Stratfor offers a fairly discouraging word. Here's the summary:
The Italian environmental minister
suggested Dec. 15 that the U.N.'s Kyoto Treaty on climate change should
be allowed to die in 2012 if the world's largest countries do not sign on during a planned second commitment period. The minister's comment follows the United Kingdom's revelation that it could fail to reach its greenhouse-gas reduction requirements. The European Commission also recently reported that four EU countries had not qualified to participate in the bloc's emissions-credits trading scheme. The Kyoto Treaty increasingly is becoming a focus solely of the European Union, which lacks the ability to implement and enforce it among its own members.
Unfortunately, the article doesn't speculate on the global impacts of
abandoning Kyoto. Too many people, businesses and political leaders
won't pay attention to the physical as well as economic prospects, I
guess, until the rising water is lapping at their feet, at which point
will likely take decades of increasing damage to reverse the trends.
--------