In a surprise move, the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to endorse the ratification of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Environmentalists worldwide hailed the move, which allows the Kyoto agreement to go into effect. In fact, the Russian decision owes less to environmental calculations than to political ones: Moscow endorsed Kyoto reportedly to win European Union endorsement for its own bid to join the World Trade Organization. Nevertheless, the move is a step forward in the battle to control greenhouse gasses that are contributing to climate change.
The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in December 1997; it is the outgrowth of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, under which countries agreed to try to lower their total emissions of greenhouse gases. It requires major industrialized nations by 2012 to reduce gas emissions to levels averaging 7 percent below those of 1990 (each country has set a specific target).
To take effect, the Protocol must be ratified by industrialized countries that together produced at least 55 percent of global greenhouse emissions in 1990. Until last week, countries accounting for 44 percent of global emissions had ratified the treaty. That list includes Japan, all the members of the European Union, and several others.