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Russia rejects pact on climate { December 3 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/03/international/europe/03KYOT.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/03/international/europe/03KYOT.html
December 3, 2003
Russia to Reject Pact on Climate, Putin Aide Says
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ANDREW C. REVKIN
MOSCOW, Dec. 2 — A senior Kremlin official declared Tuesday that Russia would not ratify the international treaty requiring cuts in the emissions of gases linked to global warming, delivering what could be a fatal blow to years of diplomatic efforts.
The official, Andrei N. Illarionov, said in remarks to reporters and in a subsequent interview that President Vladimir V. Putin had told a group of European businessmen on Tuesday that the treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol, ran counter to Russia's national interests.
"We shall not ratify," said Mr. Illarionov, the senior Kremlin adviser on economic affairs and an outspoken critic of the treaty, apparently ending more than a year of uncertainty about Russia's position.
The treaty, completed in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 after two years of intense diplomatic wrangling, would require major industrialized countries, as a group, to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases. By 2012, the countries would have to reduce the gases by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels.
While 120 countries have ratified the treaty, it can take effect only when approved by enough countries to account for 55 percent of 1990 emissions from the industrialized world. Without Russia or the United States, that threshold cannot be met. In 1990, the United States accounted for 36.1 percent of emissions, and Russia for 17.4 percent.
Russia signed the treaty in 1997, as the United States did under President Bill Clinton, and expressed support for it until about a year ago. The Bush administration rejected the pact, essentially giving Russia veto power over its enactment.
Barring a reversal by Russia, the treaty appears all but dead, leaving uncertain the future of international cooperation on the question of global warming.
Russian officials had increasingly voiced concerns about the economic costs of curtailing such emissions, which come mainly from burning fossil fuels. They had also questioned whether the warming was caused by human activities and, even if it was, whether it posed any great risks.
But this was the first time a seemingly unequivocal statement rejecting the treaty has been made by a top official citing Mr. Putin.
"A number of questions have been raised about the link between carbon dioxide and climate change, which do not appear convincing," Mr. Illarionov said in the interview. "And clearly it sets very serious brakes on economic growth which do not look justified."
Echoing President Bush and many in Congress, Russia has also complained that major polluters like China and India are not bound by the treaty, giving them an unfair economic advantage. But mostly, experts say, Russia is bothered by its declining financial return from joining the treaty.
After the collapse of Soviet-era industry, Russia's emission of gases fell to an estimated 30 percent below 1990 levels. But its Kyoto target for 2012 was its 1990 levels — meaning it already far exceeded its required reductions. Thus, Russia stood to gain financially from selling credits that would allow other countries to exceed the treaty's limits. Some major Russian industries lobbied for the protocol, seeing it as a way to use the credits to modernize aging plants.
Without the participation of the United States — which would have been a major buyer of credits — many officials here concluded that the potential economic gains were sharply reduced. With the Russian economy increasingly reliant on oil and gas production and exports, the officials concluded that the treaty's limits could become a drag on economic growth in the future.
Some independent analysts agreed that there was now little economic incentive in the treaty for Russia. "Their stake has been transformed from tens of billions of dollars over five years to tens of millions, if that," said Prof. David G. Victor of Stanford University, an expert on the treaty.
The Russian statements reverberated on Tuesday in Milan, where hundreds of delegates from around the world were in the second day of a two-week meeting on the pact and an underlying 1992 climate treaty that contains no binding provisions.
Some participants said Russia's apparent retreat necessitated a re-appraisal of the Kyoto-style approach, which requires prompt emissions curbs in wealthy countries while excusing all developing countries from obligations.
But some environmentalists and European and United Nations officials said they remained hopeful that Mr. Illarionov's remarks did not reflect Russia's official position.
"This is just the latest statement in a long line of predictions by Illarionov which have failed to eventuate," said Aleksei Kokorin, the head of climate change programs in Russia for the World Wildlife Fund. "He opposed the Russian energy strategy, which was then adopted in May."
Jos Delbeke, who leads the climate change unit of the European Commission, noted that Russia stood to lose the chance for big new investments by Western European countries in improving its power plants, pipelines and other facilities as part of what are called joint implementation projects under the treaty.
"Our private sector is lining up for this," he said. "It seems against the interests of Russia not to go into these."
But it would be highly unusual for the government to have left Mr. Illarionov's remarks — which were carried by the official Russian Information Agency, a state propaganda arm — uncorrected if they were not representative of its position.
His statements brushed aside impassioned appeals from the United Nations and from countries, especially in Europe, that have embraced the protocol as the best way to reduce emissions that many scientists link to harmful climate change.
If Russia's rejection is indeed final, countries could proceed independently with projects to curb emissions or enter into new talks toward ways to spur international efforts, experts said. The European Union has said that, with or without the protocol, it will proceed in 2005 with a trading plan allowing member states to reach targets by investing in emissions-curbing projects in other states. But the overall effect would almost assuredly be to delay any significant new initiatives to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
Although the Russian statements appeared to align Russia with the American position on the treaty, Bush administration officials declined to comment Tuesday. Previously, administration officials have said they have not urged Russia to join in rejecting the pact.
But senior administration officials have been using the new round of climate talks to strongly criticize the Kyoto treaty and promote their alternate vision of how to deal with climate change. In several statements in recent days, American officials said that the science pointing to risks remained murky and that the only way to solve the problem was with long-term research on new nonpolluting energy options.
Many climate experts have concluded that there is ample evidence that substantial increases in concentrations of the gases could disrupt ecosystems, storm patterns and agriculture in many parts of the world.
Despite having rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the administration sent more than 60 officials to Milan — one of the largest American delegations ever to the climate-treaty talks — to promote alternative approaches to curbing emissions growth.
The protocol is an outgrowth of the first international climate treaty, the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, which committed industrialized nations to work voluntarily to avoid "dangerous" interference with the climate system, but never defined "dangerous."
After signers in 1995 recognized that emissions were continuing to grow, negotiations began toward a binding agreement, culminating in 1997 with the current protocol. The targets for individual countries varied depending on their contribution to the problem, and intensive bargaining was aimed at being sure no country was getting too great a competitive advantage.
As recently as last year, President Putin indicated Russia's willingness to ratify the accord. Since then, however, he and other officials have wavered and stalled, raising questions about whether the country stood to benefit from ratification, especially without the participation of the United States and without mandatory limits on developing countries.
At a climate conference in Moscow in September, Mr. Putin said Russia remained committed to addressing climate change, but he also shocked many conferees with a quip suggesting global warming could benefit a country hardened by its harsh winters. "We shall save on fur coats and other warm things," he said.
Steven Lee Myers reported from Moscow and Andrew C. Revkin from New York.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
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