Spotlight on Russia's Role in Climate Control. By Tom Zeller, Jr., NYTimes, July 27, 2009. "Russia is one of the planet's most prodigious suppliers of fossil fuels and an intense consumer of energy. Its energy intensity -- the amount of energy a country burns through to achieve a unit of gross domestic product - is double that of the United States... And yet, for all that, Russia has remained rather out of view amid the furious global hunt for an agreement -- any agreement -- on just how to fairly distribute the economic burden of greenhouse gas reduction and, perhaps, curb the steady march of global warming. Developing countries like China and India, whose blossoming economies are expected to spew ever-larger amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, take top billing in the endless wrangle with rich countries over who should cut what and by how much. But as the clock ticks toward the climate talks this December in Copenhagen, where a successor to the Kyoto protocol will be hammered out or lost to discord, Russia's role as a wild card -- both as a signatory to any treaty and as a looming emitter in its own right -- is often overlooked."
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