The protocol take small consideration of what Russia is doing to restore global oxygen balance, the expert pointed out to Novosti. This country accounts for 24 per cent of the world's forests to absorb up to 900 million tonnes of hothouse gases a year. Meanwhile, it is offered a miserable 12 per cent of the amount on mutual settlements.
Next, Russia should be entitled to financial compensation on forest reclamation-something around 1.5 billion dollars, said Miss Kashirova.
The State Duma, parliament's lower house, ratified the protocol today even before mutual settlement patterns have been worked out to take stock of Russian air pollution with industrial hothouse gases vs. their absorption by forests within the country. A practical arrangement is tentatively expected for as late as December next, and no one knows what it will be.
No quota trade patterns are in offer, either, the expert went on. Her team had come up with two-tier arrangement blueprints. The first level comprises government agencies, who should concentrate on operating the currently available amount-the head start Russia has after its industrial depression of the 1990s. The country does not owe that start to ecological achievements of particular industries or companies, so the matter ought to be in the government hands. The second level ought to involve private and/or government companies, which will sell for market prices the extra quotas obtained through technical innovations.
Anna Kashirova highlighted European Union legal acts on an order of priorities for countries which have an opportunity to sell hothouse gas quotas to its members. Russia brings the rear on the list, she stressed.
Russia has done nothing to this day to determine quota holding, legal relations in the market, and other matters that will necessarily come up as protocol premises are implemented.
Nothing would settle the Russian problems better than bilateral agreements with every Kyoto protocol signatory country, deems the expert.
From the Duma, the Kyoto protocol is going on to the Federation Council, upper house, and on to the federal President for signing.
