Vladimir Putin: Russia Is Going to Accelerate the Movement to the Kyoto Protocol Ratification

"The fact that EU half-way met us at the WTO negotiations can't but influence Moscow's positive position regarding the Kyoto Protocol ratification. We will be speeding towards the Protocol ratification", President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin said at the press conference devoted to the results of the EU-Russia summit in Moscow.

Vladimir Putin told about Russia's position in favour of the "Kyoto Process". "We support it, but we have some anxieties connected with the obligations we should undertake", President said.

At that, President Putin specified that Russia and EU "didn't bale the questions of WTO and of the Kyoto Protocol". According to his words, Russian side "expressed anxieties" regarding this question, and the parties "managed to hear each other".

Earlier the European Union Commissioner for Trade Pascal Lami and the Minister of Trade and Economic Development German Gref signed in Kremlin the protocol about the termination of negotiations concerning mutual access to markets. This means that EU is finally giving the green light to Russia's entering into WTO.

The document was signed in the presence of President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, the Prime Minister of Ireland (the country presiding now in EU) Bertie Ahern and President Putin.

The Workshop on the Projects of Joint Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol

The two-day Workshop on the Projects of Joint Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol organized by the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) in co-operation with the Russian Hydrometeorological Service was concluded in Moscow. About 130 people representing governmental and social organizations from Russia, states of Eastern Europe, Canada, Japan and several developing countries took part in the Workshop.

The Projects of Joint Implementation - one of the three so called "flexible mechanisms" of the Kyoto Protocol providing collaboration of developed countries and countries with transitional economy in order to achieve the objectives of the Protocol with minimal expenses.

At the press briefing which took place after the termination of the Workshop FCCC executive secretary Joke Waller-Hunter noted the gratification of the Convention Secretariat meeting the speech of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin about the accelerated movement of Russia to the Kyoto Protocol ratification. "In 2004 it is ten years since the Convention on Climate Change came into force, and the Kyoto Protocol ratification by Russia would become the best gift to all participants of the Convention signifying the date. We would be satisfied if the Conference of the Parties to the Convention which is to be held in December of the current year in Buenos Aires became also the first meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, and to make this possible Russia must present its instruments of ratification by the 7th of September at the very latest", Waller-Hunter said.

The questions of the journalists were in general related to the economic consequences of the Kyoto Protocol ratification in Russia. In the opinion of the participants of the briefing, the conducted Workshop showed that there exist both demand and supply of Joint Implementation Projects with the participation of Russia and only the Projects "in portfolio" of the World Bank are estimated at 500 million U.S. dollars. The Projects suggested for implementation in the Russian Federation may be divided into three types: renewable energy, increase of energy effectiveness and utilization of greenhouse gases. Apart from power industry, investments could be used in the heavy industry and production of ecologically clean fuel.

According to Joke Waller-Hunter, Russian business is ready to invest the assets gained from the joint implementation projects into the ecologization of production, in particular, into the increase of energy effectiveness which is 2-2.5 times lower in Russia than in highly industrialized countries. Many Russian participants of the Workshop accentuated the importance of implementation of the projects for the economy modernization and the fulfillment of the ambitious goals facing it.

Among the problems the qualitative disagreement of demand and supply concerning the projects of joint implementation, and lack of unified rules to enforce them were called. It was emphasized in conclusion that the aforementioned projects have the future only in case if the Kyoto Protocol comes into effect, because provided the lack of the fixed goals "carbonic market" disappears as well which leads to the loss of interest to the joint implementation projects from the side of business structures.

Round Table on the Kyoto Protocol was held

The Initiative Group "Russia and the Kyoto Protocol" along with the National Institute of Regional Researches and Political Technologies "Expert Community" became the organizers of the Round Table on the theme: "The perspectives for the Kyoto Protocol joining in Russia" which was held in the Mariotte Hotel on the 19th of May.

