The developing countries are indeed unlikely to join fully in restricting their production of carbon dioxide and other Greenhouse gases. I would like to see them be more cooperative, but this article in the Times explains their position quite well, and it's not unreasonable IMO.
They say that a convention exists for this type of global environmental project, and it is that the wealthy countries act first, or at least foot the bill. Further, this convention was actually written into the 1992 treaty on global warming, signed by 41, and unanimously ratified by the Senate.
The closest precedent is the mostly successful 1987 treaty on Ozone depletion from chlorofluorocarbons, in which China and India were granted a 10 year grace period compared to the industrialized nations.
Doc
June 16, 2001
New York Times
Impasse on Gases: Who Moves First?
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
In recent days, President Bush has repeatedly said a major reason for his rejection of a proposed agreement to stem global warming is that it would require industrialized countries to cut heat-trapping gas emissions while exempting developing countries from similar obligations.
His view — shared by the Senate in a 95-to-0 vote on a 1997 resolution — is that rapidly growing countries like China and India are poised to pass industrialized countries in output of these gases, and so everyone must move to solve the problem.
Many experts in international environmental law and policy agree that, in the long run, this is true. But they note that insistence on binding commitments by all countries at the same time runs counter to a principle that has shaped almost every other recent environmental treaty: cleanups should be started by prosperous countries because they created the bulk of the problem and have the money and technology to fix it.
A prime example, the experts say, is the 1987 Montreal Protocol to curb substances that deplete the ozone layer, negotiated during the Reagan administration. That agreement, which has largely stemmed releases of damaging chlorofluorocarbons, applied first to industrial powers, with China and India being granted a grace period of 10 years.
But the most relevant agreement is the first climate treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed in 1992 by Mr. Bush's father and approved unanimously by the Senate.
The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997 after it became clear that the 1992 treaty, which called for voluntary efforts to cut emissions, was not working.
The 1992 agreement includes several statements specifying that the first steps toward limiting warming should be taken by the industrial powers that stoked the atmosphere with the vast majority of its existing concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide.
Dr. Lawrence Susskind, a professor of urban and environmental planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of "Environmental Diplomacy" (Oxford University Press, 1995), said: "The convention came into force and is now part of international law. We signed it, we ratified it."
"There's nothing in the Kyoto Protocol that is inconsistent with that convention," Dr. Susskind added.
Mr. Bush's position has intensified a longstanding deadlock over who does what and when.
Government officials involved in climate talks through the years said Mr. Bush's position on participation by developing countries was not markedly different from that of previous administrations — just more bluntly stated.
The main American complaint, they said, is that developing countries, negotiating as a bloc, have for more than a decade rejected almost any treaty language that would commit them to even undefined emissions limits far in the future.
A consistent frustration for American negotiators, one official said, is that countries like Saudi Arabia and China refuse commitments just as steadfastly as the poorest of the poor.
"We're not saying Burkina Faso has to sign up to this right now," said the American official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. "But the major emitters, if we want this to be credible scientifically and environmentally, have to sign on."
Some countries are starting to complain that Mr. Bush's insistence on simultaneous actions is undermining the existing climate treaty.
At a briefing on Thursday in Beijing, Sun Yuxi, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, strongly criticized the American stance.
"China can't accept any attempt to violate the principles of the convention and eliminate the protocol," Mr. Sun said. "It is totally groundless to refuse the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on the excuse that developing countries such as China have not shouldered their responsibility."
There are a few optimists among those involved in the climate talks who see a middle ground that could put the Bush administration and the most developed of the developing countries under the same tent.
They point to a treaty controlling harmful organic chemicals that was signed in April by the Bush administration. The treaty calls for rich and poor countries to move in concert, but it requires industrialized countries to provide the money and technology to help the cleanup in the developing world.
But the pessimists point to basic differences between the Kyoto pact and the chemical ban and other successful environmental treaties.
Experts say most of the previous treaties applied to chemicals that were produced by a limited number of companies and could be replaced by other, less harmful substances without high costs. Or, as in the case of the climate convention, they relied on voluntarism and good will.
In contrast, the Kyoto agreement, by proposing firm, enforceable limits on carbon dioxide, emitted mainly by burning fossil fuels, would affect nearly every enterprise powered by coal or oil — meaning almost every aspect of modern life.
As a result, Mr. Bush's insistence that the United States will not act until China and India commit to some steps essentially guarantees that the agreement is dead, experts say.
Robert A. Reinstein — who wrote and negotiated many parts of the 1992 climate treaty during the first Bush administration — said there was no chance of getting poorer countries to pursue emissions cuts as long as the established economic powers delayed cutting their own.
"If I were a developing country," Mr. Reinstein said, "I'd just sit there and say `Show us what you're actually doing with your own emissions and what you're delivering on in your existing commitments and we'll feel a little more comfortable sitting down at the table.' " |
