"The message that president Putin gave last week following the EU-Russia summit was of course very welcome," said Joke Waller-Hunter, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Russia can expect "billions, not millions" of dollars in investments once it has ratified the protocol, Waller-Hunter said at a conference of international climate experts and officials in Moscow.

Putin, speaking on May 21, said: "The fact that the European Union has made concessions in our WTO (World Trade Organisation) negotiations cannot but have a positive effect on Moscow's attitude towards ratification of the Kyoto protocol.

"We will accelerate our efforts to ratify this protocol," Putin said.

Waller-Hunter expressed hope that Russia would ratify the protocol by September 7 in order to be able to take part in the December 6-17 climate conference in Buenos Aires.

The UNFCCC was the key agreement to emerge from the 1992 Rio Summit, giving birth to a raft of treaties and initiatives aimed at tackling the planet's environmental ills.

The Kyoto protocol was signed as a framework agreement in 1997 under which rich industrialised countries would curb emissions of "greenhouse" gases -- including carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels that scientists say is dangerously affecting Earth's fragile climate system.

It took four years to negotiate the protocol's highly detailed rulebook, but by that time the United States had quit the process, under a controversial decision by President George W. Bush.

He questioned the scientific evidence for global warming and said Kyoto was both too costly for the US economy, and unfair because the detailed pollution cuts only applied to developed countries.

The US pullout has deprived Kyoto of support from its biggest carbon polluter and left at risk of failing to muster enough support to take effect.

Under the protocol's rules, ratification by Russia is now essential for the deal to become an international treaty. But Russia has been dragging its feet about ratification, notably holding out for further concessions from the European Union, Kyoto's champion.

SPACE.WIRE