Missed this from last week, but Muck and Mystery has up a particularly lucid rant on the use and misuse of environmental treaties:
The useful approach to climate change induced by anthropogenic gasses and pollutants doesn't involve treaties, it is solely a matter of technology. We need to develop alternative methods to transport ourselves and generate power. Anything that politicians do to impede discovery and invention makes the problem worse. All of the money they squander on treaty negotiations would have been much better spent funding research and development.
There is no role for wonks or politicians, not yet. They are the last trade needed when social change is afoot. When everything is ready, when change is feasible, then they can broker the transaction. Politicians never lead, they follow. They may try to jump in front of passing parades and pretend that they are leading them, but only the naive and uninvolved fall for their pretenses. The principals of society, those who do the heavy lifting and fine assembly, those with knowledge power rather than position power, are the leaders, the creators that carry society.
When insane politicians start believing their own press releases and abuse their position power to attempt to force change before it is feasible then societies are ruined, bankrupted and defeated, humiliated and retarded. The 20th century gave us several good examples of such insanity in Europe and Asia. There are many that have not yet absorbed these case histories and internalized the lessons. You can't solve technical problems with political solutions. You can't just insist that things be different. All the advocacy, protest and bribes in the world won't solve technical problems. What treaties like Kyoto expose for the world to see is the socio-political bankruptcy of the promoters.
I highly encourage anyone with an interest in solving problems to read the entire post!