It is more than interesting to realize the dependency of Russia on it's oil, but, it made the tough decision and sought to protect it's wide ranging wildness.
Friday, 22 October 2004
By Nick Paton Walsh
The Russian parliament (click here) yesterday voted to ratify the Kyoto treaty, bringing the international climate change protocol to within months of coming into effect.
Friday, 22 October 2004
By Nick Paton Walsh
The Russian parliament (click here) yesterday voted to ratify the Kyoto treaty, bringing the international climate change protocol to within months of coming into effect.
The lower house of the parliament, or duma, yesterday voted 334-73 to approve the treaty. This means that the protocol's 126 signatories have eight years to cut their emissions of six greenhouse gases to 5.2% below their 1990 levels.
The treaty needs 55 industrialised nations, representing 55% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, to sign it before it can come into effect.
The United States, responsible for 36% of emissions in 1990, and Australia, have already refused to sign up to the measure, meaning Russia had to ratify the treaty to save it from collapse. The move will be seen as a sign that Moscow is keen to curry favour with Brussels after the bruising attacks on human rights abuses by the EU in recent months.
The bill now has to pass through the more pliant upper house of parliament, the federation council, and then be signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, the bill's main advocate. The parliament, where the pro-Putin United Russia party commands a two-thirds majority, was perhaps the only possible impediment to the bill becoming law. The treaty will come into effect 90 days after it is ratified by Russia.
Mr Putin prevaricated over the bill, saying that Russia would only sign it if it was in the national interest and suggesting it would need modifying. His key adviser on the issue, Andrei Illarionov, made Russia's vital ratification of the pact seem unlikely when he described it as an "economic Auschwitz", insisting it would cripple Russian economic development.
However Mr Putin publicly announced he would ratify the treaty after a meeting with EU officials in May, on the same day as the EU dropped its objections to Russia joining the World Trade Organisation....
