... But the Australian move left some leading environmental commentators cold. Professor Aynsley Kellow, the head of the school of government at the University of Tasmania, said the ratification of Kyoto had weakened Australia's reputation as a tough international negotiator focused on real outcomes.
Ratification of a "failed" agreement like Kyoto would only serve to constrain learning from mistakes in forging a new agreement after 2012.
Experts predicted it was unlikely that penalties for breaching emissions reduction targets in the protocol would be enforced against the many countries who would exceed their targets.
Dr Kellow said that until yesterday Australia had been committed to delivering and implementing an effective rules-based system that delivered real cuts in greenhouse emissions.
"Ratifying Kyoto is throwing that out the door and saying we'll ratify something we know is a crock," he told The Australian.
He said European nations continued to be the main global spruikers for the Kyoto agreement, because the design of the scheme favoured them rather than resource-rich countries such as Australia and the US, as well as China and India.
Using 1990 as the scheme's base reference year gave Europe and its biggest emitters, Britain and Germany, a huge advantage.
At that time the region was benefiting from the collapse of eastern European countries, whose economies contracted after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The restructuring of eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc means their emissions are around 35 per cent lower than 1990 levels, allowing them to generate and sell the surplus as credits to countries over their emissions limits without reducing their emissions. ...
