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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Kozlov, there is hardly anything more important than the work your Ministry is doing. Where shall we start?

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov: Mr President, if I may. Climate change, which we are witnessing, is already affecting many areas, and the situation is bound to worsen in the future. Desertification is accelerating as we speak, water regimes are changing, and heat waves are becoming more frequent. Last summer in Russia was among the five hottest summers in the past 45 years, and in September, temperature records were broken in the European part of the country.

Vladimir Putin: The shifting tree species composition in the forests in the Northwestern and Urals districts – what is it and why is it happening?

Alexander Kozlov: Mr President, the climate agenda is changing, and so, where it used to be cold, it is now getting much warmer, and different tree species start to grow. For example, fir trees used to be found in the Northwestern District, but now they are more common in the northern part, where it is colder.

Vladimir Putin: Or pine trees.

Alexander Kozlov: Yes. They will be replaced by oak and birch. In the North Caucasus District, forest productivity is an issue, as beech and hornbeam are under threat there, while pine and oak are threatened in the Southern District. We need to take this into account.

This is very important for the forestry (logging) sector and needs to be considered when it comes to harvesting, because birch has different applications from, say, pine, which goes to sawmills, whereas birch is used to manufacture plywood. This definitely needs to be considered.

This is the first year that we introduced reporting on the implementation of forest adaptation plans. In response to your instruction to the Ministry of Economic Development, they are collecting adaptation plans across the country, for all types of industries, which incorporate changes in the climate agenda. This concerns other industries, including housing and utilities. There are other issues to be addressed such as permafrost, roads, and some enterprises.

We need to look at adaptation plans for forests to see how the sectoral balance should be regulated based on the data we receive and the changes we see.

Vladimir Putin: This is a forecast, right? Or are these changes already visible?

Alexander Kozlov: They are visible. Wildfires, for example. We looked into this with the Emergencies Ministry and we found out that wildfires are now occurring – this is especially evident in Yakutia – in places where there have never been fires before. Fires break out in the north, and it is clear that the climate is changing. This is obvious.

This can be traced in the pattern of fire danger periods. We record all the data, thermal points, using satellite imaging and enlisting Roscosmos’s help. This enables us to make certain predictions and work with them.

As for the fire danger period, Mr President, your instruction has been fulfilled. During your visit to the Far East, the Governor of Yakutia appealed to you asking for additional funding. The Ministry of Finance supported us, and additional funding was allocated to the Krasnoyarsk and Trans-Baikal territories.

I would like to continue, if I may.

Vladimir Putin: Go on.

Alexander Kozlov: We continue working on this national project. We have already received the necessary funding and will carry on as we always do, ensuring consistency.

If I may, I would like to draw your attention to three areas: household waste, the reduction of hazardous emissions, and the construction of purification facilities under the Ecology national project.

As of now, over a half of solid household waste or 55 percent are recycled and 14 percent are disposed. The area of landfills has been reduced by 17 percent. In other words, our regions did well in the period under review, building over 300 comprehensive household waste disposal facilities. However, this is not enough, and we need to build another 400 facilities, which will cost nearly one trillion rubles of budgetary and extra-budgetary funds. Our proposal has been supported. We have received part of the funding and have started implementing this project.

Vladimir Putin: How long will it take?

Alexander Kozlov: As per the relevant executive order, we must complete it by 2030. There is a lot to be done; it is a challenging and expensive project. We are working together with our colleagues on this. It is also important that we talk about the facilities that people do not see. People only see waste container sites, the number of containers, a garbage truck arriving on time, and the work of regional garbage collectors.

Acting on instructions from Mr Mishustin, we hold weekly meetings with the regions at 10 am every Thursday. They are chaired by Dmitry Patrushev. We review the balance to see how the situation in each region is developing.

