A great ecological power in global climate policy? Framing climate change as a policy problem in Russian public discussion

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A great ecological power in global climate policy? Framing climate change as a policy problem in Russian public discussion Nina Tynkkynen

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Department of Regional Studies , University of Tampere , Finland Published online: 30 Mar 2010.

To cite this article: Nina Tynkkynen (2010) A great ecological power in global climate policy? Framing climate change as a policy problem in Russian public discussion, Environmental Politics, 19:2, 179-195 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644010903574459

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Environmental Politics Vol. 19, No. 2, March 2010, 179–195

A great ecological power in global climate policy? Framing climate change as a policy problem in Russian public discussion Nina Tynkkynen*

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Department of Regional Studies, University of Tampere, Finland

The ways in which Russian public discussion translates climate change into a policy problem that identifies the phenomenon and defines a course of action are examined in order to shed light on the underlying structures of belief, perception and appreciation that shape Russian conduct toward global climate policy. The discussion distinguishes between three frames: the mission, national interest and duty. The mission frame defines climate policy as a means to improve Russia’s international image, while the national interest frame focuses on economic and political costs. Only the duty frame defines climate change as a problem that Russia must help solve. Despite these differences, a central premise of all three frames is the centuries-old idea of Russia as a Great Power with a special mission in the world. Keywords: climate policy; climate change; Russia; framing; environmental policy

Introduction Anthropogenic climate change is a complex, large-scale environmental problem likely to cause ever increasing ecological disruptions, including storms, floods and droughts, melting glaciers and falling harvests. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), most of the recent rise in average global temperature is very probably due to the increasing concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (IPCC 2007). The cornerstone of the regulation of climate change was established in the form of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Five years later, the parties agreed on an addition to the treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for future emissions by each industrialised country. These countries committed to reducing collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases by an average of at least 5% by 2012. The Kyoto protocol

*Email: nina.tynkkynen@uta.fi ISSN 0964-4016 print/ISSN 1743-8934 online Ó 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09644010903574459 http://www.informaworld.com

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also set the so-called flexibility mechanisms for how to make and measure the reductions (United Nations 2006). The Russian Federation signed the Kyoto Protocol along with other industrial states in 1997, but ratified it only in October 2004. (The Kyoto Protocol entered into force on 16 February 2005.) The Russian ratification was preceded by prolonged foot-dragging and speculation that started with the declaration of the United States’ withdrawal from the protocol in 2001. With the US outside the protocol, Russia was the only state with sufficient emissions to bring the protocol into effect. The decisive role of Russia in the enforcement of global climate policy gave it political leverage. For instance, Russia negotiated very benign terms for itself in relation to the compensation for carbon sinks,1 and, in exchange for the ratification, received the European Union’s support for its membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). For Russia, there were also clear economic incentives for participation. The protocol sets a zero reduction target for Russia, meaning that Russian emissions cannot exceed the level of 1990 between 2008 and 2012, the first commitment period of the agreement. In 1990, the Russian share was 17.4% of the emissions of the industrialised countries, whereas in 1999 the respective figure was only 6% (EIA 2003). This means that Russia could actually increase emissions, or sell its excess credits to other states within the protocol without violating the agreement. Experts of climate policy estimated that Russia could economically benefit about 10 billion dollars annually from the protocol through emission trading, joint investment projects and increased foreign investments (Kotov 2002). Before the ratification, some critical voices challenged these calculations by warning that the growth of Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP), on average 6–7% per year since 2000, would soon make the country exceed the emission levels. However, most economists doubted that Russia’s economy would grow quickly enough to exceed the 1990 emission levels by 2012. Moreover, they estimated that even if Russia experienced robust economic growth with a doubling of its GDP by 2012, it would still not reach its 1990 emission levels because of improved energy efficiency (Golub et al. 2004, p. 26, cited in Henry and McIntosh Sundstrom 2007, p. 51). Russia thus had both political and economic incentives for joining the protocol. Yet, according to Korppoo et al. (2006), these incentives do not seem to have been the main factor for the ratification. Instead, it seems that both the decision to ratify and the earlier delay in the ratification were primarily influenced by international incentives in other policy areas and by the concern for Russia’s image, rather than by the anticipated benefits from the protocol itself (Henry and McIntosh Sundstrom 2007). This article explores these wider incentives by examining how climate change as a policy problem is framed in Russian public discussion. The main task is to shed light on the way in which Russian newspaper articles translate climate change into a policy problem that identifies the phenomenon and defines a course of action. Through this examination, the article aims to shed light on the underlying structures of belief, perception and appreciation that

