The bill will oblige companies, whose emissions exceed 150,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually before 2024 – and 50,000 tonnes after 2024, to provide accounts of their emissions and how they are being reduced.

    Companies dealing in climate projects can include Information about them in a special register of carbon units, with an operator to be determined by the government. The State savings bank Sberbank had been responsible for this as part of commitments under the Kyoto protocol, but this did not prove successful.

    Carbon units emitted as a result of carrying out a climate project can be accounted for in the register. These carbon units can be transferred by their “owners” to others as a credit.

    Vladimir Burmatov, head of the Duma’s Environment Committee, said carbon units to be accounted for and transferred must be recognised at an international level. “This is a subject for international negotiations,” he said.

    “And in the same way, the methodology of absorbing greenhouse gases by our forests in Russia must be verified at the international level. The methodology now in use for Russian forests is discriminatory in nature. The absorption capability of our forests – as calculated by our foreign partners – is often several times lower than the absorption capability of forests in neighbouring countries.”