EU, U.S. to Meet to Try to Salvage Climate Deal

By Robin Pomeroy

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Top government officials from the United States and the
European Union meet in Canada on Wednesday to try to salvage a
deal on curbing global warming, an EU official said Monday.

The two-day meeting will be the first between the two sides since
U.N.-sponsored talks to set a global strategy on cutting ''greenhouse gas''
emissions
collapsed spectacularly last month.

If the Ottawa session brings the two sides closer, it could pave the way for
a ministerial-level meeting that could take place in Oslo early next week,
the
EU official said. Huge differences between the United States and the EU on
how to implement a 1997 U.N. climate pact agreed in Kyoto, Japan,
scuttled a deal when some 180 countries met at a two-week conference in The
Hague last month.

The biggest stumbling block was the U.S. position that countries should be
allowed to offset the carbon dioxide soaked up by their forests and
farmlands against the pollution reduction targets agreed in Kyoto.

The EU accused the United States and its negotiating allies including Japan
and Canada of trying to undermine the Kyoto targets. The 15-country bloc
rejected a last-minute compromise which would have allowed limited use of
such ``carbon sinks.''

Getting an agreement on sinks will be the key to agreement in Ottawa, the EU
official said.

The other main ``crunch point'' will be the EU's insistence that countries
make a large part of their emissions cuts through domestic action, rather
than
by buying emissions reduction credits from other countries.

Kyoto Agreement To Cut Emissions

At Kyoto, developed countries agreed to cut emissions of the gasses
scientists say trap heat inside the Earth's atmosphere causing extreme
disruption
to weather patterns.

Governments were supposed to set detailed rules for how this target -- to
reduce emissions by five percent of 1990 levels by 2008-2012 -- should be
achieved.

Due to the deadlock the talks were officially ``suspended'' in the hope a
deal could be achieved by the first half of 2001.

Canada and Japan, which are partners of the United States in the so-called
``umbrella group'' of countries seeking maximum flexibility for implementing
Kyoto, will attend the Ottawa meeting.

The EU will be represented by its executive Commission and the governments
of France, Sweden, Britain and Germany, the official said.

All sides have said they want to reach a deal as quickly as possible, not
least because of the prospect of a Republican U.S. president -- George W.
Bush -- who is known to be less favorable to Kyoto than his Democratic rival
Al Gore.

Any deal between the umbrella group and the EU will still have to be
accepted by the developing nations which, although they do not have
emissions
reductions targets, are likely to be hardest hit by climate change.

The G77 group of developing countries said in The Hague any deal would have
to include an aid package to help them cope with the rising sea levels,
floods and droughts they fear will result from global warming.
 
 

Micheal Meacher, UK Minister for Environment,  on David Frost TV programme

MICHAEL MEACHER: Good morning.

DAVID FROST: It looks very dramatic, sounds very dramatic, how long did you have
without sleep?

MICHAEL MEACHER: Thirty six hours.

DAVID FROST: Thirty six hours, and did we nearly make it and who was to blame?

MICHAEL MEACHER: I think we really did very nearly break it, make it¿that's a
Freudian slip¿

DAVID FROST: Yes.

MICHAEL MEACHER: I, I think this is the most complex set of detailed
negotiations on climate change that we've had, basically we ran out of time, it
may sound a bit crass but it's true. We had to vacate at 4 o'clock in this
enormous conference hall, we had an all night negotiating session the night
before, there was a deal there which I have to say the British did put into
place, it wouldn't have been there otherwise, I think it was a pretty good deal
and I would certainly have very strongly have backed it. There were a number of
loose ends, there were uncertainties about some of the information and we just
simply didn't have the time to pull it all together.

DAVID FROST: And was it, was it in the end the fact that the Americans were
coming around responding to what John and yourself were do¿John Prescott and
yourself were doing, but that it was the European nations as we've heard who
thought it was too much of a, too much of a compromise the American way?

MICHAEL MEACHER: Well I can understand that point of view, I think it was the
wrong decision to be made on it, I think we had squeezed the Americans to a
minimum. The big issue is carbon sinks I mean forests absorb carbon, how much do
you allow the Americans, Canada, Japan to meet their targets through their
forests, that's, that's the issue. Now there were two ways you can do it, you
can buy forests or plant forests abroad and use the, the credits that you get
abroad for doing that, we completely blocked that so that there would be no
carbon sinks in what's called the clean development mechanism in developing
countries. The issue then is how far you can use carbon sinks in your own
country. Now we brought that down to a minimum figure, America for example has
to reduce by about 600 million tonnes of carbon a year, we reduced it to about
75 million tonnes, I think maybe that's a bit more than we would like but it's
perfectly wearable and if that's the price for a deal I think it would have been
well worth it. Now we had a discussion in the EU delegation, we had so many
discussions in the EU I've almost forgotten the number but at the end they were
still asking questions, no one said we're turning it down, the French presidency
clearly had its doubts, some of the other nations had their doubts and at the
end lack of time, lack of commitment perhaps and it faded, it is a tragedy but
it is not something that is a disaster forever. We will return to this in the
early part of next year and I'm convinced we will then get an agreement.

DAVID FROST: Because a the moment I suppose technically there's no Kyoto
agreement in force so everyone's free to pollute as much as they want?

MICHAEL MEACHER: Well¿

DAVID FROST: Theoretically?

