Kyoto's failures haunt new U.N. talks

Annie Petsonk, international counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, said that for all the problems of Kyoto, the accord still should not be judged too harshly.

"It's an important, imperfect first step," she said.

But Steve Rayner, an environmental policy expert at Oxford University, said that the time for such a lenient assessment is past. Kyoto "was a diplomatic success, but environmentally it was a complete failure."

The negotiations for the next phase of the accord have the advantage of taking place when public and scientific opinions have swung behind taking aggressive steps to stabilize global warming.

To be effective, Kyoto II will have to directly address the failures of the past. It will have to include the United States and force developing nations to rein in their polluting, experts said.

"It's going to be very difficult getting a new treaty," Petsonk said. "But we cannot sit around letting carbon levels rise."

alan.zarembo@latimes.com