There was a time when London's air quality made a mid-summer's day stroll in the city downright unpleasant. But times have changed – well, at least somewhat. The Kyoto Protocol (remember that?) is seemingly alive and kicking…everywhere except in the US. Readers will recall that, in 1997, members of the US Senate voted 95–0 against ratifying any treaty negotiated at Kyoto, limiting greenhouse-gas emissions that (1) did not also set emissions limits on developing countries and (2) “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States”. The treaty would have required the US to reduce emissions to 7% below the country's 1990 levels by 2012. At the time, President Bill Clinton refused to send the negotiated Protocol to the Senate for possible ratification because it failed to meet those two preconditions. More recently, in 2001, President George W Bush's economic advisor, Lawrence Lindsey, declared the Kyoto Protocol beyond repair: “The models are not even close in suggesting that Kyoto was the right approach…it was wrong”, and adding, “I think we did the right thing” by not ratifying the Protocol. Obviously, some signatories differed from the Bush Administration's appraisal – several countries continued on without the US, and have met with some success in reducing their emissions. For example, the 15 original European Union (EU) countries pledged to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions 8% by 2012. The European Environment Agency (EEA) reported that only three of these countries – Denmark, Italy, and Spain – were “off their Kyoto track” and unlikely to meet individual targets. Even so, the shortfalls would be made up by Great Britain, Germany, and Sweden, which were, according to the EEA, expected to show “outstanding performance”. Meanwhile, France's National Assembly voted almost unanimously in October on the draft law implementing the country's environmental package, which included a provision for Kyoto compliance. The French ratified their domestic energy/climate targets, popularly described as “the three 20s” – reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20%, increasing the share of renewables in energy consumption to 20%, and improving energy efficiency by 20% – all by 2020. Skeptics are less optimistic about the EU's overall success. Despite the accomplishments of Great Britain, France, and Germany, the EU is having trouble passing a final version of its emissions reduction package in time for the 2009 Copenhagen climate change summit, because some EU members are demanding changes, exceptions, or opt-outs. Moreover, all is not uniform in Kyoto compliance. Last month, a Canadian Federal court ruled against two environmental groups – Friends of the Earth and Ecojustice Canada – who were suing the Federal Government under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The two groups had requested that the Conservative government be ordered to comply with a June law requiring Canada to prepare a plan to meet its Kyoto targets. The June compliance requirement had passed with the support of opposition parties, which had a majority of the votes in Parliament. Canada's Environment Minister, echoing similar arguments made in the US in 1997, said in April that Canada couldn't meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol “without causing a recession”. An economic impact report stated that implementation would result in 275 000 job losses in 2009, while the cost of electricity and gasoline would rise by 50% and 60%, respectively, after 2010. In response, the Conservatives suggested that a more realistic goal would be to reduce emissions to within 30% of the target, and set further reductions once that level had been reached. The Court stated that, because the language in the June law was vague and arbitrary as to the mandatory nature of the targets, the issue was fundamentally political and the judiciary “has no role to play [in] reviewing the reasonableness of the government's response to Canada's Kyoto commitments”. What with the world currently in economic crisis, the US reluctant to commit to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions until India and China are on board, and the bickering in Canada, as well as compliance doubts in the EU, next year's round of negotiations in Copenhagen may become an exercise in patience – or, more likely, in frustration.