The European Environment Agency last week issued a press release about and Executive Summary of “Greenhouse gas emission trends and projections in Europe 2008.”

The actual report, as students of this issue will not be surprised to learn, has yet to be produced. The press release says the report is coming in November. But don’t worry, its authors know all they need to know from the, er, “summary” of that . . . document they . . . haven’t . . . produced.

More on the underlying substance later, when we can see it. From the executive summary we see that their claims of being on track to fulfill their promises to reduce GHG emissions is more of the same: a) reliant upon the 1990 baseline, which allows them to bank reductions from the post-1990 economic collapse, which preceded, and was unrelated to, the Kyoto agenda, and b) contingent upon a bunch of things happening that probably won’t.

Among the bits of wishful thinking: “Some Member States expect significant emission reductions in a limited time frame (2006–2010), from policies and measures that have not been implemented yet.” Yep, some are indeed claiming that — as they have been for years – although no emissions policy has ever worked out that way. My favorite is “Within this overall target, each EU-15 member state has a differentiated reduction target; some should reduce emissions while others are allowed a limited increase.” These limited increases were as much as +25 percent over 1990 levels.

HUZZAH! The EU here admits that the U.S. is well on its way to a very “limited increase” in emissions [+14.7 percent by 2006]. How nice of them to acclaim our global environmental leadership (albeit by implication only)! Does this aparent change of heart indicate that they think Sen. Obama has already been elected?

“The EU-15 has a Kyoto target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8% from base-year levels (see below) by 2012.” The promise is actually “by” this year, for five years – meaning 2008-2012, not in any way “by 2012.” But what’s a little goalpost-shifting among re-established friends?

Europe gave themselves a head start of sorts by demanding “credit” for an economic collapse in many of their Member States. They nonetheless admit again that nearly half of their promised emissions “reduction” will be acheived by importing emissions “credits” from exempt Kyoto Parties (plenty of those to choose from), sinks, and their Emissions Trading Scheme. So the use of “cut” and “reduction” throughout the press release and executive summary are thoroughly dishonest. Paying someone else quite handsomely so that you can eat their dinner does not mean that you’re on a diet. Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism is little more than importing emissions indulgences.

But we must ask: Since the Dingell-Boucher bill’s ration-and-swap scheme isn’t likely to yield any more emissions cuts in the U.S. than it has in Europe, which of the EU’s other non-reduction measures will the bill count on to deliver the promised emission reductions? The fact is, while several U.S. states have been trying, only with Michigan do we have an Eastern European-style economic basketcase from which the other states can import emission “cuts.”