The two-week long  United Nations Climate Change Conference on the Hot and Humid Indonesian island of Bali is presently underway.  The purpose of the conference is to talk about talking - that is, to set up a timetable of a series of future negotiations within the next four years that some hope will conclude in a new international treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol of the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Kyoto set binding emissions reduction targets (with respect to the "base year" of 1990) for a handful of developed countries (listed in the famous "Annex B") that those nations are supposed to achieve between 2008 and 2012, after which the treaty expires.  Some fairly wealthy and energy-intensive nations, such as South Korea and Taiwan, are curiously not included.  This expiration provides the impetus for interested nations to negotiate a new treaty for the period after 2012.

The Kyoto conference was exactly a decade ago, but didn't come into force for seven more years after Russia ratified the treaty in February of 2005.  This was convenient for Russia, since by 2005 their carbon emissions had already fallen over 40% from the 1990 levels because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it would thus be almost impossible for them not to achieve their "0% growth" target by 2008, even if they really tried to!

Therefore, without having to give anything up, Russia nevertheless had the power to commit other parties to what might have been substantial sacrifice and reduction in international competitiveness.  European countries committed themselves to an 8% reduction, and Japan to 6%.  Over a hundred developing countries were encouraged, but not required to do anything, but nevertheless were also able to add their ratifications to the number required to activate the treaty.  The United States (target -7%) signed but did not ratify the treaty.

Australia under John Howard did not ratify either despite being allocated a generous emissions growth target of +8%.  The recently elected new government led by Kevin Rudd, has announced that they will now sign Kyoto despite emissions growth since 1990 of over 35% (exceeding even their generous growth allocation by 27%!).  Clearly, Australia is either in for a tremendous challenge or "signing Kyoto" doesn't quite mean what it purports to mean.

It's useful to see what Kyoto-bound countries have achieved (or failed to achieve) so far, and what other developments in the world, especially in China, have occurred since this whole process started in 1992.

First, the global CO2 emission rate is more than 33% higher today than in 1990 and still growing about 3% per year.  China's emissions - the highest in the world for two years now (about which many people are still unaware despite it being old news) are more than 150% what they were in 1990, a full fifth larger than the United States, and growing by 10% a year.  And US emissions are 20% higher than in 1990.  China openly and steadfastly refuses to consider any kind of binding commitment under any potential time-line under any potential circumstances. 

Many environmentalists know that China's position, and projected emissions growth, is essentially a deal-killer since it makes any potential agreement at Bali completely futile, even were the United States to join without Chinese participation, which the US has claimed that it will not.  Without Chinese participation, the rest of world, including other developing countries such as India, would have to reduce their emissions 50% in less than a decade to even match 1990 levels, let alone go much lower.  That is simply not going to happen under any realistic circumstances.  Still - the true believers push on with their advocacy either ignorant of or apathetic to this problem.

But let us consider several major countries and see if they are anywhere close their "binding" commitments under Kyoto.  Hyper-efficient Japan is 18% above 1990 levels - more than 24% off its target. France, despite depending on nuclear power for most of it's electricity needs, is nevertheless 5% above it's 1990 level (13% off target). 

On the other hand Germany is officially 14% below their 1990 level (and exceeding their target by 6%!) but this is misleading because the official energy statistics pretend that Germany was a united country.  In reality, East Germany's economy and energy consumption, like Russia, completely collapsed at the break-up of the Soviet Union despite reunification.  When West Germany is considered in isolation, it's emissions are still larger than in 1990.

In fact, the only major economy to reduce emissions without undergoing an economic collapse and which is projected to actually meet its Kyoto commitments is the United Kingdom, with emissions a mere 2% below 1990 (and still 6% off target at present).  Overall, the Euro-25 area is 3% above 1990 levels and 11% off it's target for 2008-2012.  The trend seems to me more to be in line with stagnation than decline - and may be mostly related to demographic issues rather than increased efficiency or government efforts.

So given all this, I think there is enough information to pronounce a verdict.  I'm of the perspective that Kyoto has been a great failure and, if anything, far too ambitious and far too dismissive of the need to incorporate China into any agreement (and to therefore make any agreement palatable to the US).  The conferees at Bali would be rational to look at the lessons of Kyoto and significantly pare back their expectations about what the world can actually accomplish instead of fanatically pursuing pipe dream fantasies in the face of such poor results.  A proposal to freeze global emissions at 2010 levels would still, in my mind, be extremely difficult to achieve even with universal consensus and active participation of all nations.   But it is better to pick an achievable goal than set yourself up for repeated failure and frustration.  Nothing generates cynicism and despair more than claiming that the impossible is vitally necessary.