The Age of Global Warming: A History
Page 29
The US also got a bonus that wasn’t in its original list. Three days before the June deadline for proposals for Kyoto, Brazil tabled a complex plan to allocate greenhouse gas emission commitments based on countries’ historic contributions to the increase in global temperatures. Although none of it was adopted, the G77 plus China used the hook of a Clean Development Fund to be financed by fines levied on Annex I countries for non-compliance. In November, Brazilian and American negotiators realised that paying a fine for non-compliance was functionally identical to buying a licence to remain compliant without the stigma. The US had found another flexibility mechanism. Even better, it could in principle extend emissions trading to the whole world.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) turned out to be one of the most controversial parts of the Kyoto Protocol. After the conference, the Clinton administration argued that the CDM represented a ‘down payment’ on developing countries’ future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[65] In reality, it was nothing of the sort. ‘Though I facilitated approval of this proposal, I did not like it,’ Estrada wrote in 1998. ‘I do not understand how commitments can be implemented jointly if only one of the parties involved is committed to limit or reduce emissions and the other party is free from the quantitative [restrictions].’[66] The hypothesis that mitigation costs are lower in developing countries is true only if market distortions are adjusted, Estrada argued, otherwise everything is cheaper in developing countries – a disparity that has been the root cause of every colonisation since the time of the Greeks.[67]
The US only won emissions trading because it had comprehensively lost on the third of Clinton’s three objectives. The response to Gore’s instruction of flexibility on the part of the US was met by total inflexibility on the part of the G77 plus China. Early in the conference, a US negotiator indicated that all they were looking was for some movement on the issue of developing country participation, while Hagel said not all one hundred and forty developing nations need sign on. Those that did need only agree to a general commitment to limit emissions. The G77’s response was swift. ‘We have said categorically no.’[68]
Estrada tabled a draft article to enable non-Annex I countries to make voluntary commitments. A number of non-Annex I countries gave it qualified support, including the Association of Small Island States, Argentina, South Korea and the Philippines. The majority didn’t. OPEC members, perhaps recognising that the article might increase the chance of Senate ratification, argued that the article be deleted. They were joined by the host of the Earth summit, along with India and China. Recognising there was no consensus, Estrada said the article should be deleted.
Then New Zealand launched an initiative for future commitments from non-Annex I countries based on Annex I countries delivering theirs, with talks beginning in 1998. The G77 plus China said that it would not participate in them as a matter of principle. In his speech to the conference, the spokesman for the G77 plus China concluded with one word: ‘No.’ The proposal was not discussed again.[69]
Some delegations had already left. Contracts for the conference translators had expired, leaving the Russian and Chinese delegations without interpreters. Having worked through the night, at around 1pm on 11th December, Estrada said he was happy to submit a Kyoto Protocol and declared that it had been unanimously recommended.
At a wrap-up briefing for the congressional delegation, Watson was sitting next to Dingell and a member of his staff. Eizenstat came over to them. ‘Well, Mr Chairman, I did the best I could,’ Eizenstat said. ‘Don’t worry Stu,’ Dingell replied. ‘You can’t make chicken salad when you’re handed chicken shit.’[70]
Nine hundred and seventy-nine days after COP1, Estrada had discharged the Berlin Mandate. After it was formally adopted, Estrada took a nap. Then he went to see the city with his wife.
* The original draft of the speech called for a five per cent cut, but a member of Clinton’s economic team changed the text. Amy Royden, U.S. Climate Change Policy Under President Clinton: A Look Back (2002), fn. 119.
* In post-conference briefings, Clinton administration officials claimed that -7 per cent was equivalent ‘at most’ to -3 per cent on their original proposal of stabilisation because of differences in accounting for forests and land management (sinks) and inclusion of extra greenhouse gases with a 1995 base year. See for example Stuart Eizenstat’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 11th February 1998 http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gcp/kyoto/protocol.html
[1] Leyla Boulton, ‘China attacks proposed gas curbs’ in the Financial Times, 6th December 1997.
[2] Al Gore, ‘Rachel Carson and Silent Spring’ in Peter Matthiessen (ed.), Courage for the Earth (2007), p. 67.
[3] Al Gore, Earth in the Balance (1993), p. 367.
[4] ibid., p. xii & p. 39.
[5] ibid., p. 328.
[6] ibid., p. 79.
[7] ibid., p. 127.
[8] ibid., p. 213.
[9] ibid., p. 232 & p. 228.
[10] ibid., p. 230.
[11] ibid., p. 253.
[12] ibid., p. 257.
[13] ibid., pp. 256–7.
[14] Bill Clinton, My Life (2004), p. 414.
[15] Robert Watson interview with author, 12th December 2010.
[16] Gore, Earth in the Balance (1993), p. xiv.
[17] John Cushman & David Sanger, ‘Global Warming No Simple Fight’ in the New York Times, 1st December 1997.
