No Kyoto follow-up in Montreal

But in the years after the protocol was announced, developing countries have held firm on their insistence that they would accept no emissions cuts, even though they are likely to be the world’s dominant source of greenhouse gases in coming years. Their refusal helped fuel strong opposition to the treaty in the United States Senate and its eventual rejection by President Bush. But the current stalemate is not just because of the inadequacies of the protocol.

It is also a response to the world’s ballooning energy appetite, which, largely because of economic growth in China, has exceeded almost everyone’s expectations. And there are still no viable alternatives to fossil fuels, the main source of greenhouse gases. Then, too, there is a growing recognition of the economic costs incurred by signing on to the Kyoto Protocol. As Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, a proponent of emissions targets, said on November 1, ‘‘The truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge’’.

This is as true, in different ways, in developed nations with high unemployment, like Germany and France, as it is in Russia, which said last week that it may have spot energy shortages this winter.

—Reuters