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shape the Russian conduct in global climate policy. Understanding these structures is significant for the persistence, expansion and effectiveness of climate policy objectives and, in particular, for future climate policy negotiations. The starting point of the article is that the Russian discussion over global climate policy in general, and over the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in particular, reflects fundamentally questions about the essence and manifestation of Russia as a Great Power. The idea of Russia as a Great Power, which implies that Russia has a special mission in the world, has for centuries guided the conduct of Russia in global affairs. It has appeared in different forms in different times, ranging from imperialist and expansionist ideas to spiritual and cultural ones (e.g. Berdyaev 1918, McDaniel 1996, Hosking 1997). This article will demonstrate how Russian public discussion about the Kyoto protocol starts from the premise that Russia is a Great Power, even a Great Ecological Power whose greatness is based on its natural resources and ‘ecological potential’. The article proceeds as follows. First, because the idea is central for an understanding of Russia’s position on climate policy, the variations on the idea of Russia as a Great Power are discussed. Second, the material and methods used in the study are explicated. Third, the main themes defining the discussion of Kyoto in the Russian public sphere are identified. Fourth, the frames that define climate change as a policy problem are introduced. Finally, the article concludes by discussing the implications of this framing for Russian environmental politics in general, and future climate policies in particular. Russia, a great ecological power? The roots of the Great Power ideology stem from the sixteenth century myth of the ‘third Rome’. The Muscovites believed they were a chosen nation and had a special role in world politics. This role made Russia a Great Power – velikaya derzhava in Russian. In the nineteenth century, Russian philosophers such as Nikolai Berdyaev and Fedor Dostoevskii believed that the Russian mission in the world was first and foremost a cultural and spiritual one. Despite the spiritual origin, geography and the expansive territory played a crucial role in the formation of the Russian national consciousness and the ideology of Great Power (McDaniel 1996, Hosking 1997). Up to the end of the Cold War, geopolitics formed the core of this greatness. Russia emerged from the Cold War as no more than another Eurasian country. This new geopolitical situation opened up new forms of regional and global cooperation which formerly had been outside the scope of interaction. The change challenged the geopolitically biased ideology of Great Power by raising fundamental questions about Russia’s role in the world and its national identity. Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘New Thinking’ paradigm (see Gorbachev 1988) was one attempt to reformulate the essence of Great Power. The paradigm included the idea that the status and power of a state are determined by

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qualitative indicators and the use of military power. According to this paradigm, geopolitical expansionism and empire-building were outdated forms of international conduct (Adomeit 1995, p. 42). Russia was seen as a new model for a Great Power that was concerned with global problems, for example environmental and nuclear security, and could cooperate with the global community on these issues (Crow 1992, pp. 45–40). These liberal-democratic ideas were challenged by a national-patriotic view as too vague and pro-Western (Crow 1992, pp. 45–50). National-patriots stressed the primacy of national interests in a ‘realist’ world where foreign policy was determined by the power of states (Sakwa 1996, p. 291). Adomeit (1995, p. 57) attributes this return to geopolitics to the failures of Russian economic development which undermined the foundation of new policies, and to the reassertion of the power of certain institutions from the Soviet period. These institutions included the armed forces, the military-industrial complex, the gas and oil lobby, the collective farms and the KGB. The geopolitically biased, national-patriotic ideology of Great Power strengthened during the presidency of Vladimir Putin, who insisted that Russia should restore its status as velikaya derzhava (Anikin 2002, p. 4). This process has in recent years been strengthened as former employees of the military and security service have infiltrated the most important posts in the administration. In 2002, their number in the administrative elite was almost 10 times higher than in 1988 (Novaya Gazeta 2003). Their policies can be defined by a few articulate slogans, such as ‘strengthening the Russian state’ and ‘dictatorship of the law’ (Glinski Vassiliev 2000). The idea of Great Power is also strongly supported by the Russian public. A study conducted by the Institute of Complex Social Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences shows that during 1998–2004 the number of Russian citizens believing that the main national objective is ‘to become a Great Power of the twenty-first century’ doubled. Furthermore, 41% of the respondents share the opinion about the divine nature of the supreme authorities and say that good leaders are more important than good laws (Ilyichev 2004). Over the past decade, Russian attempts to restore its status as a Great Power have also relied on its natural resources. Anikin (2002, p. 314, transl. by the author) notes that ‘despite all the disturbances in recent years, Russia remains a Great Power because its potential of natural resources is about two times the potential of the US, about 5–6 times that of Germany, and about 18– 20 times that of Japan. This is one part of our idea of Great Russia’. Moreover, Russian politicians and scholars eagerly emphasise that in global environmental politics Russia demonstrates ‘ecological potential’ (a source of environmental solutions) rather than a source of environmental problems (see Mokrousov and Kudeyarov 1997, Gorshkov et al. 2000, Klyuev 2002, Kontratev et al. 2003, Oldfield et al. 2003). The eminent scientist, Klyuev (2002, p. 5) from the Geographical Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences introduced the idea of Russia as a ‘Great Ecological Power’ (ekologicheskaya derzhava) to capture this idea. ‘The Russian Federation is

