1 Introduction

In recent years, literature on climate change issues in Russia during the Putin era has developed significantly and led to important findings on government climate change policies and attitudes at various points in time (Korppoo and Kokorin 2015, 2013; Gustafson 2021; Beuerle 2023a; Henry and Sundstrom 2012; Andonova 2008), on Russia’s climate diplomacy (Andonova and Alexieva 2012), on the interplay between science and politics (Wilson Rowe 2013), on climate change in the media (Poberezhskaya 2016), on climate scepticism (Tynkkynen and Tynkkynen 2018; Ashe and Poberezhskaya 2022; Dronin and Bychkova 2018), and on positions on climate change in Russian industry (Martus 2019; Martus and Fortescue 2022). The present paper contributes important insights on a central element of Russian climate policies beginning shortly before February 2022—a period that has borne witness to considerable developments in this field.

For most of the Putin era, climate change has not ranked high on the agenda of Russian decision-makers, and Russian climate policy has lacked ambition. Throughout the 2010s, various emission “reduction” targets published by the Russian government came down to business-as-usual scenarios. This was possible because 1990—which serves as the reference year for climate targets internationally—was followed by an economic crisis and a strong decline in emissions. Furthermore, official Russian scenarios and policies have relied on the absorption capacity of Russian forests instead of on real emission reductions and have largely neglected renewables (Kokorin and Korppoo 2017, 2013; Makarov et al. 2020; Lo 2021; Gustafson 2021; Beuerle 2023a). However, recent years have given rise to a remarkable upswing in the topic both on the national policy agenda and in national debates beginning mostly in autumn 2019, when Russia finally ratified the Paris Agreement, thereby officially committing itself to work towards limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times (Sauer 2019; Taylor et al. 2019). In the same year, Putin also repeatedly stressed that Russia was among the countries most negatively affected by climate change (President of Russia 69,70,a, b).

Russia is clearly negatively affected by climate change: On the one hand, it is highly vulnerable to global warming given that around 60% of its surface is covered by permafrost, with entire towns and extensive infrastructure built atop it (Anisimov and Reneva 2006). Late-Soviet government actors and their Russian successors were well aware of this vulnerability, but their knowledge was largely ignored during the first terms of Putin’s presidency (Beuerle 2023a). Beyond the problem of increasing damage faced by buildings and infrastructure on permafrost, major yearly wildfires in Siberia and a growing number of floods—notably in the Russian Far East—have been threatening towns and villages (President of Russia 2019b; Luhn 2016; Zhuravlev et al. 2016). On the other hand, Russia’s socioeconomic model—which is based mostly on the extraction and export of fossil resources—is directly challenged by the Paris Agreement and the global decarbonisation movement (Gustafson 2021).

Among the signs that climate change had finally arrived on the agenda of Russian decision-makers were a decree by Putin in November 2020 ordering both a “reduction” in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to 70% of their 1990 level by 2030 and the elaboration of a strategy for a low-GHG socioeconomic development by 2050 (Putin 2020); the passing of a federal law “On limitations of greenhouse gases” in July 2021; and Putin’s declaration of a climate neutrality goal for Russia in October of the same year, with 2060 as a target date (President of Russia 2020; Russian Federation 2021; Tass 2021).

The most outstanding example, however, has been the Far Eastern island region of Sakhalin. This oblast (i.e. a regional unit of the Russian Federation that is loosely comparable to a French département) has been singled out as a pilot region for climate policies in Russia: first, informally since the second half of 2020, and then, by a federal law passed in March 2022. While the other above-mentioned policy steps have been notoriously unambitious, the Sakhalin “climate experiment” (as it is called in Russia) has displayed remarkable ambition: By the end of 2025, Sakhalin is to become the first carbon neutral regionFootnote 1 in the world (Troianova 2022b).

The aim of the present paper is to shed more light on this experiment, including its history, goals, and legal basis; on the reason that such an endeavour was launched (and why it is taking place specifically in the Sakhalin Oblast); and on how climate neutrality is to be achieved in the region. The ultimate research question is whether the Sakhalin climate experiment is mostly a form of greenwashing—as could be suspected given the low climate policy ambition that Russian decision-makers have shown thus far—or whether it is a serious mitigation endeavour that deserves closer attention. By researching this question, the article provides important insights into both how Russian climate policy has developed since Russia’s ratification of the Paris Agreement in October 2019 and the extent to which this policy has been impacted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (since February 2022). Moreover, the article contributes insights on a regional climate policy initiative in Russia, whereas other research has thus far focussed almost exclusively on the national decision centre in Moscow. Simultaneously, the present research contributes to the literature on regional pilot regions and cap-and-trade systems (henceforth, CATSes), in which Russia has not yet featured (e.g. Schmalensee and Stavins 2017; Shen et al. 2014).

