The recent Montreal meeting of parties to the Kyoto Protocol marked an important step forward toward post-Kyoto initiatives. Despite a frustrating start, the meeting, held to give further impetus to global-warming prevention efforts, ended with a promising decision: Major developed countries, including Japan and the member states of the European Union, agreed to set up a working group to study reduction targets after 2012, which is not stipulated in the protocol.

Moreover, parties to the protocol managed to agree to continue a nonbinding dialogue with the participation of the United States, which has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and with developing countries, which are not obliged to reduce greenhouse gases under the protocol. While it is not yet clear what kind of forum for discussion will be established, it is significant that the participants agreed to continue the "flow" of the Kyoto Protocol on a global scale. This probably reflects their view that global warming is becoming a major international problem that no one can ignore.

The meeting was the first full gathering of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol since it went into effect in February of this year. It was attended by nearly 10,000 persons, including government representatives from around the world and members of nongovernmental organizations, making it the largest such meeting so far. In the end, the meeting succeeded in drawing in the U.S. and developing countries and putting post-Kyoto efforts on the radar. Before the meeting began, it was feared that a framework completely different from the Kyoto Protocol was looming on the horizon.