A Stakeholder Analysis of Climate Change Policies in Russia

Climate change has been recognised as an important policy issue that affects nature and socio-economic systems of all continents and oceans over the last few decades. In order to achieve the ambitious goal of ‘keeping a global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’ by the Paris Agreement agreed at COP 21 in 2015, formulation and implementation of climate change policies, especially mitigation ones to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been recently advanced all over the world. Russia, as one of the largest energy-resource rich countries and GHG emitters, has been also in the process of modernisation towards a low-carbon society, especially after the occurrence of global financial crisis in 2008-2009. Under this circumstance, the formulation and implementation of climate change policies have recently begun in earnest in Russia through its signature on and ratification of the Paris Agreement effective in 2016. These policies in Russia, however, often end in failure. In this context, this present paper firstly clarifies the current situation of climate change and its causes such as GHG and air pollutants emissions in Russia, followed by the critical consideration of previous studies on this global thematic issue. By revisiting the formulation and implementation process of Russian climate change policies with a special focus on its multi-stakeholders, this paper tries to explain why these policies are not materialised in Russia, that is, factors influencing on its policy failure. Throughout a series of analysis, it becomes clear in this paper that Russian environmental administration has been weakened whilst the government spending with environmental purposes on a downward trend in Russia after starting market transition in the 1990s. This paper also derives that institutional arrangements in the governmental committees enable Russian oil and gas companies to do lobbying for reflecting their interests on relevant policies. Besides, it becomes unveiled that residents and civil society organisations (CSOs), as one of representative protesters demanding policy reforms through social movements, have an insignificant influence on climate change policies in the case of Russia. This paper then concludes that these factors are crucial propositions given to Russian climate change policies to materialise its transition towards a low-carbon society as well as big challenges to be overcome for its future sustainable growth.