Climate Denial Revisited : (Re)contextualising Russian Public Discourse on Climate Change during Putin 2.0

Abstract

In this paper we examine the recent public discourse on climate change in Russia, with a special focus on the arguments denying the anthropogenic climate change. We scrutinize the ways in which denial arguments presented in the public media are tied to the changing Russian political and economic context, especially the steeper authoritarian turn in governance during President Putin’s third term, or Putin 2.0, and discuss the implications that the context might have for Russia’s future climate policies. We conclude that discourse construction process emphasizes Russia’s sovereignty and fossil energy as the basis of Russia’s Great Power status, thus referring to strong categories such as national identity and spatial–material characteristics of the state.