> The obvious solution would be to require companies to buy emission certificates for those emissions
Reality check: The companies the article talks about are in Russia and Turkmenistan. How would you impose these emission certificate regulations without invading them and/or toppling their governments?
Trade agreements conditioned on acceptance and economic sanctions and embargos if not. It's an economic measure you want, you obviously can motivate them economically.
a) Ask them whether they want to participate in the scheme to ensure the actual emitters pay their fair share.
b) If they decline, allocate the emissions from these sources to the products the country exports and impose import duties that correspond to (or exceed) what the certificates would cost.
Your comment reflects a strange perspective, as if the community to which you're talking is only from a single place and somehow excludes Russia/Turkmenistan/US/whatever. That's not the case, HN is an international forum.
These laws need to be implemented in each country.
This is already getting coverage in Russian media.
Your assumption that our politicians need a lot of influencing to care about this is probably wrong, especially since these leaks lead to financial losses.
I'd be more surprised if the US did something about it than Russia, to be honest.
Reality check: The companies the article talks about are in Russia and Turkmenistan. How would you impose these emission certificate regulations without invading them and/or toppling their governments?