RUSSIA’S CLIMATE DOCTRINE AS A REFLECTION OF DOMESTIC POLICY PRIORITIES

Abstract

The article examines the issue of the influence of foreign policy processes on domestic political decisions in the country. At the same time, the author shows how a number of countries use the climate agenda to lobby their own interests in the foreign political arena. Various pseudo-ecological organizations operating within the state and insisting on the unconditional implementation of certain international provisions related to solving the problem of climate change, even to the detriment of their own national interests, act as one of the tools for exerting pressure on other countries. At the same time, using the example of building a climate policy in Russia, the author analyzes the change in state priorities under the influence of various international factors. Thus, the article demonstrates that for a long time Russian climate policy has been shaped by the influence of Western guidelines and priorities. Nevertheless, after the events of 2014, as a result of the intensified ideological confrontation with the countries of Europe and the United States, Russia took a course to strengthen state sovereignty by asserting the priority of its own national interests, including ones within the framework of climate policy. In this aspect, the adoption of Russia's new Climate Doctrine is noted as a key moment, in which the unconditional priority of national interests over international obligations was indicated. As a result of the fact that Russia is still a participant in global climate policy and has a number of international obligations, the ideas of decarbonization have continued to play a significant role in domestic climate policy. However, a significant difference of the new Climate Doctrine was the inclusion of measures aimed at adapting to climate change in order to prevent negative climatic consequences, which can significantly reduce the amount of direct and indirect damage to the economy of our country. Thus, the article for the first time presents an analysis of the process of sovereignization of domestic political processes as a result of opposition to foreign policy pressure from unfriendly countries.

Keywords:

RUSSIAN CLIMATE DOCTRINE, DOMESTIC POLICY, NATIONAL INTERESTS