The Age of Global Warming: A History (27 page)

The US only won emissions trading because it had comprehensively lost on the third of Clinton’s three objectives. The response to Gore’s instruction of flexibility on the part of the US was met by total inflexibility on the part of the G77 plus China. Early in the conference, a US negotiator indicated that all they were looking was for some movement on the issue of developing country participation, while Hagel said not all one hundred and forty developing nations need sign on. Those that did need only agree to a general commitment to limit emissions. The G77’s response was swift. ‘We have said categorically
no
.’
[68]

Estrada tabled a draft article to enable non-Annex I countries to make voluntary commitments. A number of non-Annex I countries gave it qualified support, including the Association of Small Island States, Argentina, South Korea and the Philippines. The majority didn’t. OPEC members, perhaps recognising that the article might increase the chance of Senate ratification, argued that the article be deleted. They were joined by the host of the Earth summit, along with India and China. Recognising there was no consensus, Estrada said the article should be deleted.

Then New Zealand launched an initiative for future commitments from non-Annex I countries based on Annex I countries delivering theirs, with talks beginning in 1998. The G77 plus China said that it would not participate in them as a matter of principle. In his speech to the conference, the spokesman for the G77 plus China concluded with one word: ‘No.’ The proposal was not discussed again.
[69]

Some delegations had already left. Contracts for the conference translators had expired, leaving the Russian and Chinese delegations without interpreters. Having worked through the night, at around 1pm on 11
th
December, Estrada said he was happy to submit a Kyoto Protocol and declared that it had been unanimously recommended. 

At a wrap-up briefing for the congressional delegation, Watson was sitting next to Dingell and a member of his staff. Eizenstat came over to them. ‘Well, Mr Chairman, I did the best I could,’ Eizenstat said. ‘Don’t worry Stu,’ Dingell replied. ‘You can’t make chicken salad when you’re handed chicken shit.’
[70]

Nine hundred and seventy-nine days after COP1, Estrada had discharged the Berlin Mandate. After it was formally adopted, Estrada took a nap. Then he went to see the city with his wife.

*  The original draft of the speech called for a five per cent cut, but a member of Clinton’s economic team changed the text. Amy Royden,
U.S. Climate Change Policy Under President Clinton: A Look Back
(2002), fn. 119.

*  In post-conference briefings, Clinton administration officials claimed that -7 per cent was equivalent ‘at most’ to -3 per cent on their original proposal of stabilisation because of differences in accounting for forests and land management (sinks) and inclusion of extra greenhouse gases with a 1995 base year. See for example Stuart Eizenstat’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 11
th
February 1998 http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gcp/kyoto/protocol.html

19

The Morning After

Our most fateful new challenge is the threat of global warming; 1998 was the warmest year ever recorded. Last year’s heat waves, floods, and storms are but a hint of what future generations may endure if we do not act now.

President Clinton, 19th January 1999
[1]

During his twenty-four hours in Kyoto, Al Gore told reporters he welcomed the prospect of a ‘knock-down, drag-out’ fight to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. ‘It would be high stakes and a lot of fun.’
[2]
 

His bravado scarcely lasted the return flight. The Protocol faced ‘bleak prospects’, Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader, warned. ‘I have made clear to the President personally that the Senate will not ratify a flawed climate change treaty,’ Lott reassured Chuck Hagel.
[3]

A tug of war ensued between the Senate and the White House. The day after the Protocol’s adoption, the
Washington Times
reported that the Clinton administration had decided to delay submitting it to Congress. ‘As we said from the very beginning, we will not submit this agreement for ratification until key developing nations participate in this effort,’ an administration spokesman said. Lott argued that Clinton should not withhold the treaty from the Senate for ‘cynical, political reasons.’
[4]

Clinton nominated Frank Loy to succeed Tim Wirth as undersecretary of state for global affairs. On taking up his post, Loy immediately recognised that even with a friendly Senate, the Protocol was not in a state to be ratified. The text was an outline, being totally silent or sparse in setting out how the Protocol’s emissions goals should be met. While Loy and his colleagues recognised they were never going to get absolute quantified emissions targets from even the richest of the G77, getting something from some of them was high on the administration’s agenda both in terms of meeting the convention’s objective of avoiding dangerous interference and for its political importance.
[5]

