'Global warming is a fraud'- Vladimir Putin

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ussian President Vladimir Putin believes global warming is a “fraud” — a plot to keep Russia from using its vast oil and natural gas reserves.

Putin believes “there is no global warming, that this is a fraud to restrain the industrial development of several countries, including Russia,” Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst and Putin critic, told The New York Times.

“That is why this subject is not topical for the majority of the Russian mass media and society in general,” Belkovsky said.

Putin has been casting doubt on man-made global warming since the early 2000s, according to the Times. In 2003, Putin told an international climate conference that warming would allow Russians to “spend less on fur coats,” adding that “agricultural specialists say our grain production will increase, and thank God for that.”

Read Michael Bastasch’s story in the Cairns News - “Putin says global warming is a fraud”.