The emissions of Ban Ki-Moon....

Only hot air, not CO2....

Until Sunday, that is, when (after years of stories about Europe's commitment to fighting global warming, without reporting results) the Times ran a chart that showed that most Kyoto-bound countries are not meeting their Kyoto targets. Only four Western European countries — Sweden, Monaco, France and Britain — are likely to meet their Kyoto goals. Germany is not on target. Spain, Ireland and Italy are spewing greenhouse gases far in excess of their Kyoto goals.

Now that a Democrat is in the White House, the Times is reporting on how difficult it has been for true believers to meet their Kyoto mandates. The focus of stories used to be on whether politicians said they supported Kyoto — and as long as leaders said they believed, they didn't have to curb their emissions. Now the Times is focusing not on beliefs, but on results.

To those of us who are global warming agnostics and to skeptics, the emphasis on belief always undercut the science. After all, if greenhouse gas emissions were the threat that alarmists said they were, you would expect environmentalists to demand changes from China (now the world's largest emitter).

But when I asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2007 about why the United States — but not China and India — should have to curb emissions, Ban answered that America has a "historical responsibility" to cut emissions, while China and India "have their own positions." Like the Kyoto crowd, Ban emitted more political ideology than science.