Global Warming and Environmental Production Efficiency Ranking of the Kyoto Protocol Nations

We study the United Nations Organization's Kyoto Protocol nations to address two questions. First of all, what are the environmental production efficiency rankings of these nations? Secondly, is there a relationship between a nation's ratification status and its environmental production efficiency ranking? We use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compare the relative performance of the signatory nations since it is much more meaningful to compare these nations to each other's efficiency record as a relative benchmark in a truly global sense.Our findings suggest that the nations that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol are more likely to be environmentally production efficient as compared to the nations that have not ratified the treaty. In terms of the prospect of the Kyoto Protocol being ratified by all the participating nations, these findings suggest that apart from the seasonal global warming statements by politicians and others, there are fundamental domestic politico-economic considerations inhibiting national governments that are yet to ratify the treaty. Resolving these differences will most likely involve serious negotiations including, diplomatic pressures in the halls of UNO and 'diplomacy by other means' in the historical battlegrounds for resolving international conflicts.Finally, this paper provides a cross-sectional comparison of the environmental production efficiency of the Kyoto Protocol participants only. However, the same analysis could also be conducted for an individual nation over a period of time. For example, one can conduct a time-series analysis to compare the improvement or deterioration of PRC environmental track record over a period of time. Similarly, the approach illustrated here can be used by international environmental watchdogs like the European or U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to compare the relative efficiency of individual member states or the relative efficiency of the same state or nation over a period of time