In doing what they could to improve the prospects for ratification, the Clinton administration got little help from the Europeans, in particular Germany, France and the Scandinavians, which had Green environment ministers. Far and away the most thoughtful and realistic was the UK and John Prescott, environment secretary and deputy PM.  Prescott was ‘extremely helpful’, according to Loy.
[6]

In October 1997, Clinton had visited Argentina. Speaking in the magnificence of the Nahuel Huapi National Park, Clinton invoked Theodore Roosevelt and Perito Moreno, who had visited Patagonia together in 1912. He promised $1billion to help developing countries find alternative energy sources and praised his host, President Menem, for stating that developing countries should have emissions targets.
[7]
Argentina’s backing was a coup.  Historically Argentina had provided the intellectual leadership of the developing country movement and the first COP after Kyoto was being held in Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile a fierce debate raged between the Clinton administration and Congress over the economic implications for the US of adopting Kyoto. In July, the administration produced its analysis. Emissions trading, joint implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism would enable the US to buy its way out of the problem at minimal cost. Trading among industrialised countries would more than halve the costs of climate change policies.
[8]
Supplemented by the Clean Development Mechanism, trading might reduce costs by up to eighty-seven per cent of a domestic-only approach.
[9]
Overall the report estimated annual costs to the US of $7–12 billion, equivalent to 0.07–0.11 per cent of GDP, a fleabite on the back of the booming US economy.
[10]

The assessment was received with considerable scepticism on Capitol Hill. Jim Sensenbrenner, chairman of the Committee on Science, held hearings and asked the Energy Information Administration, an independent agency within the Department of Energy, to offer a second opinion. In October, the EIA produced a more comprehensive and detailed analysis which suggested that the costs would be an order of magnitude higher than the administration claimed. It projected a reduction in 2010 GDP of $61–183 billion (if revenue from auctioning emissions permits was used to reduce social security taxes) and a range of $92–397 billion (if permit revenues were returned to taxpayers in a lump sum), implying a range of 0.65–4.2 per cent of GDP for the two approaches.
*
[11]

Having a debate on the economics of global warming made the US exceptional. The UK, which had taken a pragmatic attitude to the climate change negotiations, did not examine the economic consequences of Kyoto. Few people were better placed to see what went on than Andrew Turnbull. Cabinet secretary and Britain’s top civil servant under Tony Blair between 2002 and 2005, before that, Turnbull had been a Treasury highflyer, working in Number 10 for Margaret Thatcher in her last two years as prime minister, permanent secretary at the Department of the Environment from 1994 before returning to the Treasury in 1998 as permanent secretary. According to Turnbull, at no stage was anyone inside the British government prepared to step back and reappraise the issue. Thatcher’s championing of global warming had settled the issue. Her reputation as a politician not afraid to challenge orthodoxy and her scientific mind continued to have a huge impact long after she’d gone. Rising global temperatures through the 1990s made carbon dioxide appear the villain of the piece and policies to deal with it looked like a good idea. But the Treasury never did any serious work on the economics. 

As a policy disaster in the making, global warming reminds Turnbull of the poll tax. At the beginning, people went along with it because they thought it a small-scale, incremental policy. After it went wrong and helped bring about Thatcher’s fall, they would say, ‘It’s not my fault it blew up, I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known what happened subsequently.’ The European dimension of global warming reinforced this tendency. Here was a policy where Britain wasn’t being a foot-dragger. Since Thatcher’s Royal Society speech in 1988, the UK had been in a lead position. The dash-to-gas allowed Britain to show off at little apparent cost. Only later would the costs emerge in terms of closed steel mills, distorted tax policies and unattainable targets for renewable energy.
[12]

The Buenos Aires COP4 was held in the first two weeks of November 1998. It adopted the Buenos Aires Plan of Action to put flesh on the bones of the Protocol by the end of 2000. More importantly, it turned out to be the high point of the Clinton administration’s campaign to get some meaningful participation from developing countries.