END

MICHAEL MEACHER: We all signed up to targets at Kyoto three years ago, it
doesn't come into force until you ratify, we cannot ratify before 2002, you need
55 countries, about 170 in the world, 55 countries have got to ratify and they
must account, they've got to be big countries accounting for 55 per cent of
total global greenhouse gas emissions. So there's quite a high thresh-hold, now
again we can reach that, I'm still convinced that we can reach that but of
course you've got to have the mechanisms in place which we're all agreed about
and that's what this conference is about, the mechanisms to deliver the targets.
 

DAVID FROST: But Michael if we failed to get an agreement at this one, the next
one early next year is good news because some of the papers say late next year,
but early next year, why will it be any different? MICHAEL MEACHER: Well I think
it'll be¿

DAVID FROST: Why will they agree then if they couldn't agree now?

MICHAEL MEACHER: Well I think, well partly because of course there will be more
time, we're all going to be reflecting on what happened, we're going to put
together an agreement even before we get to the conference which has been
brokered between our capitals and because all countries, this is the basic
point, all countries want an agreement, we are seeing what is happening in the
atmosphere, the storms, the floods in the UK, the hurricanes, to the tornadoes,
all over the world they're increasing and all countries are affected including
America and Canada and Japan. They want an agreement it's just a question of
that final detail. We did fail last night, it is a tragedy but it's a reversible
tragedy and we will now put together those last final loose ends that we didn't
have the time to do last night.

DAVID FROST: So the work of the last three years looks as though it might have
been destroyed but you're saying it hasn't?

MICHAEL MEACHER: Oh there's no question that it hasn't, I mean this is not
something that the world can walk away from, I mean if we fail this time we've
got to come back to it. We absolutely, everyone in the world, every country in
the world is a victim of climate change, we all have the same incentive to reach
agreement and we will.

DAVID FROST: Michael thank you very much indeed. Michael Meacher on Kyoto part
two.

Washington Post- Climate Change Won't Wait for Kyoto

By James K. Hammitt

Efforts to iron out details of the Kyoto Protocol to control global warming went down in flames last week. Talks in the Netherlands collapsed over the knotty question of how to count forests, croplands and other "sinks" that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Although it was intensely disappointing to some, last week's failure may yet provide the opportunity to do what really ought to be done: replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol with a more effective and politically acceptable agreement to combat climate change.
The Kyoto Protocol is poorly targeted. It focuses on the wrong time frame and addresses only part of the problem. By limiting national emissions, it invites argument about how to count sinks and other emission offsets.
The Kyoto Protocol limits emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to a set level by 2008-2012. But emissions over such a short period hardly matter. Greenhouse warming is a cumulative process that depends on the total stock of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Because most of these gases remain in the atmosphere for a century or more, only emission reductions that are sustained for several decades can slow or reverse their accumulation.
To stabilize global climate anywhere near its current state will require that we reduce future emissions to well below today's levels, and hold them there. This will require reducing the emissions needed to support today's global population and economy, as well as controlling the dramatic increase in emissions that will be stimulated by future worldwide growth in population and economic activity.
The Kyoto Protocol fails to address the future growth in global emissions because it imposes no requirements on developing countries. Over the next century, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and other developing countries are likely to become some of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
To prevent serious climate change, we need a long-run approach to stimulate development and worldwide adoption of technologies and living patterns that will slow the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions and ultimately allow them to be brought far below today's level. Ideally, we can do this without significantly limiting improvements in living standards.
A promising alternative to Kyoto is for national governments to adopt incentives to stimulate greater efficiency in energy use. Although well-targeted subsidies could work, they give too much power to government officials who pick the favored activities. A simpler and surer approach is a national tax on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, that would raise the relative price of products that yield high emissions.
The tax would be levied on fuels and other products at the point of production or importation. The revenues would be used to offset other taxes. The overall tax burden would remain the same, which would improve political acceptance.
Unlike Kyoto, this program should be acceptable to both industrialized and developing nations. The program is revenue neutral, within the control of each national government and allows for economic growth. It simply encourages growth to follow a more greenhouse-friendly path.
The tax would start low so it would not impose undue burden on firms and households that produce relatively large greenhouse-gas emissions. But the tax would be scheduled to increase substantially over the next several decades, providing the needed incentive to encourage new, more sustainable, technologies over time. Each country could decide on its own whether to offer a credit for carbon sinks within its national program.
The most important aspect of this program is that the commitment to future taxes be credible. Industry is unlikely to invest in developing more efficient products unless it is confident a market for these products will remain.
Nearly a decade has passed since the nations of the world met at the Earth Summit in Brazil and signed the convention that led to Kyoto and the recent meetings in the Hague. As nations have resisted ratification, rates of greenhouse-gas emissions have accelerated. We must recognize Kyoto as a well-intentioned failure and move on to an approach that is politically feasible and substantial enough to address this serious threat.
The writer is associate professor of economics and decision sciences at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.
 
 

