The most pressing concerns of the century such as climate change, cleaner energy and sustainable development were discussed during the 51st edition of the signature GECF Gas Lecture Series, entitled ‘The Russian Federation’s climate policy in the energy sector’.
Speaking virtually during the webinar Alexey Kulapin, the Director General of the Russian Energy Agency which is a specialised body of the Ministry of Energy of Russian Federation, elaborated on the national climate policy in the energy sector.
Russia has a multi-pronged strategy to confront climate change, by further developing its human capital, natural gas, hydrogen, and renewable assets.
“Russia’s energy policy is based on the need to strike a balance between solving climate problems and the need to further provide the economy and population with affordable energy resources,” explained Kulapin, the head of state-run Agency under the ambit of the Energy Ministry of Russia – one of the 11 founding GECF Member Countries.
Calling access to affordable energy a fundamental right, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 7, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) Secretary General Yury Sentyurin commended the steps being taken by many of the Forum’s 19 Member Countries to achieve net-zero emissions.
He said, “Our other Member Countries are also leading the way in transforming their business model. Qatar, for example, is playing a greater role in the area of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments. Yet another member, Egypt, has blanket banned issuing of all new vehicle licences unless they run on the cleaner natural gas.”
“In the long-term economic growth and population increase we project the global primary energy demand to expand by 24 percent during the period until 2050. The future structure of global energy mix will become more diversified with natural gas and renewables becoming the leading sources that will supply our future energy. Natural gas will displace other energy sources and sectors and will be indispensable in the long term as a global enabler to the transition of low carbon energy system.”
“Access to energy is crucial to meet basic needs to improve living standards, reduce poverty, enable organization, strengthen, and foster economies. In addition, access to low-cost energies curveted with human development indicators such as increased life expectancy, education and economic development. GECF considers technology as vital to advance in global climate change solutions and our member countries support innovative natural gas technologies to drive continuous improvement, the goal of net zero emissions. We believe the mission’s mitigation potential of natural gas can increase with large deployment of carbonization options like Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) as well as hydrogen development,” he added.
He said, “As we continue to focus on fighting COVID-19 and its consequences to the global economy the clock has not stopped ticking on another global emergency of our lifetime, the climate crisis.
Kulapin noted that Russia, as one of the largest players in the international energy markets, fully supports the efforts of the world community to combat climate chance. He highlighted that in November 2020, the Russian President signed a decree to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) as part of Russia’s implementation of the Paris Agreement.
According to Kulapin, until new sources of energy are able to provide uninterrupted energy supply, natural gas, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), will remain the cleanest energy resource and will even serve as a transitional fuel to a low-carbon economy.
Currently, Russia enjoys a total LNG production of nearly 30 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), which is set to increase by 2 to 2.5 times to 80-140 million by 2035, in line with the newly-adopted ‘Energy Strategy 2035’. Work is also underway to increase the use of gas in the transport sector. In the period 2018-20, a total of 250 refuelling stations offering compressed natural gas came alive, an increase of 60 percent on previous capacity.
In the area of electricity, Kulapin asserted that Russia already has one of the cleanest electricity structures, as 80 percent of generation comes from nuclear, hydroelectric, steam gas, and thermal cogeneration sources. This compares to United States (65 percent), Germany (57 percent) and China (below 30 percent) in terms of low-emission energy sources for electricity generation, he said.
On hydrogen, the official noted his optimism on its potential in various fields, as the ‘Energy Strategy 2035’ envisions competitively priced hydrogen exports of up to 7 mtpa by 2035 and 33 mtpa by 2050. In the domain of renewable energy, he said that despite enjoying a developed hydropower infrastructure, Russia is actively working on the development of renewable energy sources based on solar and wind energy. In 2020, according to him, the introduction of renewable energy capacity exceeded the introduction of traditional generation and amounted to 1.2 GW.
