All the world may be talking about cutting emissions, thanks to the gigantic Paris climate conference, but it is difficult to find countries that have cut emissions unless the cut has been an economic shift that was happening anyway.

The main characteristic of the 1997 Kyoto protocol which the Paris talks will strive to replace, was that, for one reason or another, most of the signatories did not have to do a great deal to comply with it. Britain cut emissions by switching most of the electricity-generating capacity in its grid from coal to gas last decade, for example, to take advantage of the then plentiful gas from the North Sea. The country has just announced that the remaining coal-fired plants will be retired in favour of gas generators. Germany's targets were set from just before the fall the Berlin Wall swept away most of East Germany's Cold War manufacturing base.