MEACHER `DETERMINED' TO REVIVE WORLD CLIMATE CHANGE DEAL

 Environment Minister Michael Meacher today said he was ``absolutely
determined'' to resurrect the collapsed world climate change deal,
after the disastrous failure of the talks last weekend in The Hague.
 He revealed that he was ``gobsmacked and stunned'' when woken up by
officials at his hotel on Saturday, to be told that a deal he was
convinced the European Union had accepted, was suddenly in tatters.
 Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott swept out of the conference,
declaring he was ``gutted'' by an act which resulted in a bitter war
of words with French Environment Minister Dominique Voynet.
 She claimed Mr Prescott behaved like a ``male chauvinist pig'' and
Mr Prescott said Mrs Voynet had complained of being ``too tired'' to
concentrate on the details.
 But now despite the recriminations, Mr Meacher looks set to meet
Mrs Voynet next month in Luxembourg at a regular EU Ministers
meeting.
 ``I feel pretty robust about it (the Luxembourg talks), `gutted' is
a pretty much overdone word.
 ``I am expecting to go alone. I am sufficiently grown-up to deal
with this issue at the Environment Council.
 ``Obviously it will be a major issue,''he said.
 The reasons for the dramatic halt to The Hague talks, are still a
mystery to Mr Meacher because the major sticking point about US
reliance on carbon ``sinks'' for forests to mop up excess carbon
dioxide, had been largely sorted out.
 He said ``She (Mrs Voynet) never said at any point, on behalf of
France, `we reject this', let alone on behalf of the EU.
 ``I concluded that meeting, being rather weary at that stage,
thinking that's fine.
 ``I am absolutely certain, no-one sitting in on that meeting  John
Prescott and I were both there  would construe that as the EU
turning it down. There was no question at all.''
 Mr Prescott and Mr Meacher then had a press conference setting out
their  plans because they were so confident that it had been
accepted, subject to further information being provided.
 Mr Meacher went on: ``What happened then is that I went on the
Today programme and said we had got a remarkable deal and thinking
that, I then went to my hotel for a couple of hours' rest.
 ``I was then woken up to be told the whole thing had unravelled. I
couldn't believe it. If not gutted, I was gobsmacked. I was stunned.
 ``It would seem as if there had been further meetings and I was not
present at them, so I cannot say what actually happened.
 ``But it would certainly seem as if the EU presidency had declined
to support the proposed deal, for whatever reasons, I do not know. If
it was a question of more information, I don't think you could
possibly turn it down on those grounds, because the information was
available.
 ``The EU wanted a deal, the G7 wanted a deal and the EU had never
turned it down. So what went wrong? A very good question.''
  Mr Meacher said he is ``absolutely determined that we are going to
resurrect this proposal.''
 It may have to be modified in some form or another, but he said:
``We came within inches of an agreement and if the UK had not
intervened we would have been nowhere.''
 Mr Meacher plans to talk to the UK's EU partners and possibly the
Americans before the Luxembourg talks.
 end

Ignominious collapse for Hague climate talks

The conference foundered on the issue that divided the EU
and the US-led umbrella group all along:  whether or not
carbon absorption by managed forest and agricultural land
could be counted as credits towards industrialised
countries' Kyoto protocol 2008-12 emission targets.  "In the
end it came down to nothing but sinks," a senior Belgian
official told ENDS Daily.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, with official talks
still proceeding at a snail's pace, UK deputy prime minister
John Prescott won the backing of the EU's French presidency
to negotiate a deal directly with the USA and fellow
sink-enthusiasts Japan and Canada.

A package emerged, imposing curbs on credits from domestic
forestry sinks that specifically limited the USA to 75m
tonnes of carbon equivalent (MtC) towards its 2008-12
target, while Japan and Canada would have sink caps of 15MtC
each. The deal would have imposed tighter sink accounting
rules for subsequent commitment periods.

Other industrialised countries would also have been able to
claim sinks allowances under the proposals, which, however,
were aimed firmly at winning round the three states that
argued most strongly for their inclusion.  The 75MtC
American sink allowance compares with 135MtC sought by US
negotiators earlier in the week.

Other elements of the agreement were no quantitative cap on
the use of the protocol's flexible mechanisms, while sinks
would be excluded from the clean development mechanism - a
key EU demand.

When Mr Prescott presented the draft deal to EU colleagues a
majority of delegations rejected it, arguing that the sinks
"loophole" offered to the USA was still too big.  Germany,
Nordic countries and current EU president France were most
vocally against.  Mr Prescott then stormed out of the
conference centre, saying he was "gutted" that the deal had
not gone through.

After the Briton's departure, the US delegation surprised
everyone by offering a further concession which, it is
thought, would have capped its sinks allowance at 50MtC.
German environment minister Jürgen Trittin developed his own
variant, including a US sink cap of 20MtC and tight limits
on sales of surplus "hot air" emission credits from eastern
European countries, while conceding there should be no
overall cap on the flexible mechanisms.

Mr Pronk called time on these informal talks when it became
clear they would not conclude in time to be put to the rest
of the conference, leaving the way open for bitter
recriminations all round, including within the EU camp.

Britain's Mr Prescott yesterday blamed French environment
minister and official EU representative Dominique Voynet,
claiming she had become too tired to follow the
negotiations.  Mr Voynet hit back, accusing Mr Prescott of
"macho" behaviour and restating the majority EU view that
the deal finally on offer had been unacceptable.  Danish
environment minister Svend Auken flew to Ms Voynet's defence
today, calling on Mr Prescott to apologise for his comments.
 
 

The hot air balloon

Madeleine Bunting
 

The collapse of the climate change talks in The Hague at the weekend was the best possible thing that could have happened. This was precisely the kind of shock everyone needed. When did climate change last dominate the headlines? Coverage of the conference was making little impact, being relegated to a few paragraphs inside the newspapers - until it all disintegrated.
Then, thanks to John Prescott's fiery temper and his flouncing out, some drama was finally infused into the tedious technicalities that had dominated the conference. When all the talk is about how much carbon is released by different ploughing methods, you don't have a cat's hope in hell of impinging on the public consciousness, but when Prescott throws a dramatic tantrum ("I'm gutted") and the mudslinging is gets nasty, then people take notice.

With any luck, The Hague's collapse will nail one important popular myth - namely, that the international community has the matter in hand, and one can leave the politicians to sort out the details. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kyoto was a botch from the start, and it was inevitable that it would come unstuck. For several months, environmentalists have been warning that the conference would collapse. Many of them were so disillusioned by Kyoto and the talks since, that they argued no deal would be better than some of the compromises being suggested.

