The State Duma, or Russian parliament’s lower house, is to determine on Friday the fate of the Kyoto protocol, the first legally binding accord of a global scale, the assessment of which in Russia’s scientific and public circles is controversial.
Nonetheless, most of deputies interviewed but an Itar-Tass correspondent expressed confidence that the protocol would be ratified “with a significant excess of 226 votes necessary for it”.
The Kyoto protocol, which was passed in 1997, aims at reduction of industrial atmospheric emissions that lead to so-called global warming.
The protocol can come in force after the ratification by signatory states, whose collective volume of atmospheric emissions was not less than 55 percent of the world’s total in 1990.
The US refused to ratify the protocol in 2001, and its coming in force actually depends on Russia.
Russia’s supporters and opponents of the ratification of it are divided not so much over scientific validity and effectiveness of the measures envisioned by the document as economic consequences of it.
The Russian president’s economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, who is one of fierce opponents of the Kyoto protocol, said “we could loose the hope to become an economically strong country” if Russia ratified it.
The director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Water Problems, Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, is of the opinion that “this document is a model of international and national mechanisms that will help preserving a climatic balance on the globe”.
The chief of the Russian Hydrology and Meteorology Committee, Alexander Bedritsky, sees no loss in ratifying the protocol either.
He said the “fulfilment by Russia of obligations within the framework of the protocol is realistic in the initial period of effect of this document – 2008-12”.
State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov is of the view that after this period, provisions of the protocol could be modified and “participants in it will be able to discuss a further variant of its work”.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said the “coming of the protocol in force will allow attracting additional investment in Russia, primarily in energy-saving technology”.
“Russia advocates the Kyoto process,” President Vladimir Putin said at the Russia-European Union summit in May.
“We support it, but we have some concerns about obligations that we are to assume,” Putin said.
MOSCOW, October 22 (Itar-Tass)
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