MOSCOW — Russia will support a new global warming treaty only if it requires nations to make binding commitments to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday.
The final climate change pact — meant to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — should also take into account the capability of Russia's vast forests to absorb carbon dioxide, Putin said, adding that Kyoto did not "quite include" the issue.
Russia has the world's largest forest reserves, covering some 8 million square kilometers (3 million square miles).
World nations hope to conclude a preliminary agreement at a December U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The U.N., now holding a round of climate talks in Barcelona, Spain, has been pressing both industrial and developing nations to commit to firm emission limits. Industrialized nations are also asked to contribute to an aid fund to help the developing world cope with the effects of climate change.
Moscow's support for the Kyoto accord in 2004 — seven years after it was drafted — was crucial to its survival as Russia brought the number of ratifying countries to a level required to bring the pact into force. There are now more than 180 signatories.
"It was Russia whose ratification of the Kyoto Protocol made it effective," Putin told a news conference after talks with Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen.
Putin also said Russia deserved praise for keeping its level of carbon emissions at 30 percent below its 1990 level.
Critics have noted, however, that this is largely due to the decline in industry since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Russia's emissions have been well below the limit set by Kyoto in 1990, allowing Moscow to sell unused emissions credits to countries that exceeded their limits.
Russia is now responsible for 5 percent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution.
China and the U.S., by comparison, each account for about 20 percent of world pollution, and the European Union generates 14 percent.
U.N. experts say the world's total carbon emissions should peak within five to 10 years and then rapidly decline to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Science/Environment
November 3, 2009
Russia to back binding global climate deal
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