One thing is for sure, The Hague was never going to be the conference to "save the planet". The most obvious criticism of the Kyoto agreement in 1997 was that the targets agreed to cut carbon emissions were always pathetically inadequate; a mere 5% over 1990 levels while scientists were unanimous that cuts of 60-80% were required. But that could be countered by the argument that at least it was a first step. The far more damning criticism of Kyoto was that the whole international effort had been hijacked and corrupted by America's ideological obsession with the disciplines of the market as a panacea for all ills. Ironically, it was the Europeans whom Mr Prescott was accusing of "political purity" and lack of pragmatism at the weekend.

Such a charge better applies to the US which insisted on a market for carbon trading which would enable them to buy the right to carry on polluting. Under this rubric, they wanted to plant forests to absorb carbon in so-called carbon sinks, and even claim carbon credits for changing the way they ploughed their fields.

What that did was firstly to drive the international negotiations into a quagmire of mind-boggling detail - much to the fury of the Europeans who justifiably claim that regulation rather than a market approach to environmental pollution reaps better results. Negotiators got stuck over questions such as how this market was to be monitored and regulated without corruption.

None of that was made any easier by the fact that scientists are very uncertain about how and whether carbon sinks work at all; some estimated that the US proposals would lead to massive increases in emissions. Secondly, the consequences of the US market-based approach (perhaps intentionally) with its highly technical negotiations, alienated any sustained public interest. It has become a textbook case of how to kill off public participation.

Arguably, it was the last which has proved most destructive of the international effort. There is no point blaming the politicians for their failure. What has been singularly lacking over this issue has been any widespread popular campaign. We've had no Seattle-style protests. Instead we've had the fuel tax campaigns and a public stubbornly recalcitrant about changing its own lifestyle, unwilling to turn out for a demo on climate change. Politicians respond to pressure. When they have big, angry demonstrations outside their conference centres, it focuses their minds. When their mailbags are bulging with outraged voters, they respond.

What's needed now is the kind of global protest movement which Jubilee 2000 developed over debt relief. That movement spawned a mass economics lesson on the global finance system, so now we can start on another bit of the curriculum: geography. As Jubilee 2000 draws to a close next month, climate change has been mooted as a possible successor issue. The potential for a comparable coalition of non-governmental agencies is there. It is as much a matter of concern for the Red Cross and Oxfam as for the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds and Greenpeace.

Such coalitions are not easy to assemble; they involve overcoming rivalries, but together, they would have far greater impact in a world crowded with good causes. Jubilee 2000 is a powerful example of how old-fashioned campaigning, of letter-writing and petitions combined with email succeeded in pushing debt relief up the international agenda and getting reform.

It is only this kind of mass campaign which has any hope of shifting the US. Between now and next May when the climate change talks resume in Bonn, much attention will be focused on persuading the US and its allies in the Umbrella Group to give ground. That task will not be made any easier if George W Bush is ensconced in the White House with his oil industry chums at his elbow; he doesn't believe there is such a thing as global warming.

But curiously, while news reports from The Hague have cast the US envoy Frank Loy as the villain of the piece, opinion polls indicate that the US public has one of the highest levels of environmental awareness in the world. They give generously to environmental causes and some states such as California and Arizona have pioneered important environmental initiatives. The puzzle is why this environmental conscience doesn't feed into the federal political system in the same way as it often does at a state level.

Is it because this conscience doesn't determine voting (Ralph Nader, the Green party presidential candidate, won only a pitiful 3% of the vote) or because the Washington establishment is paralysed by special interests such as the oil companies and fear of jeopardising the US economic boom? If, and it's a big if, such a political block could be shifted by mobilising public concern, the US could play a very different role, leading efforts on climate change rather than sabotaging them. Forest fires in the Rockies, tropical diseases in New York and violent hurricanes on the East Coast will all help in bringing home the consequences of climate change.

Meanwhile, it's business as usual in The Hague's international conference centre this morning. Oil industry executives are settling down for an international get-together. Rest assured, their conference is unlikely to collapse in bitter disagreement and this evening, they'll have plenty to celebrate over their cocktails. If that doesn't outrage, what will?
 
 
 

Climate Talks Are Suspended Until 2001 Amid a Deadlock

THE HAGUE -- The next U.S. president -- whoever it turns out to be -- got a
windfall here over the weekend: a chance to review and perhaps renegotiate the
Kyoto treaty on climate change.

The opportunity emerged on Saturday, when talks intended to complete the treaty
broke down over levels of emissions-reduction credits that the U.S. and other
countries would get for the absorption of carbon dioxide in their forests and
farmlands -- so-called carbon sinks. Also at issue: How much international
emissions
trading would be allowed?

The breakdown came after a rollercoaster series of closed sessions, including a
predawn meeting at which State Department Undersecretary Frank E. Loy, the
lead U.S. negotiator, thought he had reached a deal with leaders of the European
Union that came closer to the U.S. position than previous efforts.

The deal soon collapsed, according to diplomats here, after the German, British,
French and Swedish negotiators who attended the small meeting were unable to
persuade the larger EU delegation to accept it. That led to an impasse as the
deadline for ending this two-week United Nations convention arrived. The 150
nations nevertheless voted not to formally end the session, but to suspend it
and resume next May or June.

"We came within a hair's breadth of a deal that would have resolved three of the
most contentious issues," explained Mr. Loy. He
was referring to a two-page paper worked out between the EU group and
negotiators for the so-called umbrella group, which
included ministers from the U.S., Canada, Japan and Australia. The eight
diplomats shook hands on the deal, but two hours later
the EU rejected it, according to Mr. Loy.

