Russia doesn't care about your "common sense"
A hopefully constructive critique of James Delingpole's report from Moscow
At the invitation of the Russian Orthodox patriarchate, English journalist James Delingpole traveled to Moscow—also known as Mordor in the Western press—to see for himself what all the fuss was about. He revealed his findings at the end of September in a column published in The Spectator.
In his report, Delingpole shares his interactions with the common Muscovite, as well as his general impressions of Russia’s capital. Turns out Moscow isn’t infested with bloodthirsty Orcs, but rather inhabited by human beings who are not so dissimilar from you and me. The city is also surprisingly clean and safe given its enormous size.
Excluding a few minor quibbles, I can find nothing objectionable in the first 750 words of Delingpole’s column. Even my own criticisms of his report—which we will discuss in detail in the coming paragraphs—do not prevent me from applauding his efforts to humanize Russia and her people at a time when we have never been closer to war (the not-proxy variety) between NATO and Moscow. Actually, Delingpole’s visit to Russia couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Under the current geopolitical realities, reminding Western readers of their shared humanity with ordinary Muscovites is arguably far more valuable than attempting to wade into the murky waters of Russian domestic and foreign policy—especially if you are limited to 900 words.
And this is where Delingpole’s admirable attempt to humanize the scary monsters you see on CNN goes awry:
[J]udging by the bustle in the many excellent restaurants along the Arbat and Bolshaya Nikitskaya, the shape of the economy isn’t half as bad as we’ve been led to believe. Perhaps the 13 per cent tax rate for the vast majority of the population has something to do with this. Or maybe it’s that, being an oil and gas producer, Russia doesn’t have much time for net zero, so it’s not waging war on motorists, air travellers or affordable heating.
Before going any further, I would like pause and make a few observations. If these observations come across as extraneous, it is because I am aiming for something very specific with this internet article, and would rather err on the side of being long-winded than risk being misinterpreted.
First, I would like to state for the record that I am conscious of the fact that the paragraph I just quoted from Delingpole’s column is open to interpretation. He is writing in generalizations—in fact, the totality of his report could be characterized as a series of generalizations—but some of these sweeping observations help to broaden the reader’s understanding of Russia, while others hinder nuanced discussion about this badly misunderstood country.
For example, his observation of the bustle “in the many excellent restaurants along the Arbat and Bolshaya Nikitskaya” serves a useful purpose by casting doubt on the mainstream media’s sweeping claim of a Russian economy on the brink of catastrophe.
Of course, Delingpole’s observation isn’t an ironclad rebuttal of talking points you hear on network news, but it’s not meant to be. Delingpole is simply relaying what he saw with his own two eyes in Moscow, and pointing out—quite correctly—that some of these observations seem to suggest more nuance is needed in Western media’s coverage of Russia’s economic situation.
The popularity of fine dining options on two of Moscow’s most touristy streets, located just around the corner from the Kremlin, is perhaps not the best indicator for gauging the economic health of a country that spans 11 time zones. But I don’t think Delingpole is trying to suggest otherwise. He is merely challenging the typical British magazine-reader to question his or her preconceived notions about Russia, spoon-fed to them by odious media organs. Delingpole is asking: The BBC keeps telling you Russia’s economy is on the verge of collapse—surely there is a small, cobweb-filled corner of your mind where you can entertain a bit of uncertainty on this matter?
In this sense, pointing to on-the-ground observations, however narrow in scope they may be, benefits the reader by providing information that may not fit snugly into mainstream-approved worldviews.
But when Delingpole departs from personal observation, he falls into the trap of “common sense” conclusion-making. And this is where generalizations can often do more harm than good in challenging the soundness of lazy narratives:
[M]aybe it’s that, being an oil and gas producer, Russia doesn’t have much time for net zero, so it’s not waging war on motorists, air travellers or affordable heating.
What prompted Delingpole to make such a sweeping statement?
During his time in Moscow, Delingpole met with senior clergy from the Russian Orthodox Church. It’s likely he also conferred with a range of people with their own areas of expertise, who shared their perspectives about Russia and what the West gets wrong about her. Delingpole came to Moscow to make his own assessment of Russia, but it would be unreasonable to expect him to make this assessment without relying on the expertise and insights of others. This is standard operating procedure for any press tour: You go to a place, have a look around, speak with people who have knowledge on the subjects you are trying to better understand, and then report your findings. It’s possible that during his time in Moscow, someone with professed expertise on the subject told him that the Russian government “doesn’t have much time for net zero”, and trusting this expert, saw no reason to believe otherwise. For better or worse, we all rely on the expertise of others, and journalists are no different in this regard.
