ENVIRONMENT-US: Pressure on Washington to Sign Kyoto Protocol

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, May 3 1998 (IPS) - The U.S. government is beginning to feel the heat after dozens of governments in the past week signed on to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon emissions linked to global warming.

Twenty-three governments, including all members of the European Union, signed the protocol – formally called the Framework Convention on Climate Change – during Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) talks that ended Friday. Since the protocol opened up for signature last month, a total of 36 states parties have signed it, although actual ratifications are expected to follow over a span of several years.

But the level of countries agreeing to the Framework Convention has put pressure on Washington to follow suit, at a time when the White House is under fire from a Republican Congress suspicious of the Kyoto commitments, and a U.S. business lobby that is worried about the cost of reducing emissions.

Melissa Kimble, U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, said that the United States intended to sign the protocol, but was waiting for the results of further climate negotiations this year before a formal commitment. She conceded, however, that progress with Congress so far has gone poorly.

“Right now, we’re in a very difficult period where Congress has not really accepted our analysis of the costs,” Kimble acknowledged. “We have to work toward a common consensus.”

Some officials of President Bill Clinton’s administration are already fighting back in clear anticipation of what may become a grueling fight to ratify the treaty in Congress.

“Recently, we have learned of the establishment of a coalition to attack the very premise of global warming,” warned U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson Wednesday at New York’s Museum of Natural History. “They claim that the evidence on climate change is inconclusive, that short-term economic interests should take precedence over the future of our planet and that we should proceed with business as usual.

“We’ve heard the ‘Chicken Little’ arguments countless times…but nearly every time after legislation is passed (to protect the environment), the result is the same – our economy continues to grow and our planet becomes a cleaner place to live.”

Kimble told IPS it was a “90 percent certainty that we’re going to have a warming trend” if nations do not cut back emissions of the main greenhouse gases. Even if there is a debate about the effects or scope of global warming, “it is prudent insurance to start now, to address the problem” while studying the phenomenon further.

Nevertheless, opposition from Congress and business groups have made the White House more cautious about embracing the treaty, even though the United States won many major concessions when governments met in Kyoto last December to negotiate the protocol.

Under its current terms, the protocol would require the United States, which produces about a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, to cut its emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels between the years 2008 and 2012. Under Kyoto targets, Europe must reduce its emissions of the six main gases linked to global warming to 8 percent below 1990 levels during the same period.

Clinton has argued that Washington must be convinced of “meaningful participation” from developing countries – which do not have Kyoto targets for their emission reductions – before the White House sends the treaty to Congress for ratification.

In some respects, that decision simply recognises that the treaty will be a tough sell in the Republican-led Congress, which has failed to ratify the Biodiversity Convention and which has been openly hostile towards most international agreements involving the United Nations or its organs.

However, the treaty likely cannot take effect at all unless the United States signs, because of terms which ensure that the world’s leading carbon dioxide emitters must ratify the protocol for its entry into force.

To enter into force, the protocol – which is open for signature by governments until March 1999 – must be ratified by at least 55 countries. Among those countries must be nations that account for at least 55 percent of the 1990 levels of carbon dioxide emissions from the industrialised world.

The United States accounts for some 35 to 36 percent of the developed world’s carbon dioxide emissions at present, contended Michael Zammit Cutajar, executive secretary of the Climate Change Convention. Therefore, he argued, while it may be theoretically possible for the protocol to enter into force without Washington’s ratification, that prospect is unlikely.

“It’s not possible…for a climate regime to function well without the United States,” he said recently. “One wants, in one way or another, to get all the big players on board.”

One of the tactics that has been working well in that respect is the unity of the European Union in signing on to the treaty on Wednesday, which has clearly embarrassed U.S. officials into picking up their pace.

“The United States must be willing to lead the way,” said Richardson. “When the United States fails to act, other nations view our inaction as an excuse for doing nothing.”