The deadlocked negotiations, coupled with the unresolved U.S. elections and the
possibility of a U.S. administration led by Texas
Gov. George W. Bush -- a sharp critic of the current Kyoto treaty -- led some
diplomats to wonder whether EU leaders "had
snatched a defeat from the jaws of victory," as one of them phrased it.

In an effort to reach a compromise, Mr. Loy had offered to reduce U.S. demands
for carbon-sink credits. He also offered to cut
allowable levels of international emissions trading, which lets a company that
reduces emissions below target levels -- or helps such
projects in other nations -- gain emissions-reduction credits that can be used
or traded. The U.S. position had formerly been to allow unlimited emissions
trading.

"If a Bush administration takes office on Jan. 20th, the EU will be facing
exactly the same proposals it rejected here, but the numbers will probably be
bigger,"
said Philip E. Clapp, president of the U.S.-based National Environmental Trust.

On the other hand, if the next administration is led by Vice President Al Gore,
the EU might be facing some of the same U.S. negotiators they're dealing with
now, along with a president who could say, with some justification, that he
helped invent the Kyoto treaty by personally negotiating it in 1997.

The treaty attempts to reduce man-made "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere,
such as carbon dioxide, by a total of about 5% overall -- based on 1990 levels
-- between 2008 and 2012. The delay makes it more likely that some nations,
particularly the U.S., will not meet reduction targets under the treaty. The
U.S.
has agreed to lower its emissions by 7%. But even after a deal is struck on a
treaty, it could take several years for Congress to both ratify the measure and
pass
the complex legislation needed to carry it out.

U.S. environmental groups were bitterly disappointed by the deadlock. Even Glenn
Kelly, executive director of the Global Climate Coalition, a U.S. group that
has lobbied against the treaty for years, was concerned about its uncertain
future. He noted that many of his group's industrial members, while skeptical of
the
treaty, hoped to benefit from some of its provisions, including financial
incentives for the export of power plants and energy-efficient technology.

"As long as Kyoto hangs out unfinished, businesses have no sense of direction
and investment guidance for where they need to be heading," Mr. Kelly said.

Jan Pronk, president of the U.N. convention, had tried to bring the EU and the
umbrella group together Thursday with a draft proposal to deal with key issues
in
dispute. Mr. Loy, who described that proposal as "unacceptably imbalanced," kept
negotiating in the next two days with little sleep. EU officials weren't
commenting about the dispute that broke out among their negotiators early
Saturday morning. According to a senior U.S. official, an effort by Mr. Loy to
revive
the talks later in the day was rejected because some EU ministers said they no
longer had a "mandate" to make a deal for the group.

Mr. Loy, who earlier in the week was hit in the face with a chocolate-strawberry
cream pie thrown by an irate British demonstrator, described the failed
last-minute negotiations as "bittersweet."

Dominique Voynet, France's minister of environment and chief spokeswoman for the
EU, said European nations would continue individual efforts to cut CO2
levels. On missed opportunities for the treaty, she was philosophical. "What is
victory?" she asked. "Is it the hasty agreement under pressure or the ability to
say
no?"
 

Prescott storms out of Hague summit - US refuses to cut global warming gases : Planet's future grows dark

Special report: global warming

Robin McKie, Science Editor, The Hague
Sunday November 26, 2000

Global talks aimed at saving the world from climatic mayhem collapsed in chaos
yesterday, dealing a potentially fatal blow to efforts to cut industrial gases that
threaten the planet. The convention on climate change in The Hague was expected to agree international rules for controlling carbon dioxide emission but ended dramatically
when Britain's chief negotiator, John Prescott, stormed out. 'I am
gutted,' the Deputy Prime Minister told reporters as he strode angrily out of
the conference centre. 'There is no deal. The talks are finished. We came so close.'

The negotiations - some of the most complex and important international talks
ever staged - were being held to find ways of implementing the Kyoto agreement on
reducing industrial emissions and to halt growing global warming already triggering
sea level rises and climate changes. Discussions broke down at the last
minute yesterday when European delegates rejected a US proposal, brokered by Prescott, that would have allowed America a smaller cut in domestic emissions. Now hopes of
reaching a deal rest on a final UN climate meeting in Bonn in May.

Failure then would leave the world perilously exposed to the dangers of climatic chaos. These include total inundation of nations such as Bangladesh
and the Maldives, major disruptions in weather patterns, destruction of habitats
and crops, and the emergence of new epidemics.

The collapse of the talks was greeted with fury by Green activists. 'If governments
continue to act irresponsibly, as they have done this week, then people from rich
countries should prepare to build ever higher and higher water dykes from which
they can watch the rest of the world suffer and drown from climate change,' said a
Greenpeace observer.

'You've sunk the world,' shouted protesters outside the hall. 'The world will
pay the price in tears,' said a Friends of the Earth official. 'We will not forgive or
forget those who wrecked the talks.'

Feelings of betrayal were shared by delegates. 'We were being watched by the
rest of the world,' said conference president Jan Pronk. 'We have not lived up to
their expectations. I am very disappointed.'

The breakdown is also a political blow for John Prescott who had staked his
reputation as a negotiator on achieving success, but who will only now be
remembered for his furious walkout from the convention. In retrospect, his hyping of
his prospects before the Hague looks naive.

Yet early yesterday a deal between the US and Europe had looked possible. On
one side, Europe had sought a deal in which developed nations' carbon dioxide
output would be reduced, mainly through cuts in domestic emissions, while the US
was desperate to find alternatives that would not disrupt its citizens' energy-profligate lifestyles.

