Must be the most tone deaf article I read in a while. Lots of people were starving in Russia in the ‘90s, for sure malnourished or dead people emit less carbon.
It is worth noting that this doesn't just look at things in the 90's, but goes all the way out to 2011
Still very rough years for Russia. Still as tone deaf as observing that since grandma has suddenly died the ecological footprint of the family greatly improved.
Michael Parenti points out in one of his lectures on YouTube that it was unfortunate that the Soviet Union bought into the idea that high meat consumption constitutes a "better" diet and began diverting large amounts of its agricultural output to feeding livestock.