No scientific article has been published thus far on the Sakhalin climate experiment.Footnote 2 Among the journalistic publications on the experiment, Anastasiia Troianova’s in-depth article on the project (which she published in several versions and outlets between June and October 2022) deserves mentioning (Trojanowa 100,99,a, b), as does her most recent article regarding the situation on the ground (Troianova 2024a). An initially planned research trip to Sakhalin and any other research activities in Russia have been rendered de facto impossible by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, thereby precluding interviews with regional and national decision-makers as well as with representatives of environmental NGOs and of Sakhalin’s indigenous peoples (on these peoples, cf. Dergacheva 2023; Troianova 2024b). Thus, the present paper is based largely on Russian articles that are available online as well as on official Russian documents and declarations. Via a keyword search for “climate experiment” and “Sakhalin” on the search engine startpage.com as well as supplemental analogue research on google.com and yandex.ru, we found 149 total articles on the climate experiment that had appeared between 30 September 2020 (the date when the first articles could be found) and 7 July 2023 (as we completed most of our research in July 2023) in a large variety of Russian newspapers and online fora.

While a research trip to Sakhalin would have provided additional insights, the material available for the present paper proved valuable in analysing announcements and acts of political decision-makers, stakeholders, and commentators, including how these announcements and acts developed between 2020 and the post–February 2022 period. The article argues that any evaluation of the Sakhalin climate experiment can only yield mixed results but that the experiment’s importance for the fate of climate policies in Russia is undeniable.

2 Legal basis and main goals for Sakhalin

On 6 March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law into effect that had been heavily discussed in the preceding months and had passed the third reading by the State Duma in mid-February. The law stipulates that there should be experimental regions for testing climate policies in Russia. However, it singles out just one region: the Far Eastern Sakhalin Oblast (Mironova 2022; Ria Novosti 2022).

This decision had been in the making for more than 1.5 years. By late September 2020, Sakhalin Governor Valery Limarenko had announced the decision to open the first Russian “Regional Climate Centre” in 2021 on Sakhalin Island with the aim of scientifically accompanying projects designed to reduce GHGs in the region. Limarenko stated that Sakhalin was intended to be a frontrunner [in Russia] in this worldwide trend (Interfaks 2020; Tass 2020).

Sakhalin Oblast is the only Russian administrative unit situated exclusively on islands, all of which lie north of Japan’s Hokkaido region in the Pacific Ocean. Apart from the main Sakhalin Island, the unit also includes the Kuril Islands, some of which remain disputed between Russia and Japan. The territory of the oblast is about twice the size of Denmark, but its population is less than half a million. The area is mostly covered by forest and is home to a large variety of species. Sakhalin has also traditionally been a hub for the extraction and exportation of hydrocarbons, including coal, oil, and gas, and it hosts Russia’s first LNG terminal. More than 60% of the GDP and more than 90% of the industry of Sakhalin have been directly linked to the extraction of fossil fuels (Samailova 2017). These figures exceed those for Russia as a whole, with gas and oil comprising about 40% of both industrial production and the state budget of Russia as well as 60–70% of Russian exports in 2017/2018 (Makarov et al. 2020; OECD 2020). The current governor of Sakhalin—Valery Limarenko—worked for 11 years in various functions for the Russian nuclear energy giant Rosatom before being appointed to the post of Acting Governor of Sakhalin by President Putin in December 2018. Although Limarenko had been one of the co-founders of the presidential “Unity of Russia” (Edinaya Rossiia) party branch in the region of Nizhny Novgorod in 2001, he chose to be an “independent” candidate for the gubernatorial elections of Sakhalin and was elected in September 2019 (Fraer 2018; Svobodnaia Pressa n.d.).

In mid-January 2021, the intended climate policies on Sakhalin became known to exceed the scope of a purely regional project. Russian Vice Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko declared that following consultations of the regional government of Sakhalin and the Federal Ministry of Economic Development (MED), an experiment was to be launched on Sakhalin with the aim of reaching climate neutrality by 2025 (Duėl’ 2021a). The experiment was to include the establishment of a trade system for CO2 units and was intended to make it possible to “test various measures of CO2 regulation in the Sakhalin Oblast and to evaluate their effectiveness in light of a subsequent scaling-up on the level of the [whole] country”. The realisation of the experiment was to be coordinated by a special working group led by Abramchenko that would include Presidential Climate Adviser Ruslan Edelgeriev and Sakhalin Governor Limarenko as well as representatives of the MED and of various other federal ministries (Ibid.).

