Negotiators OK Treaty to Curb Global Warming

U.N. negotiators from 143 countries approved a global warming treaty Saturday that the Bush Administration hailed as historic but environmentalists derided as too weak to avert catastrophe in the next century.

After several years of cajoling and trading, the delegates, at the end of a final 10-day session at the United Nations, adopted a treaty that will commit countries for the first time to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases that their industries and vehicles spew into the atmosphere.

But, to the chagrin of environmentalists, the treaty does not set specific targets that governments must meet. And it does not do so because of the refusal of the United States, the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, to accept such targets. Faced with the American refusal, the other delegates finally gave in, knowing that a treaty would be worthless unless the United States signed it.

U.N. officials also believe that the accord guarantees the success of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro next month. President Bush, who has refused to commit himself up to now, is expected to announce in a few days that he will attend this U.N. conference to sign the global warming treaty and other environmental conventions with more than 60 other heads of state and government.

In Washington, William K. Reilly, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, described the treaty as a “historical achievement.”

“The measured approach taken in the treaty is a reasonable response to the current state of scientific knowledge,” he said.

But in New York, Paul Hohnen, a spokesman for Greenpeace, an international private environmental organization, said: “No world leader signing the climate convention in Brazil next month can claim they are saving the world from global warming.

“By opposing a climate convention with commitments to cut polluting emissions,” he went on, “the United States has forfeited its claim to global political or environmental leadership.”

Many scientists insist that the increasing emissions of these gases trap heat in the atmosphere, much as a greenhouse would, and thus slowly make the Earth warmer. The Earth’s climate, according to environmentalist predictions, could warm from three to eight degrees by the end of the next century if the emissions are not reduced. This kind of warming could increase sea levels enough to swamp island nations in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea and turn ever-increasing tracts of farmland into desert throughout the world.

Since the United Nations tries to negotiate environmental treaties by consensus, there was no formal vote on the treaty at U.N. headquarters in New York. A U.N. official moved adoption of the treaty. Everyone broke out with loud applause. This was taken as a sure sign of unanimous approval, and weary delegates started to pop open bottles of champagne.

Under the terms of the treaty, governments pledge to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. In a general way, they promise to try to reduce the emissions to 1990 levels. But this is not binding, and, although the governments are required to make periodic reports on their progress, they have no time limit for cutting back the emissions. The treaty also provides that the industrialized countries will help developing countries financially as they try to rein in their own emissions of these gases.

The European countries had originally proposed that the industrialized world agree to a binding treaty that would require all emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by the end of this decade. But the Bush Administration objected, arguing that, while this target might be feasible, it also might turn out to be one that would hurt the American economy too much.

The final treaty and the Bush Administration position were defended at a news conference by Robert A. Reinstein, the chief American negotiator. He insisted that the treaty was far stronger than what the Administration had wanted earlier.

“This is not the convention that the United States even two weeks ago would have wanted,” Reinstein said. “We made some compromises.”

He also said that the United States, as a leader in environmental protection, has far more experience than Europe in such matters and therefore understands the difficulty of meeting the targets that the Europeans had set.

“What people are seeing is a certain pragmatism that has been taken for foot-dragging, and I’m sorry that people have not understood,” he said. “Europe is, quite frankly, not as experienced as the United States in environmental protection.”