 25,000 participants from nearly 200 countries. These negotiations are expected to complete the adoption of the rules of the Paris Agreement, which comes into force in 2020. Russian non-governmental organizations have issued a Statement on their expectations from the negotiations and from national climate actions.
At the G7 Summit, UN Secretary General António Guterres announced an extreme climate situation. Specialists of the Climate Secretariat of the Russian Social and Ecological Union believe that it is high time for Russia, which is subject to climate change more than other regions, to take more decisive measures to implement the Paris Agreement.
“The progress in climate negotiations is obvious, but several essential issues would not allow to reach a consensus.” An extraordinary session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), at which the rules for the Paris Agreement were to be prepared, took place in Bangkok (Thailand).
The report of the International Expert Group on the climate change regarding the temperature increase on the planet had made a lot of noise yet before it has been publicized. Civil society activists believe that the actual figures of two or one point five degrees are less important than recognition of the urgency of specific universal actions on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Every day one can hear the theme of renewable energy (RESs) at the negotiations in Marrakech. Two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal triggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, while renewables have been thriving. Clean energy investments broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels. 
Along with over 170 other countries, Russia signed the Paris Agreement – the new international climate agreement due to replace the Kyoto protocol – at a ceremony held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. This day will be remembered for the highest number of countries that signed an international agreement on day one.
The new international agreement will replace in 2020 the Kyoto Protocol and outline the major directions for countries’ cooperation on adaptation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. However, from the viewpoint of the most vulnerable countries, public organizations, and even some business people, so far the Agreement gives no guarantees of slowdown of climate changes, nor it resolves issues of assistance to countries which are suffering from climatic outcomes the most. For Russia, the new Agreement might become a catalyst for modernization of its economy if mechanisms of priority support to energy efficiency and the green energy will work.