The participants of the Round Table were suggested to discuss the problem concerning the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol which assigns the obligations of the developed countries and countries with the developing economics to limit and reduce the greenhouse gas emission in the atmosphere.

Representatives of business, power structures, independent institutions took part in the work of the Round Table. The scope of discussed questions included, among others, conditions necessary for Russia to possibly join the Kyoto Protocol; creation of the universal mechanism for the environmental regulation; economic consequences arising from the Kyoto Protocol ratification by Russia; prospect of jointly made with developed countries programmes on greenhouse gas emission reduction on the level of regions, sectors and separate enterprises; analysis of international experience in elaboration of national programmes on the greenhouse gas emission reduction in the atmosphere; prognosis of the situation related to the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.

The fourth Session of the UN Forest Forum

Official Russian delegation was headed by the chief of the Federal Forestry Agency V.P.Roschupkin. The delegation also included vice-chairman of the State Duma Environmental Committee M.Y.Lebedeva and the president of the Russian Association of Foresters A.I.Pisarenko.

During the Forestry Forum V.P.Roschupkin and M.Y.Lebedeva visited WWF International Secretariat in Gland. Along with the Global Forest Programme manager Kris Eliot and the president of European Forest Programme Dunkan Pollard as well as the World Bank representatives James Douglas and Andrey Kushlin, among others, discussed the priorities of the Bank and WWF Alliance concerning the stable forest utilization and conservation of forest biodiversity and also the ways and directions of co-operation with the Russian Federal Forestry Agency. Careful consideration was given to the problem of illegal logging in Russia.

The Russian WWF director of conservation Eugeny Shvarts commented on the results of the UN Forest Forum Session as follows: "The delegation of Russia made a significant step forward. During the last three years the Russian Federation has taken almost no official part in the international negotiation process concerning the stable forestry and forest use, and its participation had no active part in it. Self-isolation from many international processes on forests was of great consequence to the growing world obsolescence in forestry management, forming of several myths about the forestry in the world leading forest powers, and made it impossible to use the experience of sustainable forest management and to reform forestry organization in many regions of the world. From my point of view, however, the main positive result of the Russian official delegation participation in the Forum is that, contrary to the prior situation where the problem of illegal logging was often represented as "political provocation, impeding export of production of Russian economics forest sector", or was just slurred over, now an active and grounded position has been stated. Yes, the fact of illegal logging does take place indeed, it is a serious problem in Russia as regards both economic and environmental side. But this is not only a problem of forest source nature, but equally of countries consuming timber production. We can solve the illegal logging problem only by combining efforts for the joint working."

Danube "canalization" alarms the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention

The Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention again appealed to the Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma expressing anxiety concerning the plans of deep-water channel construction in the Ukrainian delta part of the Danube Biosphere Reserve territory.

This variant of the project will have serious and irreversible effect on the Chilia mouth of the Danube river, Ramsar wetland of international meaning and one of biosphere reserves of the UNESCO project "Man and Biosphere".

The Secretariat called for the Ukraine to provide the observance of the international agreements it had signed, in particular, the Ramsar Convention. Several international organizations and governments of some other countries are known to share the anxiety regarding the problem.

In October, 2003 the joint Ramsar/UNESCO mission visited the Ukraine with the objective of finding the most environmentally reasonable solution of the problem, and suggested alternative variants which would provide safety of this nature reserve of international meaning containing most valuable extensive littoral territories.

Despite all the efforts of international community Minister of Transport of the Ukraine Georgy Kirpa has opened the construction of the channel based on the most destructive project, delayed earlier only due to the weather and other natural circumstances.

It is known for certain that there are several solutions permitting co-existence of the reserve territory and further economic development of the region, what would allow to follow the spirit and the letter of the Ramsar Convention and the decisions of the Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002).

Secretary General of the Convention Peter Bridgewater affirmed the willingness to collaborate with the Ukrainian government and other interested parties on this question in order to find the best solutions of the problem.

