Is the Kyoto Protocol Merely Irrelevant, or Positively Harmful, for the Efforts to Curb Climate Change?

Abstract

At the beginning of November 2004, the Russian government gave up its long-standing opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. The original version of this Protocol had called upon industrialized countries to reduce their contributions to global warming by 5.2 per cent between 2008 and 2012 (as compared to 1990). Ratification of the treaty by President Putin meant that the minimum number of signatures was reached, so that the Kyoto Protocol could come into force on 16 February 2005 — some thirteen years after international negotiations on the treaty had started at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.