The 1997 Kyoto protocol to combat climate change will only come into legal force when countries responsible for more that 55 per cent of rich nation's greenhouse gas emissions have ratified it in their parliaments. Ratifications now cover 44 per cent; Russia would add 17 per cent and hence activate the protocol.
This week's conference seemed like the perfect occasion for President Vladimir Putin to announce that he was putting the protocol before his parliament. But instead he told delegates he had not yet decided whether to propose ratification.
Putin pointed out that 'an increase of two or three degrees wouldn't be so bad for a northern country like Russia. We could spend less on fur coats, and the grain harvest would go up'.
Delegates took this as a joke. But some of his scientists make the argument seriously, although others believe the grain harvest would suffer. His economic advisers, headed by Andrei Illarionov, argue that Russian might gain from global warming.
In 2002 year ago, prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov told the Johannesburg World Summit that Russia would ratify the protocol 'soon'. And until recently, most observers believed it would happen - if only so Russian could sell 'spare' pollution permits under the protocol's complex rules for carbon trading.