The upper house of Russia's parliament ratified on Wednesday the
Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, the Itar-Tass news agency
reported.
The Federation Council, which voted 139-1 with one abstention to
endorse the protocol, will send it to President Vladimir Putin for
the final stamp of approval.
The protocol, originally adopted in Kyoto on December 11, 1997,
was signed by Russia in New York on March 11, 1999.
The lower house of Russia's parliament, the State Duma, ratified
the protocol on October 22.
The protocol, which has been rejected by the United States and
Australia, needs ratification by 55 industrialized nations
accounting for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas
emissions in 1990.
Russia's ratification will bring the number of countries that
have ratified the protocol to 55, the threshold needed for making
it operational.
Once the protocol takes effect, industrialized countries will
have until 2012 to cut their collective emissions of six key
greenhouse gases to 5.2 percent below the 1990 level.
The protocol also envisages a mechanism of trade in emission
quotas, which means that an obligation of some or another country
not to exceed a certain amount of emissions is interpreted as a
quota that the country can sell.
The 1990 amount of Russia's greenhouse gas emissions, 17 percent
of the global emissions, was defined as basic for the initial
period of the effect of the protocol, namely from 2008 to 2012.
The Russian Hydrometeorology Committee's chief Alexander
Bedritsky told the Federation Council that Russia would try to
defend its interests during the upcoming talks on Russia's
subsequent obligations.
However, Russia's participation in the Kyoto Protocol will
require budget expenditures on the reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions.
Most measures would be carried out in the program
Energy-Efficiency Economy for 2002-2005 and for the years to 2010,
Bedritsky added.
The government's prognoses proceed from the assumption that
development of production will be based on energy-efficiency
technologies, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency October 27, 2004)
