Putin calls for international consensus on greenhouse gases

The global community must reach an agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and Russia will continue negotiations to that end, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Friday. "Though the negotiations were held in a very tough manner, they were still unsuccessful. We will continue the talks, because I personally think that the global community should go to the end and agree on common rules in this sphere, without shifting the burden to anybody else, but sharing it," Putin told workers at the MMK steelworks in Magnitogorsk during a visit. The first period set out in the Kyoto protocol, in which levels of greenhouse gas emissions are to be cut by the developed nations, ends in 2012. Developed and developing countries have not yet agreed on a further binding climate change regulation regime. The next session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be held at the end of 2011 in South Africa's Durban.