Putin Adviser Calls Kyoto Protocol a 'death Treaty'

Russia appeared yesterday to spell an end to the Kyoto protocol when President Putin's top adviser on the controversial emissions treaty denounced the restrictions it would impose on the country's economy.

Andrei Illarionov said Kyoto would be a "death treaty". The economic restraints would, he said, stifle the economy like "an international gulag or Auschwitz". To come into effect, the treaty has to be ratified by Russia. The Kremlin has procrastinated. The last statement from Mr Putin in December said Russia could not ratify it in its current form as it placed restrictions on business that were against Russia's national interests.

Yet the Kremlin has remained silent on the issue for months, many analysts saying Mr Putin was anxious not to rock the boat before his re-election in March and might later seek a compromise. Yesterday's attack on the treaty indicated that the Kremlin had never been further away from ratification, experts said.

Speaking to reporters in St Petersburg, Mr Illarionov said the treaty "has very many negative implications" and would "stifle economic growth".

He likened the protocol's restrictions on normal economic freedoms to an "interstate gulag", except that, "in a gulag, people were at least given the same rations, which did not lessen from one day to the next.

"But the Kyoto protocol proposes decreasing rations day by day. The Kyoto protocol is a death treaty because its main purpose is to stifle economic growth and economic activity.

"If you set quotas on each of us requiring us to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 58% over a course of a certain period of time, we will have to turn into dwarves or babies, or to stop [breathing], which would have quite predictable results on our [body]," he said. An aide to Mr Illarionov said Mr Putin had yet to make up his mind and was only advised by Mr Illarionov, who had already formed an opinion.

He added that Mr Illarionov's comments were connected to a meeting between Mr Putin and a group of liberal economic reformers this week. He hinted that their advice was that the level of economic growth the Kremlin has promised - a doubling of GDP in 10 years - would be incompatible with the protocol.

"Maybe that is why it was raised again", the aide said.

Mikhail Delyagin, a former economic adviser to the government, said: "The statement confirms that Russia does not want to ratify the Kyoto protocol. It does not mean that it is coming directly from Putin - maybe Mr Putin is indifferent to this problem. But Mr Illarionov would never make a declaration that contradicts the president."

A Kremlin spokesman sought to distance Mr Putin from the remarks: "Russia hopes that it would be able to sign but as a result of achieving a certain compromise."

He said Mr Putin's previous position stood and put Mr Illarionov's outburst down to a sign of the "pluralism of opinions" upon which Mr Putin makes his decisions.

Kyoto was signed in 1997 by more than 180 countries. Developed countries agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2% of 1990 levels by 2012. Russia was merely asked not to increase its levels; to double GDP while doing so would mean becoming more efficient, but only at a rate achieved elsewhere.

The United States, which has repudiated the treaty, is responsible for 24% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions and Russia for 17.4 %.