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This paper measures the effects on carbon emissions of production scale, composition, technological use, and environmental policy to elucidate the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, synthesising the propositions of Grossman and Krueger, Q J Econ, 110(2), 353-377 (1995) and Brock and Taylor (2005) for the case of seventy-seven regions of the Russian Federation from 1999 to 2015. To this end, we apply dynamic threshold regression due to its robustness in addressing non-linear asymmetry and unobserved individual heterogeneity issues. Our empirical investigation demonstrates that the gross regional products (GRP) per capita play a threshold role in supporting the EKC hypothesis and non-monotonic scale effect. Modern technologies used in production appear to be the driving factor in explaining the declining portion of EKC and corroborating the technology effect proposition. Our finding also affirms the effect of composition, as the impacts of energy and technology vary with regional economic growth orientations (e.g. among manufacturing, agricultural, mining, and trade zones). Environmental policy stringency is found to be effective in curbing regional carbon emissions. We provide several policy implications based on the results., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Russia has a serious problem of environmental pollution. As a party to the Paris Agreement, Russia is pivotal in participating in and advancing the global environmental governance agenda. By presenting and analyzing the main environmental policies enacted by the Russian Government after the Paris Agreement, this paper found the following new features of Russian environmental policy: Developing a new ecological concept of harmony between human and nature; Restructuring administrative institutions and strengthen the common responsibilities of environmental policy subjects such as enterprises, social groups, and the public; Strengthening the modern management of natural resources; Focusing on developing other policies that match environmental policies; Attaching importance to the construction of federal nature reserves and national parks. This paper has some enlightenment on Sino-Russian environment protection co‐ operation: Strengthening exchanges and mutual learning between China and Russia in green and low-carbon publicity and education; Learning from the development and management experience of Russian natural resources and nature reserves to consolidate and improve carbon sink capacity; Deepening Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of low carbon energy transition; Expanding Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paris Accord has brought the world's governments together to begin implementing plans for their individual economies to become carbon‐free. The goal of attaining low‐carbon growth is not, however, as simple as it would appear since the world economies, which are dependent on fossil fuels and are fast expanding, are concentrated on accelerating economic expansion at the price of worse environmental effects. In light of this, the study aims to investigate the combined effects of the composite risk index (CRI), green innovation (GINOV), and environmental policy stringency (EPS) on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the context of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) countries while controlling for gross domestic product (GDP) and renewable energy research and development (RERD) over the period from 1960 to 2020. The research addresses the problems of cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity in the data set used for analysis by using the second‐generation cross‐sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lags framework to evaluate long‐ and short‐run models. The corresponding findings show cointegrating relationships between the research variables. Additionally, the results of the regression demonstrate that EPS, GINOV, and RERD contribute to a long‐term decrease in CO2 emissions. CRI and GDP, however, increase CO2 emissions. It is suggested that environmental policies be tightened, GINOV and RERD expenditures be promoted, political stability and institutional quality be maintained, and clean economic growth strategies be adopted in order to help the BRICS countries reduce sectoral risks, create a sustainable environment, and decarbonize their respective economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION HAS BECOME A MATTER OF GLOBAL IMPORTANCE BUT ALSO A NATIONAL PRIORITY, THE EFFORT TO ENSURE THE QUALITY OF THE ENVIRONMENT PROVING TO BE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT INVESTMENTS FOR ENSURING SOCIAL WELFARE AND ONE OF THE MOST COMPLEX EFFECTS THAT PROPAGATE IN THE ECONOMY AND IN SOCIAL LIFE. STRENGTHENING ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY REQUIRES CONSIDERABLE EFFORT TO BUILD A FISCAL AND A FINANCIAL POLICY, AND TO BROADEN THE SPECTRUM OF THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO DETERMINE THE MIX OF ECONOMIC INSTRUMENTS THAT CAN BE USED AND THE AVAILABLE SOURCES. DEVELOPING FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION POLICY INVOLVES NOT ONLY ACCESS TO FUNDS, BUT ALSO AN EFFICIENT MANAGEMENT IN THE FIELD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia ranks among the top five countries worldwide in terms of carbon emissions, with the energy, transportation, and manufacturing sectors as the major contributors. This poses a significant threat to both current and future generations. Russia faces challenges in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 13, necessitating the implementation of more innovative policies to promote environmental sustainability. Considering this alarming situation, this study investigates the role of financial regulations, energy price uncertainty, and climate policy uncertainty in reshaping sectoral CO 2 emissions in Russia. This study utilizes a time-varying bootstrap rolling-window causality (BRW) approach using quarterly data from 1990 to 2021. The stability test for parameters indicates instability, suggesting that the full sample causality test may yield incorrect inferences. Thus, the BRW approach is employed for valid inferences. Our findings confirm the time-varying negative impact of financial regulations on CO 2 emissions from energy, manufacturing, and transportation sectors. Additionally, findings confirm time-varying positive impact of energy prices and climate policy uncertainty on CO 2 emissions from the energy, manufacturing, and transportation sectors. Strong financial regulations and stable energy and climate policies are crucial for achieving sustainability, highlighting significant policy implications for policymakers and stakeholders., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate a globally consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by the degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km 2 of forest (40.5%) has high landscape-level integrity (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa, and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally designated protected areas. Of the forest inside protected areas, only 56% has high landscape-level integrity. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest integrity, especially in the most intact areas, are now urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and restoring the integrity of forests globally.

