Recently, Russia announced it may adopt the Kyoto treaty on global warming purportedly to gain membership into the WTO.  But according to Sterling Burnett of the National Center for Policy Analysis, such a decision has many dimensions: “Russian leader Putin is calculating whether joining the WTO and getting some European development dollars is worth the costs of signing Kyoto. It’s possible Russia may get WTO membership and still not ratify the protocol, but in the meantime, Putin scores political points for gaining Russia WTO membership, while European leaders will get political credit for bringing Russia back into the climate change negotiations. This just confirms that Kyoto is an economic treaty not an environmental treaty.”