Famously, and onerously, the United States failed to join the Kyoto accords.
We have no room to talk about meeting Kyoto commitments, just like we have no right to bitch about Chinese greenhouse gas emissions when the Chinese per capita energy consumption is 1/12 of American per capita consumption.
That said, Kyoto was not enough, but it was something. If anyone disagrees, I would like to ask if there is anyone here who would decline a $1,000 check because it will not make one a millionaire.
Maybe there are such people, I don't know.
The European energy agency actually posts in an easily accessible graph, the performance of it's member states on Kyoto targets, as well as electricity prices in Europe, all on one easy to read page.
Here is the page.
Some interesting statistics: The highest priced electricity in Europe is, um, Danish and German electricity.
Why am I not surprised?
Despite the fact that anti-nukes complain vociferously, loudly and dogmatically that "nuclear energy is too expensive," France, which derives the most electricity from nuclear energy, has electricity rates that are less than half of Denmark's.
Pat Robertson complains vociferously, loudly and dogmatically that evolution is not a basic function of living things.
More than a coincidence? Um, you decide.
My personal opinion is that the idea that Denmark is a renewable energy paradise is horseshit, by the way, as a rudimentary glance at a Danish Energy Flow Chart will show.
So Denmark is fighting climate change? Um, hardly.
Denmark's energy agency has a special page for you, if you happen to be one of the multinational oil and gas companies who pay Amory Lovins' salary. Want to drill for oil and gas in Danish waters? Feel like a BP wannabee? Here's a helpful guide to Denmark's "Open Door" oil and gas leases.
On the European Energy Agency page linked first here, there's a useful bar graph on Kyoto performance.
Happily the color for nations that are meeting their Kyoto commitments, the bars are green.
Nations that didn't meet their Kyoto commitments (tsk, tsk) have bars in red.
The only nations that performed worse than Denmark, which is exceeding its Kyoto commitments by 16.4%, are Spain, Austria and Luxembourg. Austria actually has a nuclear power plant that it built, and then refused to open, because of a rather referendum pushed through by anti-nukes, with the usual amount of mysticism and disinformation. There has never been a referendum on phasing out Austrian use of oil, gas, and coal
Of the four worst countries in Europe for meeting their Kyoto commitments, only Spain has nuclear capacity, although it has a declared policy of phasing nuclear out. (Of course, the phase out did not preclude Spain from uprating their nuclear plants. Nuclear phase outs, except for Italy - another Kyoto failure - have all been theoretical. Only Italy actually phased out nuclear power, a policy it has announced that it will most likely reverse.)
Denmark has no nuclear capacity of course, but it did successfully place enormous pressure on Sweden - which generates about half of its electricity via nuclear means, and the bulk of the rest from hydroelectricity - to close the Barseback nuclear plant - which easily produced almost as much energy as all the wind turbines in Denmark in one relatively small building, and Barseback was, by most standards, a very small nuclear plant.
Heckuva job. Here, have some Arabian horseshit.
Nations that met their Kyoto targets are either or both former Soviet bloc countries, or have significant nuclear energy assests, with just one exception: Greece.
Have a nice evening.