The article examines the current state and possibilities for development of the energy complex in Russia’s Asian regions (territories to the East of the Urals) under the constraints of the globally promoted energy transition agenda. The authors consider these issues mainly from the point of view of the extent to which the development of the energy complex in accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and ESG (Environment, Sustainability, Governance) paradigm can ensure more sustainable socio-economic development of the vast Russia’s territory. It is shown that lagging behind in development of scientific and production services in the East of Russia, production of specialized machinery and capabilities for deeper processing of energy resources significantly reduces the chances of achieving both the sustainable socio-economic development and reduction of carbon intensity in the area. Developing of procedures and approaches for the institutional structure of government regulation and management of the energy complex in the East of Russia in order to exploit its huge energy potential plays an important role in solving these problems. That is hardly achievable without the formation of feedback between exports of energy resources and the projects aimed at changing the structure of the economy of Russia’s Asian regions. The authors believe that the currently observed rapid growth in demand for domestic primary energy resources in China and the Asia-Pacific Region as a whole should not be treated as a stable long-term trend and one should not be entirely guided by it when making and implementing longterm structural decisions. Also, in order to increase the stability of the energy complex of Russia’s Asian regions and Russian economy as a whole, it is necessary to develop projects based on the forward and backward linkages between various economic sectors and regions.

The article analyzes the issues of energy cooperation between Russia and China in connection with the ‘green transition’ in China, China reaching the peak level of emissions in 2030 and its transition to carbon neutrality by 2060. In the foreseeable future, the key area of energy cooperation between the two countries will be the gas sector, with natural gas is being considered as a ‘transitional’ fuel on the way from coal to renewable energy sources. The Chinese economy is actively moving to the use of gas in the energy and residential sectors. At the same time, considering the scale of the Chinese economy, coal will be in demand for a long time, since technological and economic reasons make it difficult to abandon this raw material quickly in favor of less carbon-intensive types of energy resources. Against this background, the Russian fuel and energy industry can avail of the contradictory trends in the energy sector of China – the existing desire for development with low-carbohydrate emissions and current significant volumes of coal generation. This creates a stable basis for the development of bilateral energy cooperation for the upcoming decades. Russia and China have different views on low-carbon development, which is dictated by the different role of energy resources in the economy of each country. China seeks self-sufficiency in supply and therefore purposefully follows the path of the ‘green transition’, while Russia proceeds from the relative duration of the era of non-renewable energy resources. For this reason, ‘green’ projects in Russia are still more related to environmental care within the framework of individual projects ‘on the ground’, and not with a systematic movement towards decarbonization of the energy industry

No abstract