World press on Russia's position on climate change (June 24, 2013)

"Climate Change: Russia Is Steamed About U.N.'s Kyoto Carbon Credit COP-Out" is an article published in the American Forbes this week. 

"Representatives of Russia and other Eastern bloc countries at the recent climate talks in Bonn made it clear that they aren’t one bit happy about efforts within the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Parties (COP) to cap their free Soviet-era  carbon credit trading green stamps previously gifted to them under the Kyoto Protocol," the article states.

"The original deal was that signatory nations that reduced carbon emissions by targeted amounts under their 1990 levels would be able to sell credits based upon tonnage improvements to countries that produced more than their allocations, thereby meeting quotas. In other words, a market was created to sell lots of hot air…something that the U.N. excels at," the author notes ironically. 

The articles summarizes the position of Russia on the issue: "Originally, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on December 2, 2003, that his country would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol because the rationale supporting it was “scientifically flawed”. He argued that even one hundred percent compliance with the agreement wouldn’t reverse climate change. The Russian Academy of Sciences presented scientific arguments against signing in a statement issued on July 1, 2005, noting that the world’s temperatures do not follow CO2 levels. Instead, they observed a much closer correlation between world temperatures and solar activity. The Academy also determined that sea levels were not rising faster with warming; rather, they had been increasing steadily about 6 inches per century since the Little Ice Age ended in about 1850."

The articles dwells on the reasons why Putin and the Russian duma decided to change their position and ratify the Protocol. "It is widely speculated that Europeans were instrumental in getting Russia admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO), and thus categorized it as a developing country rather than a developed one in applying the Protocol regulations," the article claims. "This meant that Russia received an opportunity to sell to European countries billions of dollars’ worth of Soviet-era emission credits associated with former dirty industries that had been casualties of economic melt-down. This would also help Europe meet Kyoto’s first-phase requirements without actually cutting emissions or energy use," the author belives.

Pew Research Center released a study which cites climate change as one of the major conserns of contemporary world. "Concern about global climate change is particularly prevalent in Latin America, Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asian/Pacific region, but majorities in Lebanon, Tunisia and Canada also say climate change is a major threat to their countries. In contrast, Americans are relatively unconcerned about global climate change. Four-in-ten say this poses a major threat to their nation, making Americans among the least concerned about this issue of the 39 publics surveyed, along with people in China, Czech Republic, Jordan, Israel, Egypt and Pakistan", the report reads.