Off the record

International climate conference passed without recommendations

Participants in the World Climate Change Conference ended the Moscow seminar without reaching any definite agreements. At the final press conference, the organizers of the event again refused to give a definite answer to the question of whether Russia should ratify the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere or not. And they tried not to talk about the Kyoto Protocol itself on the final day: in the previous days there were a lot of heated discussions. Only the economic adviser to the president, Andrei Illarionov, could not resist. He became the hero of the day by addressing the conference participants with ten questions regarding temperature changes on earth. Mr. Illarionov, professionally as a climatologist using data, cited the example of temperature changes over hundreds of years and, in particular, in the last century, and questioned whether these fluctuations could have occurred under the influence of human activity. “This is the first meeting in which scientists, politicians and businessmen met on equal terms. They shouted at scientists, scientists shouted at them, and it really was a very fruitful dialogue,” noted Professor Mustafa Tolba, not without irony.

Professor Bert Bohlin expressed this same idea quite seriously when presenting the final document of the forum. According to him, the organizers of the highly learned meeting did not set themselves the task of coming to a common agreement and issuing recommendations to businessmen and politicians. The main goal of the conference - a comprehensive dialogue between scientists and the presentation of the results of their latest scientific research - has been achieved.

Sergei Roginko, a member of the Russian Interdepartmental Commission on Climate Change, Chairman of the Center for Joint Projects, also spoke about the importance of the conference held in Moscow. He said that within the framework of the conference, the carbon business forum, in which representatives of the largest corporations in the world participated, worked very successfully. Representatives of traditional business discussed the concept and mechanism of a new market for themselves - the purchase and sale of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. “Despite the fact that the Kyoto Protocol, which makes it possible for this market to exist, was not ratified during the conference, which many expected, there was no panic, no curtailment of projects or loss of interest on the part of these companies,” concluded Mr. Roginko.

Irina BELASHEVA