In July 2021, the MED introduced a draft law on the experiment to the Russian government that included a CATS for CO2 units as a key element (Davydova 16,15,b, a). By that time, the first Russian law “On limitations of greenhouse gas emissions” had just been passed. The law obliges large companies to establish an inventory of their emitted GHGs and to declare the amount annually to state agencies. Though this procedure was intended to pave the way to a national CO2 trade system and the law includes provisions for target aims of GHGs and for their reduction to be established by the Russian government, beyond the reporting commitment, no restrictions or obligations for legal entities are foreseen by the law. By contrast, the draft law on the climate experiment was meant to introduce a special regime on Sakhalin, where companies would be subject not only to inventory and reporting duties, but also to a quota system with GHG limits per company. The 2025 carbon neutrality aim was a component of this draft law (Davydova 2021b; Russian Federation 2021).

In September 2021, Putin mentioned for the first time a Sakhalin “pilot project” that included a carbon neutrality aim “by 2026”, and he “suggested” that the experiment be expanded to other Russian regions (Nauchnaia Rossiia 2021). In fact, early on, Bashkiria as well as the regions of Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, and Kaliningrad had declared their interest in joining the experiment (Troianova 2022b). More and more large companies reportedly also expressed an interest, including Mitsubishi, the coal extracting Eastern Mining Company, Sakhalin Energy (a large producer of oil and gas around Sakhalin, with substantial shares held by Shell and Mitsubishi), and the Exxon Mobile subsidiary Exxon Neftegas Limited, which was also active in oil and gas drilling around Sakhalin (Argumenty i Fakty Sakhalin 2021; Rubezh 2021; Richter and Smid 2008).

However, when the draft law was debated and passed in the first reading in the Russian State Duma in mid-December 2021, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs as well as parts of the Russian press were highly critical and warned about severe losses in competitiveness and money for businesses as well as—indirectly—for consumers in the region (in the form of higher prices) while also strongly objecting to any early expansion of the experiment to other regions (Volobuev 2021; Duėl’ 2021b; Interfaks 37,36,b, c). This criticism certainly led the Duma in the second reading of the bill in early February 2022 to decide to postpone the beginning of the experiment by half a year from 1 March 2022 to 1 September 2022, with a run-time until 2028. However, even in the final version of the bill that was passed in the third reading in mid-February and that Putin signed into law on 6 March 2022, the most remarkable timeframe of the experiment remained unchanged: Sakhalin Oblast is to become climate neutral by the end of 2025 (Vasil’ev 2022; Mironova 2022; Russian Federation 2022).

Though the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs then argued for a further postponement, given the unprecedented Western sanctions burdening Russian businesses, the Sakhalin climate experiment officially began on 1 September 2022. The fact that the final version of the bill stipulates that other regions interested in joining will only be able to do so if this is decided by a change in the federal law from 6 March 2022 can be seen as a concession to the bill’s critics (Trojanowa 2022a; Tass 2022; SakhalinMedia 2022; Russian Federation 2022).

3 Background and motivations

Why did the Russian authorities initiate such a project—which appears highly ambitious, at least on paper—after years of reluctance and feet-dragging in the field of climate policy? Moreover, why was Sakhalin, in particular, chosen for the experiment?

Regarding the first question, beyond the context of heightened interest in climate change as a problem in Russia beginning in autumn 2019, a number of statements made by involved actors indicate that an important motivation lay in preparing for CBAM: Beginning in 2020, the European Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism became one of the most heavily debated topics—if not the most heavily debated—in Russia regarding climate change (Zabanova 2021). Though this measure of the European Green New Deal had not yet been decided, the plan to introduce such a duty on carbon-intensive goods imported to the EU alarmed Russian export-oriented businesses (e.g. fossil fuel, steel, aluminium), which would have been heavily affected by the measure (Nauchno-uchebnaia laboratoriia ėkonomiki izmeneniia klimata 2021; Interfaks 2021a; European Commission 2021). According to the hopes of proponents of the Sakhalin experiment, such as Edelgeriev and Limarenko, the experiment would have enabled a discussion with the EU on carbon units generated in Russia. If the units that were to be traded within the framework of the experiment were to be recognised by the EU (presupposing an at least partial alignment of regulations with those of the EU Emissions Trading System), this process could have shielded involved Russian businesses from the looming CBAM, which would explain at least a substantial part of the attractiveness of the project to large Russian energy companies (Ėdel’geriev and Davydova 2021; Davydova 2021b). However, since March 2022, the CBAM motivation has lost much of its relevance given that in the wake of European sanctions, the EU has rapidly relinquished its position as the most important export market for Russia (Ioannou et al. 2023). The fact that regional and federal decision-makers have opted to go ahead with the experiment despite objections from businesses is a clear indicator that at least by now, there are other motivations than the Russian concern about the European export market. Sakhalin’s Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development has stressed that the ecological challenges remain untouched and should be tackled, regardless of sanctions (Ėkologiia Rossii 2022).

