Because of this, she said, Russian Arctic commodities should be banned on international markets.

The event featured visions of an Arctic future that aligned with emissions reductions meant to keep world temperatures within a 1.5C rise, and brought together representatives of NGOs, think tanks, indigenous youth and business associations.

Ksenia’s presentation, organized by the WWF Global Arctic Program, showed that Russian mega-enterprises like and Norilsk Nickel and Gazprom lead all other Arctic industries in self-reported pollution and greenhouse gas emissions figures, according to Rosprirodnadzor, Russia’s environmental oversight agency.

She also highlighted the uptick in the mining of diamonds, nickel, cobalt, natural gas, copper, which are predominantly extracted in the Arctic, and which bring with them enormous environmental impacts.

Other participants in the event raised concerns not only about Russia’s Arctic oil drilling projects, but Norway’ and the US’s as well.  The following discussion focused on alternative, non-fossil-fuel powered measures that developing Arctic communities could employ.

Recently, however, as Ksenia noted in her presentation, tracking Russian emissions has become more difficult because Rosprirodnadzor has stopped publishing detailed emissions data.

It’s unlikely to get easier At COP 29, Russia presented its so-called sovereign methodology for accounting for its greenhouse gas emissions—which presented figures that were a third less than those reckoned by international methodologies.

Another challenge emerging after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its attempts to avoid international sanctions is high risk of oil spills in the ocean. A growing shadow fleet of old and underinsured tankers transporting illegal Russian oil has emerged as a potential environmental time bomb. There is already evidence of spills in European and Asian waters. With the Russian plans to increase use of the Northern Sea Route those tankers might transport oil to Asia along this Arctic route—and it will be only a matter of time before oil spill takes place in the Arctic waters. 

Against this environmentally fragile backdrop, pollution in the Arctic is increasing with almost no public control. International environmental groups have been banned and branded by the government as “undesirable,” and local organizations face relentless pressure from authorities. Their message is further watered down by a proliferation government-controlled NGOs, who cannot be counted on to tell the truth about the actual state of the environment.

View the side event here.