Author Calls Some Nations "Climate Freeloaders"

What I am talking about here, however, is a growing list of rapidly industrializing countries that don't have targets under the existing Kyoto Protocol, but have emissions rates that are now often above those of many longtime industrialized nations that do have targets. Moreover, while the Kyoto countries are cutting emissions, the non-Kyoto countries are mostly raising them -- and fast.

These are places as different as Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and South Korea. None of these countries currently seem likely even to be asked to adopt targets in Copenhagen later this year, when the successor agreement to the 1997 protocol is set to be decided. And that seems increasingly crazy -- not only unfair, but also damaging to any real effort to tackle climate change.

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