International Science, Domestic Politics: Russian Reception of International Climate-Change Assessments

Abstract

After Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in 2004 the domestic debate over climate science cooled and the official discourse on the causes of climate change came somewhat closer to international consensus. This paper seeks to examine how these changes in Russian policy makers' publicly communicated understandings of climate science have been brought about by analyzing the reception of international scientific assessments of climate change in Russian domestic debate. The paper takes as its analytical point of departure the literature on epistemic communities, which suggests that scientists involved in assessment processes may act as agents of diffusion of international expert consensus in their ‘home’ states. The analytical heart of the paper is a case-study analysis based on interviews with Russian scientists who have participated in international climate assessment exercises. Findings indicate that Russian participants in the International Panel on Climate Change and the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment did not play a role as ‘informational entrepreneurs’ in deliberative processes leading to key decision-making moments, although they fulfilled other important functions at the national level. The paper concludes by arguing that stronger Russian adherence to international expert consensus was part of a ‘package deal’ of already well-established international-level political and ideational positions that Russia adopted after deciding to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Consequently, conceptualizations of expert knowledge diffusion need to account for a temporal dimension, as the mechanisms of diffusion and the nature of reception of international expert knowledge may vary according to whether the country in question has been at the vanguard of a policy issue (‘policy leader’) or somewhat more of a laggard (‘policy follower’).

Serving the public good: Empirical links between governance and research investment in the context of global environmental change

“…Lahsen (2009), for example, has documented the distrust with which wealthy-country climate science is regarded in Brazil; Biermann (2001) has shown that Global Environmental Assessments are regarded as having limited relevance within India, where local issues and concerns for international equity dominate researchers' and public officials' priorities; Wilson Rowe (2012) examined Russian attitudes toward the climate science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concluding that Russians did not accept this science because they were convinced by its reality but rather because they saw it as part of a package deal of commitments that followed on from signing the Kyoto Protocol. These brief mentions do not represent a comprehensive review of the literature available in this area.…”

The Energy of Russia

“…For Russian academia, it took a relatively long time to reach this majority consensus. Joining the consensus was linked to Russia's pivotal position 2 in climate negotiations that eventually led to the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in 2004(Wilson Rowe 2012. Five years later, in 2009, Russia adopted a policy document entitled 'Climate Doctrine' (Klimaticheskaya Doktrina Rossiiskoi Federatsii; see President of Russia 2009), which, due to its declarative and non-binding character, has been criticized by the Russian greens in particular as a soft power effort (Kokorin and Korppoo 2013).…”

Climate science, Russian politics, and the framing of climate change

“…The study, based on 17 interviews with Russian scientists involved in international assessment work (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and IPCC), found that Russian scientists do not play the role ascribed to them as informational entrepreneurs in the epistemic communities approach. 54 Rather than facilitating political change, international knowledge and the experts behind it gained a more prominent policy role and contact with political actors after key political decisions had been made. It is worth underlining that this change in the relative prominence accorded to international climate science exercises, like the IPCC assessments, occurred in the years immediately following ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.…”

“…In other words: the mechanisms of diffusion and the nature of reception of international expert knowledge may vary, depending on whether the country in question has been at the vanguard of a policy issue ('policy leader') or has been more of a laggard ('policy follower'). 54 Thus, it may be misleading to imagine that international expert knowledge (here: climate assessments produced through international cooperation) undergoes equally rigorous or at least similar processes of reception at the domestic level in all states before political action is taken. Perhaps Haas' vision of informational entrepreneurs may be more applicable to the activities of experts and their interaction with policymakers in the European and North American countries that took the lead in establishing climate change as an international policy field.…”