Or perhaps in a well-meaning but overzealous attempt to show “the other side” of Russia, Delingpole concluded on his own that, given Russia’s vast deposits of oil and gas, it would be absurd for Moscow to show any interest whatsoever in the climate agenda.
Regardless of how he came to this conclusion—we can only speculate—there is no denying that Russia’s adherence to “net zero” mania would defy common sense. It would be totally non-nonsensical, and so it would be completely reasonable to assume Moscow had no time for such “green” rubbish. Indeed, Delingpole even points to the end-goal of “climate” policies adopted in the West: burdening, and even restricting, energy consumers, whether they be motorists or families trying to heat their homes, while the usual suspects laugh their way to the bank (probably in their carbon-emitting private jets). What would possess the Russian government, which relies heavily on revenue from energy exports to keep the lights on in the Kremlin, to do something so contrary to its own interests?
Again, allow me to stress that this type of thinking is deeply rooted in what many would consider common sense.
And yet, when you examine the Russian government’s approach to “net zero” and the climate agenda, you will find more than just vague, boilerplate statements. Concrete policies purportedly designed to “account” for Russia’s carbon footprint are already in place. The Russian government also invests a huge amount of time and money into actively promoting “carbon reduction” around the world, especially within BRICS. Speaking of BRICS: Moscow is actively collaborating with the Multipolar World Order to create a common carbon market. A carbon trading mechanism for emissions-heavy industry is already in use in Russia, although for now it is voluntary.
Let’s examine the evidence.
For the sake of brevity, I will skip over the various UN-initiated climate pacts and agreements of which Moscow is a signatory. I don’t think there’s a single country on earth apart from Sweden that actually takes any of that word salad seriously, so I don’t consider it a smoking gun when it comes to assessing Moscow’s level of participation in the climate agenda.
I would prefer to focus on more alarming developments that illustrate Moscow’s collusion in this global scam.
On September 1, 2022, the Russian government introduced a registry for carbon units, designed to allow companies to buy and sell credits that could be used to offset their carbon footprints. The first carbon units—96 in total—were added to the registry three weeks later by a company in Sakhalin, as part of a three-year project to make the region “carbon neutral”.
In August of this year, Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development announced in an English-language press release that Sakhalin had successfully achieved “carbon neutrality”:
In 2023, President Vladimir Putin approved an updated Climate Doctrine to set the goal of achieving carbon neutrality in Russia by 2060.
An important step towards this goal was the Sakhalin Climate Experiment which had been underway on Sakhalin for three years under a separate federal law. Sakhalin was the starting point for the practical development of climate policy: the first climate projects were launched and the first Russian carbon credits were sold.
“The climate agenda is a long-term priority for the government. It determines the competitiveness of our products abroad and Russia’s participation in the formation of new markets where we have the expertise to take leading positions. These are low-carbon products, i.e., production of aluminum, fertilizers, petrochemicals, lithium, nuclear and hydroelectric power and renewable energy sources,” Maxim Reshetnikov, Minister of Economic Development, said.
As part of the Sakhalin Climate Experiment, Wildberries, one of the country’s largest online marketplaces, became the first Russian company to voluntarily purchase carbon credits to compensate for its own carbon emissions.
The normalization of creating “carbon credits” has only accelerated in Russia since Sakhalin declared itself to be carbon-neutral in August.
Just last week, on October 9, Tatneft, a Russian oil major based in Tatarstan, registered 4,473 newly minted “carbon units”.
Two days ago, on October 16, a construction company involved in building Herman Gref’s private 15-minute city outside of Moscow announced it had entered Russia’s burgeoning carbon market.
As of August 2025, 68 “climate projects” have been added to Russia’s national register of carbon units, and 154,000 carbon units have been purchased, traded, declared, or used in other inexplicable ways to offset the carbon footprints of eco-friendly Russian companies.
Meanwhile, Moscow has been busy lobbying for the creation of various carbon-accounting mechanisms within BRICS.
Work towards the creation of a BRICS carbon market began in 2024 under Russia’s chairmanship of the bloc.
In July of this year, BRICS member states signed the Joint Declaration of the 17th BRICS Summit, “Strengthening Global South Cooperation for More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance”, in Rio de Janeiro, which called for the creation of “mutually recognized methodologies and standards for assessing greenhouse gas emissions” and an internationally recognized mechanism for carbon-accounting.
In state-sponsored information spaces, Moscow applauds any and all efforts to flatten the carbon curve.
TV BRICS, a media project co-created by the Russian government and headquartered in Moscow, provides rave reviews of any and all schemes to stamp out the dreaded carbon menace. The outlet has even highlighted Davos’ efforts to prevent the climate from changing.
