RUSSIA: Russia's Duma ratified the Kyoto protocol yesterday, clearing the way for the long-delayed climate change pact to come into force worldwide.
The ratification pushes the 126-nation UN accord, aimed at battling global warming, over the threshold of 55 per cent of developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions needed to make it internationally binding after a US pull-out in 2001.
"We'll toast the Duma with vodka tonight," Greenpeace climate policy adviser Mr Steve Sawyer said. The bill was passed in the lower house of parliament by 334 votes in favour, 73 against and two abstentions.
Kyoto will go into force 90 days after it passes the upper house and is signed by President Vladimir Putin. These steps are seen as formalities after yesterday's vote in the Duma, controlled by pro-Kremlin parties.
"The entry into force of Kyoto is the biggest step forward in environmental politics and law we have ever seen," said Ms Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF conservation group's climate change programme.
Mr Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said the decision was a milestone that "will concentrate the efforts of governments, business and industry on meeting the Kyoto targets and concentrate efforts on how we can deliver the even deeper cuts. The goal of stabilising the climate and securing the stability of the planet is, however, a long way off," he said.
Kyoto obliges rich nations to cut overall emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 by curbing the use of coal, oil and natural gas and shifting to cleaner energies like solar or wind power.