25 September 2003 17:10
No timetable for Russian Kyoto approval-minister
Russia needs time to consider the Kyoto Protocol and has no schedule to approve it, Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Gordeyev said on Thursday, ensuring the environmental pact will not come into force for some time. But he repeated Moscow's support in principle for the landmark treaty, which aims to cut emissions of the gases that cause global warming.
"There is no strict timetable at the moment," Gordeyev, who is also agriculture minister, told reporters. "The government in any country...has an obligation to decide what steps it needs to take after signing (the protocol)."
Under the treaty's weighting system, countries responsible for producing 55 percent of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxode, have to approve it before it comes into force. The United States, by far the world's biggest polluter, has pulled out, leaving Russia with the casting vote on the treaty, agreed in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997. Many environmentalists had hoped Russia would ratify the protocol before an international scientific conference on climate change opens in Moscow next week.
Although this hope has been dashed, they now suggest President Vladimir Putin might speak at the conference and give the right signal to the State Duma lower house of parliament to approve the pact. Putin said in June he was broadly in favour of the treaty, but described it as scientifically flawed – as did Gordeyev on Thursday. "The Russian government looks on the Kyoto protocol positively, but we say that the protocol, especially concerning scientific matters, leaves a lot of questions unanswered," he said.
Many scientists say the treaty, especially now Washington has pulled out, would do nothing to cut the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, although it could slow the pace of growth. But Russia stands to earn from the pact. The post-Soviet economic crash left industry in tatters and it now emits far less greenhouse gases than when quotas were assigned in 1990 – a surplus it could trade with over-polluters.
[http://gazeta.ru/] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