This brings us to the role of personalities. Historians and political scientists alike have long discussed the importance of individuals to the course of history and political decision-making (cf. e.g. Caprara and Vecchione 2009; Grinin 2010; Park 1992). As neither structural determinism nor a dependence of political outcomes on individuals alone appears convincing, a closer look at the political context in which a given case is situated is critical. In a super-presidential system such as the Russian one, there is hardly any place for manoeuvring once Putin adopts a clear position on a topic (his decisions are again arguably an outcome of his personality as well as of his apparatus of power and the structures in which this apparatus is embedded)Footnote 3 (Partlett 2018). However, while Putin is more a conservative who favours the fossil-fuel lobby, his statements on climate change have been ambiguous and inconsistent (Kokorin and Korppoo 2017; Poberezhskaya 2016; Gustafson 2021). As a result, various actors with differing positions have been able to influence policies as long as the president does not weigh in to the contrary. Aside from Abramchenko, Minister of Economic Development Maksim Reshetnikov and Presidential Climate Adviser Edelgeriev have provided backing at the federal level for the climate experiment, which has been important in outweighing conservative resistance by the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and part of the Duma majority.

However, the initiative for the experiment came from the Governor of Sakhalin, who has remained a driving force ever since. Limarenko has shown interest in and understanding for the topic of climate change mitigation, which has stood out in the Russian political sphere. He obviously recognized both that the topic is vital and delicate for Sakhalin—with its vast fossil energy sector—and that it is a matter of sustainability for Sakhalin’s economy to go along the worldwide trend of decarbonisation instead of trailing behind. As Limarenko stated in September 2020 when announcing his initiative, “Global warming exists, the worldwide trend [of decarbonisation] exists, and the energy companies have shown that they are following this trend. Therefore, there is no alternative for us. It is completely clear that we have to go in this direction. It’s a matter of competitiveness. […] We hold that this is a factor of survival for Sakhalin” (Interfaks 2020).

In February 2022, Limarenko attracted the young and ambitious Milena Milich to the new post of Sakhalin Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development, thereby putting her in charge of realising the experiment in the region (Lenta.ru 2022). Milich was only 31 years old at that time but had already amassed a stellar résumé: She finished both high school and university (management studies) at the top of her class and began her career first in the human resources department of Lukoil and then in the management of the prestigious Skolkovo Management School, receiving awards for her accomplishments at both locations. In 2020, she won the “super-finals” of the “Leaders of Russia” contest, which has been organised since 2017 by the Presidential Administration of Russia. In 2019/2020, the contest received some 230,000 applicants and finished with 300 “super-finalists” at the top (Rossiia—strana vozmozhnostei 2020; Tass 2024). Milich has thus become a member of the “ElbrusClub”, which has linked the winners of the contest (some 100 per year) since 2018, many of whom have received high-ranking administrative positions and are bound to support one another mutually in the network. Before her appointment as Sakhalin Minister, Milich served as Director for Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance for the Russian Far East at Sberbank (Novosti LR 2022; Ėl’brus “Lidery Rossii” n.d.).

Milich’s standing, ambition, administrative experience, and network have certainly been beneficial to the Sakhalin climate project. Milich and Limarenko have been adamant about the need to proceed with the experiment despite the difficult circumstances after the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, enhanced Western sanctions, and substantial pressure by business circles to further postpone the experiment. As Milich put it, “The problems of ecology and climate do not go away in periods of sanctions or without them, in times of peace or of crisis. This is a planetary challenge for all the global community” (Ėkologiia Rossii 2022; Trojanowa 2022a).