The article discusses the centralization and localization of environmental policy in Russia at the start of the 21st century. The plan has been conceived following the integration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), where along with centralization of power, the creation of Federal Districts and the formation of gubernatorial elections were also materialized in 2000. After four years, however, the federal government had been stripped the regions of environmental monitoring powers due to energetic lobbying by opponents of environmental policy which included companies that have interests in exploiting natural resources. The function was then transferred to the local level, in which many analysts claimed it to have resulted from the dismantling of federal environmental policy.

Many economists and analysts claim that extended use of pollution charges in environmental policy will have substantial efficiency advantages in transition economies. This article challenges this view and argues instead that the proposed policy presumes the existence of an already-functioning institutional framework. By focusing on the Russian case, the article discusses a number of reasons why it is difficult to implement pollution charges in an economic system in which Communist behavioral patterns and jurisdictions are still prevalent. The article identifies a number of institutional obstacles related both to enterprise behavior and to environmental regulation and enforcement. These obstacles suggest that it is appropriate to view environmental problems in transition economies primarily as the results of institutional inertia in the economic and political systems. The article ends by discussing alternative ways of controlling pollution in Russia and stresses the importance of improving the legitimacy and basic trust for environmental legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulators would do well to develop a climate strategy with more ambitious climate targets and a comprehensive strategy to reduce GHG emissions in the oil and gas sector (including a strategy to reduce methane emissions). It may include a variety of regulatory mechanisms - standards, targets, requirements for monitoring, reporting and pricing of GHG emissions, rules for certification and verification of projects to reduce emissions, etc. It is also important to approve public funding for R&D and pilot projects to reduce GHG emissions, especially in areas of deep decarbonization. It is necessary to further analyze the competitive advantages of Russia in the field of decarbonization, and then promote them both domestically and on the world market. Corporations should include decarbonization in their overall business strategy and investment plans, rather than limiting it to health, safety, environment and investor relations departments. To implement an effective decarbonization strategy for any company, it is necessary to review the strategy and corporate governance as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminal laws in most countries in most periods envisaged liability for crimes contemporary considered as environmental (poaching, water pollution, etc.). However, before the eighties of the last century, such crimes have never been legislatively consolidated and were generally incorporated in different sections of formal acts, until international community and legislative authorities, as well as scientist have launched certain measures to improve that situation -- a common European approach to environmental crime combating activities and implementation of this approach through legislative acts. So the article examines the evolution of criminal environmental legislation system, referring to scientific research and international initiatives undertaken in this concern. It also discusses criminal environmental policy concept and structure, presenting its main components. At the same time the author emphasizes that the formation of criminal environmental policy in general is still in progress and discusses factors which prevent this policy from being stable, formalized and integrated. The author also stresses that reforms in the legislation and establishment of new authorizes bodies undertaken by international community and by certain countries individually did not achieve the main goals, since the number of committed crimes is still increasing and the consequences of such crimes are becoming more severe. These and other circumstances require special research of environmental crime in order to discover new trends of this type of crime and to find new measures to combat it. So the article continues to discuss this problem referring to data presenting current situation with environmental crime in Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing climate change and protecting the environment have become the key global challenges and priorities and requires a whole-of-society approach. Many countries are increasing their commitments to meet the Paris Agreement's goals, introducing green budgeting among them. The goal of the paper is to understand how public participation in public budgeting with green objectives is being effectuated in the Russian Federation, and to look at what governments can do to facilitate it. The author explores the relevance of environmental problems for Russians, and analyses public participation in environmental policy-making with a focus on budgeting in Russia. The paper provides examples of green participatory budgeting practices of global interest, highlights the potential of participatory budgeting encouraging pro-environmental behaviour, potentially enriching the repertoire of climate-friendly actions and fostering the growing interest in green budgeting. The author concludes with recommendations on how to improve public participation in relation to greening the budget process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lake Baikal is an important environmental symbol in Russia, and one of the few cases to have attracted significant attention from environmentalists, the government, and the international community. While in many ways a unique case, the protection of Lake Baikal provides valuable insight into policymaking in Russia and highlights some of the major challenges associated with environmental conservation efforts. This article will focus on key developments in the post-Soviet environmental policy process, using the examples of the 1999 Law on Baikal, and the closure of the Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant. The case of Lake Baikal reveals a policy process characterized by high levels of intervention from political leadership, frequent changes in direction, and an insular decision-making context with only limited input from environmental actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines interstate cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia on transboundary environmental issues. An analysis of the environmental policy of Kazakhstan and Russia is carried out, and the key norms of the two countries' environmental legislation are examined to determine the foundations and mechanisms for solving shared environmental problems. The role and ongoing policy of Kazakhstan's central state body in the environmental protection sphere as a tool for solving environmental problems is determined. The main reasons for the environmental problems of the Ural and Ishim river basins and the biological diversity of the border areas of Russia and Kazakhstan are discussed. Priority prospects for environmental cooperation are highlighted in relation to the countries' common transboundary environmental problems, including cooperation potential within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the demand for energy is increasing rapidly more and more energy companies are exploring and investing in unstable regions and challenging climatic areas to secure supply of oil and gas. Russia is a country with a challenging climate and is rich in natural resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses how e-mail communication has enabled Peipsi Lake Project (PLP), an international group of activists to extent their social geography across an established Estonian-Russian political boundary. Influence of e-mail communication on environmental policy in Estonia and Russia; Post-Soviet ecology; Information on PLP.