You will find similar results if you search the website’s Russian-language offerings. Russian-language state and mainstream media are in lockstep support for the climate agenda.
The reason for this is very simple: Moscow believes the normalization of the climate agenda will create a common cause that the whole world can rally around, restoring Moscow’s relations with its Western partners. Indeed, Russia is actively looking towards the future, one in which it can work hand-in-hand with NATO states to save the climate. As Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov explained in September 2022:
Climate issues haven’t gone anywhere. What’s more, it’s clear that with the situation we have today, with hydrocarbon prices in the world... we will see the further development of alternative energy, and wind, and solar, and all other areas, including energy conservation. There will be a lot of major shifts. And the climate agenda will be, shall we say, at the forefront of all these shifts. That is the first point. The second point is that... the normalization of the agenda and the normalization of relations—which will happen sooner or later—will also in all likelihood begin with climate-related issues. Therefore, we must be ready in this regard. We must not fall behind.
However, I must stress that Moscow’s participation in the climate agenda is entirely motivated by a desire to continue serving as the world’s most accommodating gas station. Gazprom will happily sell you Russia’s natural resources—it will sell them to anyone, under any circumstance.
Even if you are literally invading Russia, Gazprom will keep paying you to transit Russian gas to its valued clients around the world. Now that’s customer loyalty.
East, West, BRICS, NATO—all are welcome to feed from the trough. Whoever you are and no matter how many Russians you are actively vaporizing, Gazprom will insist on selling you Russia’s natural resources, and at bargain-bin prices. And if you want your cheap energy to be more “green”, that’s not a problem. Gazprom is on it.
So we must give credit where credit is due: Russia’s strategy for saving the world from carbon does not list fossil fuels as the driving force behind climate change. Furthermore, if you peruse the relevant documents, you will find that the Russian government claims that the country’s vast forests help to offset Russia’s carbon emissions, thereby making “net zero”—which Moscow hopes to reach by 2060—more achievable.
But none of this has prevented Moscow from spending a great deal of time promoting the climate agenda, and to claim otherwise is frankly a bit silly. Yes, it’s true that Russia is cutting corners and finding convenient loopholes to make its own “climate action” easier to stomach, but this is hardly cause for celebration.
Why would it be any consolation if Russia’s energy companies were simply “playing along” with the climate agenda to stay competitive and maintain profits? Isn’t that what every energy company everywhere is doing? If the climate agenda aims to reduce the standard of living for the plebs while maximizing profits for the oligarchy, and Russia is actively adopting “carbon markets” and other mechanisms to make its vast natural resources available to this global scam, surely Moscow is, at the very least, an accessory to this crime—not a victim, nor an innocent bystander.
But what about Delingpole’s claim that the Russian government, distinguishing itself from almost every government on earth, is not engaged in waging war on energy consumers? Surely, making energy affordable and available in abundance would at least in part outweigh Moscow’s odious participation in the climate agenda?
Unfortunately, I have struggled to find a single authoritative source that supports the idea that Russian motorists have access to exceptionally affordable gasoline, making them the envy of car owners around the world.
If you compare the cost of filling up a 40-liter tank as percent of average monthly income, Russia doesn’t even rank top 40 in terms of gasoline affordability:
The truth is that despite its incalculable wealth of oil, gas, and all kinds of fancy minerals, Russia suffers from the same soul-crushing economic inequality that you’ll find in the UK, the United States, and many other Democracy Human Values countries.
A very large percentage of Russians live hand-to-mouth, and please believe me when I say they are not jumping for joy when they pull into a gas station.
Due in part to Ukraine’s NATO-backed campaign to destroy Russia’s energy infrastructure, the price of gasoline in Russia has spiked in recent weeks.
On October 16, Russian media reported that gasoline was now cheaper in the United States than in Russia. And I’m not talking about gas prices relative to average income. Russian media reported that gas in the US was now cheaper than gas in Russia, even though salaries in the United States are on average 2-3x larger than what Russians take home each month.
Even if these reports were false, there are other glaring red flags that suggest that Russian motorists are suffering.
Russian news outlets recently revealed that in an effort to stop prices from ballooning, gas stations have been caught selling diluted gasoline.
In Russia.
Because of gasoline shortages.
Meanwhile, Russian regions are preparing to increase the “transport tax” for car owners, because why not?
How one of the world’s largest crude exporters could be suffering from an acute shortage of gasoline is a topic worthy of a separate article. Needless to say, this does not lend support to the notion that Russian energy consumers enjoy special privileges. On the contrary, it suggests that Russia’s natural resources have been privatized for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many.
