A global problem in a divided world: climate change research during the late Cold War, 1972–1991

Doose, Katja

doi:10.1080/14682745.2021.1885377

Cited by 6 publications

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“…The Soviet Union and Russia have had a peculiar relationship with the intrinsically global topic of climate change, both during the Cold War and subsequent tensions and crises. The Soviet Union had a much more prominent role in climate change science and diplomacy than did post-Soviet Russia during most of the Vladimir Putin regime (Doose 2021 ). It was actively engaged in the global scientific climate change discourse both during and before the Cold War.…”

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Introduction from the editors

2023

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“…Izrael's perception of having been sidelined by the international community stood in stark contrast to the Soviet Union's previous engagement in climate research collaboration with scientists from the USA in the framework of the 1972 US-USSR Agreement on Environmental Protection (Doose 2021). In order to create a synthesis of the collaborative research of the previous 15 years, US and Soviet scientists were asked in 1987 by US President Reagan and Soviet Leader Gorbachev to publish a joint report on their climate change research (MacCracken et al 1990).…”

Section: The Ussr's Role In the Formation Of The Ipccmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…The book was published in the autumn of 1990, at the same time as the First IPCC Assessment Report. There were debates among the editing team around the question of paleoanalogues but were settled relatively smoothly in the bilateral setting (Doose 2021). Paleoanalogues were included; only the US scientists made sure that Soviet results would be phrased with great caution.…”

Section: The Ussr's Role In the Formation Of The Ipccmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the early 1970s, US-Geographer Paul E. Lydolph (Lydolph, 1971, p. 637) concluded that climatology "has been developed to such a degree in the Soviet Union that it warrants a special study" and estimating that "perhaps half of the climatological literature published in the world" was "written by Soviet climatologists". Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet climatologists' achievements in general climatology, radiation, heat balance and agroclimatology made them attractive partners in international collaborations, such as the 1972 bilateral US-USSR agreement on scientific cooperation in environmental protection (Doose 2021). Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, their expertise did not keep pace 1 The struggles of Soviet climate modelling and the search for an alternative…”

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Modelling the future: climate change research in Russia during the late Cold War and beyond, 1970s–2000

Doose

2022

Climatic Change

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Climate models are what governments, experts and societies base their decisions on future climate action on. To show how different models were used to explain climatic changes and to project future climates before the emergence of a global consensus on the validity of general circulation models, this article focuses on the attempt of Soviet climatologists and their government to push for their climate model to be acknowledged by the international climate science community. It argues that Soviet climate sciences as well as their interpretations of the climate of the twenty-first century were products of the Cold War, and that the systematic lack of access to high-speed computers forced Soviet climatologists to use simpler climate reconstructions as analogues, with far-reaching consequences for climate sciences in post-Soviet Russia. By juxtaposing the history of Soviet climate modelling with the early history of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, which rejected the Soviet model, the article sheds light on the relationship of science and politics. The findings are based on archival and print material as well as on interviews.

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“…This was true for the first World Climate Conference, held February 1979 in Geneva, where two dozen Soviet participants signed the "Appeal to Nations" for intense global cooperation in further research and mitigation of climate change (World Meteorological Organization [WMO] 1979). It was true as well for various bilateral efforts to research climate change and develop initiatives on the topic, for which the US-Soviet working group on climate was one of the most prominent and arguably most important examples (Doose 2021). 2 Soviet scientists were also prominently involved in the work of the International Institute for Applied System Analysis near Vienna, founded in 1972, where they discussed topics such as global climate change and its possible/probable anthropogenic origins with their counterparts from the USA, Japan, West Germany and several other Western (and Eastern) countries (Rindzevičiūtė 2016).…”

Section: Preface: the Soviet Union In Nascent Climate Diplomacymentioning

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From continuity to change: Soviet and Russian government attitudes on climate change (1989–2009)

Beuerle

2023

Climatic Change

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This article studies successive Soviet and Russian government positions on climate change between the late 1980s and the Putin era. It thereby bridges a gap between expanding research on both the role of the Soviet Union in climate change science and diplomacy and on Russian climate change policy after the turn of the millennium. While far-reaching late Soviet plans for decisive participation in the groundbreaking Rio Earth Summit contrasted with the lack of priority accorded to it by Russia during a period of political and economic turmoil, this article argues that there was, before and after 1991, a remarkable continuity of real concern in government about anthropogenic climate change and its negative consequences, not least for the Soviet Union and Russia. This continuity of concern took form in 1989 and lasted for a decade. In contrast to the misleading picture presented to outside observers, notably by the highly visible Yuri Izrael’ and some of the Russian delegations at international climate conferences in the 1990s, a neglect of anthropogenic climate change and its dangers for Russia took hold in the Russian government only after Vladimir Putin came to power. A renewed official recognition of the dangers of anthropogenic climate change materialized only with the 2009 Climate Doctrine. However, until recently this recognition remained half-hearted in comparison with the clear government positions of the late 1980s and the 1990s.

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A global problem in a divided world: climate change research during the late Cold War, 1972–1991

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Introduction from the editors

Introduction from the editors

Modelling the future: climate change research in Russia during the late Cold War and beyond, 1970s–2000

From continuity to change: Soviet and Russian government attitudes on climate change (1989–2009)

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