Greece is set to rejoin the Kyoto Protocol's carbon-trading mechanisms after a unanimous decision of the United Nations Compliance Committee, the Greek town planning, public works, environment ministry announced on Friday. According to the announcement, the country was found to meet all requirements for participating in emissions trading during a meeting of the committee on Thursday.

Specifically, the committee found that Greece had established the necessary institutional, legal and procedural measures that would ensure the national system for measuring carbon dioxide emissions was fully functional and would continue to function efficiently in the future, while the country also had the necessary procedures for planning, preparing and handling inventories and submitting them promptly to the UN environment secretariat.

"This decision by the UN fully vindicates the positions expressed by the environment ministry ever since the issue of the UN's decision first arose in April 2008," the ministry said, referring to Greece's temporary suspension from Kyoto mechanisms at that time over problems with the accuracy of emissions estimates it had supplied for the base year of 1990.

It once again slammed critics who had treated the development as Greece's "expulsion" from the protocol, saying that the claim had been untrue and damaging for the country's image.

Caption: ANA-MPA file photo.