Will Climate Change Turn Russia into a New Economic Superpower?

Climate Change and Russia

Russia claims it will be a potential winner in the battle between climate change and humans, or at least the Russian official narrative claims so, notwithstanding the lack of sufficient proof. Russia, the largest country on the planet, owns half the Arctic Ocean’s coast. The predicted climate change advantage lies in Russia’s ice-covered vast landmasses and its fertile agricultural pastures, which are expected to have the right conditions for farming, fossil fuel extraction, and oceanic navigation on an overheated planet.

Being a hydrocarbon-dependent economy, the country has never been earnest in fulfilling its climate commitments and goals. Climate Action Tracker, an independent agency to monitor climate action, puts Russia's climate policies and action in the highly insufficient category.

The assumption that climate change might be advantageous, coupled with Russia's indifference to addressing climate issues, could result in the nation being completely unprepared for the actual impending dangers of climate change.

The Changing Climate Alters the Geography and Land Use Patterns

Climate change renders the winters less intense in cold countries, not only Russia but also others like Canada and Greenland. Europe’s summers are stretching into five-month-long hot pauses compared to the three-month summers this region had.

Climate change is bringing permanent changes to each ecosystem. Russia’s vast expanses of Arctic permafrost started melting. Eastern Siberia is warming up, and the country, as a whole, warms faster than the whole planet taken together.

Russia is known for its harsh climate, which leaves vast land expanses hostile for human habitation: one tenth is tundra, the unproductive marshes, and beyond it lies the taiga of forests and ice. Additionally, the steppe, the grasslands, are also unsuitable for agriculture. Climate change will alter each of these distinct ecosystems, and scientists caution that it would be a grave mistake to assume these changes will benefit the country in the long run. 

Russia and Climate Change: The Arctic Navigation Dream 

Those who claim that climate change is a positive outcome for Russia often put another bullet point in bold – Russia commands 53% of the Arctic coastline. Russia’s northern coast could lose its ice cover when global warming surpasses the next major threshold.

They claim it would create a new route to Europe and Asia, along with new trade opportunities. The new talking point emerged around the melting Arctic ice, about establishing an Arctic trade route to supplant the Suez and Panama Canal navigation routes.

This northern sea route sure will elicit massive costs in terms of ecology, human sustenance, and biodiversity. Georgy Safonov, Director of the Center for Environmental and Natural Resource Economics and Associate Professor at the School of World Economy at the Higher School of Economics said in a 2021 YouTube discussion,

"How do we measure the benefit? In terms of people's lives, in terms of polar bears, who suffer from no food and no space to live, [...] or indigenous people or forest fires or epidemic situations that appear when permafrost is melting and dead livestock with 'Siberian diseases' so that nobody knows how to control that situation... so I wonder whether the Northern Sea Route is worth all these."  

At present, Russia is somewhat isolated from the global economy, and a new trade route is unlikely to dramatically transform the country's economic situation. Conversely, the melting of permafrost and Arctic ice could lead to extremely negative impacts on human safety and livelihoods.

Despite differing opinions, one thing is clear: if more ice melts, the country would acquire significantly more arable land. However, the existing agricultural ecosystems would concurrently encounter an existential threat. The outcome could swing between gains and losses, and it could also go extreme in either direction. 

Russia to Gain More Fossil Fuel Reserves When the Arctic Ice Melts?

Not even a Gulf country is richer in oil and gas than Russia. It is estimated that when the Arctic ice melts, 13% of the world's untapped oil reserves and 30% of unexplored natural gas storage would become accessible for Russia to extract and use or sell. While this calculation may hold some truth, the balance of risks and rewards suggests a grim outcome. As the adverse effects of climate change grow, posing an existential threat to the entire planet and all its life forms, pressure would mount on Russia to remodel its hydrocarbon-dependent growth model. Unless it is equipped with a green energy infrastructure by then, the country will have to pursue its hydrocarbon agenda against all odds and at the risk of global isolation.

Russia had re-emerged as an economic superpower after the economic collapse of the post-Soviet era by benefitting from the rising oil prices. Yet, beginning in the 2000s, despite high oil prices, Russia's economy slowed down. Fossil fuels comprise more than 50% of the country's exports, though recently agricultural exports have shown strong growth. Apparently, oil alone is not sufficient for maintaining the organic and multifaceted growth of any country.

