The Age of Global Warming: A History
Page 24
At his meeting with Zoellick, Howard went through the draft text of the convention line by line. At the end of it, Zoellick declared that it was a document that the US could sign. Then on to the White House and a meeting with Scowcroft. Howard reported the outcome of the meeting with Zoellick. ‘If it’s good enough for Bob, it’s good enough for the president,’ Scowcroft said.[54] The next day, he phoned Howard to say that the president wanted a minor change. Howard replied that the Europeans wouldn’t wear it. Zoellick replied that he knew Howard was going to say that and that they would go ahead and sign anyway. The outcome was a coup for British diplomacy. It is doubtful any other country could have pulled it off. Zoellick’s secretary told Howard that they had more calls to and from the British embassy than all the rest put together.
Bush called John Major to confirm the deal, and followed up with calls to President Mitterrand of France (who kept his side of the deal) and Chancellor Kohl of Germany (who didn’t). The text agreed by Howard and Zoellick formed Article 4 2 (a) and (b) of the convention. It requires developed countries to adopt policies and measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions, thereby demonstrating that they are taking the lead in modifying the long-term trend in emissions. The Europeans got their favoured emissions path into the text. Returning to the 1990 emissions level by 2000, the convention states, would contribute to such a modification. The US got a non-binding formulation and recognition of the need to maintain strong and stable economic growth. The way Darman put it, the US was making a moral, but not legal, commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions.[55]
‘There is nothing in any of the language which constitutes a commitment to a specific level of emissions at any time,’ Yeutter wrote to conservative Republicans, describing the outcome as masterfully vague.[56]
[1] President George H.W. Bush, ‘The President’s News Conference With Prime Minister John Major of the United Kingdom at Camp David’, 7th June 1992, Administration of George Bush 1992, p. 906.
[2] Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, ‘The Climate Change Negotiations’ in Irving M. Mintzer & J. Amber Leonard (ed.), Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Convention, Cambridge (1994), p. 141.
[3] Bob Grady interview with author, 15th March 2011.
[4] William Reilly interview with author, 21st December 2010.
[5] Reilly interview with author.
[6] Michael Boskin interview with author, 20th December 2010.
[7] Reilly interview with author.
[8] President George H.W. Bush, Remarks on departure for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 11th June 1992
http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/public_papers.php?id=4412
&year=1992&month=6
[9] Robert Watson interview with author, 6th December 2010.
[10] D. Allan Bromley, The President’s Scientists: Reminiscences of a White House Science Adviser (1994), p. 34 and p. 21.
[11] ibid., p. 148.
[12] John Sununu, interview with author, 12th November 2010.
[13] Boskin interview with author, 20th December 2010.
[14] John H. Sununu, interview with author, 11th November 2010.
[15] Michael Boskin, Richard Schmalensee & John B. Taylor, The Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers (1990), p. 211.
[16] Reilly interview with author.
[17] Bromley, The President’s Scientists: Reminiscences of a White House Science Adviser (1994), pp. 144–5.
[18] Boskin interview with author.
[19] Boskin, Schmalensee & Taylor, The Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers (1990), p. 212.
[20] ibid., pp. 214–15.
[21] ibid.
[22] ibid., Table 6.2.
[23] ibid., p. 222.
[24] ibid., p. 223.
[25] President George H.W. Bush, Remarks at the Opening Session of the White House Conference on Science and Economics Research Related to Global Change, 17th April 1990. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=18366&st=&st1
[26] Michael Weisskopf, ‘Bush says More Data on Warming Needed’ in the Washington Post, 18th April 1990.
[27] Bob Hepburn, ‘Bouchard rebukes Bush for stalled pollution fight’ in the Toronto Star, 18th April 1990.
[28] Bert Bolin, A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007), p. 60.
[29] Jerome Idaszak, ‘Bush, critics clash on steps to combat climate change’ in the Chicago Sun-Times, 18th April 1990.
[30] Richard Benedetto, ‘Europeans press US to act to prevent global warming’ in USA Today, 18th April 1990.
[31] Reilly interview with author.
[32] Bush, Remarks at the Closing Session of the White House Conference on Science and Economics Research Related to Global Change, 18th April 1990.
[33] Reilly interview with author.
[34] Richard Benedetto, ‘Bush does about-face at warming conference’ in USA Today, 18th April 1990.
[35] Philip Shabecoff, ‘Bush Denies Putting off Action on Averting Global Climate Shift’ in the New York Times, 19th April 1990.
[36] Maurice Strong, Where on Earth are We Going? (2001), p. 190.
[37] Bob Grady interview with author, 15th March 2011.
[38] J. Jäger and H.L. Ferguson (ed.), Climate Change: Science, Impacts and Policy: Proceedings of the Second World Climate Conference (1991), p. 431.
[39] ‘North and South Hold Environment Hostage’ in the Seattle Times, 3rd June 1992.
