Medvedev takes on environment
Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev today presented a plan on how to improve the environmental situation in Russia. -40 million of our co-citizens live under dissatisfactory environmental conditions, he said.
Talking at a meeting in the Kremlin today, Mr. Medvedev said that a number of proposed measures will be included in a bill to be presented to parliament on October 1, the president’s press service reports.
The president underlined that pollution is a serious threat to modern Russia. He maintained that green technology will have to be introduced in Russian industry. He also proposes to strongly increase fines for polluting companies.
Among the measures proposed by the president is the elaboration of a differentiated system for water, air and soil quality for every Russian region. He also wants enhanced focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
-Russia is the country in the world which has the biggest energy loss in the heating grid. This is a bad record, the president said. –What concerns the level of energy efficiency, most production units are 10-20 times below the modern [standards], he added. Mr. Medvedev believes Russia by 2020 will have to cut the economy’s energy consumption with about 50 percent. According to the president, 40 million Russians live under dissatisfactory environmental conditions, and one million people under conditions with a “dangerous level of pollution”. On a previous occasion, Dmitrii Medvedev has said that Russian companies are in danger of being excluded from foreign investment projects because of bad environmental records.