It began promisingly. On the conference’s first day Maria Julia Alsogaray, Argentina’s secretary of natural resources and sustainable development, told the conference that while Argentina did not bear historic responsibility for the climate change problem, it wished to belong to the group of countries which had responsibility for finding a solution. Developing countries too had some responsibility for climate change and an ethical duty to ensure sustainable development.
[13]

Nine days later, Carlos Menem told delegates that at the next COP Argentina would make a commitment to cap its emissions for the period 2008 to 2012.
[14]
‘This is a major, major move,’ Stuart Eizenstat said in Buenos Aires, ‘truly historic.’
[15]
Environmentalists were also ecstatic. ‘It is a major breakthrough,’ Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defence Fund said, describing Argentina’s move as ‘a significant first step’ in satisfying the Senate’s requirements.
[16]

The next day, Kazakhstan announced that it wanted to join Argentina and voluntarily assume Annex I obligations, which would enable it to sell its surplus emissions as ‘hot air’ to America. It looked like the Americans were on a roll. Speculation had been mounting that the administration would build on the momentum of Argentina’s announcement by signing the Protocol. Senator Byrd, co-sponsor of the Byrd-Hagel resolution, warned Clinton against ‘making empty gestures that will only make the potential future approval of the Protocol by the Senate more difficult.’
[17]
From Buenos Aires, Senator Liebermann urged Clinton to sign. ‘If we are not at the table, we cannot cajole or convince the developing nations to become part of the solution,’ Liebermann said.
[18]

The day after Menem’s speech, Peter Burleigh, America’s acting representative to the United Nations, signed the Kyoto Protocol in New York. Publicly Clinton said nothing. Instead a statement was put out on behalf of Vice President Gore. Signing Kyoto imposed no obligations on the US, the statement said. ‘We will not submit the Protocol for ratification without the meaningful participation of key developing countries in efforts to address climate change.’
[19]

The downbeat spin in Washington contrasted with the stir it created in Buenos Aires. ‘I am not gilding the lily when I say there was near euphoria among the delegates here,’ Eizenstat told the
New York Times
.
[20]
Lieberman said it gave America the credibility to be at the table. ‘That means we can not only make sure it happens, but that it happens in the way that we prefer.’
[21]
Hagel dared Clinton to invite the Senate to ratify it. ‘If this treaty is good enough to sign, it’s good enough to be submitted to the Senate for an open, honest debate.’
[22]

Clinton avoided battle on the Senate floor. Instead Buenos Aires marked the furthest extent of the Clinton administration’s global warming diplomacy. Like Napoleon’s defeat at Borodino, it was the start of a two-year retreat. Argentina and Kazakhstan could announce their intention to assume Annex I obligations, but there was no mechanism in the Protocol for them formally to do so. Agreeing a mechanism required consensus. Consensus, or rather the lack of it, was like General Winter to the retreating French; not an outcome decided in pitched battle, but worn down through steady attrition. By the time the administration had signed the treaty, the battle was already lost, defeat being confirmed at the conference closing plenary two days later.

At the start of COP4, there was a battle on whether voluntary commitments should be on the conference agenda. Speaking on behalf of the G77 plus China, Indonesia said the issue had been deliberated at length, but no consensus had been reached and proposed the agenda be adopted without it. India recalled the debate at Kyoto which had rejected the idea of voluntary commitments. A number of OPEC members warned that such a discussion was bound to be divisive and could lead to the imposition of voluntary commitments. China said developed countries’ ‘luxury’ emissions were rising and that voluntary commitments would create a new category of parties under the convention. 

