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Barrett-Lennard, Lee

University of British Columbia

Russia’s northern geography is being transformed by climate change. Concurrently, the Russian state is investing significant resources in its northern lands and is encouraging a large migration to populate its Far East and High Arctic for the purposes of settlement and development. While the Russian state has historically championed land use as a crucial aspect of the country’s economy, geopolitical power, and national security, little scholarship has attempted to analyze how the Russian state’s interests in its northern regions are changing as climate change alters key features of this territory. This paper posits that cost-benefit analysis (CBA) offers a useful approach through which to understand the state’s shifting relationship to its northern regions. The paper argues that climate change is altering the cost-benefit calculus of economic development in the Russian Far East and High Arctic, where it is increasing benefits and reducing costs for the state. This approach has explanatory power both in regards to the Russian state’s historical relationship with these regions as well as the state’s re-engagement with these spaces in recent years.

Text

2024-01-12

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87231

Political Science

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/