Carlo Stagnaro suggests that the European Union is ignoring Putin’s abuses because he signed on to the Kyoto Protocol.

I’d like to add that signing on to Kyoto itself is a kind of abuse. I’m not sure if Putin will ignore it or not, but it makes the perfect excuse to put into place anti-free market measures and further government control.

UPDATE: Kirk posts in the comments section:

I think it is important here to note the reason why Russia decided to ratify the Kyoto Treaty in the first place – the European Union agreed to support Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. I’m not reading tea leaves here – prior to the EU’s agreement on WTO, Putin advisors were openly talking about the treaty’s scientific weakness and Putin himself was joking about how global warming would be actually be a good thing because Russia was too cold anyway. Immediately after the EU indicated its support for Russia’s WTO accession, Putin remarked that this “could not but influence” Russia’s position on Kyoto.

I don’t believe that Putin will ignore Kyoto, because the original attraction of Kyoto for Russia was that it obligated states to reduce emissions to 1990 levels, and allowed those countries above 1990 levels to purchase credits from those below those levels. Given the collapse of Russia’s economy during the 1990s, Russia is way below its 1990 levels of industrial emissions, and had a very strong financial incentive to join Kyoto even without the carrot of WTO admission.

This original financial incentive was undermined by two factors. One, the decision of the United States to stay out of Kyoto deprived Russia of the main country from which it intended to receive money for emissions credits. Two, the semi-recovery of the Russian economy in recent years put Russia back on the path to eventually reaching 1990 emissions levels. The European decision to offer WTO admission in exchange for Kyoto ratification essentially compensated for the two abovementioned points.

Kirk H. Sowell
www.arabworldanalysis.com
Window on the Arab World, and More!