The United Nations Climate Change Conference ended in Montreal on Saturday with equal parts relief and euphoria, as the Kyoto Protocol signatories agreed to extend the treaty beyond its 2012 deadline, while the United States finally agreed to be included in non-binding talks on long-term measures. The US decision allowed many to hail the conference as a success, in the light of its delegation's earlier dramatic walkout and fears that the entire Kyoto process could crumble.

While the real nuts and bolts of the conference were the finalized set of rules for making Kyoto operational, so that its signatories are obliged to cut combined carbon emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, it was the dramatic turnaround by Washington that gained the headlines.  However, the German press is divided on whether the Montreal conference can really be viewed as a success.

According to center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung the conference was a success, not due to the specific agreements or the technical details but rather because of what did not happen. The United States did not withdraw from the discussions on climate protection, even though it had looked likely during the previous few days. "The Kyoto countries did not allow the instruments of climate protection to be watered down … and the industrialized and the developing countries didn’t let themselves be played off against each other, although that is exactly what the US attempted. The Kyoto experiment was put to the test in Montreal, and proved itself." The paper opines that the main task of the next climate conference will be to reduce the isolation of the Americans. "The countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol can only stand together so long: without the United States, which produces a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, the climate alliance will be just a torso. The Bush administration is hardly going to consider a u-turn, but the door must be left open for the next president who will presumably deal with this subject in a different manner."

According to the Süddeutsche, the emerging economies of Brazil, India and China have been able to agree to the principle of Kyoto because it hasn’t brought them any disadvantages so far. They are still below average polluters per head of population. However, as energy use increases enormously in these countries so too does their production of greenhouse gases.  "If the Kyoto protocol is to be successful beyond 2012, then the globalization winners in Asia and Latin America are going to have to accept restrictions."

The left-wing Frankfurter Rundschau is more equivocal in its praise of the final agreements. It commends the fact that Kyoto will be followed up in 2012, as this seems to indicate that the world is capable of learning lessons. "Perhaps the most important commitment" it writes, "is that there is now an incentive and sanction mechanism for those states who do not keep to their targets … and secondly, that there will be a 'Kyoto 2'. This is an important signal not only to global public opinion, but also to politicians, businesses and financial markets. It means that climate protection is be one of the factors that will have to be taken into account when making decisions."

However, the paper concedes that the old problem of climate diplomacy is still on the table: the fact that America, the biggest producer of greenhouse gases, is still saying no to Kyoto. Although the United States did not succeed in completely torpedoing the protocol, Montreal was not a breakthrough. "Washington will not go down the Kyoto road as along as Bush is in office. And it will be a number of years before the developing and emerging countries will agree to climate protection commitments, even though China has already reached number two on the CO2 charts. Nevertheless Montreal brought real progress. Those who still claim that the sun revolves around the earth are fewer."

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung views the conference with a much more jaundiced eye. Its editorial is scathing of the enthusiasm that broke out among the ten thousand delegates and observers "who had invited themselves" to Canada to agree on the continued existence of the climate change protocol. "The fact that amongst them were a few hundred delegates, including those from the US, who resisted the group dynamic and once again distanced themselves from the world rescue project, didn’t change the mass psychological effect of the event." The paper is dismissive of what it calls this "auto suggestion" which "clouds people's minds and creates that illusion that the 'Montreal Action Plan' has achieved the decisive step in climate protection policy." The FAZ argues that the conference cannot, in fact be deemed a success as the US was once again not persuaded to sign up to Kyoto and, furthermore, the emerging economies did not have to commit to restrictions.