Russia set to ratify Kyoto Protocol

AS negotiators finished a global plan to tackle poverty and save the environment, Russia said yesterday it will soon ratify the Kyoto Protocol a move that would bring the key climate change agreement into effect.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was among a series of leaders at the World Summit urging action on Kyoto. He said his country planned to ratify the agreement "in the very near future", but did not specify when.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Monday he would submit the protocol to his parliament to consider ratification, and China announced yesterday it had already ratified it.

"Different countries have different conditions, however, we should all endeavour to take responsibility for the whole world," said Xie Zhenhua, China's Minister of Environmental Protection.

The United States has been relentlessly criticised for its rejection of the 1997 Kyoto deal, which requires industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. But the accord can still come into effect if Russia joins the EU and Japan in ratifying.

Once the accord is in effect, the nations that have signed on more than 70 so far will be obliged by law to implement the emissions cuts it sets. The US, which rejected the accord last year, would not be so required.

US Environmental Protection Administrator, Christie Whitman, said yesterday that the United States supported other countries' ratification of the deal. But she said the agreement was not appropriate for the US, which is taking other action to limit climate change.

The movement on the Kyoto Protocol came after negotiators in Johannesburg late Monday reached agreement on their nonbinding action plan for sustainable development.

In one provision of that plan worked out in a compromise with the US, nations backing Kyoto "strongly urge" states that have not done so to ratify it in "a timely manner".

Fifty heads of state and other dignitaries were addressing the World Summit on yesterday.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is to address the summit today its closing day on behalf of President Bush, who has been criticised for not attending.

Late Monday, negotiators resolved the last main sticking points in a 70-odd page action plan covering energy, clean water, biodiversity, health and sanitation.

Most of the items were geared to helping the world's poorest people without polluting.

Summit Secretary-General Nitin Desai praised the plan as a strong blueprint.

"The test is whether governments, along with civil society and the private sector, can pursue the commitments that are in the document," he said.

After losing its push to set targets in the plan for increasing the use of wind and solar energy, the European Union said yesterday it would form a coalition of "like-minded countries and regions" willing to commit to such timetables.

Many developing countries had sided with the US and Japan against including the targets in the summit's plan, arguing they were a rich country's luxury.

After more than a week of tough bargaining, the agreed text includes a commitment to "urgently" increase the use of renewable energy sources but cleaner use of fossil fuels is acceptable.

The text also urges countries to reform subsidies that favour industrialised countries or are harmful to the environment, and commits to halving the 2 billion people living without proper sanitation by 2015.