Russia won't sign Kyoto pact, Putin adviser says
Rejection by Moscow would doom the treaty on curbing global warming
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By Steven Lee Myers and Andrew C. Revkin
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Wednesday, December 3, 2003
MOSCOW -- Delivering what could be a fatal blow to the treaty aimed at halting global warming, a senior Kremlin official declared Tuesday that Russia wouldn't ratify the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gases.
The United States has already rejected the accord, and without Russia or America, the protocol cannot go into effect even if approved by every other nation. Although 120 countries have ratified the treaty, it can take effect only when approved by enough countries to account for 55 percent of the industrialized nations' greenhouse gas emissions. Without Russia or the United States, the 55 percent threshold cannot be met.
The pollution cuts required by the treaty would slow the economic growth that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a major priority, top adviser Andrei Illarionov said. The Bush administration has also cited fear that the accord would hurt the U.S. economy.
"We shall not ratify," said Illarionov, the senior Kremlin adviser on economic affairs. "In its current form, the Kyoto Protocol places significant limitations on the economic growth of Russia."
The treaty, completed in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 after two years of intense diplomatic wrangling, would require major industrialized countries to reduce gas emissions in 2012 by 5.2 percent from levels measured in 1990.
With Washington having previously rejected the pact, Russia essentially held a veto over the treaty's enactment. Barring a reversal by Moscow, the treaty now appears all but dead, leaving uncertain the future of international cooperation on the question of global warming.
If Russia's rejection is final, countries could proceed independently with projects to curb emissions or enter into new talks toward ways to spur international efforts, experts said. The European Union has said that, with or without the protocol, it would proceed in 2005 with an internal trading program allowing member nations to reach targets by investing in emissions-curbing projects in other nations.
But the overall effect of a Russian rejection would almost assuredly be to delay any significant new initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
As recently as last year, Putin indicated that Russia was willing to ratify the Kyoto accord, but he also shocked many at a conference in September with an impromptu quip suggesting that global warming could benefit his country: "We shall save on fur coats and other warm things," he said.
Russian officials have raised numerous questions about whether their country stood to benefit from ratification, especially without the participation of the United States and without mandatory limits on giant developing countries such as China and India.
Since the collapse of Soviet-era industry, Russia's emission of gases has fallen by an estimated 30 percent, meaning it has already far exceeded its required reductions.
Under the treaty's complex formulas, therefore, Russia stood to gain financially from selling credits that would allow other countries to exceed the treaty's limits. Some major Russian industries lobbied for the protocol, seeing it as a way to use the credits to modernize aging plants.
But without the participation of the United States -- which would have been a major buyer of credits, thus driving up their price -- many Russian officials concluded that the potential economic gains were sharply reduced.
"Their stake has been transformed from tens of billions of dollars over five years to tens of millions, if that," said Stanford University Professor David Victor, an expert on the treaty.
And with Russia's economy increasingly reliant on oil and gas exports, Kremlin officials concluded that the treaty's limits could become a drag on future economic growth.
Backers of the Kyoto Protocol downplayed Illarionov's remarks Tuesday, saying they didn't amount to an official rejection of the pact.
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien doubted Russia would abandon the accord, adding that Illarionov's remarks didn't match assurances he had received from Putin.
"I am nearly convinced that Russia will sign on," Chretien said.
This article contains material from other wire services. |
