EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Moscow cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 12 billion metric tonnes

Moscow City’s Minister for Environmental Management and Protection, Anton Kulbachevsky has given a statement on Moscow’s success in cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 12 billion metric tonnes over the last five years.

The positive news came  after successive steps to improve the local environment of Russia’s largest city  through various measures designed to reduce emissions output as well as Kulbachevsky’s flagship tree planing program.

The Minister stated,

“Moscow is already introducing modern technologies. In the last seven years, we have managed to seriously reconstruct and reorganize the fuel and energy complex of the city. We carry out a very active transport policy, it also pays off. The greenhouse gas emissions have decreased by 12 million [metric] tons over the past five years”.

Sputnik further reports,

“On August 8, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that Moscow would completely abandon buses with fuel-burning engines and buy only electric buses, a tender for which will be held this fall. According to the mayor, this change will help significantly improve city’s environment”.

I recently sat down with Anton Kulbachevsky to discuss the progress his department has achieved in making Russia’s capital a more environmentally friendly, clean and pleasant city. Among other things, Kulbachevsky stated that it is important to teach young people that caring for the environment of one’s country is deeply linked in to a sense of patriotism and love of nation. This is why Kulbachevsky has initiated a program to plant trees on the 9th of May, the day Russia celebrates its greatest victory in history, the victory over fascism.

Now watch Anton Kulbachevsky speak about the progress of Moscow going green (his answers are in Russian followed by those of an English language interpreter).