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the leading ecological power, whose environment determines the ecological future of our planet’, writes Klyuev. Similarly, a group of Russian geographers has asserted that in addition to domestic emissions, Russian natural ecosystems – pristine forests – absorb 300 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from other countries.2 Therefore, these geographers suggest, Russia should more actively strive for the creation of a global compensation system for these ‘services’, which are significant for the prevention of global climate change (Kontratev et al. 2003, pp. 12–13; see also Tynkkynen 2005). In sum, the idea of Russia as a Great Ecological Power infused discussions about the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and climate change more generally. But the Great Power idea has taken several different, often competing forms. The next sections explain how analysis of these discussions was carried out and with what results. Material and methods The material The empirical data of the study consist of newspaper articles from the five most popular daily newspapers in Russia: Kommersant, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Izvestiya, Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Moskovskii Komsomolets. All these newspapers are based in Moscow. Detailed information about the newspapers is presented in Table 1. Although television is the most dominant medium in today’s Russia, newspaper circulation has begun to recover to some extent, with recent figures showing that just over 100 newspapers are sold in Russia for every 1000 inhabitants (one-third of the figure in the United Kingdom) (BBC News 2006). Analysing the Russian media is challenging. In principle, the right to information is legally guaranteed, censorship is forbidden, and ‘state secrets’ are limited by law. In practice, however, the Russian media operate in a ‘neoSoviet fashion’, as Oates (2007) notes. Self-censorship, government interference, and lack of access to information are much-quoted problems by journalists and citizens alike. According to a survey conducted by the Russian Union of Journalists between 2005 and 2006, more than 80% of the Russian journalists faced different forms of censorship in their everyday work, and almost all admitted to self-censorship in their writing and broadcasting (Yakovenko 2006, cited in Azhgikhina 2007, p. 1259). There is little deviation from the Kremlin line, as the presidential apparatus has consolidated power to a large extent (Oates 2007, p. 1288). Moreover, many Russian pro-Kyoto activists estimate that 80% of the news coverage on the Kyoto protocol was either negative or incorrect (see Henry and McIntosh Sundstrom 2007, p. 53). On the other hand, Azhgikhina (2007) from the Russian Union of Journalists notes that the media’s status in contemporary Russia is not as simple as usually described but rather contains different trends and forces. My analysis uncovers some of those differences. Moreover, this analysis is interested less in accuracy of news reports and more in how discussion was

184 Table 1.

N. Tynkkynen Information about the studied newspapers.

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Name

Founded

Circulation

Owner

Kommersant

1989

86,000 (2006)

Nezavisimaya Gazeta Izvestiya Rossiskaya Gazeta Moskovskii Komsomolets

1990

27,000 (2004)

1917 1990

246,000 (2004) 374,000

Alisher Ushmanov (steel tycoon, runs a subsidiary of Gazprom) Konstantin Remtschukov (assistant to Trade Minister German Gref) Gazprom-Media Russian Government

1919

800,000

Pavel Gusev (supports Moscow’s long-serving mayor Yuri Luzhkov)

