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Russia to stymie Kyoto climate deal – though some progress has been made

Publish date: March 18, 2008

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Russia to stymie Kyoto climate deal – though some progress has been made

Foreign companies seeking to make money in Russia under the Kyoto Protocol will face hard times, as Russian authorities say they will do what they can to obstruct the climate deals, the Barents Observer reported.

Still, in Northwest Russia, historic climate quota deals have already been struck.

The state official in charge of Kyoto implementation in Russia told Reuters Thursday that "the most correct approach is forbidding everything but allowing certain things to go forward. The worst approach is to approve everything but say certain things are forbidden"

Russian Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Vsevolod Gavrilov confirmed that "we are working according to a principle of rejection," The Moscow Times reported.

Despite the negative Russian position on the Kyoto deals, historic headway has still been made. In Northwest Russia, Finnish energy major Fortum has agreed with Territorial Generating Company No. 1 about the purchase of approximately 5 million metric tons of emission reduction units. The deal is the largest ever trade of CO₂ emission reduction units in Russia, said the Barents Observer.