After The Hague failure in last November, a lot of new facts have been animating the world debate on environment in the last months. As everybody knows, the talks to make the Kyoto protocol operational were suspended because the US and EU delegates were not able to find an agreement on the "clean development" mechanisms and the international "emissions trading" system. Whilst reports providing new evidence about climate change were presented in Shanghai, Nairobi and Accra, such an agreement was found in March at Trieste, Italy, during the G-8 environment ministers' meeting, but did not last, due to President Bush U-turn. How should we consider now the Bonn meeting, where the talks suspended at The Hague will be resumed?
New evidence about climate change: Shanghai, Nairobi and Accra reports
In January 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , the organisation created by the United Nations in 1988 to assess global warming trends, met in Shanghai to agree on what evidence of global warming should be used to set global environmental policies. At the end of a four-day meeting, IPCC drafted a report which foresees that global temperatures could rise by almost 6 degrees Celsius over the next century: such prevision doubles the top end of the increase previously predicted, 1.4 to 3.0 degrees.
Rising temperatures could trigger droughts, floods and other disasters from shifts in weather patterns, threatening to disrupt fishing, farming and forestry, and killing much of the globe's coral reefs. Rising seas could flood heavily populated coastal areas of China, Bangladesh or Egypt. The most extreme projections say that melting Antarctic ice could raise sea levels by up to three metres over the next 1,000 years. The report shows also more clearly than ever that rising temperatures are the fault of industrial pollution, not of changes in the sun or other natural causes.
In February IPCC released in Nairobi, Kenya, a second volume describing how global warming affects civilisation and the natural environment. While highlighting the uncertainties, it details expected changes in ecosystems, extreme climate events, and much more. Commenting on the report, Michael Zammit Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change noted that it had powerful implications on how man shall deal with poverty and sustainable development over the coming decades. "No country can afford to ignore the coming transformation of its natural and human environment. The poor and the vulnerable are at the greatest risk and this report is a timely reminder that we need to pay more attention to the costs of inaction, and that the costs of action to cut emissions are just part of the climate change equation," he said.
The costs to cut emissions are economically feasible: this statement emerged from the Accra meeting in February, during the preparation of the third volume of IPCC report, finalised on technology and policy options for reducing greenhouse gases and calling on governments to recognise the economic and competitive benefits of making an early transition to climate-friendly economies. The costs of climate changes policies could be minimised through "no regrets" strategies, which constitute nowadays a substantial range of technically feasible and cost-effective measures. For example, raising energy efficiency not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but can make industries and countries more competitive. Market-based incentives such as deposit-refund systems can encourage people to trade-in their cars for more energy-efficient models. Technology and performance standards can reward manufacturers for selling climate-friendly goods, or penalise those who do not.
Trieste G-8 environment meeting: a tentative agreement
IPCC reports were recognised by G-8 environment ministers, who Òshared the strong concerns about the environmental threats for our planet during the meeting held in Trieste in March. The ministers reaffirmed their desire to reach a global accord on implementing the Kyoto Protocol and adopted a statement of intent attempting to bridge their differences on how negotiations should be taken forward. In particular, the compromise missed at The Hague was found in Trieste. At The Hague, the European Union and the US government could not come to an agreement on how much credit countries would get towards their greenhouse gas emission reductions from carbon sinks - trees and plants that absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The forest-rich US pushed for increasing the amount of credits given for carbon sinks. The US favoured allowing states failing to meet targets to buy credits from countries that have met their goals, as well as counting carbon sucked up by forests and farms. The EU opposed both proposals, arguing that nations must make real cuts to greenhouse gas pollution. Now in Trieste the G-8 ministers recognise the importance of continuing consultations on issues such as sinks [É] and the importance of capacity building and technology transfer, as far as Clean Development Mechanism.