I can tell you that we need 129,000 more waste container sites. We look at the situation from the angle of the regions and municipalities. The important thing here is that we have reached an agreement with the governors that they will brief us on the deadlines and methods of dealing with that shortage during their regional meetings. As for waste containers, there are 2.4 million of them across the country, but we need 350,000 more. This implies hard work as well.

As for garbage trucks, we are now supporting the effort and will lease out equipment to the regions. I believe that a very good job has been done in the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions. We have delivered 532 pieces of special equipment and 32,000 containers there. Accordingly, we will continue this work together with Mr Khusnullin within the framework of the comprehensive work.

Clean Air is an important project, if I may, with 41 cities participating in this experiment. You may recall that it started with 12 industrial centres, 12 cities that participated, and 29 joined recently. What is very important is that the basis for each city is an aggregate calculation of emissions, a list of substances that affect human health.

What did we run into during the process? We needed to calculate the baseline to compare future measurements with. It was taken from the 2017 reports by Rusal, EVRAZ, and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. What we saw, and what the enterprises saw too, was that this baseline was downplayed. And now they are working together with Rosprirodnadzor to sort out the figures, the balances, and how many harmful substances actually were released into the atmosphere. Then, accordingly, we will draw up comprehensive plans and have them approved by the Government.

Comprehensive plans for these 12 cities, 585 steps for each pollutant, have been drawn up. For the new cities, we have started the same work: seven have been done and 22 more plans will be finalised by July. That is, every Governor should see this plan in his regional work, and work with that particular company to reduce the numbers.

I was in Norilsk. The head of Norilsk Nickel promised to reduce emissions in Norilsk under the Northern Programme. I visited this production facility and saw that the construction was technically completed. Our colleagues reported that they had spent 180 billion in investment. But what we need is not money, but lower emissions. Rosprirodnadzor did the verification to ensure that the equipment is technologically efficient, but we will now measure the actual reduction in emissions. This is our goal.

This applies not only to Norilsk, but also to Cherepovets, where Severstal is doing a good job, and PhosAgro is also involved in this work. Accordingly, the key word for us is to confirm these verification reports, so that we are not misled by the fact that…

Vladimir Putin: As the head of the relevant agency, you know that there will never be favourable times or conditions for this kind of work or for making investment in this area. Here, we need consistent actions on the part of the state and, of course, discipline on the part of those who engage in a particular activity related to environmental pollution in order to minimise the impact and to comply with government regulations and plans.

Alexander Kozlov: Mr President, thank you very much, you have supported us and issued this instruction. The draft law has passed its first reading in the State Duma, and we will now finalise it. Those who fail to fulfil this instruction to reduce harmful emissions will be subject to penalties, which are quite substantial.

We used a Krasnoyarsk-based company as an example, analysed it recently, to show that it was necessary to invest 1.2 billion rubles, while the fine will amount to five billion. It clearly makes more sense to invest in environmental modernisation.

It is very important that in the 29 cities we are about to start with, Mr President, not all issues will be related to industry. It will also concern housing and utilities, energy, the private residential sector, and, of course, roads. We will engage in this work together with our colleagues from other ministries.

And a very important issue is the purification works. That is, our colleagues from the Ministry of Construction supervised the works, the regions carried out the construction, and we, under the national project, came and together with Rosprirodnadzor made the measurements. So, what do we have now? Our colleagues have built 126 treatment plants, including those on the Volga and Baikal. Unfortunately, 19 were not completed on time, including four in Samara, four in the Moscow Region, three in the Trans-Baikal Territory, two in the Ulyanovsk Region and Buryatia each, and one in the Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod and Tver regions, and the Chuvash Republic, each. We are now analysing this issue with our colleagues from the Ministry of Construction at the HQ meeting to ensure that the work is completed on time. There is a roadmap for each one. Accordingly, we are working with each governor personally.

Now, about the ones that have been built. We visited them, took our instruments with us and made measurements to find out that only 20 of them met the standards. Now we are sorting things out with the rest.

Vladimir Putin: Good.

Alexander Kozlov: Thank you.

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