Towards the end of March 2023, just 13 months after taking office, Milich was given the new position of Special Representative of the Sakhalin Governor in Moscow and was thereby replaced in her function as Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development by Andrei Samatov, a biologist who had thus far been in charge of the environmental department of Sakhalin Energy. It remains to be seen whether this change will be detrimental to the project. In her new position, Milich is to be responsible for the “development and expert monitoring of the climate programme [in Sakhalin] as well as for interaction with federal authorities, businesses, and societal organisations […] regarding answers to the challenges of climate change” (Sakh.Online 2023). Successfully carrying out such responsibilities doubtless demands a highly apt and motivated functionary. Given Milich’s experience and her Elbrus network, she seems an obvious choice. If she succeeds at being heard in Moscow and in furthering the agenda of climate change mitigation in the midst of the difficult context of war, her absence from Sakhalin might be outweighed by the benefits she can bring to the experiment in her new position.

Arguments for Sakhalin that Limarenko and others have put forward include the notion that as an isolated island region, Sakhalin is not connected to the centralised Russian energy net and also lacks a unified regional energy net, both of which facts render the region particularly suitable for installing renewable energy facilities. Sakhalin’s island location additionally renders it particularly vulnerable to climate change, thereby heightening the sensitivity of actors in the region to the topic, while the region’s physical proximity and existing economic ties to Japan and other Asian-Pacific countries enable it to profit from these countries’ know-how and investments (Rostovskaia 2020). In fact, China has been mentioned as a model because it also operated pilot regions for climate policies before scaling them up (Troianova 2022b). The great importance of the fossil fuel sector further means that it is especially vital and urgent for the Sakhalin Oblast to embark on a transition course towards another economic model in order to avoid serious troubles in a world of decarbonisation (ibid.; cf. Makarov 2022).

However, beyond the personal factors mentioned above, the most pertinent explanation as to why Sakhalin was chosen for the frontrunner position in terms of climate policies appears to lie in its vast forests and rich ecosystems combined with the region’s relatively sparse population of under half a million people. It is precisely this combination of factors that (at least according to Russian accounts) gives the region the chance of becoming a global frontrunner. According to an inventory established in 2021 by experts of the Yu. A. Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, Sakhalin’s GHGs exceed the absorption capacity of the region’s forests and peatlands by just 1.27 mio. t—or about 10%—per year. Still following this calculation, this relatively modest sum of GHGs has to be reduced in order for the region to become “climate neutral” (Troianova 2022b; Ermakova 2021). From this perspective, the goal of being the first region in the world to become climate neutral by the end of 2025 initially seemed feasible, though challenging. Moreover, the prospect of becoming a global frontrunner in a field in which Russia has historically lagged behind has certainly been motivating.

4 Planned measures

Once the goal of reducing 10% of GHGs by the end of 2025 had been set, the main question became how this reduction was to be reached. The measures foreseen by the regional authorities concern a variety of sectors. One key measure is “gasification”—a keyword that appeared in discussions on reducing emissions as early as in the 1980s under Soviet rule.Footnote 4 Most of the heating systems in the island region (i.e. ca. 37,000 houses and apartments and 145 heating plants) are to be switched from coal to natural gas. In addition, nearly 50% of individual car transport is to be changed from petrol to natural gas, and a corresponding infrastructure of gas stations is to be established in the oblast (Ermakova 2021; Troianova 2022b).

The second energy sector to be developed is renewables. Their share in Sakhalin electricity production is to be raised from about 0.5% in 2021 to 28% by the end of 2025. For this aim, wind parks with a total capacity of some 200 MW are to be built on Sakhalin’s coasts. The scientific exploration of the most suitable sites for these wind parks began in 2022. Windmills are to be installed by the Russian company Novavind, which is a subsidiary of Rosatom (Troianova 2022b; Sudakova 2022). Limarenko’s former affiliation with Rosatom may have been helpful in sealing this deal.

Electric cars and buses are also to be facilitated. The planned numbers are much lower than those for natural gas cars, with 100,000 planned natural gas cars versus only 10,000 planned electric cars. However, this build-up is to be accompanied by the development of an electric car charging infrastructure with some 1000 charging stations (Troianova 2022b; Volobuev 2021; Skokov and Guzenko 2023).

Further measures in the energy sector include establishing a hydrogen industry on Sakhalin that is to be partly for export and partly for running a hydrogen-powered train connection on Sakhalin Island. Moreover, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are to be installed (Troianova 2022b; Ermakova 2021; Tass 2023a). Other planned measures include substantially reducing methane emissions from waste dumps by develo** a recycling system, planting thousands of hectares of forest in order to enhance the absorption capacity of the Sakhalin ecosystems, and building an “Ecopolis”—that is, an entirely new town featuring countless low-emission technologies—by 2030 (Ermakova 2021; Troianova 2022b; Skokov and Guzenko 2023).

