![]() |
"The Russian government is meticulously examining this question and is studying all of the difficult problems associated with it," Putin said as he opened the five-day conference.
"The decision will be taken at the end of this work and in conformity with Russia's national interests," he said.
Putin said that "restrictions should not be enacted that would restrict economic growth and social development."
Kyoto supporters had been hoping to convince Russia, whose agreement is necessary to bring Kyoto into force, to ratify the 1997 treaty during the World Conference on Climate Change that Moscow is organising.
The meeting, which started Monday, brings together some 1,200 experts from 43 countries to present a total of 500 scientific papers.
In the days before the event, Russian and foreign experts said that Moscow would make its decision on the Kyoto treaty on economic and political criteria, rather than purely environmental considerations.
An official in the presidential administration said last week that Russia would only ratify Kyoto if it received firm guarantees on investment and on the sale of emission rights.
European officials have already ruled out such a prospect as unrealistic.
The Kyoto protocol, signed in 1997, provides for a worldwide reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases held responsible for global warming, notably carbon dioxide.
To come into force it requires the ratification of countries representing at least 55 percent of the global total of carbon dioxide emissions. With the United States, which alone accounts for over a third of such emissions, refusing to ratify the treaty, Russia's signature is needed to pass the threshold.
Experts agree that the treaty is beneficial to Russia since it allows countries to buy or sell pollution quotas and Russia, following the post-Soviet collapse of much its antiquated industry, would have quotas for sale.
Even by 2010 its CO2 emissions will be between 11 and 25 percent below their benchmark 1990 levels, according to the last Russian report to the United Nations.
Russia can also benefit from the Kyoto treaty by modernising its energy sector under a clause that allows an industrialised country to avoid a forced reduction in its own emissions in exchange for a "clean" investment abroad, a leading pro-Kyoto deputy, Alexander Kosarikov said.
In September 2002 Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov hinted strongly at a Johannesburg summit that Russia would eventually ratify the pact. But since then, Russian officials have issued a series of contradictory statements.
mo-vvl-yad/bb/ds
SPACE.WIRE |