Ugly American Isolationism Strikes Again. Yech.
Today's New York Times:
Bush Angers Europe by Eroding Pact on
Warming
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
RANKFURT, March 31 — European
leaders frequently bristle about
American behavior, but President Bush's
abrupt decision this week to abandon a treaty
on global warming has provoked even more
than the usual level of anger and frustration.
"Irresponsible," "arrogant," even "sabotage"
are just a few of the charges that Europeans
have leveled at Mr. Bush since he announced
his refusal to follow through on the treaty, the
Kyoto Protocol. And European Union
representatives will take their case in favor of
the accord to Washington on Monday,
though their arguments are not expected to
prevail.
The response is so intense in part because the
decision has aggravated a mixture of grudges
that have gnawed at Europeans for years.
They are angry that the United States appears
oblivious to widespread environmental
concerns across most of Europe.
They are frustrated that the United States, by
virtue of its size, can undermine a treaty that
was negotiated by more than 100 countries.
Most of all, they are depressed that there is
not much they can do about it.
The United States produces about 25 percent
of the gases associated with global warming,
and its refusal to meet goals set by Kyoto to
reduce those emissions makes it difficult for
competitors to stick with their goals.
"To suggest scrapping Kyoto and making a new agreement with more countries
involved simply reflects a lack of understanding of political realities," said Margot
Wallström, Europe's commissioner for environmental affairs. "We could lose years
of work if we were to start from scratch."
Ms. Wallström will lead the delegation that meets on Monday with Christie
Whitman, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The group is also
expected to include Environment Minister Kjell Larsson of Sweden, whose country
currently holds the rotating European Union presidency, and representatives of
Belgium, which takes over from the Swedes in July.
The meeting is part of a diplomatic push that is also supposed to include visits to
China, Russia, Iran and Japan to assess whether it would be possible to carry
through on the Kyoto treaty without the United States.
Today, environment ministers from European Union countries discussed the Bush
decision at a previously scheduled meeting in Sweden, where the reaction was one
of indignation.
"Kyoto is still alive," said Mr. Larsson, who was host of the meeting in Kiruna, 60
miles north of the Arctic Circle. "No country has the right to declare Kyoto dead."
The anger at the United States is spread evenly across Europe.
Dominique Voynet, France's minister for the environment, called Mr. Bush's
decision "completely provocative and irresponsible" and warned the United States
against "continuing the work of sabotage" if other countries decided to embrace the
goals of the Kyoto agreement on their own.
Le Monde, the French daily newspaper, called Mr. Bush's decision "a brutal form of
unilateralism." In London, The Independent reported that "history will not judge
George Bush kindly."
When Mr. Bush met with the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, in Washington
on Thursday, Kyoto formed a central disagreement. "We will not do anything that
harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America,"
Mr. Bush said.
This kind of America-first sentiment prompted sharp criticism from the European
Union Commission president, Romano Prodi. "If one wants to be a world leader,
one must know how to look after the entire earth and not only American industry,"
the former Italian prime minister told La Repubblica newspaper.
But nobody has any illusions about changing American policy, and the real question
European leaders are asking is whether they can or should press ahead without
America.
"It is a catastrophe," said Gerd Billen, executive director of Germany's biggest
environmental group, Naturschutzbund Deutschland, which has 350,000 members.
"Everybody knows how hard it is to reach an international agreement on
environmental issues like this, and this could destroy it."
Mr. Billen and other environmental leaders are pushing for a boycott against
American companies, particularly oil companies that have extensive gas-station
networks in Europe.
"It would be a citizens' action, and if it is done right, it could really put pressure on
the oil companies," said Alexander de Roo, deputy chairman of the European
Parliament's environmental committee. "I don't think that begging will be very
effective. I think they will only listen to powerful arguments."
As in many other international issues, from the decision to send peacekeeping forces
to the Balkans to coordinating international currency rates, Europeans know from
experience that it is difficult to accomplish anything without American collaboration.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, which was approved in 1997 after years of negotiation,
37 other industrial countries agreed to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases
by 2012 to 5.2 percent below the levels in 1990.
But the United States is by far the biggest producer of greenhouse gases, both per
capita and in total. The average American consumes twice as much energy as the
average European, and the emission of greenhouse gases is also about twice as high
per capita in the United States as in Europe.
If European countries press ahead with their own goal, European companies run the
risk of incurring higher expenses while American companies benefit from easier
rules.
Ms. Wallström, the environmental commissioner, noted at a news conference in
Brussels on Thursday that Europe did not want to end up rewarding the United
States for its refusal to go along.
But abandoning the goals is politically treacherous, because they enjoy strong
popular support in most countries. Despite the anger that many Europeans feel
toward high gasoline taxes, support for environmental regulations remains much
stronger than in the United States.
In the months leading up the Kyoto meetings in 1997, the European Union
proposed a remarkably ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse emissions to 15
percent below the levels of 1990.
Reflecting the enormous difference in the political and social climates in the United
States and Europe, European business groups merely tried to moderate those goals
and many industrial associations committed themselves to steep reductions in
emissions as a way to escape direct government regulation.
Many European environmental leaders argue that Europe needs to press ahead.
"If 55 countries representing 55 percent of worldwide CO2 emissions ratify the
Kyoto protocol, then it begins to function," Mr. de Roo said.
On a broader level, many Europeans are convinced that Mr. Bush is leading the
United States into greater isolation. Many commentators seized upon Mr. Bush's
comment last week that he would not do anything to weaken the American
economy. The announcement was front-page news across Europe, and it quickly
prompted a storm of criticism.
"We are back to Ronald Reagan and America First," said Noel Mamer, a leader of
the French Green party and a member of Parliament. "I think the decision is
completely mad, and it is a reason for more isolation for America."
But even some of the fiercest European critics admit that they have little leverage. In
Brussels, European leaders carefully avoided making any threats and said they
merely planned to "explain" their position to the Bush administration.
"The United States will probably come out of this crisis of trans-Atlantic relations as
the winner," said Libération, the left-leaning French newspaper. But, it added,
"Those who spew gases run the risk of reaping, long before the climate has heated
up, an explosive hostility in public opinion and diplomatic isolation." |