The US pours more than 1,600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide - 24 per cent of
the global total - into the atmosphere every year. But rather than reduce this, the US
government has sought to find ways of creating 'carbon sinks' - trees and
plants that would absorb carbon dioxide - on its own land, and in the developing
world.
This idea has been attacked by most delegates, particularly the Europeans, who believe lower emissions are the only way to save the world.

Americans accuse Europe of trying to impose moral codes on others.  Negotiations have gone on 24 hours a day for the past fortnight inside The Hague's vast, plush international convention centre. Without a watch, it is impossible to tell whether it is night or day. As one delegate put it: 'It's like living in a Las Vegas casino, except we are gambling
with tonnes of carbon and the future of the planet.' Despite this intense, round-the-clock debate - and the years of preparation that have gone into a conference that Environment Minister

Michael Meacher described as the most carefully anticipated negotiations he has
taken part in - the two sides were still deadlocked yesterday morning.

Prescott then took over and, in exchange for US concessions, brokered a proposal
that would have allowed it to reduce its emissions cutbacks. In triumph, Meacher
appeared on the Radio 4 Today programme and announced that after an all-night deadlock he and Prescott had achieved a breakthrough. 'This is a very, very important achievement,' he added. Seven hours later that deal lay in ashes after EU delegates - led by leading members of the Green Party, Dominique Voynet of France, and Jurgen Tritten of Germany, had vetoed his compromise package.

'It was a complex deal and we simply ran out of time,' said Meacher later. Voynet
disagreed, however: 'Britain conceded too much to America. It was not acceptable.'

In other words, Europe vetoed Britain's bid to assuage the Americans, a point not lost
on Prescott as he stormed angrily through the conference hall. Asked whether divisions among the European delegations had been responsible for the breakdown, he told reporters: 'There could have been more unity.' 'Expectations were very high,' announced a grim-looking Pronk a few hours later. 'But we have no agreement.'

Now the world has one shot left - in Bonn in May. Most observers remain gloomy about
negotiations then, especially as the next US president could be George W. Bush,
who has close links to the oil industry and has displayed an antipathy to the Green movement.

Only Meacher sounded a note of confidence yesterday: 'We got close. We
had the core of a deal. We can start with that next time.'
 
 

Climate Pact Fiasco Leaves Business Awaiting Rules

By REUTERS

Filed at 7:24 a.m. ET

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The failure of U.N. climate talks has dashed
business hopes for clear rules over potentially lucrative
technology transfer to the developing world and the emerging market
of trading greenhouse gas emissions.

``Business is disappointed with the outcome,'' said Nick Campbell,
chairman of the Climate Change Working Group at the International
Chamber of Commerce.

``We came here expecting a decision which would have clarified the
rules and guidelines of the Kyoto Protocol. We now walk away as
empty handed as everyone else and leave as confused as when we
arrived about the role we might play in contributing to
solutions.''

The two-week conference ended without agreement on measures to
fight global warming, after the United States and the European
Union failed to settle a bitter wrangle over ways to cut greenhouse
gas emissions implicated in climate change.

However, there are tentative plans for the conference to resume
some time next year, probably in Bonn.

``This decision represents a setback but not a permanent breakdown
in the process,'' said Eileen Claussen, president of the U.S.-based
Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

``I hope in the weeks and months ahead, all sides will lower their
voices and resume discussions toward an agreement that can stand
the test of time.

Many companies say the international fight against global warming
will provide big growth opportunities to build clean power stations
in developing countries, especially in Asia and Latin America,
where electricity demand is soaring.

Such openings would be provided by the so-called clean development
mechanism, a measure that allows countries to encourage companies
to make clean investments to offset national obligations to cut
emissions of greenhouse gases.

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AT STAKE

But the failure of The Hague talks meant that no such techniques
were agreed.

``American businesses looking for the rules of the road under the
Kyoto protocol have been left high and dry,'' said Glenn Kelly,
executive director of Global Climate Coalition, an industry group.

The mechanism, and others including one allowing the trading of the
right to pollute, were proposed under an agreement reached in
Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 that set targets for cuts in emissions of
heat-trapping gases.

At stake are investments worth billions of dollars, but companies
are reluctant to invest in new schemes until they know how the
terms of the Kyoto protocol will be implemented, executives say.

Emissions trading allows countries whose emissions are below their
Kyoto targets to sell carbon credits to countries whose emissions
are above their agreed pollution limits.

For businesses, the Kyoto agreement would open the doors to a vast
array of projects ranging from renewable energy schemes to forestry
plantations.

Green groups and the EU said Washington's enthusiastic advocacy of
such measures amounted to a scam that would absolve the United
States, the world's biggest polluter, from having to make any real
cuts in emissions at home.

The lure of profits has helped change corporate attitudes to
tackling climate change since the Kyoto summit when many companies,
including all the oil giants, opposed measures to cut greenhouse
gas emissions.

``The consensus on climate change has deepened in the last three
years. Nowhere is this more true than in the business community,''
Frank Loy, U.S. chief negotiator at the talks, told delegates to
the conference.

``They (companies) went to Kyoto largely to block action, but they
have come to The Hague to contribute constructively.''
 

The Tree Trap: Envoys Could Not Agree on Value of Forests to World Environment

               HE HAGUE, Nov. 25 - In the end,
               the negotiators got lost in the trees.

          After 11 days of draining and unwieldy
          bargaining by 170 countries over the rules for
          a proposed treaty to fight global warming, by
          this morning all the issues had been narrowed to just this one: How much
          credit should big forested countries get for all that photosynthesis?

