[Shadow_Group] Putin Signs Up Russia for Kyoto Pact

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

Putin Signs Up Russia for Kyoto Pact
Fri Nov 5, 2004 02:09 AM ET 
By Oleg Shchedrov 

FROM:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6725076<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6725076>
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin approved
Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, the
Kremlin said on Friday, which will make the U.N.
environment pact aimed at curbing global warming
effective worldwide. 

A Kremlin spokesman said Putin signed parliament's
ratification of the protocol late on Thursday. It will
come into law in Russia once Putin's decision is
officially published. 

Both chambers of Russia's parliament approved
ratification of the pact last month after Putin gave
it his blessing. 

The U.N. accord aimed at curbing global warming is
already backed by 126 countries. But it needed
Russia's support to make it internationally binding
after the United States, the world's biggest polluter,
pulled out in 2001. 

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol obliges rich nations to cut
overall emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by
5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 by curbing
use of coal, oil and natural gas and shifting to
cleaner energies like solar or wind power. 

To come into force, the pact needed to be ratified by
countries accounting for at least 55 percent of
developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions. 

Russia, which accounts for 17 percent, became the key
to Kyoto after Washington pulled out saying the pact
was too costly and unfairly exempted large rapidly
industrializing countries such as China and India. 

Russia signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1999. But it
agreed to ratify only in exchange for European Union
agreement on terms for Moscow's admission to the World
Trade Organization. 

Putin signed the bill into law just days before he was
due to meet leaders of the EU, which has urged
Russia's ratification, at a summit in the Netherlands.


Rising global temperatures have been linked to extreme
weather including droughts, flooding and higher sea
levels, which some see as possible sparks for regional
conflicts. 

But critics of the pact say it will cost trillions of
dollars and have scant impact unless countries like
China get involved. 

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.



 



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