Source: BBC News 7 December 2006; The Russian National Circulation Service (http://www. pressaudit.ru)

framed and what these frames may reflect. Thus, despite the ambivalent status of the Russian media, important insights can be gleaned from its analysis. I chose newspaper articles as the basic material for the study for practical reasons. It was easier to both gather and analyse texts than audiovisual material. Moreover, the examination of newspapers gives a rich overview on what the wider audience knows, thinks and says about climate change. All articles (including letters to the editor and all other material) that discussed global climate policy between 2000 and 2004, altogether 394 pieces, were gathered (Kommersant featured 119 articles, Rossiiskaya Gazeta 113, Izvestiya 91, Nezavisimaya Gazeta 54 and Moskovskii Komsomolets 17). I started the examination in the year 2001 (the US withdrawal) and finished at the end of 2004 (when the decision over Russia’s ratification was reached). To gather the articles systematically, I used the database ‘Integrum’, which is a large electronic archive of Russian documents containing, inter alia, diverse material from Russian central and regional mass media. The newspapers studied differ relatively little in style or content of their articles which discuss global climate policy. I noticed that the Izvestiya writes in the most positive tone about global climate policy, whereas Rossiiskaya Gazeta is the most negative towards it, especially in 2004. The newspapers Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Nezavisimaya Gazeta include a varied supply of interviews and articles written by foreign and domestic policy experts; in Nezavisimaya Gazeta as much as 11 articles out of the 54 are written by foreign experts. Instead, Kommersant adheres to journalists’ reports. Moskovskii Komsomolets, which is the biggest newspaper in Russia by circulation, surprisingly contains only 17 articles that mention global climate policy during 2000–2004. Methods To begin with I classified the articles according to their primary topics using inductive content analysis. The content analysis offered a basic outline of the

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data, actors and most important themes. The classification, described in the section that follows, formed the basis for further frame analysis. The article thus distinguishes content analysis, which identifies the codes of what the speaker thinks about an issue, from frame analysis, which interprets deeper cultural patterns (Donati 1992, p. 153). After conducting the content analysis, I applied frame analysis to understand the construction of policy problems in policy studies (see Scho¨n and Rein 1994). According to Laws and Rein (2003, p. 174), frames translate an uncertain, problematic or controversial situation into a policy problem that identifies the phenomenon and implies a course of action. Policy positions rest on diverse frames, that is, diverse underlying structures of belief, perception and appreciation. In order to reflect on the conflicting frames that underlie policy controversies, we must become aware of them. In other words, we must reconstruct them either from the texts or routines that make up policy practice. Scho¨n and Rein (1994, p. 36) point out that frame construction is difficult because the analysts who reconstruct the frame do not do so from a position of unassailable frame-neutrality but, often unconsciously, bring their own frames to the enterprise. Bearing this difficulty in mind I used open coding to identify the frames. I coded both diagnoses of climate change which identify it as a policy problem and prognoses which suggest policy resolutions for it, thus following the idea of Snow and Robert (1988) on diagnostic and prognostic framing. Diagnostic framing indicates the main characteristics of the problem and the attribution of blame. Prognostic framing, in turn, indicates the suggested solution and strategy, as well as the reason to act. Analysing diagnostic and prognostic frames is significant because the analysis emphasises the dialectic relationship between the definition of problems and their solutions, and the association of these definitions with the practice of actors. In addition to diagnoses and prognoses, I looked for moral claims, slogans and metaphors used in the Russian discussion of climate policy. In the case, diagnoses, prognoses, moral claims, slogans and metaphors can be roughly categorised into three groups forming the three frames of the discussion. However, it is worth mentioning that these three frames represent ideal types which overlap to some extent. Discussion of the Kyoto protocol in Russian newspapers – main themes I classified the articles according to their primary topics. This classification resulted in five categories presented in Table 2. The primary topics are international relations, environmental politics, domestic politics and economy, natural sciences and other. I counted some of the articles in more than one category since their main topic was sometimes difficult to distinguish. The majority of the articles report an event, for example an international meeting, and mention climate policy in addition to the key event. Table 2 illustrates that in about one-third of all the articles the main topic is international relations. These articles deal with global climate policy in

186 Table 2.

N. Tynkkynen The primary topics of the articles.

Primary topic

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International relations Environmental politics Domestic politics or economy Natural sciences Other

