BCG: Russia can become a leader in the fight against climate change due to large forest reserves 
The real ability of Russian forests to absorb greenhouse gases at the level of 1.8-2.2 billion tons of CO2-equivalent per year – three times more than the current figure. This is stated in the report of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which came to the disposal of Lenta.ru.
According to the company, Russia owns 20-40 percent of the value of the world's forests, thanks to which the country can become a leader in the fight against climate change. Their cost is estimated at $ 4-17 trillion, which is comparable to the cost of the country's oil reserves. Experts, referring to the Accounts Chamber, noted that information on 84.4 percent of the country's land plots in 2020 was unreliable – it did not take into account 9 percent of the area and 39 percent of reserves.
Experts associated several problems with the process of forest accounting. The country uses mainly “field” methods of inventory rather than remote ones. When estimating the age of the arrays, there is a possibility of error, and the data update is slower than the growth of the trees. The problems were also attributed to the imperfection of land legal legislation and the lack of funding – BCG suggested that up to 3.5 billion rubles should be allocated for the accounting process.
To improve the inventory system, experts suggested creating a “hybrid” forest accounting system and forest management using satellite optical and LIDAR surveys. BCG also called for avoiding gaps in land relations, eliminating legal uncertainty in certification, and changing the overall attitude towards the forest industry, taking into account its role as an important ally.
Previously, head of the forest policy cluster at the Center for to the problems of ecology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Gagarin dispelled the myth about the inexhaustibility of Russian forests. He noted that 46 percent of the 770 million hectares of land in the country are in a bad climate, 70 percent are in the zone of permafrost soils.