F OR NEARLY two years the world has been waiting to see if Russia will ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, agreed in 1997. Russian ratification is necessary to bring it into force, which gives Russia strong leverage with the EU. In mid-April the chief adviser to Russian President Vladmir Putin said, ''The Kyoto Protocol is a death treaty because its main purpose is to stifle economic growth and economic activity.'' In May, after the EU agreed to back Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation later in the year, President Putin said he would ''speed up Russia's movement towards the Kyoto Protocol's ratification''. Welcome words, but no-one is holding his breath. Attention is now turning to the question of what next anyway? The Kyoto Protocol is often seen as either flawed or inadequate, but it is nevertheless a plausible and significant first step towards averting undue climate change brought about by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Its main perceived flaws are that it doesn't put any firm restraint on developing countries in the period up to 2012, and doesn't reach beyond 2012. Then there are problems getting countries accounting for 55 per cent of the developed nations' 1990 emissions to actually sign on. Because Kyoto does not require commitment on reducing emissions from the fast-growing and increasingly competitive developing countries, the USA has refused to ratify it. Australia has followed suit, though it has adopted the agreed Kyoto target. More seriously, most countries of the pre-expansion EU - Kyoto's main promoter - are well short of being able to meet their Kyoto targets and have run up against the inherent contradiction that greenhouse-gas reduction targets have been idealistically set by environment ministers, leaving it to energy, economic and transport ministers to achieve the cuts. Canada is in a similar position. All of this shows up the Kyoto Protocol as a political initiative which may be less effective than hoped, even if it was the best achievable at the time. There is now talk of linking emission reductions with trade access in bilateral or multinational agreements. Another possibility is that the dozen or so largest emitters (which would include India and China) might put together their own scheme. As the International Energy Agency puts it, the situation ''has led many observers and experts to reconsider the long-term potential of using the Protocol structure without significant future modifications''. A broader and longer- term approach is needed. For several years influential support has been expressed for the concept of Contraction and Convergence (C&C), as being fairer, simpler, and more science- based than the Kyoto Protocol. It is a long-term and somewhat utopian vision, well short of being negotiated politically, but it raises some interesting issues. C&C has three elements: An international agreement would define how much further carbon dioxide levels should be allowed to rise before its effects become unacceptable. Taking into account sinks, estimate how much global emission reduction is required to meet the target (the contraction) and how quickly the target should be reached. Allocate the fossil-fuel consumption that the allowed emission represents. The basis of this approach is the proposition that there is a human right to emit carbon dioxide which should be shared equally across the world, hence the need for convergence from the unequal status quo towards this fairer system. Each country would receive the same allocation of carbon-dioxide emission rights per head of population. During the convergence period, which should not be protracted, emission permits would be progressively adjusted from status quo to these new levels. Permits could be traded world-wide, causing a major economic transfer from countries which have used fossil fuels to create wealth to those still struggling to alleviate poverty. Translating this into political reality will be challenging and may never be attempted, but the issues raised are likely to be salient for any scheme which effectively tackles global warming. Achieving major emission reductions in developed countries will be a major challenge, but there are technologies available or in sight which could deliver them. Despite the intrinsic virtue of wind and other renewables, it is increasingly evident that the political boost for such sources is largely populist futility and will not achieve the emission reductions required. The practical limits of wind- power input to electricity grids are within sight already in Ireland, Denmark and Germany. Apart from that, the real costs of wind power, after allowing for full back-up capacity for when the wind is not blowing suitably, have been shown as inevitably much greater than relying on that other plant without the wind turbines as political window-dressing. In Britain a recent Royal Academy of Engineering report shows wind as being more than twice as expensive as nuclear power. Leaving aside the reliability of output from wind plant, a Eurelectric study on the actual financial subsidy per unit of electricity delivered is salutary. Overall, the cost of subsidising renewable energy in Europe will come to more than 11.5 billion euros a year by 2010 on present trends, with a significant impact on consumer electricity prices. The direct support was 3.3 billion euros in 2001. The nonsensical posturing of the German Government in relation to nuclear power is highlighted by the effective 6.6c a kilowatt-hour subsidy paid for wind energy there, the output of which is increasingly difficult to accommodate in the grid without diseconomies for other plant. The wisdom of so heavily subsidising an energy source which cannot deliver continuous reliable output is open to question. Significant emission-reduction technologies most obviously include nuclear power supplemented by renewables for electricity generation, and for non-fossil production of hydrogen for transport fuel. Technologies which capture and sequester potential carbon emissions, or which otherwise reduce them, will also have some place - a major one if they become economic. Mr Hore-Lacy is manager of the Uranium Information Centre in Melbourne and head of communications for the World Nuclear Association in London www.uic.com.au www.world-nuclear.org