Russia Takes Shot at Washington Over Kyoto PactRussia fired a shot at Washington on March 31 for rejecting the 1997 Kyoto pact, condemning "one-sided" action over the treaty aimed at curbing global warming.The foreign ministry, in its first comment on the rejection of the treaty by President George W. Bush, said in a statement that careful work was needed to get a treaty to satisfy all. "Attaining this goal cannot come from one-sided steps, but by the continuation of careful and constructive work to find solutions which would in full measure suit all the participants in the framework convention on climate change," it said. "We support a successful conclusion to the negotiating process on working out mechanisms for the realization of the Kyoto protocol and consider that they should have an all-embracing character," it added. The European Union has criticized Bush for rejecting the Kyoto treaty, which calls for targeted cuts of carbon dioxide emissions to reduce the risk of global warming. But Canada has said the rigid European stance forced Bush to reject the treaty, which calls on industrialized nations to cut carbon dioxide emissions by on average 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Bush said the pact was not in U.S. interests. Russia is among the world's top polluters after the United States, which is the biggest producer of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Russia had hoped to benefit from allowances in the Kyoto pact for countries which meet emission targets to sell credits to nations that do not. Russia's emissions have fallen sharply amid economic collapse since the end of the Soviet era. |
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