However, the most prominent measure—and the one that has provoked criticism and anxiety from the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs—consists of establishing a CATS for the largest GHG emitters. Contrary to earlier ideas, the ceiling for mandatory participation will be substantially lower than for Russia as a whole in the federal law “On limitations of greenhouse gas emissions”, which foresees reporting requirements on the amount of GHGs for companies that emit at least 150,000 t of GHGs per year (until 2023) or at least 50,000 t per year (beginning in 2024). Participation in the CATS on Sakhalin is to be mandatory for companies that emit at least 20,000 tonnes of GHGs per year. Based on the first GHG numbers submitted by companies in 2023, maximum quotas for each company are to be established in a complicated procedure that involves Milich’s (former) ministry as well as the MED (which is responsible for the experiment at the federal level) and Governor Limarenko. These quotas will have to pass through several coordination rounds if the three parties do not agree at first.

Once the quotas have been established, companies that exceed their CO2 limit will have to either pay a fee of 1000 roubles (ca. 10 € in July 2023, but about 16.50 € in September 2022, when the experiment began) per CO2 unit/tonne to the Sakhalin budget (which is to be invested in green projects) or buy a corresponding amount of CO2 units at the regional carbon offset. The fee of 1000 roubles lies in the upper range of what was discussed beginning in 2021 and was sharply criticised by industry lobby groups (Ispolatov 2022). Two sorts of companies will be able to sell carbon units: those whose emissions undercut the set quotas, and those that receive carbon units by investing on a voluntary basis in carbon-reducing projects that are verified—and thereby turned into carbon units—by a company that is accredited for this kind of transaction. Another subsidiary company of Rosatom has been charged with this task. Unlike other CATSes (e.g. the European system), the quotas will not be reduced successively; rather, they will remain the same throughout the duration of the experiment. Like other elements of the experiment, the CATS is to be expanded to other Russian regions if it is deemed successful (Ermakova 2021; Troianova 2022b; Skokov and Guzenko 2023; Fursova 2023).

5 Discussion

The Sakhalin climate experiment can be evaluated from different angles: first, by comparing it with (seemingly) similar foreign cases; second, by specifically examining a number of questionable elements regarding the criteria of credibility and climate protection; third, by comparing the experiment with Russia’s other climate policies; and fourth, by contrasting declared policies with actual steps on the ground.

Regarding the first point, comparisons between Sakhalin’s Ecopolis project and the “green city” project of another major fossil fuel power—namely Saudi Arabia’s “The Line”—and, more importantly, comparisons between the CATS and Chinese pilot regions—which are mentioned as a model in the Russian debate (Troianova 2022b)—seem most suitable. As to the first comparison, the idea of building a “green city” as a showcase for sustainable urban planning within the context of an economy that has been largely moulded by fossil fuels is similar. Both Sakhalin’s Ecopolis and Saudi Arabia’s The Line are planned to be operated using only renewable energy and promise to maximally safeguard the surrounding environment while offering inhabitants a high level of liveability, clean air, and comfortable access to nature, thereby attracting residents and tourists from all over the world. However, the dimensions are entirely different. Saudi Arabia’s The Line is supposed to become a home to nine million inhabitants (more than one-quarter of Saudi Arabia’s current population), while Sakhalin’s Ecopolis is to host no more than 25,000 residents. The Line is to be connected with the largest green hydrogen production in the world and is to be free of cars. Meanwhile, nothing of the kind is foreseen on Sakhalin, though its Ecopolis is to rely on electric and bicycle transport only (Lun’kova 2021; Allan and Parida 2022; Rohrmann and Golchin 2022).

In short, The Line is meant to revolutionise urban planning and to propel Saudi Arabia into a sustainable future with the help of 500 billion dollars of investments, whereas Sakhalin’s Ecopolis project has much more modest dimensions and aims above all to attract more people and investments to the island region and to bolster its role as a sustainability frontrunner within Russia. However, apart from the notorious fact that The Line goes hand in hand with the forced displacement of villages and tribes that lie in the way of the mega-project (Holleis and Knipp 2023; Rohrmann and Golchin 2022), the more modest dimensions of the Ecopolis might also be advantageous from an environmental perspective. Building a completely new city almost necessarily results in the heavy emission of GHGs because enormous amounts of concrete and steel (inter alia) are needed (Nugent 2023). In this sense, smaller might be better for the climate. Meanwhile, Sakhalin’s green city is in an earlier stage of development, and its prospects also appear less clear. An urban planning consortium winner of a corresponding contest received the award for planning the Ecopolis, but while its construction was supposed to begin in 2023 (Lun’kova 2021), it is unclear if this has happened or how and by whom the substantial means for this urban project are to be acquired.

