OPEC wants aid if world shifts to renewable energies

[Shyriath]

I put the story here because of the environment connection, but if the mods feel it should be in Foreign Affairs or wherever, go ahead.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/12/12/climate.kyoto.reut/index.html

MILAN, Italy (Reuters) -- A dispute over aid to OPEC states clouded the last day of a U.N. conference on global warming on Friday with the Kyoto protocol hanging by a thread amid uncertainties over Russian ratification.

Kyoto backers reaffirmed their support for the 1997 pact despite scant progress at the 12-day Milan talks on ways to fight rising temperatures blamed for more droughts, storms and for melting glaciers that may raise sea levels.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, whose country holds the key to whether Kyoto enters into force, told Japanese media in an interview published on Friday that Moscow was preparing a "special action plan" to ratify it but gave no deadline for signing the pact.

Kyoto aims to cut rich countries' emissions of carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.