          In that natural chemical process, trees and other plants draw carbon
          dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, out of the air and stash the carbon in
          the ground or in wood, forming what experts have called carbon "sinks"
          and helping to cool the climate.

          The United States, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases and
          the country that potentially stands to face the greatest cost under any
          treaty, had originally said it might try to meet half its emission-cutting goal
          in just that way.

          But other industrialized nations with fewer open spaces suspected the
          Americans of trying to find a way out of actually taking the hard steps of
          reducing their use of fossil fuels and of trying to get something for nothing
          - in effect, playing a "get out of jail free" card.

          Despite a report issued during the conference from the Energy
          Department saying that the United States could reduce its fuel use though
          fairly simple, inexpensive changes - with almost no harm to the
          economy - conservation measures have long been resisted in a country
          where big cars, low gasoline prices and economic growth have come to
          be considered nearly inalienable rights.

          But for Europeans, accustomed to high fuel taxes and Green politics, the
          primary goal of the treaty was to cut emissions at the source, not sop
          them up after the fact.

          Through the final week of the conference, the United States sharply
          whittled down its original proposals. By dawn today, everyone later
          agreed, it was very close. There was a palpable sense of optimism that
          - after a decade of debate - the world was ready to take a step
          toward a cooperative, but potentially costly, effort to cut the flow of
          gases that scientists have linked to the warming climate.

          Through the night and early this morning, environmental groups,
          particularly the World Wildlife Fund, helped the European delegation
          dissect each complicated new formula for carbon tons and trees, said
          Kevin R. Gurney, a climate and forest expert at Colorado State
          University who spent hours crunching sets of numbers provided by
          European negotiators to the wildlife group - one after another.

          He said the final analysis came down to a 20-million-ton difference
          between the two sides, a minuscule amount of carbon dioxide in a world
          spewing 6 billion tons a year into the air.

          "I think things came as close as they could come," he said. "I think they
          were tired and not able to translate some of that into the bottom line, and
          I think that did freak some of them out."

          One result was that a pioneering climate deal sealed with handshakes by
          a few diplomats deep in the night came unglued when numbers lay under
          the fluorescent glare of the day.

          Tonight, as he somewhat wistfully recalled that fleeting electric moment
          when an agreement was at hand, Jan Pronk, the president of the
          two-week climate meeting, compared it to the American presidential
          election. "At 6 o'clock this morning," he said, "it was too close to call."

          People who were intimately involved with that critical moment when the
          tide turned say it appears that domestic political pressures, exhaustion, an
          exceptionally tight relationship between the Europeans and environmental
          groups and simply too much data to sort through in too little time all
          collided to destroy any environmental detente, at least for now.

          In his post-game analysis tonight, Mr. Pronk said he lamented that
          fundamental problem with technical negotiations.

          "When experts come to the table, they tend to stay too long," he said.
          "People leave with more questions than they had before."

          On other heated issues, resolution seemed closer still. Delegates had
          fought over whether nuclear plants should be banned or simply not
          encouraged in a world combatting global warming. The technology
          produced no greenhouse gases, after all, but came with a load of other
          environmental concerns.

          The compromise was the gentle verb "refrain."

          There was a third bloc, the developing countries, that had its own
          demands, but those seemed achievable if the wealthy nations could speak
          with one voice, and in the end they could not.

          Mr. Pronk said tonight he was disappointed, but not devastated. "I'm a
          professional, and I'm a believer," he said, "a professional believer."
 

          But even as he spoke, workers dismantled the trappings of the
          conference, including blue and green panels bearing the logo he himself
          had chosen: "Work It Out."
 

Global Warming Talks Collapse

THE HAGUE, Nov. 25  A three-year effort to conclude an international
treaty on global warming collapsed today when the United States and the European
Union failed to resolve a dispute over how to curb the release of greenhouse
gases that scientists say pose one of the gravest threats to the world's
environment.

The climactic round of negotiations, which brought more than 170 nations here
for the past two weeks, fell apart after some EU countries, notably Germany,
rejected an eleventh-hour compromise. The countries claimed the compromise would
allow the United States to escape too much of its responsibility as the world's
biggest polluter.

"I am very disappointed," said Jan Pronk, the Dutch environment minister. "We
have not lived up to the expectations of the outside world, even though we have
invested a lot of time and energy in this process."

As conference president, Pronk had extended the deadline by 24 hours in hope of
getting U.S. and European delegates to!
 reach a deal.

The demise of the Hague conference leaves the international campaign to fight
global warming in disarray at a time when scientists contend there is now
convincing evidence that the buildup of heat-trapping chemicals in the
atmosphere may cause temperatures to rise by 6 degrees to 12 degrees Fahrenheit
this century. That increase is likely to provoke more violent storms, the
melting of the polar ice caps and rising sea levels that could inundate small
islands and many coastal areas.

Many supporters fear that a 1997 treaty calling for significant reductions in
carbon dioxide emissions will be placed in limbo until negotiations can resume
once a new U.S. administration takes office. And many delegates question the
nature of the U.S. commitment to the treaty under either Al Gore or George W.
Bush. The treaty stilll has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate.

The sense of gloom and dismay hanging over the conference center, located just a
short distance from the Dut!
ch network of dams and dikes that push back the North Sea, was all the more
acute because delegates had a successful outcome within their grasp.

After enduring nearly two weeks of stalemate, U.S. and European delegates
reached the brink of a face-saving accord this morning after bargaining
throughout the night over how to implement the 1997 treaty protocol approved at
Kyoto, Japan. The protocol calls for the world's three dozen industrial
countries to reduce their output of pollutants by more than 5 percent from 1990
levels.