[18] ibid.
[19] Clinton, My Life (2004), pp. 493–4.
[20] Dawn Erlandson, ‘The Btu Tax Experience: What Happened and Why It Happened’ in Pace Environmental Law Review, Vol. 12 (1994) pp. 175–6.
[21] Clinton, My Life (2004), p. 522.
[22] Bob Grady interview with author, 15th March 2011.
[23] UNFCCC figures extracted from Time series http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/ghg_data_unfccc/time_series_annex_i/items/3814.php
[24] S. Fred Singer, ‘Clinton’s Global Warming Action Plan: Just a Lot of Hot Air?’ in the Washington Times, 23rd March 1994.
[25] IISD, Earth Negotiations Bulletin, 6th April 1995.
[26] Raúl Estrada-Oyuela interview with author, 14th March 2011.
[27] John Gummer interview with author, 8th April 2011.
[28] Gummer interview with author.
[29] Raúl Estrada-Oyuela, ‘Copenhagen needs a lead negotiator’ in Nature, Vol. 461, 22nd October 2009.
[30] Joanna Depledge, The Organisation of Global Negotiations: Constructing the Climate Change Regime (2005), p. 94.
[31] UN, ‘The Berlin Mandate’ in FCCC/CP/1995/7/Add.1, Report of the Conference of the Parties in its First Session (6th June 1995), Article II, 2 (b).
[32] Amy Royden, US Climate Change Policy Under President Clinton: A Look Back (2002), http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/ggulrev/vol32/iss4/3 pp. 425–6.
[33] Raúl Estrada-Oyuela interview with author, 14th March 2011.
[34] Raúl Estrada-Oyuela email to author, 22nd March 2011.
[35] Raúl Estrada-Oyuela, ‘Copenhagen needs a lead negotiator’ in Nature, Vol. 461, 22nd October 2009.
[36] Raúl Estrada-Oyuela interview with author.
[37] Depledge, The Organisation of Global Negotiations: Constructing the Climate Change Regime (2005), p. 47.
[38] ibid., p. 65.
[39] ibid., p. 50.
[40] ibid., Box 8.1.
[41] UN, FCCC/CP/1996/15/Add.1, Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Second Session (29th October 1996), p. 72.
[42] Raúl Estrada-Oyuela communication with author, 10th April 2011.
[43] Taylor Branch, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President (2009), p. 456.
[44] Labour Party, New Labour because Britain deserves better (1997) http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml
[45] Chuck Hagel interview with author, 25th February 2011.
[46] President William J. Clinton, ‘Remarks at the National Geographic’ 22nd October 1997, 1997 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Vol. II, pp. 1409–10.
[47] Associated Press, ‘Conference fiddles while the earth ends hottest year’ 5th December 1997.
[48] Charles Krauthammer, ‘Global Warming Fundamentalists’ in the Washington Post, 5th December 1997.
[49] Fred Knapp, ‘Hagel chides Gore’s push for flexibility’ in the Lincoln Journal Star, 9th December 1997.
[50] Willis Witter, ‘China rejects plea to reduce gases’ in the Washington Times, 3rd December 1997.
[51] Indira Lakshmanan, ‘Kerry says cuts would benefit Mass’ in the Boston Globe, 8th December 1997.
[52] Gummer interview with author.
[53] Heike Schröder, Negotiating the Kyoto Protocol (2001), pp. 77–9.
[54] Bennett Roth, ‘Political heat awaits Gore from all sides’ in the Houston Chronicle, 2nd December 1997.
[55] Willis Witter, ‘Gore dares Congress to resist pact’ in the Washington Times, 9th December 1997.
[56] Richard Berke, ‘Gore walks a political tightrope’ in the New York Times, 9th December 1997.
[57] Harlan L. Watson interview with author, 7th March 2011.
[58] William Stevens, ‘Gore, in Japan, signals that US may make some compromises’ in the New York Times, 8th December 1997.
[59] Watson interview with author.
[60] Chuck Hagel interview with author, 25th February 2011.
[61] Watson interview with author.
[62] IISD, Earth Negotiations Bulletin, Vol. 12 No. 75, 10th December 1997.
[63] Comments by Gene Sperling in ‘Press Briefing by Gene Sperling, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, Jim Steinberg, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and Leon Fuerth, National Security Advisor for the Vice President’ 11th December 1997 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=48621
[64] Joby Warrick, ‘Climate Pact rescued in final hours’ in the Washington Post, 13th December 1997.
[65] Department of State, ‘The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change: A Fact Sheet released by the US Department of State’ 15th January 1998 http://www.ait.org.tw/infousa/enus/government/forpolicy/kyoto.html
[66] Raúl Estrada-Oyuela, ‘First Approaches and Unanswered Questions’ in José Goldemberg (ed.), Issues & Options: The Clean Development Mechanism (1998), p. 25.
[67] ibid.
