Thane Gustafson is Professor of Government at Georgetown University. As the world shifts to renewables, will Russia be able to keep up? As Arctic ice melts, will Russia see shipping opportunities? And will climate change get greater salience among the Russian public? In this interview, Thane, Yvonne and I talk about how Russia will have to change as the world warms. We’re joined in this interview by Yvonne Lau, Asia Markets Reporter for Fortune Magazine, with a longtime interest in Russia, especially its post-Soviet economic development and its growing ties with China. Thane Gustafson’s Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change examines how Russia might react-or be forced to react-to a changing environment and energy market. Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change, Thane Gustafson (Harvard University Press, October 2021) What do those trends mean for Russia: a great power, a major oil and gas producer, an Arctic country covered in permafrost, and an economy with strong, but increasingly outdated, levels of technological development. The world is coming up on three major transitions-peak use of fossil fuels, renewables competing with non-renewables, and a warming climate likely to surpass the 1.5 degree threshold set by the IPCC. And Russia, as one of the world’s largest producers of hydrocarbons, is part of the conversation-most recently, in Putin’s refusal to expand oil production to ease global prices. With COP26 and high fossil fuel prices, energy is back in the headlines.
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