Pa faut mwen

The Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol has ended in Nairobi. The New York Times all but excoriates the meeting as a failure on account of the parties' inability to agree "how to move beyond the Kyoto Protocol, which requires cuts in emissions by most industrialized countries but expires in 2012." The United States' exclusion from the existing international framework is a serious stumbling block. Also emerging as an obstacle to further progress is the recalcitrance of China and India. Kyoto imposed no sanctions on these two countries, which claimed some sort of "developing world" discount but have emerged as two of the world's fastest-growing generators of greenhouse gases.

More details will follow at Jurisdynamics and at BioLaw. In the meanwhile, this observation by the Times is worth quoting -- and contemplating -- in full:

Many African communities are already feeling the effects of a shifting climate, from increased droughts to more desertification to spreading malaria, one of the continent’s biggest killers. The irony is that these countries most vulnerable to climate change are the least responsible for it, because they have little industry and produce a relatively small amount of pollution.

Pa faut mwen is Haitian Creole rather than west African French, but the sentiment is entirely appropriate. It's not my fault.

Editor's note: This item is being posted simultaneously on Jurisdynamics and at BioLaw.