UN Accused of 'Greenwashing' Sochi

By Roland Oliphant

Sochi is looking less and less green
in the eyes of environmental groups.

Environmentalists have accused the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee of obstructing access to representatives of the United Nations Environment Program, or UNEP, during their annual inspection of Sochi Olympic construction projects this past weekend.

Environment Watch North Caucasus, the main green pressure group in the region campaigning against the adverse environmental impact of Olympic construction projects, met with four delegates from the UNEP's Sochi group Sunday evening.

“We met with four experts from the UNEP,” said Suren Gazaryan, a spokesman for Environment Watch who was at the meeting, “but the organizing committee, which arranged the visit, did all it could to delay and limit the amount of time we spent with them,” including delaying announcing the meeting till the very last minute and timing it for the end of the last day of the delegations' visit.

Greenpeace Russia and the WWF boycotted the UNEP visit amid concerns that the inspections have become part of a so-called “greenwash” of the controversial project.

Greens Fear Arctic Disaster

By Roland Oliphant

Burning oil near the site of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico would be even more of a disaster in the Arctic.

Russian environmentalists will appeal to BP and Rosneft shareholders to thwart the companies' plans to drill for oil in a remote part of the Arctic, amid concerns that a spill in the icebound sea could be unreachable for up to nine months.

The Politics and Business of Going Green

By Roland Oliphant

Abandoned infrastructure from an oil field littering the permanently frozen ground of the Yamal Peninsula in 2008.

This year will see increasingly politicized environmental movements sprouting up around local issues, and an alliance between green groups and businessmen to open up Russia's potential in renewable energy — provided there are no more fires.