This article explores the significance of modernization policies concerning Russia’s technically obsolete but socially important residential heating sector, focusing on the 2009 energy efficiency framework law and its prospects for implementation. Ownership and control structures are in flux throughout the heating sector chain. Inefficiencies, causing low service quality and rising prices, have already started eroding the market share of district heating, despite its potential benefits. End-use management practices – such as lack of metering, communal billing, and low prices that do not cover production costs – reduce consumer incentives to cut consumption. The diversity of end-users adds to the complexity of focused measures like energy-saving contracts. However, end-use sector reforms such as mandatory meter installation and increasing prices – even if socially acceptable and fully implemented – cannot alone provide the massive investments required. More appropriate is sector-wide reform with the government’s financial participation – especially if consumer efforts can yield better service quality.

This article provides an overview of the recent modelling results on Russia's GHG emission trends, and reviews the success of mitigation policies in order to establish whether Russia's domestic target seems feasible. Various Russian GHG emission scenarios indicate that Russia's domestic target – emissions 25% below the 1990 level by 2020 – is not far from the business-as-usual emissions trajectory. In particular, two factors could deliver the required emissions reductions: the currently declining gross domestic product (GDP) growth and ongoing domestic mitigation policies. The former is more likely to secure the target level of emissions, because GDP growth has been contracting significantly in comparison to earlier forecasts of 3–5% annual growth, and this trend is expected to continue. The latter option – success with domestic mitigation measures – seems less likely, given the various meta-barriers to policy implementation, and the marginality of mitigation policies, problems with law-making processes, bureaucratic tradition, and informality of legislative and implementation systems. Policy relevance This article provides an assessment of the stringency of Russia's domestically set emissions limitation target by 2020 and the chances of Russia, the fourth largest GHG emitter in the world, achieving it. We base our assessment on a number of recent key sources that analyse Russia's GHG emission paths by applying socio-economic models, which have only been available in the Russian language prior to this publication. This knowledge is applicable for use by other negotiation parties to compare Russia's efforts to mitigate climate change to their own, and thus makes a contribution to facilitating a more equal burden-sharing of climate commitments under the future climate change agreement.

How are climate change and Russia’s role in international climate diplomacy understood in Russia? This article enhances our understanding of the cultural drivers of Russia’s international climate position by using extensive interview data with Russian (non-climate) professionals to explore domestic assumptions, perceptions, and beliefs beyond official positions expressed in international diplomatic discourses. Underlying cultural framings are understood as societal beliefs widely shared in Russian society. A framing analysis of the interview data indicates that Russian participation in climate diplomacy is underpinned by assumptions concerning Russian self-interest – such as benefit-seeking, foreign-policy goals and suspicion of the motives of other countries – that are often unrelated to environmental concerns. Societal beliefs in Russia’s great-power status together with a focus on national economic and political interests, societal cynicism/zero-sum game beliefs, conspiracy theories and a dualistic approach to science are reflected in these assumptions, and provide persuasive cultural explanations for understanding official climate change statements. The influence of the political leadership on societal beliefs on climate change helps to explain the prevalence of these beliefs; wider societal beliefs are a further significant explanatory factor. Key policy insights