situation — and that his EPA will implement something faster than anything the EPA has ever done before. Which is another way of describing his vow today to give the economy up to two years to bring emissions back down to 2005 levels.

He says that the free-ride granted to most of the world proved the undoing of these “Protocols”. The fact that none of the parties which promised emission reductions have any clue how to actually reduce emissions, and therefore are not doing so, would seem to me to be a more central feature in Kyoto’s failure.

First, McCain’s conceit in this speech and in his global-warming views generally are impervious to changing evidence: the problem of man-made climate change is real, bad, and here now.

Second, McCain’s ultimate goal for “doing something” is, at best, unclear. He says “The goal in all of this is to assure an energy supply that is safe, secure, diverse, and domestic.”

It has failed in Europe. He tries to elide this fact, but fails.