Arctic LNG2 is the natural gas project that Russia already has made operational in the Arctic region, despite America trying to scuttle it financially and logistically, as The Wall Street Journal reported. The Journal also mentions the first batch of 11 LNG tankers being transported from this plant to Chinese port, Beihai. This newly opened trade route is important for Russia amidst the US sanctions, the recent being those imposed on Russian oil giants, Rosneft and Lukoil.

The European countries, its major purchasers of oil and gas, have reduced their imports as part of their sanctioning move against Russia's war on Ukraine and also the climate mitigation policies they are committed themselves to but Russia is finding new buyers for the time being. It's understandable that Russia is hesitant to divert attention from its primary income source. The benefits gained from fossil fuels, however, might be offset by losses in other areas, like the loss of agricultural income in the southern part of Russia caused by declining water levels.

New Threats that Climate Change Poses

Agriculture and tourism are two other areas believed to harness benefits from climate change in Russia. Russia is a land of vast forests, the country one of the greatest contributors to our planet’s environmental health. Relying on fossil fuels and being the fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter will not benefit the country or its people in a world marred by frequent climate catastrophe.

The privatisation of the country's agricultural sector has turned it into a major economic contributor. As rising temperatures make the ice-covered lands arable, the European region of Russia, currently a key agricultural area, will face the opposite challenges, such as water scarcity and desertification. If Russia does not pay attention to this, it could lose one major sector to lead the green transition.

Fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, and industries are the backbone of Russia's economy, and the nation's climate resilience may rely on these sectors. Approximately 75% of Russian territory is made up of highly industrialised urban areas. These urban regions could be severely affected by rising sea levels, storms, and flooding. Meanwhile, rural areas and forests might experience an increase in wildfires.

The authoritarian government system does not support equitable environmental justice for the general populace. In 2010, a severe heat wave in the European part of Russia resulted in 54,000 deaths. Between 2010 and 2021, droughts and heat waves destroyed around one-third of Russia's agricultural yield. In 2020, Russia lost 10-14 million hectares of forest to wildfires and plant diseases.

In the same year, many regions in Russia experienced unprecedented heat and wildfires erupted frequently. The country's ice cover was reduced to its lowest in history. Permafrost thawing was also visibly accelerating its pace.  

New pests and frequent fires threaten the farmland ecosystems in and around Eastern Siberia. The enduring impact of climate change will manifest as droughts in areas where agriculture is currently predominant. Conversely, regions covered in ice will become warmer and suitable for farming. 

All the debates around the pros and cons of climate change in Russia conveniently ignore one fact: the country's leadership is yet to formulate a coherent and non-contradictory climate policy.

Russia's Climate Policy

In the Climate Change Performance Index, Russia is ranked 64 in 2025, placing it among the countries with very low performance. As other countries undertake decarbonisation measures, this ranking will further fall. Europe, the largest trading partner of Russia, is already implementing comprehensive projects to gain energy self-sufficiency through environmentally friendly alternatives such as green hydrogen.

In a first step towards climate change mitigation, Russia adopted a document named the 'climate doctrine' in 2009. A World Bank document sums up Russia's climate policy initiatives as follows:

"They include the National Plan of Measures of the First Stage for Adaptation to Climate Change until 2022 (adopted in 2019); the Presidential Decree on the Reduction of GHG Emissions (adopted in 2020); and the Federal Law on the Control of GHG Emissions (adopted in 2021). Moreover, the long-term, low-emission development strategy was prepared by the Ministry of Economic Development and adopted on October 29, 2021 (see section 1.3). In 2021, President Putin declared the objective to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060."

The European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, an understanding among the European countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions upto 55% by 2030, will make sure that importers to EU will have to bear additional costs proportionate to the embodied emissions in the imported goods. Even countries that buy oil and natural gas from Russia will bear the cost of this measure when they import to EU.

In August 2025, President Putin signed an executive order committing Russia to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 65–67% of 1990 levels by 2035. This was formally submitted to the UNFCCC at the end of September as Russia's updated nationally determined contribution (NDC). The target relies heavily on the absorption capacity of Russia's forests and other ecosystems (LULUCF), and it does not actually increase Russia's climate ambition beyond current policies.

Russia cannot remain under the grand illusion of a brighter economic future to be rung in by climate change. Choosing such a path could only lead to global isolation and disastrous domestic consequences for its economic health and the safety and food security of its people.