However, Delingpole is correct in his claim that Russian airlines do not charge travelers a carbon emissions fee or a similarly absurd climate-related penalty when flying. He is similarly correct about the low cost of utilities in Russia.
Thanks to generous subsidies and price controls, electricity is dirt cheap in Russia, especially when compared to the West. This is good—great, even. However, I wouldn’t attribute this policy to some kind of conscious effort to shield Russians from the economic consequences of the Green Terror. Subsidized utilities were part of the social safety net during the Soviet Union, and the expectation for heavily discounted electricity refused to die with the USSR. It’s reassuring that carbon-accounting policies have not yet interfered with Russians’ access to cheap electricity. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Taking into account all of the above, it’s fair to say that claiming Moscow has “no time” for “net zero” is misleading. I would even go further and say it is wrong.
I am not accusing Delingpole of intentionally misleading his readers. As I wrote earlier in this blog post, I believe he fell victim to common sense. That sounds odd, but if you stop and really think about it, it’s actually a common problem.
I’ll provide a few examples.
Common sense would dictate that the Russian government created Sputnik V in order to give Russians a safe and effective alternative to Big Pharma’s warp-speed development of unproven, barely tested genetic COVID “vaccines”.
In reality, in July 2020, a month before Sputnik V was unveiled as “the world’s first registered COVID vaccine”, AstraZeneca transferred its vaccine technology to Russia as part of a deal to manufacture the British-Swedish shot in Russia for export to more than 30 countries around the world.
Five months later, the Russian government signed an agreement with the Western pharmaceutical giant to create a Sputnik V-AstraZeneca vaccine hybrid.
Putin praised the partnership as a “compelling example of combining research forces, technologies and investment in order to achieve a common goal, which is to protect the lives, health and safety of millions of people on the planet.”
Russia’s president also wished AstraZeneca’s CEO “success, and not just in the Russian market but also in global markets.”
Well, we all know how that ended.
(If you want to learn more about Sputnik V, please consult with my cat, Susan.)
Let’s examine a more recent example of the misleading nature of common sense.
Eight years ago, a very trustworthy spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry revealed that Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the leader of an Islamist death squad that was liquidating Christians, Kurds, and pretty much everyone else in Syria at the time, had been “critically wounded” by a Russian airstrike, blowing his arm clean off.
Now, common sense would tell us that al-Julani used his not-blown-off arm to shake Putin’s hand in Moscow earlier this week.
In reality, Putin was spoiled for choice and had the option of shaking al-Julani’s right or left hand, because Syria’s new president, who is still busy murdering Christians and religious minorities, had no missing limbs. Both arms were intact and fully functional!
What could this mean?
Simply that’s it’s dangerous to rely too heavily on heuristic-based thinking when you’re trying to wrap your head around Russia.
Here I must defer to infamous blog-apostate Commander Rurik to better explain what I’m trying to get at:
Almost all scams are actually based on manipulating what people call “common sense” or what can more accurately be termed “heuristic-based thinking”. These approximations and short-cuts that we take in our thinking often land us in hot water, but most of us are too lazy to change our ways, unfortunately.
Delingpole likely felt comfortable reporting that Russia wasn’t messing around with the climate agenda because Russia is heavily reliant on fossil fuel exports and common sense would dictate that you can’t pay Kiev to transit gas to NATO states while also promoting carbon markets. But actually, you can.
And if you start thinking like a Gazprom executive (i.e., a psychopath), all of this makes perfect sense.
Delingpole is not even close to being the #1 offender of faulty thinking when it comes to Russia. Actually, I chose to respond to his column because he is clearly a very open-minded guy. Have you ever read his Substack? His skepticism is merciless. Absolutely nothing is taken for granted. He pushes the envelope so far that you begin to question whether the envelope ever existed in the first place. It makes for delightful reading.
One could even say Delingpole has a knack for torpedoing heuristic-based thinking.
Sadly, while I think he did a fine job of reminding his readers that Russians are humans too, his report was lacking his signature disdain for taking things at face value. Of course, the purpose of the column was to force readers to grapple with their own heuristic-based thinking about Russia. But when he claimed Moscow had no time for “net zero”, he committed a heuristic faux pas of his own.
We all do, from time to time.
I hope James understands that I am writing from a place of sympathy and understanding, as someone who has repeatedly misjudged Russia during my ten years living there.
I also hope James continues his Russia explorations, wherever they may lead him.
Thank you, Edward, for putting me right on Russia's support of the climate bollocks agenda!
EXCELLENT post. Your reporting and empathetic analysis is first class.