Earth Equity News

Russia's 'Hot Air' Allowances Threaten Prospects for Post-Kyoto Treaty. By Philip P. Pan, WashPost, November 30, 2009. "Russia is on track to far exceed its targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto climate-change treaty, but its success could derail efforts to reach a new accord against global warming, according to officials and analysts following the negotiations. At issue in the thorny dispute is the huge surplus of carbon credits that Russia -- the world's third-largest producer of energy-related greenhouse gases -- is amassing by keeping emissions under generous 1997 Kyoto Protocol limits. The Kremlin has insisted that the credits be carried over into a new agreement, but environmentalists say that would cripple any treaty by making it much cheaper for countries to buy credits than cut emissions. 'You've got an elephant in the room that nobody is paying attention to,' said Samuel Charap, a Russia scholar at the Center for American Progress in Washington, arguing that the Obama administration needs to take up the issue with Russia's leaders... Charap and others warn that Russia's hoard of credits could allow it to play a last-minute spoiler in the [Copenhagen climate] talks. 'If you want an ambitious agreement, then Russia's potential resistance can be extremely damaging,' he said. When the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, Russia is expected to post the largest absolute drop in emissions from 1990 levels of any of the countries that signed the treaty. But the decline is almost entirely the result of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet economy rather than environmental measures by the government. Critics say Moscow doesn't deserve to keep its carbon credits because it didn't earn them with any special effort.

"The generous allowances granted the former communist nations created what critics call 'hot air' in the system -- credits not associated with any new reductions. Ned Helme, director of the Center for Clean Air Policy in Washington, said that if Russia is allowed to keep its surplus, Poland and other Eastern European countries may insist on doing so as well -- and the European Union is opposed to that. The Russian surplus is projected to grow to 5 to 6 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2012, and other Eastern European nations could bring the total surplus of credits to 7 to 10 gigatons, said Anna Korppoo, senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Carrying over the surplus 'would challenge the environmental integrity of the pact by sharply increasing global emissions,' she said."