% of all articles 31 30 24 9 6

connection with Russia’s position in world politics and its relations with other states. During the first 3 years, the key topic is the United States, especially the relations between the US and Russia, the evaluation of the policies of George W. Bush, the withdrawal of the US from the Kyoto Protocol, and comparisons between US and Russian efforts to combat climate change. But by 2003 the emphasis had changed from the US to the European Union. As Rossiiskaya Gazeta (4 November 2003) puts it, ‘Russia gets a ‘new lover’, the European Union’. During 2000–2002, only 7% of the articles discuss global climate policy from the point of view of the EU and Russia relations, whereas in 2003 the corresponding figure is 18 (in 2004 as high as 32). The shift towards the EU can be explained by its role as the most active advocate of the protocol, and also by the actualisation of several issues related to the EU and Russia in 2003: the EU enlargement, the new Partnership and Co-operation Agreement (PCA) between the EU and Russia, the Kaliningrad question and Russia’s participation in the WTO. These issues are often mentioned in relation to climate policy. Another important topic is, unsurprisingly, environmental politics: pollution, natural resources and international environmental policy. Interestingly, before the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in summer 2002, global climate policy was discussed rather neutrally, and Russia’s participation in the Kyoto protocol treated as an obvious fact. The underlying idea was that the Russian participation in global climate policy is, first and foremost, environmentally motivated. After Johannesburg and the withdrawal of the US from the protocol, however, other motivations dominated the discussion. These included calculations about whether or not joining the Kyoto protocol would be economically beneficial to Russia, and elaborations on the relation between Russia’s economic growth and the (possible) ratification of the protocol. Articles containing economic calculations were devoted to the rhetoric of ‘national interest’. Finally, in less than 10% of all the articles the main or one of the main topics is natural sciences. These articles usually analysed the possible impact of climate change on Russian nature.3 Speculations about the advantages and disadvantages of Russian participation in Kyoto continued until the end of September 2004, when the newspapers

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announced that the next day the Russian president would send the Kyoto protocol to the parliament for ratification. After the prompt ratification process, opponents of the protocol bitterly note that the ratification was a political imperative and Russia made a trade-off with the EU: in exchange for Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto protocol, the EU supported its WTO membership.

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Framing climate change as a policy problem The three frames distinguished in this discussion are ‘mission’, ‘national interest’ and ‘duty’. Table 3 summarises these three frames. It appears that none of these frames significantly dominates the others, although their strength and support vary from time to time. The mission frame According to the diagnosis of the mission frame, climate change is an important policy problem mainly because it helps Russia to carry out its special mission in the world. Within this frame, climate change as an ecological problem remains rather vaguely defined. Also, the blame for the problem is implicitly attributed. It is emphasised that Russia is not part of the problem but, with its forest resources, part of the solution. Besides Russia’s ecological potential, the mission frame underlines the significant decline in Russia’s emissions during the 1990s: ‘Russia is obediently fulfilling its environmental commitments. For instance, we have managed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-third in 10 years. That is about 60% of the total decline in the world’ (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 4 September 2002). Because of Russia’s ecological reserves and declined emissions, the mission frame presents Russia as a model for an environmentally advanced country. Participation in global climate policy is therefore seen as a way to enhance Russia’s image in world politics. The mission frame was thus strongly in favour of ratification of the Kyoto protocol. Joining global climate policy is crucial for the Russian image as a Great Power now that its status as a Great Power is no longer based on military power: ‘If [Russia] signs the protocol, it becomes the political leader in preventing the climate catastrophe’ (Kommersant, 17 May 2001). A similar sentiment was expressed in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta (11 February 2004) ‘To shoot down the Kyoto is to say goodbye to multipolarity, to voluntarily abandon the arena of global politics where Russia could still play a leading role.’ The moral claims of the mission frame include the juxtaposition between ‘the bad US’ and ‘good Russia’. The withdrawal of the US from the protocol is condemned and the US is presented as an evil anti-environmental country. For instance, the Rossiskaya Gazeta asserted that ‘The US is the leading polluter in the world.’ (10 April 2001). And the Izvestiya claimed ‘It is a bad joke that the

Russia is a global do-gooder, the US a wrongdoer.

Ecological leader, ecological donor (metaphors of Russia)

‘Russia is the de facto ecological leader, so why not also the de jure leader?’ Some politicians, scholars, foreign partners

Moral claims, examples

Metaphors used, examples

Example slogans

Promoters

Prognosis

Climate change is a political, rather than an environmental problem (for Russia). Russia is not part of the problem. Climate policy is important for political reasons. Russia has already done what is needed and offers ecological services for others.

‘The Mission Frame’

The frames of the discussion.

