Putin Moves Russia Toward Ratifying Kyoto Protocol

GLAND, Switzerland, September 23, 2004 (ENS) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed six key ministers to sign the ratification documents for the Kyoto climate protocol, an international environmental group said Wednesday.

The global conservation organization WWF said the move follows a meeting between Putin and a group of close advisors last week. After the ministers have signed the documents, the package will be presented to the Russian parliament, the Duma. The parliament could ratify the protocol within the next few weeks.

Once Russia has ratified, the protocol would come into force 90 days later.

Russian President Vladimir Putin can determine the fate of the Kyoto climate protocol. (Photo courtesy Government of Russia)

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement that limits the emission by industrialized countries of six greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Although 124 countries have ratified including the Europe Union, Japan and Canada, the agreement cannot enter into force until countries accounting for 55 percent of industrialized nations' carbon dioxide emissions in 1990 ratify.

The protocol has so far reached 44.2 percent.

Russia accounts for 17 percent and became the pivotal Kyoto country, because the world's biggest polluter, the United States, pulled out its 36 percent when George W. Bush became President in 2001.

Within the framework of the protocol the participants are to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent by 2012. The EU has pledged to cut them by an average of eight percent in comparison with 1990.

The Kyoto Protocol allows the Russian Federation to keep emitting 100 percent of the greenhouse gases it emitted in the baseline year of 1990.

Russian Minister for Natural Resources Yuri Trutnev (Photo courtesy Los Alamos National Lab)

When the package is signed, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov will send the ratification documents to the Duma.

The European Commission hopes that Russia will ratify the Kyoto Protocol, EU official representative Rejo Kempinen told a press briefing in Brussels on Wednesday.