Cash concerns crush Kyoto pact

2003-12-03 08:27

Moscow - In what would be a mortal blow to the accord aimed at halting global warming, a top Kremlin official said Russia won't ratify the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions because it will hurt the country's economy.

The United States rejected the accord for the same reason. Without Moscow, the protocol cannot come into effect even if approved by every other nation because only Russia's industrial emissions are large enough to tip the balance.

The pollution cuts required by the treaty would slow the economic growth that President Vladimir Putin has made a major priority, top adviser Andrei Illarionov said on Tuesday.

'Can't be ratified'

"In its current form, the Kyoto Protocol places significant limitations on the economic growth of Russia," Illarionov told reporters in the Kremlin on the sidelines of Putin's meeting with European business leaders. "Of course, in its current form this protocol can't be ratified."

Earlier this year, Putin cast deep doubts on Moscow's willingness to ratify the protocol, but he had not ruled it out entirely.

A Russian Economics Ministry spokesperson, Konstantin Bogdanov, told Dow Jones News Wires on Tuesday he was unaware of any change in Russia's official position, which has been that it is still considering the protocol.

However, Illarionov said it would be unfair for Russia to curb emissions and stymie its own growth while the United States and other nations, which account for the bulk of global emissions, refuse to join the pact.

Attention focused on Russia after the Bush administration announced it would not ratify what it called a flawed pact that would unfairly harm the US economy. The United States is responsible for one quarter of the world's man-made carbon dioxide emissions, and its March 2001 decision angered environmentalists.

Putin has called for the doubling of Russia's gross domestic product by 2010 - a goal officials fear might conflict with the Kyoto Protocol, which would require the Kremlin to overhaul Russian industries to cut emissions.

Russia's emissions have fallen by 32 percent since 1990 amid the post-Soviet industrial meltdown, but they have slowly started to rise with the economic revival of the past five years.

At a climate change conference that began on Monday in Milan, Italy, the news from Russia left participants pondering strategies in the absence of a global treaty.

The European Union, which has led the fight to save the pact after Washington pulled out, said in a progress report it was getting further from meeting its own targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions under the pact.

The European Environment Agency said its latest figures were "much more pessimistic" than last year's mainly because Germany drastically scaled back its forecast for reductions.

"At the moment things are moving away from Kyoto rather than toward it," said spokesperson Tony Carritt.

- AP