Green Energy Development in Russian Regions

ABSTRACT: The analysis of the development of “green energy” in the regions of Russia is one of the pressing modern scientific issues. This article describes the general situation with carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere in the world and in Russia. It is shown that the Russian Federation is one of the world leaders in the volume of carbon dioxide emissions. Global and Russian trends in the development of renewable energy sources are considered. The spatial unevenness in the development of renewable energy sources in the regions of the Russian Federation is characterized. An econometric model is proposed, which investigates the influence of the production process (through such factors as gross regional product and electricity consumption) as well as the development of renewable energy sources on carbon dioxide emissions in Russian regions. The results show that gross regional product and regional electricity consumption have positive impact on increasing carbon dioxide emission while the increase of renewable energy sources has a negative impact on increasing carbon dioxide emission. At the present stage, Russian regions can face a number of problems and constraints of social and economic nature that may hinder the development of a “green economy”.