KYOTO, Japan, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- The Kyoto Protocol, which requires developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, took effect Wednesday.
Under the pact, industrialized countries are required to cut 1990 levels of gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 2008 to 2012. Japan has agreed to cut such emissions by 6 percent, and the European Union must make cuts of 8 percent, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
The protocol, ratified by 141 countries as of Feb. 2, will be as legally binding as international law. The agreement came into effect only after Russia decided last year to ratify it, seven years after it was initially proposed.
The United States and Australia have not signed. It also does not include China, India or Brazil.
A symposium was held Wednesday evening in Kyoto, where the pact was signed in 1997, with 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, Kenyan deputy environment minister, giving the keynote speech.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso were to give congratulatory messages through video links.