The only cloud on this compromise was the fact that at Trieste the United States did still not say what its exact position was on global warming or on the greenhouse gas emission targets agreed at Kyoto. During his election campaign, Bush referred to Kyoto as "unfair to America" and said he would not implement it. In Trieste however Christine Todd Whitman, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told reporters: "The president has said global climate change is the greatest environmental challenge that we face and that we must recognise that and take steps to move forward." Adding that the US would not backtrack from the agreement. A positive signal came also from Ms. Whitman's declaration that the administration was considering regulating, for the first time ever, power plants' emissions of carbon dioxide.
President Bush U-turn
Ms. Whitman declarations at Trieste were welcomed by environmentalists, but provoked sour reactions elsewhere. Some US coal industry representatives were quick to point out the contradiction between the administration's plans to encourage use of coal and its hopes to cap carbon dioxide emissions, a by-product of coal combustion. Some senators, also not pleased, wrote to the president calling for clarification of his climate change policy, in particular the Kyoto Protocol and efforts to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.
The answer was a letter1 to Senators Hagel, Helms, Craig, Roberts on March 13th , considered an about-face on a campaign promise to require reductions in emissions of "four main pollutants: sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide." The president noted that carbon dioxide was not considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and said a recent Department of Energy review had determined "that including caps on carbon dioxide emissions as part of a multiple emissions strategy would lead to an even more dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly higher electricity prices. At a time when California has already experienced energy shortages and other western states are worried about price and availability of energy this summer, we must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers."
The position against the Kyoto protocol was instead coherent with the campaign promises: the ÒAdministration takes the issue of global climate change very seriously. But Mr. Bush oppose(s) the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centres such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy. The Senate's vote, 95-0, shows that there is a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns.
Last statement against exclusion of developing countries from Kyoto protocol needs a reply: the U.S. is the state responsible for 25 percent of global CO2 emissions, and according to WRI2, emissions of U.S. power plants exceed the combined emissions from 146 countries, about 75 percent of the world's nations. It was the rich world that created todayÕs problem by emitting greenhouse gases while industrialising over the past century; it is only fair that rich countries act first to curb emissions. The Kyoto process envisages that developing countries will take on targets at a later stage.
The economic impact of the Kyoto protocol needs also some deepening. Estimates of the costs of complying with the Kyoto protocol vary considerably, ranging from zero or even net gain to staggeringly high. The IPCC reckons that a modestly flexible treaty would reduce global GDP by between 0.1% and 1.1% in 2010. Much depends on assumptions about technological progress, the economy's flexibility and the extent to which the treaty incorporates "flexible mechanisms" designed to improve its cost- effectiveness.
World reaction to Bush letter
The letter of President Bush to the Senators triggered a storm of criticism from around the world. The European Union and Japan expressed deep dismay at the new U.S. position. The EU said the global talks on climate change would suffer a serious blow without the US commitment to the Kyoto protocol. However, the EU remained committed to ratifying the Kyoto protocol by 2002. Even Canada, a key ally of the US in environment talks, expressed its disappointment. Canadian Environment Minister David Anderson said Bush's controversial change of mind would damage the chances of major world powers reaching greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets agreed in Kyoto in 1997.
Japan strongly urged Washington to reconsider the Kyoto protocol. The upper house of Japan's parliament adopted unanimously a resolution which considers Òextremely regrettable that the U.S. Bush administration has announced its abandonment of the Kyoto Protocol". The chamber "strongly urges the United States, which is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, to continue to take part in negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol".
Russia, following the European Union, criticised Washington for rejecting the treaty. Its position is however more soft due to possible economic advantages that may come if the emissions trading system were implemented. Russia is among the world's biggest polluters, but its greenhouse gas emissions fell by some 30 percent in the last 10 years due to a sharp decline in industrial production after the introduction of market reforms. Therefore it could make big money from selling unused pollution quotas if such a market were established.
One of the few favourable reactions came from Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter. Mohammad al-Sabban, senior economic adviser to the Oil Ministry and head of the Saudi delegation to the United Nations, said in an interview with the Middle East Economic Survey that his country understood Mr Bush's position against implementing Kyoto.
