'Green Guardians': Russian Conservatives’ Views on Solutions to Environmental Problems

Abstract

This article examines the attitude of contemporary Russian conservatives toward 'the green agenda.' Although the topic of ecology was originally considered a priority for left-wing parties and movements, in recent years right-wing European politicians have increasingly discussed and used environmental issues to boost their popularity. While the typical left-wing green agenda largely focused on global issues, such as climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and energy transition, right-wing populists, denying the importance of the declared environmental policy, proposed focusing on local problems—preserving local nature and national control over natural resources. This trend can now be observed in Russia: domestic politicians actively discuss the green agenda, offering their evaluations and ways to solve environmental problems. This article shows that the Western and Russian conservative discourses have more similarities than differences. The Russian green political discourse is heterogeneous, tracing its roots back to the Russian environmental movement and European populists. Secondly, we investigate whether the views of conservatives influence environmental policies in Russia. For this, we studied data on presidential environmental grants supported for 2018–2022. A total of more than 4,000 applications were analyzed. The results show that projects on local issues prevail. Patriotic organizations are getting more involved in environmental issues, and several environmental organizations are deliberately starting to use patriotic rhetoric. The results allow a cautious conclusion that traces of conservative attitudes are observed in environmental policy.