Listening to the euphoria surrounding the climate deal hammered out in Montreal on 10 December, you could be forgiven for thinking that the US had bowed to international pressure to sign the Kyoto protocol. It hasn鈥檛. In fact far from it 鈥� the deal amounts to little more than a commitment to hold more talks.
Yet the 150-nation agreement was hailed by British environment secretary Margaret Beckett as a 鈥渄iplomatic triumph鈥�. Greenpeace International鈥檚 political director Steve Sawyer called the meeting 鈥渉istoric鈥�. A testament perhaps to the extremely low expectations of environmentalists ahead of the meeting.
Under the deal, existing signatories to the Kyoto protocol on climate change agreed to begin negotiating tougher targets for national emissions of greenhouse gases after the existing targets end in 2012. Meanwhile, countries that have yet to accept targets 鈥� including the US, Australia, China and India 鈥� agreed to join in an 鈥渙pen and non-binding鈥� dialogue about their own participation. But the US signed up for future talks only after winning a stipulation that the dialogue 鈥渨ill not open any negotiations leading to new commitments鈥�.
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Meanwhile, the US administration鈥檚 top climate modeller, James Hansen of NASA鈥檚 Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco last week that humankind had 鈥渁t most 10 more years鈥� to enact drastic cuts in emissions to prevent temperatures rising higher than they have for half a million years.
