The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change is extremely unlikely now to secure a sufficient majority to come into force at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg at the end of August.
Despite last Friday's formal ceremony at the UN headquarters in New York when it was ratified by all 15 EU member-states, including Ireland, US intransigence has stayed other developed countries from taking this final step.
Even though the mechanisms to implement Kyoto's mandatory cuts in the industrialised world's greenhouse gas emissions were agreed in Bonn and confirmed in Marrakech last year, a number of key countries are still stalling.
To become legally binding, the protocol must be ratified by at least 55 per cent of the world's 34 most developed countries and those ratifying it must also account for at least 55 per cent of this sector's greenhouse gas emissions in 1990.
The US, which accounted for 36 per cent of the total, has put itself out of the picture while Australia (2.1 per cent of emissions) has said it will not ratify the protocol without the US. Canada (3.3 per cent) is still deliberating on it.
Russia, which accounted for just over 17 per cent of the 1990 emissions total, is also having second thoughts about ratification, even though it stands to gain by selling credits to other countries, and may seek further concessions.
Japan's continuing support for Kyoto, in spite of US pressure, is seen as vital to ratification, though its leaders are dubious that it can meet the target cut of 5 per cent and may even be hoping quietly it collapses, according to one analyst.
In Ireland's case, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, has conceded it will be "environmentally challenging" to limit the growth in our greenhouse gas emissions to 13 per cent above 1990 levels by 2010.
Mr Dempsey signed up for this cap under an EU burden-sharing deal negotiated in June, 1998, though economic growth has meant that the Republic's emissions were nearly 30 per cent higher than their 1990 level just a decade later.
By contrast, Britain agreed to a 12.5 per cent cut in its emissions by 2010 - a target that also applies to Northern Ireland, as Prof Austin Smyth, of Queen's University Belfast, pointed out in a lecture in Letterkenny last Thursday.
"There is a strong argument that Northern Ireland should be treated differently from the rest of the UK," he said.
Otherwise, the "great disparity in ambition and achievement" north and south of the Border was likely to create difficulties.
"Sharp contrasts in national policies can lead to confusion throughout both jurisdictions," he said.
Instead, the two parts of Ireland should recognise the "clear benefit" of sharing research and lessons learned on either side of the Border.
"In Northern Ireland, we have depended in recent decades much more on coal and oil burning for electricity generation. This inevitably produces higher rates of greenhouse gas emissions than other fuel sources," Prof Smyth said..
"Regardless of how issues are taken forward within each jurisdiction, stakeholders require urgency of action, education, implementation of recommendations and research where there are significant gaps and uncertainties," he added.