The analysis shows the impact of socioeconomic factors and civil freedom on allocating green areas for investments. The research was conducted for the period 1992–2020 using the example of Moscow as the metropolis in a country with a robust centralized political system. Quantitative research methods included recognizing changes in land use, selected socioeconomic parameters, and indicators measuring the power of civil society. Calculated correlations and modeling of the collected data were used to identify Russia's revenue for petroleum and Moscow's budget revenue as predictors for losing green areas. Among the social activity indicators, the Press Freedom indicator was the best correlated and used for modeling. The analysis of the decision-making procedure for land development and the reconstruction of the case Krylatskie Kholmy allowed gaining insight into actual mechanisms leading to investment in urban green areas. The outcomes that were reachedexpress that investing in bare soils is of the most significant importance; however, the dynamics of change decreased in the analyzed period. The modeling showed that growing Russia's revenue for petroleum increases the likelihood of greenfield investment. The legal nature-protection status brings the most significant effect of preventing land development. The likelihood of land development decreases with the growth of Moscow's budget revenue. It indicates the support for the redevelopment of abounded land located within the range of the existing infrastructure. The modeling of the dependence between the Press Freedom index and land development probability demonstrates the possible effectiveness of public opinion pressure to protect natural and semi-natural areas within the urban fabric. The described decision-making mechanism for land development made it possible to assess that the role of civil society in the decision-making process is insufficient, given the converging interests of investors and administration. The results show that in highly centralized countries with a marginal role of civil society, the concentration of capital from the export of strategic natural resources is the key factor of urban green losses. These findings contribute to understanding differences in urban spatial policy approaches to green areas and their effectiveness. • High correlation between oil revenues and investment pressure on urban green spaces. • The weak position of civil society again the alliance of administration and business. • Moscow's growing budget reduces urban green loss. • Nature-protection status is an effective tool for preventing land development on the urban green. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The association among extraction, emotion, and governance has received little attention in human and environmental geography and social science more generally. Extraction in authoritarian environments has long been studied regarding energy and extractive environments, with special attention to political ecological struggles and conflicts over rights and access to lands and critical resources. Yet little attention has been paid to how affect and emotions could shape the socioeconomic political and ecological aspects of extraction under authoritarian rule. Geographers have argued that emotions matter in making sense of place, politics, and environmental transformation for at least a decade, and it is now time to craft theoretical insights that examine emotional geographies of extraction, their politics, and their governance in ways that move toward deeper understanding of how affect and emotion are produced and mobilized in different kinds of extractive environments and under varying socioeconomic and political conditions. Thus, this article explores affect and emotion related to extractive environments in the Russian Federation with the aim of pushing emotional geographies—and extractive studies—forward in new, synergistic ways. Using discourse and content analysis, I explore the roles of affect and emotion in the production and reproduction of narratives about extraction in one post-Soviet and hybrid authoritarian-democratic regime. I argue that a tacitly endorsed, pervasive state emotional geography about extraction in an era of increasingly authoritarian rule acts to (re)create desire for continued pursuit of extraction by this energy superpower. Key Words: authoritarianism, extraction, hybrid regime, Russia, state emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to compare the strategies of the Russian and American media in justifying the need to comply with international obligations on atmosphere and climate protection in the context of solving national propaganda tasks and to describe their dominant propaganda models. The research methods comprise the technique of intent-analysis by Ushakova and Pavlova, as well as the technique of rhetorical deconstruction by Ibarra and Kitsuse. Empirical materials of the research include texts of the of Russian and American media (Izvestia, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Gazeta. Ru, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today: 104 articles in total; published from 1st January 2012 to 1st January 2017). It was found that the propaganda models of the Russian and American media correspond to the description of propaganda within the state by Ellul under the two-party system of the state: the ruling party conducts propaganda for itself, the opposition party conducts propaganda against the ruling party. The propaganda model of the American media in this area of information competition between the two states can be characterised as the "propaganda model of the leader", and the propaganda model of the Russian media may be called the "opposition propaganda model". