Russian Prime Minister Signs Paris Agreement

Russia will have a law on emissions by the end of 2020, the country’s climate envoy Ruslan Edelgeriev said after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree for Russia’s ratification of the Paris Agreement. 
"When it comes to further actions, we will have to do a lot of work within the state," Edelgeriev said. "We will need to adopt a main law on regulating greenhouse gas emissions”.
Medvedev signed the Paris Agreement decree Monday, saying climate change caused by greenhouse emissions could put certain key industries such as agriculture at risk and endanger the safety of people in permafrost regions, which is two-thirds of Russia, Oil Price reported.
Russia is the world’s fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, so its commitment to the Paris Agreement goals is significant. The targets that Moscow has set for itself, however, are not so significant.
The ratification decree set a target of 25-30% of emissions in 1990, to be reached by 2030. But Russia is already emitting less than it did in 1990. In 2017, emissions were 32% lower than they were in 1990. This means the economy could effectively increase its emissions and still be within its own targets.
Russia has already begun to suffer the consequences of climate change. The massive wildfires in Siberia this summer were attributed to the warming climate and so were floods in Irkutsk, also in Siberia. One of the world’s northernmost cities, Yakutsk, built on the permafrost, is sinking, also as a result of a warming climate.