When everyone sobered up the next morning, however, they may have realized the treaty is only a hesitant and even ambiguous first step in addressing the warming planet. It is difficult to separate the international altruism for the future from the selfish demands of the present - with or without a scorecard.

The 1997 treaty requires developed nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, by 5 percent below 1990 levels for the years 2008 to 2012. The protocol becomes international law when at least 55 countries, accounting for a minimum of 55 percent of 1990 developed-country emissions, have ratified it.

Even the ratification arithmetic requires considerable sobriety. As of now, 127 countries have ratified the protocol. The Russian Duma's approval means the emission standards for approval have been met, even though two large industrial nations - the United States and Australia - have declined to participate.

Industrialized countries account for about half of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Leaving out the United States and Australia, Kyoto participants now account for about 32 percent of greenhouse emissions.

Yet even Kyoto's proponents agree even strict adherence to the accord will not have much impact on overall warming.

Most experts and governments believe that much steeper emission reductions - 60 percent or greater - will ultimately be needed to avert serious climate change impacts, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change said in a statement.

The ratification by Russia will kick in a couple of practical effects, however, and several psychological ones. In practical terms, the market-based emissions-trading program will go into effect. This sets a cap on emissions for industrialized countries.

Those nations with emissions below the cap can sell the right to emit greenhouse gases to those at or above the cap. One reason Russia probably approved the treaty is the belief that other European countries will be sending them cash for those rights.

The second practical effect is negotiations for the post-2012 emission targets will get under way next year.

It is unlikely that the industrialized countries that have ratified Kyoto will agree to more stringent targets post-2012 unless there is also stronger action by the United States and by major developing countries, the Pew Center statement said.

One possibility is that the new round of talks will focus more broadly on ways to modify Kyoto or structure a successor agreement acceptable to all the major emitting countries. This is an understatement, at best.

Therein lie the psychological effects. These were expressed - with the least subtlety - by Greenpeace climate policy adviser Steve Sawyer.

This is a major defeat for President Bush and his paymasters in the fossil fuel industry, Sawyer said in a statement. His administration and other climate criminals like Exxon-Mobil have failed in their attempt to wreck Kyoto, even going so far as to suppress the work of their own scientists.

Such rancor notwithstanding, the U.S. government seems unlikely to be shamed into accepting Kyoto.

In fact, it's doubtful that the Russian action will have any effect at all, either on the climate or on the U.S. position toward Kyoto, James Glassman, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote for the climate skeptic Web site Tech Central Station.

American legislators, as well as President Bush, remain staunch opponents of Kyoto because of the economic damage it will cause and because developing countries, whose emissions exceed those of industrial countries, are exempt from the treaty's emissions-reduction requirements."

Glassman's skepticism about U.S. willingness to do something about climate change does not square completely with the facts.

It is true the Bush administration is dragging its feet, but there were 44 votes in the U.S. Senate in October 2003 for the bipartisan McCain-Lieberman bill to address greenhouse gas emissions.

Five states, the New England governors and Canadian regional premiers also have developed mandatory regional emissions reductions. The Bush administration has at least recognized the problem by calling for a voluntary 18 percent cut by 2012.

Like so many other things, progress on real emissions reductions will depend on whether President George W. Bush or his Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass, leads U.S. policy initiatives over the next four years.

Even European commitment to these caps - which has been strongest, rhetorically at least - seems questionable. Virtually in tandem with the Russian announcement, the British government said it was increasing its emissions allowances from earlier targets. Margaret Beckett, the British environment secretary, told a London news conference that the United Kingdom is still on course to meet its Kyoto-mandated CO2 reductions.

The outcry by Britain's political parties and large sections of the media over the government's decision to increase CO2 emissions only goes to show that most observers and pundits simply fail to understand Europe's Kyoto agenda, Benny Peiser, professor at Liverpool John Moores University School of Human Science, told UPI's Climate in an e-mail.

The European Union has devised a clever plan, which allows European countries to increase CO2 emissions by more than 10 percent in the next few years (on 2000 levels) ... Sorry Russia, but if you thought that Europe would pay real Kyoto money into your coffers - you'd better think again.

A second psychological impact of the Russian ratification could be that the scientific argument about climate change essentially is over. Climate skeptics - mostly in America, but with a few European outliers - have been relegated to sniping from the sidelines about whether there is a lot of warming or a whole lot of warming.

The science that supports human-induced greenhouse warming is getting stronger on virtually all fronts - Arctic and Antarctic ice changes, glacial melting, biological reactions, sea surface temperature changes, continued atmospheric warming measurements, improved modeling results - while virtually no new advancements in scientific understanding are coming in from the skeptics.

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