Russia comes through on Kyoto 24 May 04

Some rare good news. Thanks to Putin’s announcement following last week’s EU-Russian summit, it now looks as if the Russians will save the Kyoto Protocol after all. Some complex bargaining has gone on behind closed doors, resulting in a very practical deal: the EU will support Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation, and Putin will speed up the Kyoto ratification process. This is of massive importance to the world’s future – it now looks as if the US and Australia will be left isolated as the only two remaining members of the Axis of Denial. And in both countries, state governments and even industry are beginning to take their own measures to tackle global warming, even in the absence of federal support. So a decade of climate negotiations may not have been wasted after all. Once Kyoto is in force, the real endgame begins: beginning negotiations on an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions which will protect the planet, not just for five or ten years, but for a century or more.