Climate Change Discourse Analysis: Russian Case

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the Russian climate change discourse. Three major sectors were examined in this study: the Russian scientific school and the development of its understanding of climate change since the XIX century to the present day; the international dimensions and the involvement of the Russian Federation in the international climate change mitigation process facilitated by the Kyoto Protocol, and the media coverage of the climate change issues as seen by the newspapers: Vedomosti, Rossijskaya Gazeta and Kommersant. The dynamics in the climate change related articles was studied for the period of 2004-2008 and interesting co-occurrences were found with the important national and international climate change policy events. As a result of this study, an institutional structure of the climate change debate was portrayed using the media discourse analysis. Over 300 organizations taking part in the discourse in 2008 (of which 136 were Russian). The research highlighted 19 policy process categories, to which the articles were related; leading to 40 public debated categories related to the identified policy categories. The networks of organizations clustered around different climate change policy processes and public debates are presented in the international and Russian context. It is concluded that the most significant involvement of the Russian actors in the climate change policy debates in 2008 is observed in the government and science sectors, with the involvement of NGOs and the Media being much lower. The paper contains 18 figures and 7 tables and is accompanied by two Annexes. Annex 1 presents a structured list of organizations mentioned in the chosen newspapers in relation to climate change discussions, where organizations are grouped into international and Russian and according to the sector of society they represent. Annex 2 lists all organizations as they appear in the network diagrams (Fig. 15-18) with the respective ID numbers and website addresses for further enquiries.