Kyoto emissions targets prove difficult to meet

The latest figures are grim news for the agreement's supporters and welcome ammunition for the told-you-so camp in such non-Kyoto nations as the US and Australia.

"I think there was entirely too much blue-sky optimism coming out of the pro-Kyoto planning departments," said longtime Kyoto critic Kenneth Green, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

"It is becoming clear that the US policy which was based on harder-headed economic analyses is being borne out by what other countries are experiencing," he added.

Pro-Kyoto activists dismiss such conclusions, saying the targets are within reach if nations just try a bit harder.

The UN climate treaty's Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in that Japanese city in 1997 and effective as of last year, calls for an average 5% drop in greenhouse emissions by 2012 from the base year 1990. At a treaty conference next month in Nairobi, Kenya, the Kyoto nations will discuss cutbacks beyond 2012.

A broad scientific consensus is that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, contribute to global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. How quickly and badly the climate will be disrupted remains a question.

The US, the world's biggest greenhouse generator, dropped out of the Kyoto accord, complaining that it would hurt the US economy and that such big-polluter developing nations as China and India were not included.

Other nations decided to forge ahead, and the latest UN figures show that as a group the 36 countries committed to the pact can meet the 5% target. That progress came mainly from a one-time boost in the 1990s, however, when ex-communist states of Eastern Europe cut greenhouse emissions dramatically by shutting down or modernising heavy-polluting Soviet-era industries.

Elsewhere, the situation is more dire.

Yvo De Boer, head of the UN's climate change secretariat, said industrialised countries needed to "take a lot of action at home" to meet their targets.

Among the worst off is Canada, the current president of UN climate change talks, which this year became the first country to announce it would not meet its Kyoto target of a 6% emissions cut on average over the years 2008-2012. Canada's emissions have ballooned by 29% instead.

With oil production growing in the tar sands of Alberta, the Conservative government saw no other option than to jump the Kyoto ship. Environment minister Rona Ambrose has stated interest in a rival, US-led pact, the Asia-Pacific Partnership, which has no targets, and said the government was working on a "made-in-Canada" solution.

Japan, too, has a long way to go to meet its 6% reduction mandated by the treaty. If no additional measures are taken, UN forecasts show Japan's emissions will instead grow by 6%.

Aiko Takemoto, an official at the environment ministry's climate change division, noted that the bulk of increased emissions came during the 1990s and emissions are forecast to fall over the coming years.

He said the government's Kyoto Achievement Plan implemented last year would help Japan achieve the target rates by 2012.

Japanese utilities, other industries and the government are also buying "carbon credits" in the developing world, where emissions cuts in industrial or agricultural projects can be credited against the Kyoto countries' targets.

"We are sure that we will achieve the target," Takemoto said. "If we judge that the present plan is not enough, we will introduce more stringent measures. We won't give up."

The government has also introduced low-tech solutions like asking workers to leave their ties at home to cut down on air conditioning during hot summer months, or wearing sweaters in the office in winter time. And in June it announced a bold plan to try to pump carbon dioxide into underground storage reservoirs.

The European Union, perhaps the biggest champion of the Kyoto pact, is doing better. But even here, the latest statistics are cause for concern.

The EU believes it can meet its target of cutting emissions by 8% by 2012, but only with the full implementation of an emissions trading scheme and two big "ifs."

First, countries including Germany and France must introduce environmental policies that are currently only in the planning stages. Second, many must make full use of carbon credits for investing in clean technology projects in developing countries.

The European Environment Agency said greenhouse emissions increased by 16.2 metric tons, or 0.4 percent, between 2003 and 2004 in the 25-member bloc, even though some member states had drops in emissions.

Spain was the biggest offender. Britain, which has benefited from a switch from coal power plants to natural gas, and Sweden are predicted to meet their targets with current policies. The Swedes even expect to overachieve on their Kyoto target.

The Swedes credit a carbon tax and investments in alternative energy sources. The carbon tax, introduced in 1991, has boosted the use of biofuel in heating, but some say the total effect on emissions has been limited because it was not imposed on electricity production.

This year the government launched an ambitious plan to break Sweden's oil dependency by 2020.

About one-quarter of the energy consumed in Sweden in 2003 came from renewable sources - more than four times as much as the European Union average of 6%, according to EU statistics. In Stockholm, one-quarter of city buses run on ethanol or biogas.

Kyoto supporters say Sweden's success should serve as an example for the laggards.