04 September 2002 00:00
ON THE SPEECH MADE BY RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER MIKHAIL KASYANOV AT THE PLENARY SESSION OF THE WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN JOHANNESBURG
2002-09-03-001
Russia in the near future intends to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which means to limit the emission into the air of harmful chemical substances, Mikhail Kasyanov, the Chairman of the Russian Government, said as he spoke during the plenary session of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
Russia has played and will continue to play a determining role in the observance of the ecological balance on the planet, Kasyanov noted. In particular, Russia currently ensures the preservation of almost 20 percent of the world's fresh water and will readily provide the appropriate technologies to developing countries. He also announced that in the autumn of 2003 a World Conference on Climate Change will be held in Moscow on President Vladimir Putin's initiative.
The head of the Russian Government stressed that the determinant factor in carrying out ecological policies is providing economic foundations of independent, sustainable development for each state. He also noted the necessity to remove the discrimination existing in trade with the developing countries, reporting that Russia is already moving in this direction by reducing the amounts of import duties and maintaining special trade regimes with a number of Third World countries.
In addition, Kasyanov said that Russia as a member of the Big Eight is playing a serious role also in resolving the debt crisis of developing countries. Since 1996 the volume of this debt has been reduced by Russia by $35 billion, which is comparable with the volume of the Third World debt write-off by all the other developed countries. "Further efforts in this direction must be linked with the conversion of the financial obligations of developing countries into technologies relating to sustainable development and ecological projects," Kasyanov stressed. He announced that Russia is also planning to increase the number of scholarships in the fields of education and medicine for students from Third World countries.
The Prime Minister expressed the confidence that the outcome of the Johannesburg summit will attract the attention of all mankind to the problem of sustainable development and make the modern world more friendly and safer.
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