Regarding the CATS, which is the centrepiece of the Sakhalin experiment, there are three major differences between the Chinese and Russian cases. The first is that the Russian law on pilot regions confines the experiment to Sakhalin Oblast’, whereas in 2013/2014, China established seven pilot regions at once with various emission trading schemes, thereby enabling the country to test which ones work best (Duan et al. 2023b; Morzharetto 2022; Trokhachev 2022). Nonetheless, the introduction of 10,000 electric cars and a number of e‑buses to Sakhalin in addition to a charging infrastructure for e‑vehicles by 2025—which would propel the region into the position of a frontrunner in Russia in both relative and absolute terms—could help boost this technology in Russia.

Most importantly, despite its construction flaws, if the CATS in the Sakhalin Oblast proves successful at motivating companies to substantially reduce their GHGs and if this system is then scaled up to the national level, it could become a game changer. More than everything else, the CATS contrasts with Russia’s unambitious climate policies thus far, which have been marked by the aim to protect the country’s carbon-based economy and have mostly put forward the absorption capacities of Russian forests as a solution to climate change (Kokorin and Korppoo 2017, 2013; Gustafson 2021; Climate Action Tracker 2022) within the context of routinely propagated climate scepticism (Tynkkynen and Tynkkynen 2018; Ashe and Poberezhskaya 2022). As a marker of this difference, the Russian law on reducing greenhouse gas emissions does not include any concrete measures for reducing emissions, whereas the Sakhalin CATS includes both binding emission targets for the most important emitters and fines in case these targets are exceeded (Davydova 2021b; Russian Federation 2021).

It is thereby all the more remarkable that the climate experiment began in September 2022 despite the rapidly diminished role of Europe as the main Russian export market after February 2022. This new context can be seen as a litmus test. Concerns about CBAM and about Russia’s image in Europe were initially helpful in gathering support for Limarenko’s initiative among Sakhalin’s industry and political circles in Moscow. However, at least for Limarenko, Milich, and the MED, other motives appear to have been—or to have become—more important; otherwise, these three actors would not have insisted on continuing the experiment. Though it is hardly possible to determine the motivation of political figures with certainty (Park 1992), statements made by Limarenko and Milich point to a fundamental understanding both that business-as-usual is no solution in the age of climate change and that Sakhalin’s (and, by extension, Russia’s) economy must change course in order to remain “competitive” or even to “survive” (Interfaks 2020; Ėkologiia Rossii 2022).

However, as ecological journalist Troianova’s latest article on the experiment indicates, the realities on the ground in early 2024 were sobering: While the share of renewables had moderately risen from 0.5% to 1–2% of power generation, 15 months after the beginning of the experiment, the construction of new wind parks and the hydrogen cluster had not yet begun, both of which had apparently been complicated by the exit from the Russian market of European companies such as Vestas, Lagerwey, and Air Liquide as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine. A new complex for waste separation was opened in 2022 near Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, but it had not yet managed to cope with its task and had strongly polluted the surrounding waterbodies. Flaring gas was being widely used all over Sakhalin, with no policies set in place to reduce this highly climate-damaging practice. A project involving planting 20 million larches by 2028 with the goal of considerably increasing the absorption capacity of forests was launched, but the planting had been taking place in marsh areas, whose natural absorption capacity risked being significantly diminished by this intervention and where conditions for the trees to grow was poor. Meanwhile, Yuzhno-Sakhalin’s last piece of natural valley forest was chopped down in order to make space for a new agro-industrial complex. “Gasification” was taking place, with the number of households connected to the gas net having risen to 57% (from 49% in 2021), though the figure was hardly on track to reach 100% by 2025. Busses and taxis had effectively been switched from diesel or petrol to natural gas, and incentives had been set in place for pushing electric mobility, notably via an abolition of taxes and parking fees for electric cars. However, the demand by ordinary car drivers for gas or electric cars remained low (Troianova 2024a).

Troianova did not observe the CATS. By September 2023, CO2 quotas for 35 companies with the equivalent of more than 20,000 t of CO2 had been established. However, Milich explained that in light of the “geopolitical situation” and in order to support business development, authorities had chosen a “soft scenario” and obliged bigcompanies to reduce their GHGs on average by less than two percent between 2022 and 2025, which implied that the bulk of emission reductions had to come from other sectors (Tass 2023b). In short, steps for implementing the experiment and effectively reducing GHGs had begun in a number of areas (i.e. mobility, energy, housing, waste, forests, companies); however, the business-as-usual attitude mostly regarding the extraction of fossil fuels and the development of industries at the expense of nature are hardly compatible with the ambitious climate-neutrality goal of the experiment. In addition, its realisation has been threatened and “softened” by the new context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Aside from the lack of Western technology and the low ambition for the CATS, the experiment is also politically jeopardised because environmental concerns are falling behind and the increasingly repressive nature of Russia’s state is affecting independent environmentalism. In December 2022, Ekovakhta Sakhalin—a well-known environmental NGO that had been active since 1995—declared the end of its activity following the decision by the Russian Ministry of Justice to list the NGO as a “foreign agent” (Tairov 2022).

