There’s never a shortage of good intentions at the annual Group of Eight meeting of leaders of the world’s largest economies. The G8 typically produces reams of earnest-sounding pledges on everything from antipersonnel land mines to active aging.

But the group’s record of living up to its promises is probably not much better than most politicians’, according to an annual scorecard compiled by the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto. That’s a sobering reality in light of some of the big pledges the group is likely to make on climate change at this year’s summit in Heiligendamm, Germany.

This year’s report, released a few days ago, shows that compliance with last year’s batch of promises at St. Petersburg, Russia reached about 47% by mid-May. That’s the lowest final compliance score since a 33% for the Kananaskis summit in 2002 in Alberta, Canada. But it’s about average for the period since 1996, when the center began its compliance studies. The 2005 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland reached the second-highest compliance rate of 65%.

In country-by-country ratings for 2006 promises, the U.S., U.K. and Canada led with 60%. Italy came in last, at 5%.