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on comparative review and analysis of the systems of environmental protection, national environmental strategies and fundamentals of environmental legislation in Australia and the Russian Federation. These countries have many socioeconomic similarities, such as low population densities and richness in natural resources which are largely exported. The main disparity between Australia and Russia is in the types of economy. This paper ‘continues’ the sequence of recent scholarly publications on comparison of various features of environmental policies in the countries from all over the world. Comparative analysis in this research has been based on examination of scholarly publications, legislation, government documents, mass media sources and NGO responses. The analysis has revealed a number of differences including top-down implementation of policies in Russia whereas in Australia, each State (Territory) implements policies with significant independence from the Commonwealth Government. At the same time, similarities between the countries have been identified: for example, in deficits in the budget of local environmental authorities and in the presence of contradictions in legislation at national and regional levels of government. Suggestions resulting from this analysis include further integration of sustainable development strategies at all levels of Australian government to encourage further protection of the environment and, for Russia, creating a separate Ministry of Environmental Protection. These approaches should assist facilitation of sustainable development for both nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the prospects for ecological modernization in Russia by scrutinizing the policy environment which conditions the structuration of environmental policy. Recently introduced state environmental policy principles for the period up to 2030, which the Russian government states to be the main goal for the country's ecological modernization, form the starting point of this analysis. The main aim of the article is to shed light on the factors that enable or constrain the implementation of these principles and ecological modernization in general. The article concludes that while institutional improvement is taking place, other dimensions of the policy environment are less favorable for ecological modernization. Thus, the outcome we see so far resembles a weak version of ecological modernization, which emphasizes technological solutions and the development of governance structures as a core change. The strong version, necessitating change in cultural-discursive patterns and social institutions, is not likely to take place in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now environmental protection is a priority in managing problems at the social, legal, economic and political levels. The authors set the task based on the importance of the role of the state in this aspect - to analyze the state policy of Russia and a number of foreign countries in the direction of environmental management. The research focus concerned the classification of the main policy areas of environmental management regulation and the identification of problems related to special state activities in this area. As a result of the study, the authors concluded that the terminology in the field of environmental management is insufficient elaboration, a generalized international law enforcement practice and an effective security mechanism are absent and there are many resulting contradictions related to the above in public policies in the field of environmental management at various levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural environments are recognized as complex heterogeneous structures thus requiring numerous multi-scale observations to yield a comprehensive description. To monitor the current state and identify negative impacts of human activity, fast and precise instruments are in urgent need. This work provides an automated approach to the assessment of spatial variability of water quality using guideline values on the example of 1526 water samples comprising 21 parameters at 448 unique locations across the New Moscow region (Russia). We apply multi-task Gaussian process regression (GPR) to model the measured water properties across the territory, considering not only the spatial but inter-parameter correlations. GPR is enhanced with a Spectral Mixture Kernel to facilitate a hyper-parameter selection and optimization. We use a 5-fold cross-validation scheme along with R 2 -score to validate the results and select the best model for simultaneous prediction of water properties across the area. Finally, we develop a novel Probabilistic Substance Quality Index (PSQI) that combines probabilistic model predictions with the regulatory standards on the example of the epidemiological rules and hygienic regulations established in Russia. Moreover, we provide an interactive map of experimental results at 100 m2 resolution. The proposed approach contributes significantly to the development of flexible tools in environment quality monitoring, being scalable to different standard systems, number of observation points, and region of interest. It has a strong potential for adaption to environmental and policy changes and non-unified assessment conditions, and may be integrated into support-decision systems for the rapid estimation of water quality spatial distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents remarks by United States President George Bush to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on February 5, 1990 in Washington, D.C. Also presents remarks by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to the Global Forum on Environment & Development for Survival on January 19, 1990 in Moscow.