"We came so close, only to see our efforts unravel when we couldn't push it over
the goal line," said Frank Loy, the U.S. undersecretary of state for global
affairs and the chief of the American delegation. "We showed real willingness to
compromise. But too many of our negotiating partners held fast to positions
shaped more by political purity than by practicality, more by dogmatism than
pragmatism."

During the course of many negotiating sessions here, !
the United States argued it could only fulfill its Kyoto obligations by
acquiring emissions credits from other countries, such as Russia and Ukraine,
where carbon dioxide emissions have declined along with their economies. The
U.S. delegation also wanted to count "carbon sinks," such as forests and
farmlands that absorb carbon dioxide, as assets that would offset some
emissions.

The United States, backed by Australia, Canada and Japan, insisted that broad
use of such "flexible mechanisms" was consistent with the Kyoto treaty. The U.S.
claimed such market-based methods were absolutely necessary to encourage
business to participate and to help the country reach a target made all the more
challenging because of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions fueled by the
U.S. economic boom over the past decade.

If the United States was compelled to meet its Kyoto quota by domestic emissions
cuts alone, it would need to curtail pollutants from power plants and
automobiles by 35 percen!
t from anticipated levels in 2008, a radical reduction that would be politically
untenable because of the unpopular taxes it would require and the disruption it
would cause in the daily lives of most Americans.

"Nations can only negotiate abroad what they believe they can ratify at home,"
Loy said, referring to the need to win two-thirds approval in the U.S. Senate
for any global warming treaty. "The United States is not in the business of
signing up to agreements it knows it cannot fulfill. We don't make promises we
can't keep."

But the European Union contended the United States was trying to dodge its fair
share of the global warming burden by refusing to accept the premise that since
the United States produces 24 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, it should
achieve its Kyoto target mainly through significant pollution cuts at home.

The tone of the discussions turned rancorous at times, as environmental groups
and developing countries chastised the United States thr!
oughout the conference for trying to minimize any hardships by exploiting
potential loopholes in the treaty.

"We felt very frustrated by a lot of the stereotypical thinking we encountered
here about our country," Loy said in an interview. "Sure, we may be the world's
biggest polluter, but that does not tell you how we are making important
progress in reducing our growth of emissions, which is now moving at a rate
below that of most European countries. It was troubling to see how some of our
partners ignore some fundamental realities."

With the conference lurching toward disaster, Britain's deputy prime minister,
John Prescott, stepped forward late Friday with a compromise plan that called on
the United States to restrict its use of the emissions-trading scheme and carbon
sinks formula. U.S. and British sources said the proposal had been hatched in a
lengthy telephone discussion between President Clinton and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair.

After huddling all night, a smal!
l group of U.S. and European delegates reached a tentative deal. The United
States agreed to make a bigger effort in domestic reductions and to reduce
carbon credits from its forests and farmlands that could be subtracted from its
emissions quota to no more than 75 million tons, about one-fourth the level it
was originally seeking. The negotiators also agreed on a tough compliance regime
that would assess penalties requiring steeper emissions cuts if a country failed
to meet its Kyoto goals.

But when the compromise was presented to the 15 EU countries for final approval,
Germany and Denmark said the agreement was intolerable. Juergen Trittin,
Germany's environment minister and a member of the radical wing of the Green
party, rebuffed repeated overtures to recognize that a diluted deal was better
than no deal at all, EU sources said.

Prescott then stormed out of the conference hall, complaining bitterly about the
"lack of coordination" within the European Union. "I'm gutted,"!
 he said, using a British idiom akin to being crushed or devastated. "We were so
close but we couldn't get an agreement."

France's environment minister, Dominique Voynet, also a Green party politician
but considered much less of a fundamentalist firebrand than Trittin, said
philosophically that the breakdown reflected a significant cultural gap between
the United States and Europe in how they approach economic and social policies.

Voynet said the United States places much of its faith in free-market methods
that in France would be deemed "the law of the jungle," whereas she noted Europe
tends to put more emphasis on regulatory and fiscal methods.

"These differences account for why our positions were so radically
antagonistic," she said. "But Kyoto is not dead, even if our talks were not
crowned with the success we would have liked. With a little more time we could
work it out."

Many delegates said they hoped a new negotiating session could be arranged in
coming months. But!
 Loy said that while the United States was ready to resume negotiations at any
time, there would obviously be something of a hiatus until a new U.S.
administration gets settled in office, regardless of whether Gore or Bush
becomes president.

U.S. environmental groups, who had previously sided with the Europeans in
demanding concessions from the Clinton administration, expressed dismay with
what they described as the short-sighted attitude taken by those European
delegates who decided to quash any compromise.

"There is no excuse for having walked away," said Philip E. Clapp, president of
the National Environmental Trust in Washington. "This was Europe's best chance
to achieve a strong climate treaty, and they decided to pass it up. This window
of opportunity may not come again. After January, the Europeans could face a
Bush administration that is almost certain to push for bigger loopholes in the
treaty."

Environmental groups say that during the campaign, Bush was perceived !
to be more lukewarm than the Clinton administration in his commitment to
fighting global warming.

Among those who cheered the failure of the negotiations was the Global Climate
Coalition, a lobbying group funded mainly by large U.S. oil companies opposed to
the Kyoto treaty.

"This is the ultimate but inevitable result of a flawed process," said Glenn
Allen, the coalition's executive director. "It signals the need for the world to
take a whole new approach to address concerns about the climate."