[40] Strong, Where on Earth are We Going? (2001), p. 125 & David Lascelles and Christina Lamb, ‘The Earth Summit: Compromise on aid cash eludes officials at Rio’ in the Financial Times, 10th June 1992.
[41] Dasgupta, ‘The Climate Change Negotiations’ in Irving M. Mintzer & J. Amber Leonard (ed.), Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Convention (1994), p. 141.
[42] Jose Goldemberg, ‘The Road to Rio’ in Mintzer & Leonard (ed.), Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Convention (1994), p. 181.
[43] José Goldemberg interview with author, 31st January 2010.
[44] Goldemberg, ‘The Road to Rio’ in Mintzer & Leonard (ed.), Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Convention (1994), p. 176.
[45] Goldemberg interview with author.
[46] Jonathan Dimbleby, The Prince of Wales: A Biography (1994), p. 605.
[47] Reilly interview with author.
[48] Clayton Yeutter memorandum to author, 31st December 2010.
[49] Yeutter memorandum to author.
[50] Reilly interview with author.
[51] Goldemberg, ‘The Road to Rio’ in Mintzer & Leonard (ed.), Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Convention (1994), p. 181.
[52] Robert Reinstein email to author, 29th April 2011.
[53] Michael Howard email to author, 26th April 2011.
[54] Howard interview with author, 12th April 2010.
[55] Reilly interview with author.
[56] Christopher Marquis and Sam Dillon, ‘Bush’s US Seen as Environmental Outlaw’ in Miami Herald, 3rd June 1992.
16
President Bush Goes to Rio
The time of the finite world has come.
UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros Ghali, 3rd June 1992
I did not come here to apologise.
President Bush addressing the Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro on 12th June 1992
Having agreed that the president could sign the convention, the next question was whether he should go to Rio. If anything this debate provoked even more discussion than the convention itself. The White House was split down the middle. Darman was the most vocal opponent, but the president wanted to go, even if it had a political cost back home. After finding out that virtually all the leaders of important countries were going, Bush felt he should be there.[1]
There was a logistical consequence of the lateness of President Bush’s decision to attend. The White House staff and press corps were booked into the VIP’s Motel, one of Rio’s famed guesthouses, offering comfort, privacy and an impressive array of mirrors.[2]
Because of his relationships with fellow environment ministers, the White House decided that Reilly should lead the American delegation to Rio. The caveat was that he would not make any binding agreements without first clearing them with Yeutter. According to Yeutter, Reilly did a splendid job.[3] Reilly continued to press his agenda, but as a team player. Even after agreement of the compromise text on the climate change convention, Reilly kept up the pressure for targets and timetables.
In early June, he arranged for Gro Harlem Brundtland to be seated next to the president at a dinner to press the case. The next day, Bush called Reilly from his running machine. Could he provide the president with a memo on whaling? At the dinner, the chairman of the Brundtland Commission had spent two hours lobbying the president on the need for ‘scientific’ whaling.[4]
Publicly, Brundtland had a different message. Speaking on the White House driveway, she expressed her disappointment at American unwillingness to sign the biodiversity convention. ‘I believe you can combine environmental concern with an increase in jobs,’ although she didn’t specifically mention those of Norwegian whalers.[5]
Splits within the Bush administration and its differences with the rest of world served to shift the spotlight from splits between other nations. Europe’s environment commissioner Carlo Ripa di Meana threatened to boycott the summit after failing to secure support for a European carbon tax and to express his disgust at the compromise with the US. It meant that Europe was being forced to accept a treaty with lower standards than it was adopting for its own members.[6]
There were also splits among the nations of the South. Saudi Arabia wanted forests to be seen as carbon sinks that remove carbon dioxide. Malaysia argued that the industrial countries had caused the climate problem, so should reduce their emissions rather than trying to solve the problem by locking up forests in the developing world.[7]
Once he got to Rio, Reilly met Goldemberg to explore possible changes to the biodiversity convention that would enable Bush to sign it. Reilly cabled Yeutter his suggestions. Shortly after, while being interviewed on live television, Reilly was handed a copy of the cable that had been leaked to the New York Times. He abruptly ended the interview. ‘I was personally embarrassed just to be handed the goddamn thing,’ he said later.[8]
The leak had a devastating impact on the administration’s ability to contain what anyway was going to be a difficult situation. Two days later, an exasperated Bush told a joint press conference with the British prime minister, ‘I’d like to find the leaker, and I’d liked to see the leaker filed – fired.’ Once found, the culprit would be ‘gainfully unemployed’.[9] All this was greeted with glee by Democrats in Rio. Al Gore, leading the Senate delegation to the conference, said it had set off a firestorm of criticism. ‘Once again, the president has overruled his EPA chief. This time, the whole world is watching.’ Reilly countered that his resignation was not on the cards, ‘I do not want to give that satisfaction to my enemies.’[10]
