Although driven by a selfish motive, President Putin of Russia has performed a feat of historic significance by successfully influencing his country's parliament, Duma, to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on environment and earned a rare applause from the European Union and the environmentalists across the globe. Duma's lower house voted 334-73 in favour of ratification on October 23 after a short debate.
This decision of his has revived a near-dead treaty but has, at the same time, cleared Moscow's way for entry into the World Trade Organization along with creating opportunities for a new kind of business for Russia's emerging capitalists.
Russia, described by some environmentalists as the world's 'ecological saviour', is to profit from the ratification in a big way. The trade in emission credits could earn it 20 billion dollars to 40 billion dollars in investments. In particular, the country's energy monopoly, United Energy Systems, which is eager to modernize its power plants, will be a major beneficiary.
The countries that produce excess gases will buy credits from those countries which are below their quotas, after the treaty comes into effect, to meet the compliance - an interesting kind of business. Russian industry has declined since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the country emits about 30 per cent less of the affected gases than it did in 1990.
The United States, the world's largest polluter, has withdrawn from the Kyoto process in 2001. Mr Adam Ereli, a deputy State Department spokesman, said after Moscow's ratification that the US has no intention of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol because "we have not changed our views". The main reason for Washington's negative stance, which amounts to a disgusting rebuff to multilateralism and the cause of environment, is the stiff opposition of the treaty by the US industry whose billions of dollars come under stake if it is implemented.
Another country to have rejected the treaty is Australia. Japan, Germany and other industrial nations have already ratified the treaty. China is a Kyoto member but as a developing country does not have to meet specific targets for cutting emissions.
In the US, John Kerry whose Democratic Party is pro- environment, was too careful to avoid annoying America's powerful corporate sector at a time when the hotly contested presidential poll is a few days away. He made no effort to distance himself From Bush's stance, saying Kyoto "is not the answer."
Bush, in the second debate on October 8, had said, "Had we joined the Kyoto treaty...it would have cost America a lot of jobs. It's one of these deals where, in order to be popular in the halls of Europe, you sign a treaty...I think there's a better way to do it." Kerry at that time had accused President Bush of "not living in a world of reality with respect to the environment."
The Kyoto Protocol, which has been ratified by 125 countries by September this year, and now by 126, was negotiated in the late 1990s to transform the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) into legally binding policies. The countries listed in Annex I - members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and "economies in transition" such as Russian Federation - agreed to reduce six greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels. The Kyoto Protocol established emission targets for each of the developed countries per their own 1990 levels.
The target for the US is seven per cent and it is eight per cent for the EU. In addition, the developed countries combined reductions must fall 5.2 per cent below their 1990 levels on average for the period of 2008-2012. The protocol also established several innovative mechanisms to help the developing countries to comply with the treaty, including an emissions trading scheme that enables them to invest in industrial development while global emissions are reduced.
The Kyoto treaty could not come into force because it requires ratification by 55 countries, of which developed countries account for 55 per cent of total emissions of 1990 levels. Although President Clinton signed the protocol in 1998, the US had insisted that the emission targets for developing countries such as China and India must be fixed.
In order for Kyoto to come into force, either the US or Russia was to ratify it as their respective emissions of 36 per cent and 17 per cent were to achieve the required participation of developed countries affecting at least 55 per cent of the world's total emissions. That figure was 44 per cent before Russia came on board; now it is 61 per cent. On May 21 this year, Russia had announced to ratify the protocol in exchange for EU support for its admission to the WTO. But President Bush took an extreme step in 2001 of effectively ending the US involvement in the treaty.
Under the circumstances, Russia's ratification is of extraordinary importance for transforming Kyoto from a draft 1997 agreement into a working international treaty which will come into force 90 days after Duma's upper house endorsement which is a foregone conclusion.
After the United States and Australia the treaty, Moscow's ratification had becOme vital for salvaging it. Russia was the only country left that produced enough emissions to clear the threshold.
The Russian government's decision leaves the United States alone as the largest and most important industrialized nation having withdrawn from the treaty. Russian ratification means a new market and a new economy has been given the green light, but the US is not following the signal. Regardless of who wins the presidential election, there is going to be enormous new pressure on the new president to go back to the negotiating table.
Former vice-president Al Gore, who wrote a book on global warming, has described the Russian action as an important and historic victory for "sanity, science and reason." He predicted that it would "unleash a chain reaction of adaptation" that would eventually include the United States, saying the world faces a climate crisis that will soon be apparent to every person on earth.
The Kyoto Protocol may not be perfect, the environmentalists say, but it is the only effective tool that is available to the international community. They intend to push for deeper cuts in gas emissions at the next round of international climate talks that begin in December.
Calling the decision "the moment in history when humanity faced up to its responsibility," Greenpeace, a key environment group, has praised Russia's decision. And Vladimir Grachev, chairman of the Duma's environmental committee, told the lower house that it was a proud moment for Russia. "By ratifying the Kyoto protocol, Russia is strengthening its international authority and becoming an ecological leader," he said.
Russian president Putin decided to back the Kyoto treaty in the face of often fierce domestic opposition, including harsh criticism from one of his own advisers. Two reports - one by the country's academy of sciences and another by a senior policy adviser - advised him to reject the ratification because it would cause irreparable damage to Russia's economy. But he went ahead, keeping his eyes on the WTO membership.
Greenpeace plans to launch greater lobbying of America over the issue at the forthcoming talks and for governments to go beyond Kyoto and make even deeper cuts in emissions. "We now need to roll up our sleeves and work to build on the Kyoto protocol to ensure that the industrial revolution of the 20th century will be followed by a clean energy revolution of equal magnitude for the 21st century," it said in a statement.