Schadenfreude and Kyoto

One of Europe's most successful depictions of the United States has been as a greedy country gobbling up natural resources, ruining the environment, and refusing to do anything about it. Europe, on the other hand, not only agreed to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases by 2012 to at least 8% below 1990 levels, but last spring committed to further reductions of 20% by 2020.

However, 2006 data just released by the European Environment Agency show that EU member states reductions are too small to meet the 2012 target, assuming current trends continue. So what to do? Environmentalists want the European Commission to be given the power to ensure that EU states comply with their targets - whatever that means. And the Central and East European members got a scolding from the EU environment commissioner because their carbon dioxide emissions continued to climb. (Of course, these are also the countries that suffered severe economic declines in the 1990s as they switched to market economies - now they're growing out of that hole.)

For more info, see this euobserver.com piece. Let's hope that American enthusiasts for Kyoto and other types of constraints will at least look at the track record so far of implementation by other industrial economies. Yes, I know that Schadenfreude is a bad thing, but it's irresistible when someone who has badgered and defamed you so consistently falls short himself.