This week South Korea sketched out several options for reducing greenhouse gases in the coming decade, inching closer to a national commitment before the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen this December.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, only industrialized “Annex I” nations were required to take on specific emissions targets.

Seoul has already announced massive investments in clean energy technologies, earning a place among a core group of developing nations that are taking significant action to curb the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. If it moves forward, South Korea would join the ranks of Mexico, South Africa and Brazil in volunteering quantifiable pledges as world leaders negotiate a follow-on treaty.

Government officials say they are considering three emissions trajectories for 2020, all using a 2005 baseline: an 8 percent increase, a return to the 2005 level or a 4 percent decrease; that compares to a projected 30 percent increase under a “business-as-usual” scenario. The 2005 baseline is revealing because South Korea’s emissions have increased by 95 percent since 1990, the baseline used in the Kyoto Protocol, according to the World Resources Institute in Washington.

Compared to a 1990 baseline, the proposals seem decidedly less ambitious, and the government has not spelled out exactly how it plans to meet such a commitment. Nonetheless, says Remi Moncel, an energy and climate expert at the institute, “it’s a good sign of leadership from a developing country.”

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Like Mexico, South Korea is an OECD country that outranks many Annex I nations in terms of economic output and per capita income. Both countries have carved out a separate space in the climate talks, choosing to negotiate together with Switzerland as the Environmental Integrity Group rather joining the “G77” coalition of developing nations.

Many hope this kind of movement will help break the deadlock between developed and developing nations. In order to make real progress on that front, however, the United States and China will have to come to some kind of mutual understanding. The good news is that both sides seem to be trying.

Conventional wisdom posits that a truce between the two largest emitters, if sufficiently stringent, could pave the way for a broader international agreement in Copenhagen. That might or might not be true, but it’s clear that the latter is impossible without the former.