Medvedev: Russian emissions could increase under new target

International climate change negotiations to agree a successor to the Kyoto Accord received something of a blow last week, after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced an emissions target that could allow the country to increase emissions by up to 36 per cent by 2020.

Speaking on state television, Medvedev suggested Russia would cut emissions by about 10 to 15 per cent based on the 1990 base year used under the Kyoto deal. However, Russia's emissions were significantly higher in 1990 than they are now, so the new target would allow the country to increase greenhouse gas emissions by between 29 and 36 per cent by 2020.

The loophole prompted anger from environmentalists, with Alexey Kokorin, WWF spokesman for Russia, telling news agency Reuters that the target represented a "really negative" move.

Russia is the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China and the US, and negotiators from developing countries and Europe are likely to demand more ambitious targets from the Russian government as part of any international deal agreed later at UN-backed talks in Copenhagen.

However, Medvedev's comments could be interpreted as a sign of progress in some quarters, given earlier suggestions from the Kremlin that Russia would not sign up to any mandatory emission targets.

Medvedev also underlined his commitment to tackling climate change, stating that "we really need to set the volume of greenhouse gas emissions that we are going to cut, because they have an extremely negative effect on the global climate".

However, he added that at the same time, Russia was not willing to "cut off our development potential".