Diagnosis

Table 3.

‘The Kyoto Protocol does not meet the Russian national interests and has a discriminatory nature.’ Andrei Illarionov, Jurii Izrael, some other politicians

Auschwitz, Gulag, Marxism, war, ghetto, boa, Trojan horse (metaphors of the Kyoto Protocol)

The Kyoto protocol is an important first step, but wider cooperation is needed in future.

Climate policy is not about the environment. Kyoto Protocol lacks scientific basis. Russia should join the Kyoto Protocol only if it brings significant benefit. Russia has the right not to ratify. The EU discriminates Russia with the protocol

Mikhail Gorbachev, Viktor DanilovDaniljan, environmentalists

Russia and the US are the ‘bad guys’ because they delay the implementation of global climate policy. Global soldier (metaphor of the Kyoto Protocol); Bush, US (examples of undesirable behaviour) ‘In the end the whole planet will lose.’

Climate change is a real problem threatening the well-being of all humanity.

‘The Duty Frame’

Climate change is not necessarily human-induced. Climate change has positive effects in Russia.

‘The National Interest Frame’

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US, the biggest polluter in the world, does not want to fight the climate change alongside other countries but has abandoned the protocol.’ (30 September 2004). Correspondingly, countries with a positive attitude towards global climate policy are presented as Russia’s friends within the mission frame. Relations with these friends are, however, assessed in relation to leaderships, ascendancies and hierarchies. The most popular metaphors in the mission frame are those of the ecological donor and ecological leader. Both metaphors were used to describe Russia’s role in the global arena. The slogans of the frame emphasise both Russia’s decisive role in this situation and its supremacy in environmental management: ‘Russia is the de facto leader in preserving natural resources. Why not become the de jure leader?’ (A. Panfilov, the leader of the ecological party ‘Zelenye’, Moskovskii Romsomolets 16 April 2004). Or, from the Kommersant – ‘Only our air is clean.’ (17 May 2001). The main promoters of this frame are those Russian politicians attempting to convince the Russian public of the importance of the ratification of the protocol, and some other influential Russian figures appealing to the public’s sense of generosity. In addition, the mission frame is also supported by certain scientists highlighting Russians ecological potential. Interestingly, this frame was also used by foreign actors such as the EU’s Commissioner of the Environment. The national interest frame The diagnosis of the national interest frame is based on the argument that the Kyoto Protocol ‘lacks scientific validity’. A group of Russian scholars, especially Jurii Izrael, the director of the Global Climate and Ecology Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, dispute the claim that anthropogenic emissions increase the greenhouse effect. Some promoters of the national interest frame admit the human impact but claim that the current measures of climate policy are not radical enough to bring any improvement, or insist climate change will in fact have positive effects on Russia.4 Thus, for those adopting this frame the Kyoto protocol had lost its environmental nature and changed into a political and economic issue. The prognosis of the national interest frame draws on the notion that, as the protocol lacks scientific validity, Russia should join global climate policy only if it meets the national interests of the Great Power and carries significant political and/or economic benefits. Under the national interest frame the global climate policy is discussed in a rather negative light. The basic assumption is that climate policy is discriminatory against Russia because it does not take into consideration Russia’s need to develop and grow economically. It is assumed that Russia’s commitment to global climate policy would harm the development of domestic environmental technology, because joint investment projects as a flexibility mechanism set in the Kyoto Protocol would import technologies from other countries to Russia. In addition, several articles noted

