Members of the Laboratory, Irina Kuznetsova and Polina Ermolaeva participated in the Royal Geographic Society annual conference, which was held on 1st September 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Their report was related to the analysis of the experts and citizens opinions about climate change in the post-soviet Russia. The study revealed that a concern about the climate change processes is increasing among both experts and citizens. However, it could be noticed that several experts had a skeptic attitude towards the climate change in the region, as they refer it to the usual temperature fluctuations and a general lack of trust to statistical data. The research was mainly focused on the value-behavioral gap which was associated with the external and internal barriers. The main internal barriers include a lack of ecological knowledge among the young people, uncertainty about the future, paternalism and apathy, shifting responsibility about the healthy environment from oneself to the government authorities. The main structure barriers are the lack of supporting infrastructure, poor ecological legislation, the peripheral place of climate processes in the media, resource-based economy etc. A lack of regional strategies in preventing climate change and reducing its negative consequences, a lack of agreement in solving problems related to the climate policy- all of these reasons might lead towards the increase of social-economic risks in a long-term perspective.

Reference to the publication: Kuznetsova I.B. Ermolaeva P.O. Public views on climate change and energy efficiency in post-socialist perspective // RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2017, August 30th-September 1st, 2017, London, UK, http://conference.rgs.org/AC2017/1ee5f4eb-e17f-4a8e-8a00-f7f31209637f