Russia's lower house of parliament ratified the Kyoto Protocol on Friday, clearing the way for the long-delayed climate change pact to come into force worldwide. The U.N. accord aimed at battling global warming is already backed by 126 countries, but it needed Russia's support to make it internationally binding after the United States, the world's biggest polluter, pulled out in 2001. "We'll toast the Duma with vodka tonight," Greenpeace climate policy adviser Steve Sawyer said. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol obliges rich nations to cut overall emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 by curbing use of coal, oil and natural gas and shifting to cleaner energies like solar or wind power. "The entry into force of Kyoto is the biggest step forward in environmental politics and law we have ever seen," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF conservation group's climate change programme. To come into force, the pact needed to be ratified by countries accounting for at least 55 percent of developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions. --More 2146 Local Time 1846 GMT
