Russian Federation

The Russian Federation remains at 64th in the CCPI, keeping it among the very low performers. It receives very low ratings across the board, in GHG Emissions, Renewable Energy, Energy Use, and Climate Policy.

As of the end of September 2025, Russia had submitted its second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), setting a target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 33–35% by 2035 compared with 1990. However, the CCPI country experts emphasise that Russia’s emissions fell sharply in the 1990s because of the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent economic crisis. This means that the new target is actually higher than current emissions levels. Russia also set a net-zero goal of 2060 in its 2021 long-term low-carbon development strategy, but the experts criticise the lack of a clear roadmap for reaching this objective.

Renewables play a negligible role in fossil-dominated energy mix, forests struggle with climate change effects

Fossil fuels still dominate Russia’s energy mix, with renewables accounting for <5% of total energy supply and no plans to substantially increase this figure. The country’s latest energy strategy, adopted in April 2025 and covering up to 2050, foresees increased fossil fuel use: coal production and exports are projected to grow by around 50%, oil production and exports to remain stable, with gas production nearly doubling and exports tripling.  The country is among the 10 countries with the largest developed oil, coal and gas reserves, and it currently plans to increase its production.

Russia has vast forest resources and is among the largest exporters of woody biomass, yet unsustainable forestry management practices remain widespread and difficult to quantify. The experts also note that wildfires severely pressure the country’s forests, climate-driven dieback is prominent, and there are further negative consequences of climate change (such as Increased pests).

The experts call on Russia to adopt more ambitious GHG reduction targets, improve climate policy implementation, and strengthen forest protection through better governance and increased investment in forest management.

*In 2024 Russia updated its National GHG Inventory which increased the historical carbon uptakes from forest lands. The country has in recent years implemented a National Innovation Project ‘Unified National System for Monitoring of Climate Active Substances’ to improve methodologies and data sources used for their National GHG Inventory reporting. The outcome of this project has led to numerous improvements of their historical timeline, including improved forest area estimates, forest growth functions, tree species distributions and impacts of wildfire events.

As the new inventory has not yet been peer-reviewed by the IPCC, we have decided to use the older data. The new inventory shows much larger sinks and would therefore impact Russia’s ranking. With the new inventory, GHG emissions (including LULUCF) are substantially lower, meaning Russia would rank 60th, four places higher than the ranking calculated using the old inventory.

Key Outcomes

CCPI experts

The following national experts agreed to be mentioned as contributors for this year’s CCPI:

• Angelina Davydova (Institute for Global Reconstitution)
• Ekaterina Bliznetskaya (MGIMO University)