Posted on 08/30/2002 6:56:31 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
INTERVIEW-Russia warns it could kill off Kyoto Protocol
By Alastair Macdonald
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Russia warned Friday that it might decide against ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, a move that would effectively kill off the pact against global warming, which has already been rejected by the United States.
"There is a risk. There is a risk, without a doubt," Deputy Minister Mukhamed Tsikanov of the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade told Reuters at the Earth Summit.
"Because ... we don't have the economic stimulus, the economic interest in the Kyoto Protocol," he said, although he added that, for the moment, the plan in Moscow was still to ratify.
Moscow believes billions of dollars it had expected to earn by selling "rights to pollute" under the treaty's quota trading mechanism are now in doubt since the United States, the biggest potential buyer, has pulled out of the Kyoto process.
West European countries, the strongest backers of the deal, have expressed confidence Moscow will ratify after a certain amount of bargaining. A complex vote-weighting system means the pact cannot come into force without Russia's agreement.
Countries accounting for 55 percent of the developed world's carbon dioxide emissions in 1990 must sign up for the treaty to come to life. So far, with the EU, Japan and others but without the United States, the total is 37.1 percent. Ratification by Russia would add 17.4 percent, virtually assuring its success.
Moscow did sign up to a plan for implementing the 1997 treaty at fraught negotiations in Bonn a year ago, following President Bush's rejection of the protocol. President Vladimir Putin and his government have indicated that they do want parliament to ratify it after the summer recess.
"IS IT PROFITABLE?"
Tsikanov said his ministry would report to the government next month after a long process of gathering data from various departments on the likely impacts of ratification.
So far, he believed, there was no reason not to ratify.
"Is it profitable for Russia or not?" Tsikanov asked. "Today, on the basis of all the material gathered, I can say there is for the time being no reason for Russia to be against the Kyoto Protocol."
But the absence of the United States from the process is a serious drawback, he added. "That means that it turns out that Russia is losing a potential market for its trading quota. The economic stimulus to the Kyoto Protocol is disappearing.
"This is a key point that could play a negative role overall in the whole Kyoto Protocol process," he said.
"We had expected billions."
The accord commits developed, industrialized nations like Russia to cutting their emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which are blamed for global warming and so, in turn, for more extreme weather patterns worldwide.
Because much of its communist-era industry collapsed, Russia has already more than met its Kyoto target for emissions -- reductions are measured from a base of levels in 1990.
Russia also benefits from being able to offset the carbon dioxide-absorbing capacities of its vast forests against its gas emissions, adding to its virtuous status under the Kyoto rules.
Under a mechanism for trading pollution quotas between states that more than meet their obligations and those that fail, Moscow has stood to profit hugely from the pact.
But without U.S. participation -- the United States is the world's biggest polluter -- Russia's gains may be reduced.
BILATERAL TALKS?
Tsikanov said Moscow would be ready to talk to Washington on a bilateral basis but there had been no discussion yet and it was not clear what was possible with the United States outside the Kyoto process.
Bush questions the science behind global warming fears and says Kyoto's targets put an unfair burden on the U.S. economy.
Stressing Russia's disappointment with the way the Kyoto process was turning out, Tsikanov said: "When we talk about economic relations, sign a document in which these economic mechanisms are set out, then we go ahead on these conditions.
"But when ... we're told 'Sorry it's not going to work out like that', then we are going beyond the framework of what was signed."
He expressed irritation with the response Moscow was getting to its concerns: "We're ready to cooperate in every sense, but, if you please, they just shrug their shoulders." Whether or not it ratifies Kyoto, Russia, the world's biggest country by area, is doing its bit for the planet, Tsikanov said, and would dearly like the increased income from quota trading to help it look after its environment.
"From an economic point of view, we are undertaking colossal expenditure in order to maintain the ecological balance of the biosphere," he said, noting that spending on things like fighting forest fires and protecting wildlife placed a heavy strain on Moscow's limited budgetary resources.
"Our conscience before the international community is absolutely clear."
Only if you count CO2 as pollution. The Soviet Union was a far worse polluter than the US.
The Kyoto treaty is and always was a shakedown game to take money form the US and give it to others. Bush wisely refused to play. What is so bizarre is that so many in the American Media *WANT* the US to destroy its own economy and productivity.
I see they've given up on subtlety. They used to call it carbon credits. That message didn't cause enough of a kerfuffle I guess so they move on to the better phrase for scaremongering- "right to pollute".
My solution if Kyoto was ratified would be a radical one. When factories in the US reached the limits of their annual carbon quota, instead of purchasing more carbon credits from other countries they would simply cut off the light switch and send all the workers home for the rest of the year.
The Kyoto Protocol had many flaws. One that has not been sufficiently publicized was that it was essentially built on the back of the U.S. economy and its workers. Many other countries were given sweetheart deals or let off the hook entirely. China and the third world were permitted to go on doing whatever they wanted. Russia was to get paid for refraining from pulluting quite as egregiously as it had done in the past. The U.S. was expected to pick up the tab.
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