03-09-02 Greenhouse gases are to be cut by 2 %. Russia's announcement that it is planning to ratify the Kyoto Protocol makes the international climate change agreement's implementation increasingly likely in the near future.

Key points of climate change deal
-- Finance -- funding for poor countries to develop new technology
-- Mechanisms -- tough systems in each country to verify and report carbon emissions
-- Sinks -- heavily forested countries can use their 'tree sinks' to offset greenhouse gases
-- Compliance -- countries that fail to keep to their greenhouse gas reduction targets should face legally binding consequences

The protocol was drawn up in 1997 in Japan and elaborates upon the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change which dates back to the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil.
But it needs to be ratified by countries who were responsible for at least 55 % of the world's carbon missions in 1990. So far, some 178 countries have signed up to the treaty, including all the majorindustrialised countries except the United States.
When it takes effect in 2008, the treaty will require all signatories to achieve emission reduction targets. With that aim, it will provide a complex system which will allow some countries to buy emission credits from others. For instance, a country in western Europe might decide to buy rights or credits to emit carbon from one in eastern Europe which could not afford the fuel that would emit the carbon in the first place. Bonn compromises The US produced 36 % of emissions in 1990, making it the world's biggest polluter.

The fact that the Kyoto agreement was finalised without Washington was widely credited to the European Union, in a deal struck at climate talks in Bonn last summer. The EU made considerable compromises allowing countries like Russia to offset their targets with carbon sinks -- areas of forest and farmland which absorb carbon through photosynthesis.
The Bonn agreement also reduced cuts to be made to emissions of six gases believed to be exacerbating global warming -- from the original treaty's 5.2 % to 2 %. It was hoped at the time that the compromises were agreed that the slightly watered down provisions would allow the US to take up the Kyoto principles -- but this has not proved to be the case.