The main provisions of the Concept of Sustainable Development, formulated in 1992 at the conference in Rio de Janeiro, based on the economy – environment – society sustainability triad, are accepted as the basis for development by most countries. Over the past period, an institutional framework for sustainable development has been formed both at the international level and at the level of states. Reducing level of air pollution is one of the key tasks, solution of which is necessary to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals stated by the United Nations. Despite of adoption of the Concept of Transition to Sustainable Development in Russia back in 1996, focus on environmental component took a long time to be made. The article considers the stages of regulatory environment development aimed at ensuring sustainable development and reducing level of air pollution in Russia. It was revealed that a significant expansion of the regulatory and legal field in this area occurred only in 2017 – 2019. In many ways, this is due to Russia’s orientation towards achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals stated by the UN, and adoption of the national development goals of the Russian Federation. It was found that despite the use of such financial mechanisms as the state program of the Russian Federation “Environmental Protection” and the national project “Ecology” to achieve sustainability goals, the share of environmental protection expenditures in total expenditures of the federal budget in 2019 was only 1.3 %. At present, in twelve cities of the Russian Federation, level of air pollution is assessed as high and very high. In seven of them, ferrous metallurgy enterprises operate, which exert significant anthropogenic pressure on the environment.
On the trends of long-range air pollution in the territories of the Russian Federation in the 21st century