In this hindered context, overall, the glass appears to be half full. The target of becoming climate-neutral by 2025 is not credible, but this finding does not imply that the experiment is insignificant or unambitious. If the Sakhalin experiment succeeds and its measures for reducing GHGs are implemented despite the additional difficulties created by Russia’s war of aggression, this could be an important signal to the Russian public, political actors, and businesses that ambitious climate policies are compatible with rendering the economy more competitive. At best, this signal could eventually give a push for Russia—and especially a post-Putin Russia—to at last head in the direction of a different economic model based much less on fossil resources and more on next-generation, sustainable technologies, such as green hydrogen. For the sake of Russia’s developmental chances in the age of climate change, such a shift would be vital (Gustafson 2021).

6 Conclusion and outlook

The Russian climate experiment in the Sakhalin Oblast is a remarkable endeavour that has developed relatively straightforwardly from the declaration of regional decision-makers’ first ideas in September 2020 to the passing of a federal law in March 2022 and the eventual beginning of the experiment in early September of the same year despite the new context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and protests by the Russian business community. This achievement would not have been possible without the motivation, dedication, and ambition of some key actors: namely Governor Valery Limarenko, Federal Minister of Economic Development Maksim Reshetnikov, and the first Regional Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development (and current Special Representative of the Sakhalin Governor in Moscow), Milena Milich. Whatever drives these individuals—be it economic interests, personal ambition, real concern about climate change, or a combination of factors—they appear united by an understanding both that climate change and the worldwide decarbonisation agenda are to be taken seriously and that Russia has to tackle these issues and could even benefit from doing so if action is taken in time. Such an understanding has been crucially missing among Russian decision-makers for most of the Putin era and is still far from self-evident in Russia today (Gustafson 2021; Beuerle 2023a).

However, the evaluation of the Sakhalin climate experiment yielded mixed results. The dissonance between the declared ambition to become a global mitigation frontrunner on the one hand and the intent to reduce just 10% of Sakhalin’s GHGs, the prioritising of climate-damaging natural gas as a substitute for (even-more-climate-damaging) coal, some features of the planned CATS, and the fact that for the time being, there appears to be no exit strategy from an economic model that is primarily based on the extraction of fossil resources on the other hand is problematic in terms of climate change mitigation and could easily lead to the conclusion that the Sakhalin experiment was designed as a window-dressing endeavour. However, this conclusion would be premature given the holistic approach (which notably covers energy, industry, housing, transport, waste, and forests); the ambition to reduce Sakhalin’s GHGs by 10% in less than four years; the push that the experiment (if successful and subsequently scaled up) promises to give renewables, hydrogen, and electric transport in Russia; and the introduction of the first CATS in Russia, which—despite its flaws—could become a game changer.

If realised as planned, the Sakhalin experiment would mean a shift in Russian climate policy from window-dressing to action, albeit on a regional level and in a considerably more modest way than officially declared. The realities on the ground indicate that the undertaken steps are not negligible yet have hardly been enough to meet the lofty declared goals because business-as-usual attitudes and policies—notably regarding the fossil fuel sector and the expansion of industries at the expense of nature—appear incompatible with any near-term climate neutrality aims. Though this discrepancy was particularly obvious given the experiment’s lofty ambitions, a discrepancy between goals and effective climate action is far from unique in a global perspective (Climate Action Tracker 2023, 2024). However, Russia’s war of aggression has further affected the Sakhalin experiment by engendering technological, economic, and political difficulties.

Nevertheless, as Anastasiia Troianova noted, the Sakhalin experiment is “the little that Russia is seriously doing for the climate” (Troianova 2022b). For a sustainable change of course in the direction of climate mitigation, which is also vital for Russia’s economic future, it will therefore be crucial for Milich, Limarenko, Samatov, their allies in the MED, and their followers to succeed in their endeavour. In any case, it will certainly be worthwhile for anyone interested in climate policies in Russia and beyond to follow the fate of the Sakhalin climate experiment over the next couple of years.