Russia’s climate policy in an era of pandemic and war: weathering disruption

2025/03/20 by Laura A. Henry, Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom · 1 voice · 1 citation
Energy · Social Sciences · #Arctic and Russian Policy Studies #Global Energy Security and Policy #Russia and Soviet political economy

paper · doi:10.1080/09644016.2025.2471688

openalex publication_date 2025/03/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15

Abstract

Despite the crises of the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government’s largely interest-based approach to climate change continues to be shaped by short-term thinking about economic advantage and great-power status. Policymaking is channeled through a narrow decision-making selectorate in Russia’s authoritarian system. A potential window of opportunity for more ambitious climate policy at the start of the pandemic failed to produce a critical juncture due to its short-term nature and economic interests of institutionally empowered actors. The war has exaggerated unfavorable conditions for any serious government effort to address climate change in three ways: 1) intensifying elite interest in fossil fuel extraction; 2) consolidating an ideological view of great-power status opposed to the current international order; and 3) prompting further institutional narrowing of voices contributing to policy. Yet surprisingly, the Russian government continues to incrementally develop its climate policy, at least at a rhetorical level.

Citations

• The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism
• The Causal Logic of Critical Junctures
• Climate policymaking in an autocracy: the case of Russia’s law on GHG emissions

Cited by

• Climate policy in an era of disruption: the impact of COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine on the United States, Russia, Canada and the European Union

Discussions

• New article! Russia’s climate policy in an era of pandemic and war: weathering disruption, by Laura A. Henry & @lisasundstrom.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1080/0964... [bsky, 6 points, 1 comments]

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