Translated material
"Bad Record"
Dmitry Medvedev demands to review environmental standards
On the eve of World Environment Day, which will be celebrated on June 5, President Dmitry Medvedev decided to make his contribution to its defense. Yesterday a meeting was held in the Kremlin to improve the environmental and energy efficiency of the economy.The topic of protecting nature will be one of the main ones at the upcoming G8 summit in July, which will take place in Hokkaido, Japan , and Russia still has nothing special to boast about. More than 40 million Russians live in unfavorable environmental conditions, and more than 1 million live in areas where the level of pollution is considered dangerous, the president said. True, these data can be considered only approximate: Russia does not have many important air, water and soil quality standards that ensure safe effects on human health. According to Mr. Medvedev, such standards must be differentiated depending on the conditions in each region.
“The existing environmental system does not stimulate the introduction of environmental and resource-saving technologies, and accordingly there is a conservation of old technologies, conservation of backwardness and wastefulness, which, unfortunately, are found everywhere,” the head of state described the state of affairs.
Compliance with environmental requirements is not only related to human health. “Our country ranks first in the world in terms of energy losses in heating networks - this is a bad record,” noted Dmitry Medvedev. -- As for the level of energy efficiency, in most industries it lags behind modern ones by 10-20 times. Therefore, by 2020, the task was set to reduce the energy intensity of the economy by almost half. Ultimately, this determines the level of our competitiveness in the world,” the president added.
The head of state is primarily concerned about outdated legislation. By October 1, a bill on a system of standards for permissible environmental impact should be submitted to the State Duma. Following the meeting, it was also decided to prepare a presidential decree. As Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Yuri Trutnev told reporters, the decree will contain “regulatory measures and technical regulations for the introduction of energy and resource-saving technologies, measures to encourage businesses to switch to energy-saving technologies, as well as issues of environmental education.” “Unlike most industrialized countries, Russia does not have indicators of water and energy consumption per unit of GDP,” Mr. Trutnev said.
The President also proposes changing the requirements for energy efficiency of the technologies themselves, buildings, structures, and production in general. According to Igor Chestin, director of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund, the current laws were adopted in the early 90s, and all their norms are already outdated.
Even while fighting for a clean environment, the president did not forget about small business . Thus, for small enterprises that do not have a significant impact on the environment, it is proposed to introduce a declaration of compliance with environmental requirements. “So that they do not have to go through excessive, difficult checks, which are also accompanied by significant fees,” Mr. Medvedev explained the meaning of this proposal.
But violating environmental requirements, as officials promise, will be much more expensive. Fines for harming the environment will be increased significantly, Mr. Trutnev promised. “It is necessary to reconsider the system of environmental responsibility. In some places it may be tougher, in others, on the contrary, if we believe that the norms are divorced from life, they need to be adjusted,” Mr. Medvedev said. “However, the main thing in legal liability is always its inevitability.”
It is the inevitability of responsibility that remains one of the main problems in environmental activities: it is often almost impossible to find the offender. It is also impossible to remember the high-profile trials, as a result of which the violating enterprises paid on a scale that was noticeable for their budgets.