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that the EU and Japan have decided to buy emission quotas primarily from other countries, not from Russia. The most extreme comments treated the Kyoto Protocol and other environmental agreements as an attempt to undermine Russian power or even as an undeclared war of the West against Russia. For instance, Kyotos’ ambitions ‘can be characterised as an aspiration of the Western counterpart to take certain sectors of the Russian economy under control, to get access to strategic, economic and environmental information, and to use it to downplay Russia in the eyes of the global society. Environmental protection is used here as a cover.’ (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 2 June 2000). The national interest frame contains many moral claims. The first claim is that the protocol denies Russia its right to development. Second, articles adopting this frame assert that since Russia is not among the worst polluters, it should be exempted from any payment included in the protocol (e.g. Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 20 February 2004). In contrast to the ‘mission’ frame, the national interest frame depicts the European Union as an enemy. It is claimed that the ‘deceitful capitalists’ ignore the emission decline already achieved by Russia and downplay the importance of Russian carbon sinks (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 26 October 2000). According to this frame, the EU threatened Russia with a cooling of bilateral relations unless Russia ratification was forthcoming. In contrast, the US is a fellow sufferer in the frame. The legitimising of Russia’s possible withdrawal from the protocol is sought from the similar behaviour of the US: if the US does not ratify, why should Russia, with less emissions, do so? (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 5 June 2003). The national interest frame contains many metaphors, mainly because one of the principal promoters of the frame is Andrei Illarionov, the president’s (now former) economic aide, who is famous for his colourful use of language. Within the frame, the Kyoto protocol is referred to as Auschwitz, Gulag, Gosplan, national socialism, Marxism, undeclared war, ghetto, boa, Trojan horse, and the holy cow of the EU, to name but a few metaphors. Along with Illarionov, some politicians and scholars of the Russian Academy of Sciences, such as Jurii Izrael, promote this frame. The conclusion of the report by the Russian Academy of Sciences illustrates a key slogan of the frame: ‘The Kyoto Protocol does not meet the interests of Russia and its demands are discriminatory by nature.’ (Izvestiya, 18 May 2004). The duty frame According to the diagnosis of the duty frame, global climate change is a very serious problem and needs to be tackled urgently. Climate change is considered a problem with many uncertainties. Russia should immediately join the Kyoto protocol, without further speculation on its possible political and economic benefits or costs. Within the duty frame, it is emphasised that national activities

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alone are not enough for fighting climate change but rather cooperation between all countries is needed. This idea is not only confined to climate change but also linked to the environmental politics in general: ‘We repeat: above all, [the Kyoto Protocol] is an important step towards the creation of mechanisms of international cooperation. It unites individual efforts to alleviate climate change.’ (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 27 July 2001). In the duty frame, economic benefits should not be the main reason for Russia’s participation but such benefits are nonetheless highlighted. Climate policy will bring economic benefits to Russia by facilitating the qualitative growth of the economy by improved energy efficiency and by improved quality of production. It is pointed out that the conditions of the Kyoto protocol are actually much lighter for Russia than for any other country (e.g. the Izvestiya 30 Oct.2004). Similarly, here is a newspaper quote from Viktor DanilovDanilyan, former Minister of the Environment: ‘We need to ratify the protocol because it creates an extremely beneficial investment climate in Russia. The main point is not emission trading as some wish to underline, but technological modernisation. This is extremely important for Russia; only idiots pretend that we could increase the production of steel . . . Our airplanes and cars are no longer released into the global market because they do not meet the environmental requirements.’ (quoted in Moskovskii Komsomolets 6 Oct. 2003).

At the same time, those adopting this frame often accuse Russia of forgetting the environmental aspect of climate policy. Russia is reminded that it is one of the heaviest polluted countries in the world. Figures are then presented to support this claim: ‘[A]ccording to Russian scientists, 40,000 people die annually of air pollution – more than from car accidents. Up to 14–17 per cent of the illnesses of the Russians are more or less linked to the degradation of the environment.’ (Moskovskii Komsomolets, 15 November 2004). The moral claims of the duty frame concern mainly the actions of Russia, which is accused of delaying the ratification. Russia and the US are considered the traitors of the global community and the ‘bad guys’ of climate policy. The Kyoto protocol, in turn, is described as a soldier that unites the whole world. The slogans of the frame are crystallised in the following: ‘In the end the whole planet will lose.’ (V. Voronin, scholar in the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN), Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 7 May 2003). The promoters of the duty frame are environmental activists such as Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, the former Minister of the Environment, Aleksandr Bedritskii, the Head of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet), Mikhail Gorbachev, and some other politicians. Initially, the frame was adopted primarily by environmentalists who genuinely think Russia should take more responsibility in global climate policy and environmental policy in general. But after the Russian ratification of the Kyoto protocol, the frame was used by politicians more as a rhetorical tool to explain why Russia ratified the protocol.

