Russia and the Kyoto Protocol: Seeking an Alignment of Interests and Image

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Henry ◽  
Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom

On November 5, 2004, the Russian Federation ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, effectively saving the treaty. Battling domestic interests, in which a majority of pro-Kyoto voices were countered by a small but powerful minority of Kyoto opponents, had little influence on the decision due to the centralized institutional environment in Russia which allows the President great autonomy in foreign policy. President Putin ratified the treaty because Russia would likely gain leverage in other international negotiations and contribute to an image of itself as a good member of the club of advanced industrialized states. He delayed ratification to clarify evidence about gains versus losses from Kyoto provisions and to secure concessions from other Kyoto ratifiers in other international negotiations. Existing implementation efforts are slow but indicate that Russia's strategy will emphasize maximizing profits through treaty mechanisms over maximizing emissions reductions.

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 387-408
Author(s):  
Christopher Kurt Kiessling

Abstract Since the emergence of the environmental agenda in the global arena, Brazil has maintained an active position in the debates around this topic. Although Brazil has always been a protagonist, its foreign policy has shown some changes in relation to addressing climate change in recent years. Likewise, the modalities under which this issue has been framed as a problem since 1992 are fundamentally important to interpreting the Brazilian position in international negotiations and the changes in them over the years. The objective of the following article is to understand the discursive framework on which the foreign policy of climate change in Brazil was structured from a constructivist standpoint on International Relations. Using this approach, this article studies both the international influences and the internal conditions of Brazilian climate policy in the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The main sources of this research are semi-structured interviews with state and non-state actors in Brazil, complemented with a review of secondary sources such as official documents and academic papers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 343-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Kuyper ◽  
Heike Schroeder ◽  
Björn-Ola Linnér

This article takes stock of the evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) through the prism of three recent shifts: the move away from targeting industrial country emissions in a legally binding manner under the Kyoto Protocol to mandating voluntary contributions from all countries under the Paris Agreement; the shift from the top-down Kyoto architecture to the hybrid Paris outcome; and the broadening out from a mitigation focus under Kyoto to a triple goal comprising mitigation, adaptation, and finance under Paris. This review discusses the implications of these processes for the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of the UNFCCC's institutional and operational settings for meeting the convention's objectives. It ends by sketching three potential scenarios facing the UNFCCC as it seeks to coordinate the Paris Agreement and its relationship to the wider landscape of global climate action.


Author(s):  
Moses Metumara Duruji ◽  
Duruji-Moses Favour Urenma

This study examined the environmentalism and politics of climate change by undertaking a study of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) focusing on the Kyoto Protocol document and the UNFCCC conferences held after Kyoto that has centered on how to garner consensus on the way forward for the global community. The study also probed why the agreement at Kyoto, Japan started having problems when a change of government occurred in the United States with a Republican President that leaned towards the interests of big business most of whom would bear the most costs if the policies as articulated in the Kyoto protocols were to be executed and why the Democratic presidency of Barrack Obama has been slow in pushing forward the agreement at Kyoto. The study concluded that national political interests of the major powers seem to have stalled the implementation of the Kyoto protocol but a change in the dynamics of global leadership spectrum can have a significant impetus in producing an agreement on climate change.


Author(s):  
А.А. Синдеев

Актуальность статьи определяется востребованностью на нынешнем этапе осмысления опыта современной России исследований, посвященных процессам, явлениям, принципам и подходам, сопровождавшим формирование ее внешней политики. При этом речь идет как об универсальном, так и об индивидуальном (личностном) уровнях. Об актуальности выбранной темы свидетельствуют совпавшие в 2020 году два юбилея — Организации Объединенных Наций, ее Совета Безопасности и юбилей министра иностранных дел России Сергея Викторовича Лаврова. С учетом последнего факта данная статья не носит свойственного юбилейным статьям характера. Ее цель состоит в том, чтобы проанализировать, какие принципы и подходы в конце ХХ — начале XXI века были положены в основу российской внешней политики. Для реализации заявленной цели автор использовал открытые источники — послания Президента РФ В. В. Путина Федеральному собранию с 2000 по 2004 год, а также все протоколы заседаний Совета Безопасности ООН за вышеуказанный хронологический период, и выделил для статьи те из них, которые касались борьбы с терроризмом, поскольку эта проблематика была востребована в 2000–2004 годах и предоставляла хорошие шансы для объединения усилий различных партнеров. Данные материалы потребовали применения системного подхода, историко-генетического, историко-типологического и сравнительно-исторического методов. Результатами проведенного исследования стали систематизация официальных внешнеполитических установок, анализ принципов и подходов, использованных С. В. Лавровым на посту постоянного представителя России в Совбезе ООН. Полученные результаты необходимо воспринимать как предварительные. Работа над проблемой должна быть продолжена. The relevance of the article is accounted for by the necessity to analyze and reassess research works devoted to the processes, phenomena, principles and strategies that have shaped the foreign policy of modern Russia. The article treats the issue on both universal and individual (personal) levels. The relevance of the issue is accounted for by two anniversaries we celebrate in 2020, namely the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Security Council and the 70th birth anniversary of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov. It should be noted, however, that the tone of the article is not celebratory. It is aimed at the analysis of principles and strategies of the foreign policy adopted by the Russian Federation in the late 20th — early 21stcenturies. To achieve the aim of the research, the author of the article analyzes open sources, such as Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation given by the Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2000–2004, and all the minutes of meetings of the United Nations Security Council in 2000–2004. The author focuses attention on speeches devoted to the struggle against terrorism, for the issue was highly relevant in 2000–2004 and demanded that partners should coordinate their efforts to combat common challenges. To analyze the abovementioned data, the author of the article employed systemic approach, history and genetic approach, historical-typological approach, comparative-historical approach. The research enabled the author to systematize official guidelines of Russian foreign policy and to analyze the principles and strategies used by S. V. Lavrov as permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Security Council. It should be noted that the findings of the research are preliminary and require further analysis.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document