The U.S. Programme for the Weapons Plutonium Utilization is at a standstill yet

American officials admitted for the first time that the utilization process of 68 tones of Plutonium in Russia and the USA, which began 6 years ago, stands still. One of the reasons is the lack of finance. Many Western countries refuse to finance the project knowing it to be environmentally defective. In the year 2000 the environmentalists won the refusal of Germany to station in Russia the plant producing Plutonium fuel that actually led to the freezing of Plutonium utilization plans in Russia.

"Environmentalists support the disarmament and Plutonium utilization but in a quite another way than governments plan. Plutonium utilization in old nuclear reactors is fraught with serious environmental consequences and the threat of nuclear proliferation. Therefore the absence of progress is a good sign. We suggest an alternative variant - Plutonium vitrification. It is cheaper and less dangerous," says Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of the "Ecodefense!" group which conducts a campaign against Plutonium fuel since the year 1998.

In accordance with the utilization programme Russia and the USA planned that Plutonium would be used to produce nuclear fuel (MOX). The community and environmentalists of both countries call this way of Plutonium utilization the most dangerous and economically disadvantageous. According to the latest calculations Plutonium fuel is 5-10 times more expensive than that of Uranium which is used nowadays. The cost of the Plutonium programme in the USA is about 4.6 billion dollars, in Russia - 2.7 billion dollars.

From the environmental viewpoint, utilization of Plutonium as nuclear fuel has far-reaching consequences - the pollution, 2 times more extended than that caused by a similar contingent failure of a reactor loaded with "usual" Uranium fuel. MOX-Programme presupposes transportations of materials including weapons Plutonium; during these transportations the high level of security will be difficult to ensure. This will make for the threat of nuclear material thefts and acts of terrorism. Besides, a serious danger of accident exists in case of transportation, with subsequent pollution of railways and environment.

The future of the wind power engineering was discussed in Paris

The Workshop "Wind energy integration into electric mains: economic aspects and problems of reliability" was held in Paris, organized by the OECD International Energy Agency and OECD Atomic Energy Agency.

The increase of the wind energy volume in the total quantum of energy output gave rise to a number of questions connected with the guarantee of safe power supply. Natural fluctuation of wind power generation figures-of-merit caused the growth of reserve source use. It also presumed that extra injections will be required in order to maintain the safety of the wind energy systems.

Now the specialists fail to come to an agreement on the question concerning the amount of outlay and benefits of wind energy volume increase, and the dispersion of quantitative assessments does not allow to elaborate the strategy to solve the problem. What is more, the assessments are based on technologies existing at the present moment while new projects in the outlook might help in extenuating its acuteness.

The Workshop was held in the form of three sessions. First of them, "Expenses on wind energy integration into electric mains", was devoted to the exchange of experience and the questions of safe wind energy systems, the quantitative assessment of outlay and to the legislative barriers preventing more effective use of assets. The second session, "Economic assessment of future development", included the research of influence of the wind energy production increase on the electric mains, the qualitative assessment of potential expenses. Finally, the third session, "The instruments of minimization of costs connected with wind energy increase", was devoted to the selection of mechanisms which would allow to reduce both technical and legislative material losses from wind energy volume increase in the whole quantum of energy output.

The representatives of academic circle, social organizations as well as invited representatives of governmental bodies and business took part in the Workshop.

Working Meeting on electronic databases of the EECCA region

On May 13-14, 2004 in Nakhabino, near Moscow, the working Meeting on electronic databases for environmental accounting took place. The theme of the Working Meeting: "Further development of electronic databases on environment of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia countries". EECCA countries within the framework of the joint UNEEC and EEA project created electronic database containing information about the national expert nets concerning environmental monitoring and catalogue on the data sets and sources, as well as data on institutions, reports and other information products in the environmental sphere. This database includes more than 1,500 notes on all of the twelve countries and is placed in the Internet Portal of the Working Group on Environmental Monitoring and Evaluation. The Portal is supported by the UNEEC Monitoring Helpdesk in English and Russian languages and is regularly updated ().

