The Russian president's adviser Andrei Illarionov said Russia's signing the Kyoto protocol would not agree with the task of doubling the gross domestic product within ten years.

He told reporters on Wednesday the document "is incompatible with maintenance of a high tempo of economic growth in the country and reduction of the level of poverty".

"In the recent time, not a single argument has come, justifying the need for the Kyoto protocol both for Russia and other countries".

"This document does not have a scientific substantiation and carries very serious risks for economic growth. Nobody has denied so far the conclusions made by Russian and foreign scientists. Supporters of the Kyoto protocol have not presented to us any serious arguments in their favour, and the sole thing we have been seeing recently is political pressure and a political position," Illarionov said.

The Kyoto protocol will come in force after the ratification of it by states whose total volume of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere is not less that 55 percent of emissions of industrially developed counties as of 1990.

By March 2004, 121 countries with a total proportion of dioxin emissions of 44.2 percent of the 1990 figures ratified the protocol.

According to information given to Itar-Tass by the American consulting company Chadbourne & Parker, Russia accounts for 17.4 percent of the emissions, and its joining the Kyoto protocol would automatically put it into effect.

Russia as a key to the implementation of the Kyoto protocol, the company's representative said.

Illarionov told Itar-Tass on May 26 that three points of the protocol caused doubt of Russia - a "scientific rationale; whether the protocol has a discriminating character; and whether it will inflict damage to economic development of Russia".

He added that other views of the Kyoto protocol "have the right for existence", but "everything is clear about" it to himself.

President Vladimir Putin on May 21 confirmed Russia's principal support to the Kyoto protocol, with reservations.

"We are for the Kyoto process, we support it, but we have some concerns in connection with the obligations that we must assume," he said.

Source: Agencies