The head of the European Climate Fund (ECF), Professor Laurence Tubiana, said that Russia, through diplomacy and propaganda, is trying to damage Europe's green transition and is sabotaging international climate negotiations.
In an interview for NV she said that Russia does not benefit from the EU's abandonment of fossil fuels and is spreading misinformation that it is the Green Deal and renewable energy that are causing the crisis and inflation.
Tubiana explained that the COP28 international climate summit in November should approve the country in which the 2024 climate summit will be held. According to multilateral agreements, it should be an Eastern European country, but Russia blocks every candidate. It is very difficult to change the region of the event.
She noted that at the annual COP conference, the signatories of the Paris Climate Agreement report on progress in reducing harmful emissions to limit global warming. And also plan the next steps.
Tubiana noted that the European Union is making significant efforts to phase out fossil fuels. Thus, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU has significantly reduced imports. This contributed to the growth of investments in renewable energy sources – mainly solar (doubled) and wind.
The expert emphasized that such a refusal is not beneficial to Russia. Even Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who previously did not take an interest in or comment on renewable energy issues, now claims that the European Green Deal and renewable energy are factors in the crisis.
"All Russian propaganda and disinformation in Europe is centered around this," she said. "It very aggressively suggests to people that this is a bad choice and inflation is associated with it."
Tubiana added that the energy crisis, inflation and food security are topics that are of great concern to the world community and are relegating the issue of climate change to the background. This indirect effect of the war unleashed by Russia complicates the work on environmental and climate problems around the world.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that a study by carbon accounting experts showed that the war in Ukraine is deepening the climate crisis. During the first 12 months of the war, the amount of emissions of carbon reached 120 million tons.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his speech at COP27 stated that there can be no effective climate policy without peace.
