Valdai Club

Current efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not producing the desired results. Every year, the world breaks records for investments in renewable energy, sales of electric vehicles, and the number of ambitious statements about the imminent achievement of carbon neutrality. Meanwhile, emissions continue to grow. In 2023, they once again reached a historical maximum, and there is no possibility to reduce them by 2030. The prospects to fulfil the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement are becoming increasingly illusory.

Africa is the embodiment of the global majority, which Russia sees as the central subject of the new world order. The countries of the continent (not all, but many) are gradually acquiring this subjectivity, developing relations with those who are important for their social and economic growth. Igor Makarov, head of the Department of World Economy at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, writes how Russia can build an effective strategy for interaction with African countries.

The crisis that humanity is facing is too complex, and its social component is underestimated the most. But when the ship begins to sink, it is necessary to patch all the leaks at the same time. Green recovery must be inclusive, otherwise it wont be green. Perhaps it wont even be a recovery, writes Igor Makarov, Head of the HSE School of World Economy. 

Global climate change is one of the main challenges to humanity in the 21st century and promises to be a pillar of the international agenda for the next few decades. The growing COVID-19 pandemic has taught humanity two important lessons already.

On March 13-16, Paris hosted the 47th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which celebrated the panel’s 30th anniversary. In past decades, this community of scientists has managed to create the unique precedent of science laying the foundation for world-scale decision-making. With the Paris Agreement approved in 2015, the IPCC’s role is shifting gradually, but its importance in efforts to solve the climate change problem will only grow.

A key outcome of COP21 conference is not the text of the agreement itself, but the fixed consensus on the new rules of the game.

The Valdai Discussion Club presents its new paper, “National Identity and Russia’s Future,” based on the discussions at the club’s 10th anniversary conference in September 2013 and subsequent work of the expert groups. The paper attempts to answer the most fundamental of questions: Who are the Russians, and what does their future hold?

The report presented at the 11th Krasnoyarsk economic forum on the 27th of February 2014 is a follow-up to the report Toward the Great Ocean, or the New Globalization of Russia, published by the Valdai Discussion Club in July 2012, and is based on the conclusions drawn in that report.

The report, discussed at the Russian-Chinese section of the Valdai International Discussion Club “Regional Stability Through Harmonious Development: Russia and China in the New World Architecture” on October 25-26, 2010 offers views on the future impact of Russian-Chinese cooperation on global affairs.