Kyoto Dead, Chirac Throws Fit

This past week at the World Climate Change Conference in Moscow, Russia's leaders have cast doubt on the chances that Russia will ever ratify the Kyoto Agreement. The response from France has been typically French: Chirac is stamping his feet, threatening Russia...

French President Jacques Chirac on Monday joined calls for Russia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, saying future relations between the European Union and the Russian Federation depended on it.

Chirac made the plea in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who backed away on Monday from an earlier pledge to swiftly ratify the U.N. pact on global warming, a step necessary to bring the agreement into force worldwide. Ratifying the pact "would underline Russia's determination to accept all the responsibilities of a large modern country towards future generations," Chirac said...

"I therefore see in it an essential element to the constitution of the common economic area we decided to create in St Petersburg," Chirac said, referring to plans for a common European economic space.

France and Germany like the Kyoto protocols because they are the two industrialized countries that would have the easiest time complying with them. But with nations that account for over two thirds of global greenhouse gas enissions not affected by the pact, Russia's stance is the only sensible position for them to take. Now almost three quarters of the world's emission emitters are out of the pact. How amusing that it may be for the wrong reasons, but at least the world has made the right decision.