Speaking in favour were Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and the EU, which recognised that the question of broadening commitments in the long-term was necessary and unavoidable. Of the non-Annex I nations, only Chile spoke in support. The agenda was adopted without the proposed item.
[23]

Two days later, the conference discussed the adequacy of commitments of both Annex I and non-Annex I parties to attain the convention’s objective. The first review had been three years earlier and had resulted in the Berlin Mandate. Article 4.2(d) of the convention required a second review not later than 31
st
December 1998 (and thereafter at regular intervals). The article, suggested by American negotiators,  was meant to be a periodic spur; without extending commitments beyond the Annex I parties, it was numerically impossible to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations and thus achieve the convention’s objective.
[24]

The G77 plus China said that there was consensus that existing commitments were inadequate, as developed countries were shirking their responsibilities. The issue was passed to a contact group which met over the weekend. This failed to produce agreement other than to remit four different drafts to another body, this time the Subsidiary Body on Implementation. The US and Australia noted that the IPCC’s evaluation confirmed that developed country actions by themselves would be insufficient, while China interpreted this as an attempt to extract commitments from developing countries. On the Tuesday (the COP was due to finish at the end of the week), the Canadian co-chair of the contact group reported that they agreed that commitments were inadequate, but not on the reasons or on any actions that might be required.
[25]

At the COP final plenary two days after America had signed the Protocol, Alsogaray reported that the parties had not been able to review the adequacy of commitments as required by the convention. 

The issue was left for COP5 in October 1999 in Bonn.

As with COP4, settling the agenda was the first issue for COP5. The draft agenda included the Article 4.2(d) adequacy review. Again, the G77 plus China objected. This time it wanted the wording of the item changed from ‘adequacy of commitments’ to ‘adequacy of their implementation’, changing the sense and purpose of the review requirement in the convention. After what many had felt to be a difficult COP in Buenos Aires, delegations experienced, in the words of convention secretary Zammit Cutajar, an unexpected mood of optimism, a mood bought at the cost of not attempting to resolve divisive issues. On the final day of the COP, the conference president, Poland’s Jan Szyszko, said no agreement had been reached to resolve the adequacy review, recorded China’s amendment, and gavelled the decision, saying the item would be taken up at COP6.
[26]

A similar fate befell Kazakhstan’s attempt to join Annex I. While Argentina announced its adoption of voluntary greenhouse gas growth targets, it had backed down from trying to change its non-Annex I status.
[27]
In response to the EU’s suggestion of agreeing to increasing global participation after the first 2008-2012 commitment period, China said it would not undertake commitments until it achieved ‘medium development level’.
[28]
(By 2008, China’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions were above the world average.
[29]
Reinstein recalls a comment by China in one of the last sessions of the INC negotiating the convention: ‘China will always be a developing country,’ which he interpreted not as a statement about China’s economic aspirations but as a firewall against China being dragged into OECD-like commitments.)
[30]

Although Kazakhstan’s proposal to join Annex I was supported by a number of Annex I parties, several non-Annex I countries said they did not have enough information on whether Kazakhstan could fulfil its obligations. There was no consensus and the COP decided that the issue should be taken up by COP6.

So on it rolled. The US, supported by Canada, Australia and New Zealand, pressed for COP6 to be held in early 2001, after the American elections. The G77 plus China pushed for November; the decision going their way.

The Hague COP6 was held six days after the disputed presidential election and Florida’s hanging chads. The American team at The Hague did not know whether Al Gore or George W. Bush, who had spoken against Kyoto in the election, would be taking office in January. The attempt to get some evidence of future commitments from non-Annex I countries was now all but over. The draft agenda was adopted except for the item on the second review of the adequacy of commitments. No consensus on the matter had been found by the end of the COP, the G77 plus China saying the topic was sensitive so it would be better not to discuss it further.
[31]

Instead the American side had to contain a counter-attack from the EU which in American eyes amounted to an attempt to reopen the basis of the deal struck at Kyoto. They also had to contend with a noisy NGO participation that stormed a meeting with locked arms and refused to leave.
[32]
Something was thrown at Loy. Wiping cake from his face, Loy reminded everyone that the day was the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, who had urged Americans not to be swayed by those ‘confusing rhetoric with reality’.
[33]