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Publish date: March 17, 2005
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The last year administrative reform in Russia ignored the environmental problems again, while the Russian nuclear industry received more power. The Federal Agency on Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Control, which is subordinated to the Prime Minister Fradkov, received several important functions, including environmental expertise of the industrial sites. It is no reason to believe that the Russian State Environmental expertise follows the Russian and international environmental requirements, the Ecodefense group believes. It is just enough to read the biography of the acting director of the Federal Agency on Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Control, former deputy chief of the Russian Nuclear Ministry, Andrey Malyshev.
This is a complete absurd. A supervising body should control the activity of the industry and federal agencies, but not conduct state expertise of the industry projects. Uniting these two functions gives a perfect opportunity for corruption. We are appealing to the government to establish an agency, independent from any official interests, for conducting state environmental expertise, or else the Russias natural resources will be soon wiped out said co-chairman of the Ecodefense group Vladimir Slivyak. According to Slivyak, Malyshev protects the nuclear interests and has issued operating licenses for Chernobyl-type reactors, which exceeded their lifetime. Besides, Malyshev is known for creation structures inside the nuclear industry, which help to steel the budget money, he added.
In the end of 2003, the chairman of the security committee in the Russian State Duma Victor Ilukhin applied to the FSB (former KGB) with the parliamentary request regarding Malyshevs alleged participation in the corruption inside the nuclear industry. The summary of the request about Andrey Malyshevs activity and corruption in the Russian State Nuclear Regulatory, or GAN, and Rosenergoatom you can read on Antiatom.ru (in Russian)
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.