Up till then, Gore had been more measured than some of his colleagues. Senator Wirth called America’s position a disgrace. ‘Instead of a commie under every bed, it’s now an eco-terrorist behind every tree.’[11] Jerry Brown, the once and future governor of California, accused the president of being in the pocket of special interests. Greed and corruption would always win the day.[12] To applause from an audience of mostly American environmentalists, Brown added, ‘Bush and the administration’s position on the environment are completely crackpot.’[13] This kind of attack on foreign soil was too much even for Wirth. ‘Our side is getting hammered,’ he complained. ‘It’s the complete inability of the White House to explain what the US has been doing the last twenty years.’[14]
The Washington Post described the US as virtually under siege at the conference.[15] The Bush team’s headaches didn’t come from the Third World. Collor had been as good as his word. True, Fidel Castro received the loudest ovation with his claim that consumer societies were fundamentally responsible for environmental destruction, but at least kept to the allotted five minutes speaking time.[16] Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands launched an initiative to get like-minded countries to sign up to the targets that had been taken out of the climate change convention. The administration made a clumsy counter-attack. ‘They treated us like we are some kind of colony,’ an Austrian diplomat complained, while a Swiss diplomat said the US was ‘shooting sparrows with a cannon’.[17]
Soon the sparrows were joined by a German eagle. No American ally had benefited more from the Bush administration than Germany. Now it was payback time. Going back on the agreement between Bush and Kohl, Klaus Töpfer said Germany would seek to have all members of the EC sign a separate declaration at Rio reinstating specific emissions targets. Zoellick, who had joined Reilly in Rio, counter-briefed that Germany and Japan were engaged in a guilt-induced attempt to be politically correct. ‘All this chaos … the circus and the rhetoric’ at the summit were laid at the door of ‘the guilty developed-world logic’ in which the wealthiest feel they ‘owe the rest of the world.’[18]
American difficulties didn’t restrain the German government from playing its ace. It announced that it would cut its carbon dioxide emissions by between twenty-five to thirty per cent by 2005.[19] On 1st July 1990, the economies of the two Germanys were unified. Soon after, the economy of the former East Germany went into a deep slump. Industrial production fell by more than half and heavily polluting power stations were closed. Reunification enabled Germany to proclaim its virtuousness at Rio and Germany’s emissions fell by nearly eighteen per cent between 1990 and 2005, the steepest achieved by any advanced economy.[20] At a conservatively estimated cost of DM750 billion ($523 billion) for the first five years, viewed as a policy to cut carbon emissions, reunification is the world’s most costly global warming policy to date – equivalent to more than twenty per cent of Germany’s 1995 Gross Domestic Product.
President Bush spent as little time at Rio as he decently could. He gave a speech, signed the climate change convention, and had his photo taken with the one hundred and seven other world leaders at the summit. Bush also had a private meeting with the ecologist and film maker Jacques Cousteau, who had given a lecture claiming that population growth would lead to a world where people could only survive like rats. ‘Even if we found a way to feed this human tidal wave, it would be impossible to provide this multitude with decent living conditions,’ Cousteau told an audience that included Collor and the King and Queen of Sweden.[21]
In reality, the summit was part ceremonial and part soap box, its substantive business having been concluded beforehand. The docking of a replica Viking ship, the Gaia, marked the opening of the Global Forum, an alternative summit for NGOs. Not everybody welcomed the Vikings. ‘Go home Gaia. $5 million rich men show off,’ said one banner.[22] Compared to the four hundred or so NGOs at Stockholm’s Hog Farm, the number of NGOs accredited at Rio was some one thousand four hundred and fifty.[23] James Bond actor Roger Moore, who had been chased around the Sugarloaf by Richard Kiel’s Jaws in Moonraker, proclaimed 3rd June to be ‘the first day of the rest of the world’ and Gro Harlem Brundtland argued that whales c
ould be hunted if it was done on a sustainable basis.[24]
Four days later, the Beach Boys were doing a gig and pledging their support for the Global Forum. Its sound system had been turned off after failing to pay its electricity bills and run up a $2 million deficit amid allegations of corruption. In another part of Rio, tenor Plácido Domingo was singing for the great and the good and those who could pay $100.[25] The Rio Refuse Collection Authority complained that people were ignoring recycling signs on the one hundred and sixty special bins placed throughout the conference centre. ‘I wouldn’t trust him to save the planet,’ grumbled one refuse collector as an Australian ecologist threw a large piece of pizza into a bin for recyclable material.[26]
Writing in the New York Times on the conference’s first day, Czechoslovakia’s president Vaclav Havel argued that two years after the collapse of Communism, a new polarization was developing, this time between the rich countries of the North and the poor ones of the South. ‘The states of the South find it difficult to overcome their mistrust of the North,’ Havel wrote.