The European Commission (EC) joined 140 nations on Wednesday in celebrating the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, which gives the international community its most powerful instrument yet to combat global climate change.

Since it was agreed in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 140 countries plus the European Community, or the European Union (EU) in its legal term, thus covering 80 percent ofthe world's population.

Industrialized countries that have ratified the Protocol are legally obliged to meet their targets for limiting or reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2012.

The EU has already made this binding for EU member states underEU law.

In a video statement transmitted to a special event in Kyoto organized by the government of Japan, EC President Jose Manuel Barroso said the protocol's entry into force "sends a strong signal to business that we need new climate-friendly technologies."

The protocol's entry into force comes 90 days after Russia handed its ratification to the United Nations on 18 November of last year.

Source: Xinhua