Kyoto Effects

Overall - the level of emissions of greenhouse gases is rising. But it's encouraging that Germany and Britain were able to reduce their levels 17% & 14%. They probably have lessons for other countries.

Under the 1997 Kyoto accord, 35 industrialized nations have committed to reducing emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States, the biggest emitter, rejects the agreement.

Between 1990 and 2004, emissions of all industrialized countries decreased by 3.3 percent, mostly because of a 36.8 percent decrease in the former Soviet bloc, the U.N. reported. Since 2000, however, those "economies in transition" have increased emissions by 4.1 percent.

Of the 41 industrialized nations, 34 increased emissions between 2000 and 2004, the U.N. reported. In the United States, source of two-fifths of the industrialized world's greenhouse gases, emissions grew by 1.3 percent in that period, and by almost 16 percent between 1990 and 2004.

Among countries bound by Kyoto, Germany's emissions dropped 17 percent between 1990 and 2004, Britain's by 14 percent and France's by almost 1 percent, the U.N. reported.

But Kyoto signatories such as Japan, Italy and Spain have registered emissions increases since 1990. De Boer said such countries will have to make extensive use of Kyoto's market-based programs, such as the Clean Development Mechanism. That program allows northern nations to buy credits from emission-reduction projects in the developing world, which is not bound by Kyoto quotas.

The 41 nations defined as industrialized by the 1992 U.N. climate treaty do not include fast-developing Third World countries like China and India.

On a positive note, the U.N. said the industrialized world is growing more energy-efficient. Between 2000 and 2004, it said, it took 7 percent less greenhouse gas to produce a dollar of gross domestic product.