So progress is slow and invariably disappointing but, for the first time ever, the U.S. will make a pledge to the world community to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The pledge will be to reduce U.S. emissions by approx. 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% by 2050.

Senator John Kerry calls this a “game changer” that will help pave the way to an international agreement in December at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, but is it really? Let me just throw some different numbers at you: national emissions cuts in the range of 30 to 40 per cent, compared with 1990 levels, by 2020.

That’s the pledge many nations — particularly China — are asking us to make by next month. Sides seem a little further apart than Kerry is letting on to.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/us/politics/26climate.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper