Having signed the treaty, which had previously been blocked due to the need for either Russia or the United States to ratify it, Putin is now due to notify the United Nations of his country's approval of the pact, which is aimed at cutting the pollution emission that cause global warming of the world's atmosphere.

Russia's ratification of the treaty will become effective three months after Putin has notified the UN of the move, Kremlin officials say.

The treaty was adopted at a UN conference on climate change in 1997, but the United States, the world's number-one emitter of the gases that cause global warming, rejected it in March 2001.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.