Russia ratifies Kyoto Protocol

8.25am - By DANIEL WALLIS

NAIROBI - Russia formally ratified the Kyoto Protocol on global warming on Thursday, clearing the way for the environment pact to come into force in February 2005.

The move means that from February 16, industrialised nations that are signatories to the pact will be legally bound to meet quantitative targets for reducing or limiting emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.

Scientists say carbon dioxide released from burning oil, coal and gas in power plants and cars is the main source of global warming.

UN climate experts have already detected many early signals of global warming, including the shrinking of mountain glaciers and Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice, reduced ice cover on lakes and rivers, longer summer growing seasons and the spread of many insects and plants towards the poles.

The UN accord, backed by more than 120 countries, will enter into force 90 days after Thursday's filing of the Russian ratification documents with the United Nations -- meaning on February 16, according to the accord's administrators.

Russia's documents were handed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan by Moscow's UN ambassador, Andrei Denisov. Both are in Nairobi, the home of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), for an extraordinary UN Security Council meeting on Sudan.

"This is a historic step forward in the world's efforts to combat a truly global threat," Annan said. "Most important, it ends a long period of uncertainty.

The accord was ratified by both houses of Russia's parliament last month and then signed by President Vladimir Putin on November 5. Russia's support become crucial after the United States, the world's biggest polluter, rejected the pact in 2001.

"We discussed it for a long time," Denisov said. "We believe this step will be helpful in preventing emissions of greenhouse gases, which is very important for all mankind.

The protocol commits 55 industrialised nations to make big cuts in emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide by 2012.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol obliges rich nations to cut overall emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 by curbing use of coal, oil and natural gas and shifting to cleaner energies like solar or wind power.

To come into force, the pact needed to be ratified by countries accounting for at least 55 per cent of developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions.

Russia, which accounts for 17 per cent of global emissions, became the key to Kyoto after Washington pulled out saying the pact was too costly and unfairly exempted large, rapidly industrialising countries such as China and India.

Russia signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1999. However, it agreed to ratify the treaty only in exchange for European Union agreement on Moscow's admission to the World Trade Organisation.

Joke Waller-Hunter of the Bonn-based Climate Change Secretariat, which services the protocol, said only four industrialised countries have not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol: Australia, Liechtenstein, Monaco and the United States.

- REUTERS