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Kyoto Protocol goes into effect
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Kyoto Protocol went into effect Wednesday with most of the industrialized countries legally bound to control pollution.
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TOKYO, Feb. 16 - The United Nations Kyoto Protocol on global warming went into effect Wednesday with most of the industrialized countries legally bound to control pollution.
The international treaty aiming at curbing emissions of greenhouse gases finally realized its implementation eight years after it was negotiated in Japan's ancient city Kyoto in 1997 by 159 countries and ratified by 141 nations. It is an adjunct to the1992 UN treaty on climate change.
The protocol targets carbon dioxide and five other gases that can trap heat in the atmosphere, and are blamed for rising global temperatures that are melting glaciers.
The protocol will have legal force for its participants from Feb. 16 after meeting twin conditions -- backing from at least 55 countries and support from nations representing at least 55 percent of developed countries' carbon dioxide emissions.
It passed the second hurdle in November 2004 when ratified by Russia and now has backing from nations representing 61.6 percent of emissions. But the United States, the world's biggest polluter,withdrew from the Kyoto treaty in 2001 with an excuse that the treaty would cause adverse effects on the US economy and wrongly omits developing nations.
But local environment experts pointed out that the pact, however, remains a small step, as it covers only a third of total emissions in the world.
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