Delegates Rush to Reach Accord at Climate Talks

With the United States offering greater cuts than originally proposed in emissions of “greenhouse gases,” negotiations on an accord to curb global warming pushed into their final rounds today after a grueling all-night session.

Just hours before tonight’s midnight deadline here to reach an accord, delegates from 166 nations were still haggling over a draft treaty that would change the way the world produces and uses energy, affecting everything from how people light their cities and power their factories to the way they cook dinner.

“This is the biggest environmental and economic agreement of the last decade and sets the stage for the 21st century,” said Alden Meyer of the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s important to get it right.”

The accord would wrap up two years of negotiations to strengthen the 1992 Climate Change Treaty made in Rio de Janeiro by setting legally binding limits on the emissions of six of the most prevalent and potent gases that scientists say trap warm air around the Earth like a greenhouse roof. This potentially causes the melting of polar icecaps, weather extremes such as flooding and drought, and even the spread of tropical diseases.

The Kyoto, Japan, protocol also has sweeping implications for the ways countries will develop, and with an eye on the bottom line as much as on the future of the world’s environment, negotiators have been working fiercely to protect national interests in the 10 days of talks here.

“The idea is not to give too much to God and not to give too much to the devil,” said Antonio Dayrell, a Brazilian negotiator. “If it is a good agreement, everybody feels a little pain because everybody gave up something.”

The United States initially was cast as the environmental villain of the conference for being the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases but proposing the most limited reductions. The U.S. proposed to return emissions to 1990 levels, while the European Union urged setting limits at 8% to 15% below those levels, depending on which gases were included in the calculations.

But after Vice President Al Gore authorized “increased flexibility” on a one-day stop here Monday, the U.S. delegation helped move forward discussions at the last minute by offering deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in exchange for what European negotiators have termed “loopholes.”

New U.S. proposals under consideration, sources said, offer to reduce gases to from 5% to 8% below 1990 levels by 2010. But in exchange, the U.S. reportedly is seeking concessions, such as allowing nations that exceed pollution limits to “trade” permits to do so with countries that don’t violate the limits; getting credit for backing projects that lower pollution in other countries; and taking into account efforts by a nation, such as planting and protecting forests, that offset pollution.

“We’re starting from a worse position, since we’ve done so little in the U.S. about energy efficiency,” said Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

By midnight tonight, what some negotiators are calling “the most important day in the history of the planet,” delegates must decide on deadlines for achieving the first round of gas emission reductions, what will happen to countries that don’t reach their targets and what role developing countries will play in slowing global warming.

Under a previous treaty, developing nations are not required to make new, binding commitments in Kyoto, because they are less able to afford immediate cutbacks and changes in technology.

However, those countries are fast following the path to dirty development: China, with its 1.2 billion people who will be acquiring cars and appliances and power plants to run them, is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the next two decades.

President Clinton, backed unanimously by the Senate, has declared that the United States won’t accept a new protocol without the developing countries’ “meaningful participation.”

Disagreement about what “meaningful” actually means has become one of the sticking points of the conference, and the biggest potential problem for the United States in rallying congressional support for ratification of any treaty.

A few countries, such as Chile, may voluntarily opt to join the agreement in order to be included in the proposed system of trading permits to emit gases. But most developing nations are resisting signing on to any new requirements. “The developed world has been the leader in creating this problem, and they have not fulfilled their promises to help solve it,” said Mark Mwandosya, chairman of a group of developing nations. “They must take the lead in solving it.”

A possible solution is to negotiate bilateral agreements with the largest polluters in the developing world, such as China and India, after reaching an agreement in Kyoto but before presenting the treaty to Congress, a U.S. delegate said.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), part of a delegation of congressional observers, cautioned that Congress often takes years to ratify international treaties and urged the president not to push the agreement too hard. “There is still work to be done,” he said today. “Let the developing countries show their good faith to the world.”

Some Congress members downplayed expectations, and even hinted that there may not be an accord because of such sticking points and disappointing talks so far on the issue of compliance.

European Union representatives have blocked U.S. efforts to include strict penalties for countries that do not meet their targeted reductions, partly because of the complexity of dividing the penalties among the members if the European Union exceeds its pollution limits, a negotiator said.

But for the U.S., which pushed to hold the Kyoto summit to bolster voluntary commitments made at the 1992 Rio convention that have yet to be met, making sure countries hold to their targets is what negotiators call a “drop-dead issue.”

“The compliance is a critical component,” Kerry said. “It makes no sense to open up loopholes or create gaps.”

Lobbyists on all sides were making last-ditch pushes and pitches to delegates today as they disappeared behind closed doors for their final rounds of talks.

“The agreement is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese,” said Bill Hare of Greenpeace, while the U.S. industry group Global Climate Coalition insisted that the Kyoto treaty could mean millions of jobs lost, higher gasoline prices and increased heating bills.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) emphasized that it would be better to negotiate an acceptable agreement than an immediate one, despite the urgent dealings that frustrated and frazzled delegates were pushing to close. “It’s not as if it’s a labor negotiation, where if there’s no agreement, there’s a strike tomorrow, or a sports event that ends when the clock runs out,” he said. “We can continue to work on details in meetings to come.”