What has already been done

• Action taken by WWF and other organizations resulted in Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol (2005) and thus allowed it to enter into force for all countries; until recently it was the key mechanism for international climate cooperation.
• WWF has accomplished a number of large forest/climate projects in the Russian Far East covering some 2 million hectares; this effort helped avoid carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere and develop a model for prospective nation-wide action. The Bikin river forests, as well as all cedar-broadleaf forests in Primorye, which are home to the Amur tiger, have been protected from logging; an emission reductions trading system was tested (the payments were received by the indigenous Udegei community ‘Tigr’).
• In cooperation with the leading experts WWF facilitated Russia’s approval of an environmentally sound Climate Doctrine (2009) and Action Plan (2011) and a 2020 emission reduction target, as well as signing a new Paris climate agreement (2016).
• In cooperation with the leading experts WWF facilitated decision-making about the development of a federal law and a ‘carbon’ regulation system (2016), i.e. measures to promote the deployment of new technologies and therefore emissions reduction.
• The RF Ministry of natural resources developed and adopted a methodology to account for greenhouse gas absorption by forests and other terrestrial ecosystems (2017). For WWF, it is important that the methodology ensures research-backed, complete and ‘transparent’ data.
• Thanks largely to the action taken by WWF, Russian citizens now better understand the climate change problem. Despite a substantial number of skeptics, surveys reveal that climate-related myths and misperceptions are decreasing in number, while public and scientific opinions are increasingly converging.