Soviet Climate Change Science

Soviet Climate Change Science

Soviet Climate Change Science explores the character and range of Soviet contributions to the emerging understanding of large-scale anthropogenic climate change during the post-1945 period. More specifically, it examines the role of Soviet scientists in helping to shape the debate, both domestically and on the international stage, and with a particular focus on the period 1960s to the 1980s. The book details the institutional underpinnings of Soviet activity in this area, the main scientific debates evident within key centres of climate-related science and the activities of Soviet scientists with respect to a range of international collaborations such as the 1972 US-USSR Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection, the early work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Greenhouse Glasnost initiative, which included the world’s first teleconference on climate change. It concludes with a reflection on the extent to which Soviet scientific legacies continued to shape Russian approaches to climate change post-1991. This book will be of interest to those working on the historical and sociocultural aspects of climate change, providing the first detailed assessment of Soviet involvement in this critical area of scientific activity.

Climate Change Discourse in Russia

This book explores the development of climate change discourses in Russia. It contributes to the study of climate change as a cultural idea by developing the extensive Anglophone literature on environmental science, politics and policy pertaining to climate change in the West to consider how Russian discourses of climate change have developed. Drawing on contributors specialising in numerous periods, regions, disciplines and topics of study, the central thread of this book is the shared attempt to understand how environmental issues, particularly climate change, have been understood, investigated and conceptualised in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The chapters aim to complement work on the history of the discursive political construction of climate change in the West by examining a highly contrasting (but intimately related) cultural context. Russia remains one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters with one of the most carbon-intensive economies. As the world begins to suffer the extreme consequences of anthropogenic climate change, finding adequate solutions to global environmental problems necessitates the participation of all countries. Russia is a central actor in this global process and it, therefore, becomes increasingly important to understand climate change discourse in this region. Insights gained in this area may also be illuminating for examining environmental discourses in other resource rich regions of the world with alternative economic and political experiences to that of the West (e.g. China, Middle East). This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Russian environmental policy and politics, climate change discourses, environmental communication and environment and sustainability in general.

Negotiating the Terrain of Global Climate Change Policy in the Soviet Union and China