The road to a successful post-kyoto climate treaty just got a lot steeper.
Citing the U.S.’s refusal to accept binding caps on greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a need to support middle-class comfort, Russia said on Monday it has no intention to accept mandatory targets for emissions reductions, as part of the global treaty being negotiated to replace the Kyoto protocol.
Russia is a signatory member of the Kyoto protocol, which puts limits on the nation’s emissions for the period from 2008-2012. However, Russia and other former communist-block countries were never in danger of surpassing those limits, du to the collapse of their economies in the mid 1990s.
Now, with its economy back on track and a growing middle class demanding more energy, top Moscow officials say they will not limit the use of fossil fuels, which the country has in great supply.
"Energy must not be a barrier to our comfort. Our emerging middle class… demands lots of energy and it is our job to ensure comfortable supply," Vsevolod Gavrilov, the official in charge of Russia’s Kyoto obligations, said. "We don’t plan to limit the use of fuel for our industries. We don’t think this would be right," he said, referring to the current round of Kyoto.
Russia said it welcomes investment from other industrialized nations in helping to clean up its energy and industry and pointed to major emissions cuts that could be made profitably in oil and natural gas business, without binding targets.
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