US alternative to be presented in Bonn
Finding itself increasingly isolated on the world stage for its rejection of the Kyoto treaty, the Bush administration put forward alternative guidelines for a new international global warming agreement. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage outlined on beginning April the longstanding US objections to the Kyoto accord: the exemption it offers to developing countries; the burden it puts on the US as the world's biggest offender to curb emissions; and the lack of consideration given to new technologies and market-based ways of tackling global warming.
Mr Armitage said the new US proposals would be ready to be presented to the convention on climate change to be held in Bonn in July, where the COP6 (Conference Of the Parties) talks suspended at The Hague will be formally resumed.
The EU reaction was expressed by the president of the European commission, Romano Prodi, and the Swedish prime minister, Goran Persson, who argued that it would be better to amend the Kyoto agreement to make allowance for US objections than to tear it up entirely. "If certain parts of the agreement prevent the United States from ratifying it, we should negotiate about those parts rather than bury the entire agreement," the two leaders wrote in the Swedish regional daily newspaper Goteborgs-Posten. "In our opinion, it would be a tragic mistake to tear up the agreement and start over from scratch. We would lose time, and that would make us all losers."
EU tried and came to another agreement during the ninth annual session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) on late April in New York. EU supported a UN compromise proposal which would allow the US trading a commitment to plant forests as carbon sinks or buy carbon credits from other nations instead of reducing its emissions to the levels demanded by Kyoto.
But negotiations faded when a State Department memo was leaked. The memo, issued on 1st April, states that Washington opposes the Kyoto pact "under any circumstances". The memo suggests the US Government to consider climate change solutions based only on market forces and improved technology.
Consequently, the EU considered the opportunity of going ahead with or without the agreement of the United States. Indeed, the treaty could be implemented without US participation if it is ratified by 55 countries which produce 55% of global greenhouse emissions.
Comments & conclusion
Whatever the Bonn meeting may produce, the failing of the Kyoto protocol, the unilateral ratification by the EU, the negotiation for a new treaty or even the end of the Rio process, we have to consider the dismaying decisional, or better not-decisional, process which has been operating in the environmental field for the last months.
Setbacks, U-turns, about-faces and missed compromises we have seen are all aspects of the failing international environmental governance. Once more the so called "global governance", this myth national governments are telling us, shows its limits.
The terrible fact is that such demonstration of national states inability may cost us dear: if we human beings are unable to control the climate change process, we run a risk of a catastrophe. There is full awareness of such a risk: the process started at Rio in 1992 testifies that governments, NGOs, civil society, people are conscious of the risk and of the necessity to act.
We may cite the words of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking in Bangladesh on March 14th, the day after Bush penned his letter against Kyoto, as an example of this wise consciousness: "It is said that we face a choice between economic growth and conservation, when in fact growth cannot be sustained without conservation. It is said that it will be too costly to make the necessary changes, when in fact cost-effective technologies and policies are available. And it is said that developing countries should focus on development, saving the so-called luxury of environmental protection for later, when in fact the environment provides many of the precious resources and capital that societies need today to develop and sustain themselves".
The risk is well known, the necessity to act too: what is missing? Why are we human beings unable to save ourselves? The answer is that we are entrapped in the binding limits of national sovereignty, which we are trying to soften with the international co-operation, believing in the myth of global governance, not understanding that the method is incorrect. Each problem needs a response adequate to its seriousness, and the seriousness of the environment question is so high to deserve a really strong and effective action. But to date, no government had the courage to renounce a piece of sovereignty in order to preserve the environment. No government dared to delegate real power to super-national institutions, letÕs guess a World Authority for the environment, capable to act for the safeguard of the whole mankind. Would we need a Leviathan?
1 The full letter can be found at www.usinfo.state.gov
2 World Resources Institute, www.wri.orgi
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