Authors

Discussion

This study presents the intersectional angle in investigating vulnerability in Russia’s climate change discourse. While there is a substantial interest in quantitative assessments of climatic risks, there has been scarce attention given to critical social research epistemologies for addressing social imbalances as key stresses that make one part of the population more vulnerable than the other.

Converging systematic literature review and one case study in Moscow, the research findings indicate that vulnerability to climate change is intensified not only by poor governance and unequal distribution of investments and developments in many parts of Russia but also by dynamic interplays of environmental stresses together with various social categorisations in Russian society, such as ethnicity, class and gender, that, in turn, determine asymmetrical power relations.

While the national adaptation programme to climate change is still a work in progress, this study invites environmental researchers and policymakers in Russia to employ cross-disciplinary methodologies in displaying root causes of vulnerability, a thoroughgoing approach in the world scientific community, and tackle them adequately vis-à-vis justice and societal progress.