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Discussion and conclusion I have noted that political and economic incentives – but also concern for Russia’s international image – have been the main factors behind Russia’s decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Describing the frames in the preceding section, I demonstrated how all three frames draw on the premise that Russia is a Great Power, even a Great Ecological Power. The three frames present climate policy as a mission, an issue of national interest, or a duty of the Great Power. The frames contain different standpoints regarding what makes or should make Russia ‘great’ in this respect: its environmental supremacy, economic status or the way it fills it duties for its own citizens and for the rest of the world. These depictions have policy implications for Russia and its partners. The duty frame, calling for Russia’s participation in global climate policy because it is the moral responsibility of industrialised countries, conforms to liberal-democratic views on Russian politics that were dominant in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By contrast, the mission and national interest frames reflect Russia’s recent return to the geopolitically biased, national-patriotic ideology of Great Power (see Hedenskog et al. 2005) and reveal a tendency to look for the basis of the Russian greatness in its reserves of natural resources. In both the mission and national interest frames Russia is presented more as a ‘do-gooder’ than a ‘bad guy’ in global environmental politics. These frames emphasise that, in addition to its ecological reserves and potentials, Russia has already fulfilled its duties in emission cuts. Thus, Russia joined the Kyoto protocol mainly in order to improve its own international image and gain political or economic leverage. This framing tendency in public discourse is also widely found in the academic literature. For instance, V. Pisarev from the Institute for the US and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences argues that although international environmental policy is dangerous for Russian sovereignty, Russia cannot step aside from this cooperation, because ‘it would harm the possibility of the maximal utilisation of the international policy on sustainable development’ (Pisarev 1999, p. 3). The mission frame illustrates what its proponents see Russia’s superior approach to international environmental politics. The newly invented idea that Russia is a Great Ecological Power whose greatness is based on ecological potential, nourishes the notion that Russia is superior to other countries and therefore not responsible for action. This depiction demonstrates a relatively limited concern for placing environmental issues high on the agenda of the Great Power. Moreover the positive environmental image projected onto the international stage contrast with the corresponding effectiveness of prevailing domestic policies. For instance Oldfield (2005, p. 136) notes that the actions taken by the Russian government in the areas of natural resource appropriation seem increasingly utilitarian, and environmental functions within the administrative structure

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have gradually been downgraded. In 2000, for example, the responsibilities of the independent Federal State Committee for Environmental Protection (Goskomekologiya) were rolled over to the State Environmental Protection Service in the Ministry of Natural Resources. Since that merger there has existed a direct conflict of interests within the Ministry, whose principal responsibility is the selling of licenses to companies seeking to develop the exploitation of natural resources (see Peterson and Bielke 2001, p. 66 and pp. 70–71). The article’s analysis has also suggested that foreign partners are tempted by the rhetoric of Russian ‘ecological greatness’. Rather than pointing to environmental degradation or appealing to Russia’s global duty, the EU in particular has induced Russia to participate in the protocol by emphasising Russia’s rich natural resources and benefits to be gained from their prudent use. Accordingly, there is a danger that Russia will be treated with kid gloves in international environmental politics, as some claim has happened in the area of human rights (especially concerning Chechnya). The EU remains dependent on energy imports from Russia and thus treads carefully. As with human rights issues, it may turn out that the EU’s tactics will embolden Russia to conduct controversial environmentally degrading policies especially on its domestic stage. Instead, Russia’s foreign partners should engage in a more thoroughgoing discussion with Russia about the responsibilities and interests of the Great Power. Such a discussion could encourage the reframing of climate policy and environmental policy at large, in a manner that would shake the status quo and contribute to the design of more prominent environmental policies (cf. Laws and Rein 2003, p. 204). This kind of debate is particularly important for successful negotiations of post-Kyoto climate policy. The sustainability of the ‘ecological greatness’ of Russia is best secured by encouraging Russian participation on the basis of ‘duty’, not by giving it a free ride. Acknowledgements The author expresses her gratitude to professors Yrjo¨ Haila (University of Tampere) and Monica Tennberg (University of Lapland) for their comments and support. The research was funded by the Department of Regional Studies at the University of Tampere, the Finnish Graduate School for Russian and East European Studies, and the Emil Aaltonen Foundation.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

Each year hundreds of billions of tons of carbon in the form of CO2 are absorbed by oceans, soils, and trees that are natural sinks of carbon. The total emissions of the world in 2001 were 23,899 million metric tons (EIA 2003). Chestin and Colloff (eds. 2008) offer a detailed analysis of the environmental, economic and social impacts of climate change on Russia. Similar arguments have been presented in the US. In many respects, the Russian and US discussion about global climate policy has followed a congruent path (see e.g. Lacy 2005, pp. 90–123 in particular).

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