[68] Alex Barnum, ‘US works to bridge gap with Third World’ in the San Francisco Chronicle, 3rd December 1997.
[69] IISD, Earth Negotiations Bulletin, Vol. 12 No. 76, 10th December 1997, p. 13.
[70] Watson interview with author.
19
The Morning After
Our most fateful new challenge is the threat of global warming; 1998 was the warmest year ever recorded. Last year’s heat waves, floods, and storms are but a hint of what future generations may endure if we do not act now.
President Clinton, 19th January 1999[1]
During his twenty-four hours in Kyoto, Al Gore told reporters he welcomed the prospect of a ‘knock-down, drag-out’ fight to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. ‘It would be high stakes and a lot of fun.’[2]
His bravado scarcely lasted the return flight. The Protocol faced ‘bleak prospects’, Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader, warned. ‘I have made clear to the President personally that the Senate will not ratify a flawed climate change treaty,’ Lott reassured Chuck Hagel.[3]
A tug of war ensued between the Senate and the White House. The day after the Protocol’s adoption, the Washington Times reported that the Clinton administration had decided to delay submitting it to Congress. ‘As we said from the very beginning, we will not submit this agreement for ratification until key developing nations participate in this effort,’ an administration spokesman said. Lott argued that Clinton should not withhold the treaty from the Senate for ‘cynical, political reasons.’[4]
Clinton nominated Frank Loy to succeed Tim Wirth as undersecretary of state for global affairs. On taking up his post, Loy immediately recognised that even with a friendly Senate, the Protocol was not in a state to be ratified. The text was an outline, being totally silent or sparse in setting out how the Protocol’s emissions goals should be met. While Loy and his colleagues recognised they were never going to get absolute quantified emissions targets from even the richest of the G77, getting something from some of them was high on the administration’s agenda both in terms of meeting the convention’s objective of avoiding dangerous interference and for its political importance.[5]
In doing what they could to improve the prospects for ratification, the Clinton administration got little help from the Europeans, in particular Germany, France and the Scandinavians, which had Green environment ministers. Far and away the most thoughtful and realistic was the UK and John Prescott, environment secretary and deputy PM. Prescott was ‘extremely helpful’, according to Loy.[6]
In October 1997, Clinton had visited Argentina. Speaking in the magnificence of the Nahuel Huapi National Park, Clinton invoked Theodore Roosevelt and Perito Moreno, who had visited Patagonia together in 1912. He promised $1billion to help developing countries find alternative energy sources and praised his host, President Menem, for stating that developing countries should have emissions targets.[7] Argentina’s backing was a coup. Historically Argentina had provided the intellectual leadership of the developing country movement and the first COP after Kyoto was being held in Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile a fierce debate raged between the Clinton administration and Congress over the economic implications for the US of adopting Kyoto. In July, the administration produced its analysis. Emissions trading, joint implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism would enable the US to buy its way out of the problem at minimal cost. Trading among industrialised countries would more than halve the costs of climate change policies.[8] Supplemented by the Clean Development Mechanism, trading might reduce costs by up to eighty-seven per cent of a domestic-only approach.[9] Overall the report estimated annual costs to the US of $7–12 billion, equivalent to 0.07–0.11 per cent of GDP, a fleabite on the back of the booming US economy.[10]
The assessment was received with considerable scepticism on Capitol Hill. Jim Sensenbrenner, chairman of the Committee on Science, held hearings and asked the Energy Information Administration, an independent agency within the Department of Energy, to offer a second opinion. In October, the EIA produced a more comprehensive and detailed analysis which suggested that the costs would be an order of magnitude higher than the administration claimed. It projected a reduction in 2010 GDP of $61–183 billion (if revenue from auctioning emissions permits was used to reduce social security taxes) and a range of $92–397 billion (if permit revenues were returned to taxpayers in a lump sum), implying a range of 0.65–4.2 per cent of GDP for the two approaches.*[11]
Having a debate on the economics of global warming made the US exceptional. The UK, which had taken a pragmatic attitude to the climate change negotiations, did not examine the economic consequences of Kyoto. Few people were better placed to see what went on than Andrew Turnbull. Cabinet secretary and Britain’s top civil servant under Tony Blair between 2002 and 2005, be
fore that, Turnbull had been a Treasury highflyer, working in Number 10 for Margaret Thatcher in her last two years as prime minister, permanent secretary at the Department of the Environment from 1994 before returning to the Treasury in 1998 as permanent secretary. According to Turnbull, at no stage was anyone inside the British government prepared to step back and reappraise the issue. Thatcher’s championing of global warming had settled the issue. Her reputation as a politician not afraid to challenge orthodoxy and her scientific mind continued to have a huge impact long after she’d gone. Rising global temperatures through the 1990s made carbon dioxide appear the villain of the piece and policies to deal with it looked like a good idea. But the Treasury never did any serious work on the economics.