Global Warming Talks End With Little Progress

Their latest round of formal bargaining at an end, international negotiators trying to craft an accord for fighting global warming leave Bonn today with little to show for their two weeks of talks.

In sessions that seemed to move as slowly as the climatic phenomenon itself, the negotiators were unable to agree on any of the major differences that faced them when they arrived in Germany. That, in turn, has left in doubt the outcome of a December conference in Kyoto, Japan, at which some final decisions on strategies for combating global warming are supposed to be made.

“The challenges are so formidable. We’re talking about fundamentally changing the structure of the global economy and how the global economy uses energy,” a senior U.S. State Department official said as the wearying talks entered their final sessions Thursday.

Still unresolved and the subject of sharp disagreement among the United States, Europe and the developing nations: targets for reducing emissions of gases that are seen as the key cause of global warming, precisely which gases would be regulated and how the reductions can be accomplished.

Chairman Raul Estrada-Oyuela of Argentina planned to present the delegates with a list today spelling out the unresolved issues that will be passed along to higher-level officials at the meeting in Kyoto.

President Clinton’s participation at that conference has not been ruled out, U.S. officials said.

A European delegation will visit Washington next week, and senior officials from various nations will meet the following week in Tokyo in a flurry of diplomacy intended to keep the talks from going off track even before the Dec. 1-10 session in Kyoto. But some delegates raised the possibility that no agreement will be reached to meet the Dec. 10 deadline established by the United Nations.

One U.S. delegate, remaining optimistic, likened the process to watching an ice-crusted river begin to thaw in spring: For weeks, no movement can be discerned--until suddenly it heaves and grinds and begins to flow.

Nevertheless, the delegate said, “If you can’t get an agreement, the question is, does it end in a big blowup and lots of recriminations, or does it at least get you somewhere?”

The talks are among the most complex to entangle diplomats, even in an era that has included U.S.-Soviet arms control bargaining and global trade negotiations.

They revolve around how, how much and when the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and other European nations should restrict the emission of the gases most widely blamed by many mainstream scientists for increases in global temperatures that already have been detected and are forecast to grow in coming decades.

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But economic health also lies at the heart of the issue, and the question of what price tag would accompany a global warming accord was never far from the minds of the delegates from more than 100 countries who met here on the floor of the vast Beethovenhalle.

The economic concerns explain the reluctance of the developing nations, including China, to commit themselves to any specific steps that they argue could limit their growth. For the same reason, the developing nations are demanding that wealthier countries provide technological and financial assistance to help them modernize their industrial capacity.

The poorer nations were officially excused from any obligation under the mandate accepted by the United States and the other developed countries two years ago that established the negotiations on the global warming issue. But Washington has argued that for any pact to win passage in the U.S. Senate, it must include a role for the poorer nations.

The financial question is also the reason for a wide gap between the United States and Europe over how much to cut emissions and which gases to include.

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Clinton last week proposed that by 2012, the industrial nations reduce their average annual emissions of six so-called greenhouse gases to 1990 levels. The European Union has argued for a 15% cut below 1990 levels by 2010 of only the three most prevalent, though not the most potent, gases: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane.

All three gases are given off when oil, wood, coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas are burned. The more potent gases--sulfur hexafluoride and two others--are used in newer auto air conditioners, semiconductor manufacturing and aluminum smelters. Together, they are known as greenhouse gases because they waft into the atmosphere and create a greenhouse-like invisible shield that traps the Earth’s heat.

U.S. officials say Clinton’s plan would bring U.S. emissions 30% below the level they would reach in 2010 if no action was taken. By failing to include the most potent gases, they say, Europe could claim only a 4% reduction below 1990 levels, rather than the 15% it would set as a target.

“We’re getting close to getting the others on board for all gases,” the U.S. delegate said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Among the most sensitive issues, beyond the target for emissions reductions, remains the question of whether countries and companies, seeking permission to emit excessive levels of gas, could purchase the right to exceed their quotas from those that have invested in new technology or found other ways to undershoot their emissions limits.

Delegates were far apart too over what emissions credits countries could expect for taking care of forests. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, but the diplomats have been unable to agree to what extent forestry should be considered a balance against pollution.

Nor was there agreement over how much credit Russia can claim for its sharp reduction of carbon dioxide as a result of the economic turmoil that has closed factories across the country since the end of communism there.