The data source catalogue contains descriptions and direct Internet links to the state reports about the condition and protection of environment; estimation reports on biodiversity, wastes and other environmental aspects; national action plans and reports on environmental protection and sustainable development.

In the course of the Working Meeting the profit and the efficacy of the created database and ways of its popularization, practical questions of further system development by means of environmental accounting EEA ReportNet type subsystem creating ("Eco-Accounting") were discussed.

The next meeting of the Working Group is planned to be held in July of 2004 in Chisinau.

The Meeting of the Forum on Environment and Sustainable Development in Astana

The questions of interrelation of trade and sustainable development was discussed at the Meeting of the Forum on Environment and Sustainable Development (APFED) terminated on May, 26 in Astana.

APFED is a small (about 20 persons) group of respected figures of Asian and Pacific region (among which there are many former heads of states and governments) thoroughly chosen in accordance with their outstanding personal qualities, and also the chiefs of international organizations - UN Economic and Social Commissions for Asian and Pacific regions and UNEP. The president of APFED is the ex-prime minister of Japan Ryutaro Hoshimoto. Two persons from EECCA, Bulat Esekin (Kazakhstan) and Olga Ponizova (Russia) are the APFED members. The goals of APFED, created in 2001, are to define the key problems of the region and to elaborate recommendations for their solution for the people who determines policy in the countries of Asian and Pacific region.

The terminated APFED meeting was held in Central Asia for the first time. This happened mainly owing to the initiative of Bulat Esekin thinking the collaboration of Central Asia with Asian and Pacific region to be mostly important. The conclusion made by the APFED members was identical; they admitted that the discussions with the CA governmental bodies and CA non-governmental organizations allowed them to acquire familiarity with the problems related to the sustainable development of Central Asia and with the activity for their solution - and, thus, better understand this sub-region.

At the APFED meeting, in particular, the questions connected with the influence of international trade and free trade zones enhancement on the condition of environment and sustainable development were discussed. The positive result of these processes is growth acceleration, but measures need to be taken to minimize environmental expenses arising from the liberalization of trade. To solve the problems Strategic Environmental Assessment of Trade Policy is recommended to be developed. It is also necessary to prepare the guidelines for the environmental requirements in the free trade zones. As the experience of most countries of the region is insufficient in this sphere, it is offered to implement the programmes on the upturn of potential of the decision-making people, the experts and representatives of other sectors concerning trade and environmental policy correlation. The opinion of the APFED members is that Asian and Pacific region must become the world leader in integration of the environmental principles in the trade policy.

The Meeting "Integrated Environmental Management in the Volga-Caspian Region"

The meeting "Integrated environmental management in the Volga-Caspian region: Russian component of international co-operation" was completed on July, 2 in the UNEP Center of International Projects in Moscow. The meeting consisted of three topical sessions: "International assistance in the solution of environmental problems in the Volga-Caspian region", "Development of international co-operation in the protection of the Caspian Sea marine environment" and "Improvement of the Caspian Sea marine and littoral ecosystem management".

In the course of a general discussion conceptual bases and suggestions concerning the content of action plan on the improvement of marine and littoral ecosystem management in the Caspian region of the Russian Federation, as a possible national component in the Action Plan of the Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea, were discussed. The representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, the UN Environmental Programme, scientific institutes, and local authorities of the Near-Caspian regions took part in the meeting.

