Greece "named and shamed" over Kyoto blunder

Greece has been suspended from the Kyoto Protocol after failing to convince the United Nations that measurements of the country's greenhouse emissions were adequate. In the first such action taken since the Kyoto agreement came into force in 2005 the Greek government has been suspended from the UN carbon trading scheme for "non - compliance" according to the UN Climate Change Secretariat.

As the news came out in the Greek media the government has sought to limit possible political damage by blaming in turn, United Nations bureaucracy and the previous PASOK government which lost power in 2004.

In an interviw with the Greek TV channel, Skai, professor Giannis Ziomas of the National Technical University of Athens, said that the Greece's suspension from the carbon trading scheme was the result of bureacracy as UN officials had not been able to visit Greece take the necessary checks on exisiting date since March.

The Nea newspaper reported deputy minister for the environment, Stavros Kalogiannis as saying that the blame for the failure to maintain a proper national system for recording greenhouse gas emissions lay with the previous PASOK administration and the head of the team responsible for measuring airborne emissions, Dimitris Lalas who was responsible for the ministry's reports from 1995 till last year.

This is not the first time Greece has failed to meet its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol. In 2006 the country exceeded the target set by the the 2005 agreement when carbon dioxide emissions were allowed to increase beyond the 25% limit permitted from 1990 to 2010. It was estimated that emissions would rise by 38% in which case the European Emissions Trading Scheme said that Greece would be fined at least 225 million euros.