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#22 - JRL 7210
Advantages for Russia of ratifying Kyoto protocol "ephemeral" - Putin's aide
Interfax

Moscow, 4 June: Senior Kremlin adviser Andrey Illarionov has expressed doubts that Russia would gain anything by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, which has been signed by more than 180 states.

The advantages would be "quite ephemeral", he told a news conference in Moscow.

Signatories to the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at a UN summit in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, are required to cut their discharges of carbon monoxide and other gases by an average of 5.2 per cent of 1990 volumes by 2012.

Illarionov said Russia needs answers to some questions before ratifying or throwing out the protocol.

First of all, "the very allegation that there is global warming needs additional research", he said. "For instance, research done a year ago doesn't provide convincing confirmation that global warming exists."

Moreover, "there is no clarity about the mechanism for the connection between human activity and climate warming. So far, a good study has only been made on the mechanism of the effect of natural activity, especially volcanoes and earthquakes, on climate changes," he said.

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