In the year 2004 the tenth anniversary of the international environmental co-operation of Russia in the Caspian Sea region is celebrated. The objective to elaborate the mechanism of regional environmental collaboration in the Caspian Sea was formulated by UNEP in 1994 at the first Meeting of the UNEP Working Group on the Consequences of Climate Change in the Caspian Sea Region where this mechanism was suggested to be built on the basis of the regional Action Plan elaboration similar to the Action Plans for the UNEP Programme of Regional Seas. Since the year 1997 the UNEP/Russia project "Integrated environmental management in the Volga-Caspian region" has been enforced; its primary result is the elaboration of concept and project of action plan on the improvement of marine and littoral ecosystem management in the Caspian region of the Russian Federation.

Within the framework of the recommendations of the First meeting of the UNEP Working Group it was suggested to elaborate a Convention for the regional collaboration in the Caspian Sea in the sphere of environmental protection. This work was concluded by signing of the Teheran Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea by the representatives of the five Caspian states; according to the document these states have bound themselves with the obligations to take all necessary steps of both collective and individual nature in order to reduce and control the marine environment pollution in the Caspian Sea. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed the Convention signing and expressed his gratitude to the countries which signed the document for their "demonstration to their peoples and to the whole world that international co-operation in sustainable development is not only necessary but also possible".

Taiga Resources Should Be Used as a Complex

An international working meeting "Non-timber products of the Far-Eastern Taiga: the prospect of further co-operation" was organized and held in Vladivostok by the Far-Eastern department of the Wild World Fund along with the "Forest" project and limited liability company "Limonnik". The representatives of Primorsky region and Khabarovsk Territory scientific and business communities, regional administrations of Primorsky region and Khabarovsk Territory and those of enterprises for forest non-timber materials storage and processing, social and environmental organizations took part in the meeting.

The meeting attracted attention of South Korean and Japanese organizations of the respective type which took active part in the working meeting and in the round table "The prospect of development of non-timber forest products market in North-Eastern Asia" held within the framework of this event.

South-Korean colleagues from the Association of the Korean Eastern Medicine and the Korean Institute of Vegetative Acupuncture expressed great interest in non-timber forest products of the Russian Far East, the products of their processing and the possibility to use them in the traditional Eastern medicine. In the course of the meeting vice-president of the Korean Eastern Medicine Association Li Yung Si especially emphasized the importance of the development of regional and international connections in the sphere of use of medicinal qualities of the Russian Far East non-timber forest products, enhancement of plant material processing and plant material commodity positioning in the North-Eastern Asia markets.

Major results of the held working meeting became the demonstration of the resource potential variety of non-timber forest products in the South of the Russian Far East, the exchange of experience and the establishment of partner relations between the leading scientific and producing enterprises, non-commercial organizations, regional administrations and other key partner organizations of the Far East and North-Eastern Asia, interested in the joint development of the forest products processing and commodity positioning, and also the defining of possibilities for the international co-operation between Russia, China, Japan and South Korea in the non-timber forest products sector.

"The participants of the meeting admitted that the condition of the sphere has overcome the peak of the crisis, now slow restoration is in process, mainly home market-oriented. Undoubted is the positive role of the Associative Structures, such as, for instance, the Nature Manager Partnership of the South Sikhote-Alin, in the industry restoration. So what prevents development of the non-timber forest product storage and processing in the South of the Russian Far East? The first reason is the slack investment of this industry. For its turn, investment flows is being restrained by the lack of reliable information in the resource base, and the "uncertainty of the play rules". Secondly, the absence of credit system, which would allow to outlast the problems of a long production cycle, plays negative role. The industry development is also restrained by the regional officials' lack of understanding of the socio-economic function of the industry, its prospect in the future, especially against the background of several worldwide tendencies in the health protection, its role in the maintenance and conservation of public health, and, I'd like to mention, environmentally stabilizing function of this industry in the nature management of taiga. The development of the non-timber forest product extraction and processing in the Russian Far East may become a substantial component in the upturn of social and economic situation in the taiga regions of territories and areas in the South of the Russian Far East, in the new job creation, in the improvement of public health", noted the coordinator of the WWF FED (Far Eastern Department) Programmes for Sustainable Development Vladimir Karakin.