The article focuses on the environmental deterioration as the major issues of the modern development of Russia and countries of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Topics discussed include environmental legislative inefficiency as a reason for deterioration of the environment; influence of political power on environmental crisis; and lack of environmental quality.

This paper examines the development of environmental governance in Russia, using the concept of ecological modernization as an analytical framework for an empirical study. From an investigation into both the relationship between economic growth and environmental stress on the basis of the revised model of decoupling and the development of institutional capacity for environ- mental policy in recent years, this paper reveals that Russia's pathway to ecological modernization is now 'closed' in most spheres owing to the economic crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union; this is in contrast to China's experience, wherein ecological modernization has been 'forced' as a national policy. Russia is considered to be a typical case of failure of realization of industrial restructuring leading to a relative reduction in environmental stress in a centrally planned economy. Moreover, the country's hyper depression since the introduction of a market economy has hindered the search for a pathway to medium-term and long-term ecological modernization, which has been exchanged for short-term 'ecological improvement without environmental policy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the asymmetric impact of energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) intensity on the environmental quality in Russia. The ecological footprint (a proxy for environmental quality) was used as a dependent variable, while independent variables include energy consumption, CO 2 intensity, and gross fixed capital formation as a proxy of capital for time series data spanning from 1992 to 2016. To examine the asymmetric cointegration between the selected variables, the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) method was used. The structural break unit root and BDS tests were used to check data stationarity and nonlinearity, respectively. Besides, the asymmetric causality test in Gauss software was employed to check the causal relationship among the variables. Among the considered variables, the asymmetric cointegration was found. A significant unidirectional symmetric causality was found running from energy consumption to ecological footprint (Wald test = 3.956*) and from ecological footprint to capital (Wald test = 10.115**), while asymmetrically, ecological footprint granger cause energy consumption (Wald test = 6.054**) and capital (Wald test = 6.739**) respectively. On the contrary, a neutral effect was found between environmental quality and CO 2 intensity. From these findings, environmental policies are also discussed. Specifically, policymakers should support modern, controlled emission technologies, including nuclear and renewable energy sources and green portfolio investment. Graphical abstract.

