The delegates to the Montreal meeting would do well to read the late historian Barbara Tuchman’s insightful book March of Folly, lest their failure to acknowledge information demonstrating the flaws in their policies someday qualify for a chapter in an updated version.

The Montreal meeting is validating the belief that those who do not learn from history are condemned to relive it. Instead of more of the same, delegates should be taking a step back and focusing their energies on a “Lessons Learned” exercise. Before planning future actions, it would be wise to determine what has worked under Kyoto, as well as what has not. Such an exercise would demonstrate that common sense and objective reality are sometimes more powerful than ideology and wishful thinking, the cornerstones of the Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto ignored the reality that reducing greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO2, required reductions in fossil fuel use, the dominant sources of energy and the engine of economic growth. It should have been clear that governments would not actually abide large doses of economic pain to pursue a goal that would achieve little and was based on shaky science at best.

In reality, most developed countries have given only lip service to making actual reduction in their emissions while pursuing economic goals. With few exceptions, the original EU members will fail to meet their commitments, and have done little to put their nations on a path toward lower emissions while simultaneously remaining globally competitive. Germany and the UK may just meet their obligations as a result of a fluke of history—the collapse of East Germany and the shift from coal to gas in the UK after 1990.

The flaws in the Kyoto Protocol were obvious in 1997 and are just as obvious today. First, fossil fuels—coal, oil and gas—provide over 80% of the energy the world uses to meet economic objectives and will remain the dominant energy source for decades to come. Second, settling on a hard target and a specific timetable for the next 15 years presumes knowledge of the future no one has—to achieve both, it is necessary to know population changes by country, economic growth rates, changes in technology, shifts in energy use, and changes in international trade along with myriad other factors, such as shifts in weather patterns. This is a challenge of Herculean proportions which would require an unprecedented breakthrough in technology and deployment.

If progress is to be made in Montreal, it will have to begin with a little more honesty and humility. More honesty—in admitting that the state of climate science and knowledge of human influence are meager, and do not justify draconian actions that would damage economic aspirations, especially those of the several billion people who now live is devastating poverty. More humility—in recognizing that transformations to energy systems and technology cannot simply be willed into existence. Efforts to the contrary run head long in opposition to economic practicality.

The clear facts are few. Climate models, the basis for so much dread, consistently over predict warming without calibrating adjustments. Second, producing lower and no carbon energy systems is the technology challenge of the century; not of the next decade or so. Third, developing countries struggling to thrive are rapidly becoming the major sources of CO2 emissions. Fourth, the growth in atmospheric levels of CO2 can be slowed; not reversed. We are where we are and there is no going back politically or economically.

Time will tell whether nations gathered in Montreal act on facts or continue down the road of self delusion. Real progress will only be made if there is more emphasis on technology, adaptation, and developing country economic development. A more honest assessment of the science, and less finger pointing.

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