Valieva will perform at the Games, Russia’s “carbon fork”. Highlights of the night

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited US President Joe Biden to visit the country in order to send a “powerful signal” that should contribute to de-escalation. However, according to CNN, citing a source, Biden refused. At the same time, according to CBS News, the US presidential administration is going to withdraw all American personnel from Kiev in the next 24-48 hours.

• Ukrainian businessmen began to leave Ukraine on charter flights and private jets, including the leaders of the local Forbes list – Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian Pravda newspaper reported. Some businessmen told the publication that they are abroad on business trips and intend to return soon.
• After escalation over the weekend of rhetoric about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine in the morning session, the Moscow Exchange IMOEX2 index fell by 5.49% to 3352.01 points (as of 07:06 Moscow time). At 7:55 a.m., the decline slowed to 3.6%, and the index amounted to 3417.79 points. Brent oil prices for the first time since October 2014 exceeded $96 per barrel.

Now Russia is facing a fork: to introduce quotas for greenhouse emissions or to influence them with the help of taxes, it is necessary to determine what will be more profitable for the country’s economy, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov believes. He held a meeting with ministries and businesses about Russia’s decarbonization strategy, where they discussed how to minimize Russia’s costs due to the EU carbon tax.

• From 2026, carbon-intensive products imported into the EU (cement, electricity, fertilizers, ferrous metals and aluminum, as well as organic chemical compounds and plastics) will be taxed. The only way to avoid it is to show the EU evidence that such a tax has already been paid in the country export.
• Emissions trading system and carbon tax think two main carbon pricing tools that can incentivize businesses to reduce greenhouse emissions. However, the strategy, adopted in October, does not provide direct decisions on how it will be charged in Russia, and the Ministry of Economic Development has not previously confirmed that they will introduce a carbon fee outside of regional experiments.
• The introduction of carbon pricing is the only way to neutralize the negative effects of the planned “carbon tax” in the EU, said Anatoly Chubais, special representative of the president. The same question, according to him, is “the most painful.” At the same time, this is the only way to leave the funds that businesses will pay in any case in the country, and not pay them to Europe.

In response to the threat of sanctions against the supply of equipment, the Russian authorities decided to intensify the import substitution of civilian electronics. Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov pointed out that the United States is considering a ban on the supply of household appliances to Russia among possible sanctions and suggested developing a program to support electronic engineering.

• Domestic manufacturers should become leaders in the domestic market and enter the world top 5, develop their competencies and triple the share of Russian electronics in the country’s GDP, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko believes. The government invited market participants to “think up” a way to achieve e-sovereignty by 2030.

• Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko instructed to deal with the excess of estimates for the reclamation of the “most expensive” landfills. According to the materials of the department, the most difficult situation has developed with six landfills – in the Krasnodar Territory, Bashkiria, Tver and Chelyabinsk regions.

• The foreign policy concept of Russia will be finalized taking into account the current situation in the world, said the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov. According to him, “the situation is not static, it develops dialectically from our side”