In this article, conditions of creeping crises and priorities of environmental policy in the Samara region (Russia) are discussed from a crisis management perspective. Inefficiency of the existing policy is precipitated to a substantial extent by the underlying normative approach, which is more focused on environmental quality than on human health issues. It is therefore argued that this approach should be replaced by an integrated policy strategy including risk management. This strategy implies human health rather than environmental quality standards as key criteria for setting crisis policy priorities. The implications for crisis preparation and training are discussed within a framework of systemic crisis management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses environmental protection of mountain regions in former Soviet Union countries. Topics explored include the partial application of natural resources management initiatives to the mountain areas of Russia, the adoption of regional environmental policies focused on mountain-area protection, and the identification of threats such as deforestation, overgrazing, and illegal hunting activities.

Global climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from anthropogenic activities have already become the focus of the world. A more systematic and comprehensive analysis on the factors influencing the changes of global GHGs transferring via trade have not been fully discussed. To this end, employing spatial econometric regression models and multi-regional input-output models, this paper reveals factors influencing the GHGs transferring via trade changes in 39 major economies, so as to develop the relevant GHGs reduction policies. The results indicate that regions with the highest net outflow of GHGs transferring via trade are primarily Russia and Canada, and the adverse effects of promoting GHGs reduction on the national economy could be avoided by these regions owing to trade relations. Additionally, factors influencing the changes in GHGs transferring via trade have significant spatial autocorrelation, and population size and energy structure exert significant spatial spillover effects on the changes in the GHGs transferring via trade. On this basis, this paper suggests that one more effective way to prevent trade from the rigorous demands of environmental governance measures while preserving the economic benefits of international trade may be to facilitate cooperation between countries on GHGs mitigation. Further, we articulate more balanced environment governance policies, including conducting the sharing of advanced energy technologies and developing clearer production technologies.

The article presents news and developments relevant to environmental law and policy discussed in the articles "Dneiper River Basin Clean-up and EU Legislation-Comparison of Standards used," by Hannah Hull Naumoff-Dulski and "GMO's: Commission Defeated on Food Beans." Clean-up efforts in the Dneiper River Basin by three countries, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine was evaluated and analyzed by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, to assess whether the efforts complied with European Union legislation. It has been discovered that the efforts was in accordance with the United Nations Environment Program's recommendations but some of the standards did not comply with the European Union Directive 91/271/EEC.

Analyzes the transformation of environmental administrative bodies in Russia. How this transformation has affected policy-making during the 1990s; Discussion on the history of environmental policy in Russia; Creation of a government for the protection of the environment.

The article discusses the Russian policy response to global climate change. It comments on the Koyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC), an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The author notes Russia's declared intention not to adopt a limitation on greenhouse gas emissions for the second period under the Kyoto Protocol. Other topics include amendments to the Kyoto Protocol, Russia's Climate Doctrine, and the withdrawal of Canada from the Kyoto Protocol.

Abstract: Investments in environmental management and environmental protection have a decisive influence on the future of a region and its place in the economic development of the country as a whole. In this article, the principal differences between investment in environmental management and the financing of other projects are discussed. It is proven that, at present, the investment policy in the field of environmental protection of a region is oriented primarily toward current results. In such cases, it is possible to achieve only short‐term goals, and ultimately, to miss the prospect of further conservation of resources. Hence, short‐term investments in environmental protection activities and the achievement of rapid results are replaced by the commitment to promising, long‐term strategic growth. This article notes that the most effective form of implementing environmental monitoring is through environmental auditing, as auditing is performed at the expense of customers and does not require public financing. Furthermore, the effects of implementing environmental policies based on the results of environmental auditing can be even more significant than the results achieved under the State's environmental protection measures [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the change in political conditions and quality of life in pre-1917 Russia and the Soviet Union. Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, remarked on the absence of continuity in the transition from pre-revolutionary Russia to the Soviet Union. It is stated that the American or Western ideas played an important role in underlining the perceptions of the Soviet Union. However, the Russian language is known to be the language of the multi-national Soviet Union. It is reported that the Russian state has been the largest territorial existence since the seventeenth century. The natural environment of Russian-speaking people has uncurled the starting of the present millennium. All these factors will command the policies of the country in future.