Assessing the scale and prospects of the impact of climate-related risks on Russia's socio-economic development

Global climate change is one of the most critical issues of our time. It is of vital importance to Russia, since the functioning of the country’s economy to a great extant depends on natural resources, and one of the most dangerous consequences of climate change is the depletion of natural capital. In this regard, one should take an assessment of climate-related risks. The purpose of the work is a comprehensive assessment of the impact of climate-related risks on the socio-economic development of Russia. The article determines external climate-related risks expressed in the external pressure of international treaties and trade policy, pursued by foreign countries, particularly Europe, and internal risks realized through ecosystem disbalance and biodiversity loss, epidemic outbreaks and complication of their course, deterioration of infrastructure and other fundamental structures in a large part of the country. It has been established that Russia has just begun the transition to a low-carbon development, and the feature of this process compared to other countries is a comprehensive approach that involves both greenhouse gas reduction and its absorption directly from the atmospheric air. Hydrogen economy plays a key-role in emission reduction; in order to absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, it is planned to form industry for their utilization through building carbon polygons and farms. We have found that measures to reduce the country’s carbon footprint are now consistent and do not interfere with the interests of either business or government. However, the main issue, in our opinion, is the low rate of implementation of the measures taken relative to similar efforts of foreign countries, which to some extent gives foreign countries the opportunity, under the pretext of environmental policy, to influence the Russian economy and further hinder the Russian Federation in standing its ground in the international arena.