In just two months' time, on February 16th, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change will finally enter into force - just over seven years since it was adopted in Japan's ancient imperial capital. It has been a long, hard road for this treaty and the small step it takes towards dealing with global warming, which is the most serious environmental issue facing the planet.
Scientists on the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change predict that the inexorable increase in surface temperatures will accelerate the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps, leading to a rise in sea levels as well as triggering extreme weather such as storms, heatwaves and flooding, and the spread of tropical diseases, like malaria, and the collapse of coral reefs.
Many of the 6,000 participants representing 194 UN member-states who have gathered in Buenos Aires for the latest Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Change Convention are more upbeat about the prospects for the Kyoto Protocol now that it has been ratified by Russia. Despite being disowned by the US and Australia, "the general sense is that the atmosphere has dramatically improved", according to Mr Yvo de Boer, the Dutch minister acting as chief negotiator in Buenos Aires.
On the agenda now is how to make even deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in the post-Kyoto period, after 2012, than the minuscule reduction of 5 per cent on 1990 levels, to which those ratifying the protocol have committed themselves.
Developing countries facing possible emissions controls for the first time after 2012 have resisted opening talks about the "post-Kyoto" future - China and India, in particular. The US, meanwhile, remains stubbornly on the sidelines, saying only that it will invest $5 billion annually on research and technological developments related to global warming. There is no indication, however, that the Bush administration will take real measures to curb US greenhouse gas emissions, which account for approximately one-quarter of the global total - even though Americans account for less than five per cent of the world's population.
As for Ireland, it is shameful to note that the Coalition Government has so far failed to implement its own National Climate Change Strategy to curb our greenhouse gas emissions, which are among the world's highest on a per capita basis. Even though somewhat distorted by the contribution from agriculture, the most recent estimate is that our emissions are 25 per cent higher now than they were in 1990 - nearly double the figure at which we agreed to curb them during the 2008-2012 Kyoto "commitment period". In particular, the Government's decision not to impose carbon taxes means that the burden of paying penalties estimated at €300 million per year will fall on the general body of taxpayers rather than the main offenders, notably in the transport sector. This is not what was envisaged by the 1999 climate change strategy.