Envoys Try to Wrap Up Climate Deal

Politicians from more than 180 countries haggled through the wee hours today in pursuit of an ambitious treaty to halt global warming, a triumph said to be imminent despite the view of President Bush that the Kyoto Protocol is doomed.

The accord, obliging more than 30 industrialized countries to cut their emissions of heat-trapping “greenhouse gases,” would be the culmination of nearly a decade of often-frustrated negotiations over who should make sacrifices for the sake of the planet and how the costs should be shared.

While the treaty being crafted here at the U.N. Convention on Climate Change is watered down from the far-reaching goals set out in Japan four years ago, it would represent a moral victory for European nations that refused to abandon the accord when Bush did.

A formal declaration of consensus was still elusive early this morning, as Japan, Canada, Australia and Russia continued to object to provisions for enforcement of the strict emission targets. One Canadian delegate proclaimed the compliance regime “unreasonable” but confirmed that his country would not scuttle an agreement if enough other parties were ready to support it.

“It is my political conviction that it is possible to reach agreement,” said the conference chairman, Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk. “I believe it is possible to reach full agreement because in my discussions all of the countries said they want to reach agreement, and I am convinced of their sincerity.”

At Least 55 Nations Must Ratify Treaty

The Kyoto Protocol will become a legally binding international treaty once it has been ratified by at least 55 nations responsible for 55% or more of the developed world’s greenhouse gas emissions, based on 1990 levels.

But a number of countries crucial to meeting this requirement have serious concerns about compliance provisions, said Pronk, who scheduled a series of meetings with delegations running past dawn.

If the talks fail to pacify the countries, Pronk said, he will submit the draft treaty as is for a vote.

One sign that approval was likely came from a meeting of developing states, which had termed the draft text written by Pronk “disappointing.” After four hours of discussion, an eruption of applause was heard from behind the closed doors of the meeting--a strong indication that the Third World had decided to support the draft.

The main logjam was said to be the Japanese delegation, which like Canada and Australia considered the compliance measures too daunting. But Japanese Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi had vowed at the start of the conference that her nation would “do its utmost” to ensure success of the treaty.

The United States, although the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases with about 26% of global output, abandoned the Kyoto process in March, when Bush deemed it “fatally flawed” and too expensive.

The United States attended the conference here but solely to make sure nothing was written into the accord that would “harm legitimate U.S. interests,” chief U.S. delegate Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of State for global affairs, told the conference at the opening.

U.S. officials kept a low profile throughout the meeting and had nothing public to say as the final details were being worked out.

Pronk wrote up his own version of how the treaty should work in a 15-page text and presented it to the squabbling delegates for “advice but not amendments.” That was clearly an effort to avoid the flood of last-minute demands for concessions that occurred at the previous session of climate talks in The Hague and resulted in their collapse.

Most of the 30-odd countries whose emission targets are set in the protocol said they could live with the deal as Pronk presented it as long as no other changes were made. That gave resisters the choice of accepting an imperfect agreement or rejecting it and bearing the mantle of the country that killed Kyoto.

“The moment is approaching when the question will be who will take the responsibility for blocking the agreement,” European Union negotiator Olivier Deleuze said.

Japan and Russia had also been pushing for emission credits for development of nonpolluting nuclear plants in poor countries, but Pronk expressly rejected that provision.

Pronk repeatedly reminded the delegates that they could ill afford “a second failure” after The Hague, which left the quest for a campaign against climate change a shambles.

Protocol Would Be Diminished

Although an agreement appeared likely, the protocol as now envisioned would be diminished from what was sketched out in Kyoto in 1997. Not only is the biggest generator of greenhouse gases refusing to abide by it, but even parties supporting it have accepted compromises on the overall emission targets to keep key nations committed.

A primary stumbling block, both here and in The Hague, was over how countries should be credited for “carbon sinks,” the densely vegetated farm and forest land that absorbs carbon and reduces the environmental damage of emissions from industry and automobiles. The 15-nation European Union had long argued against concessions to rich countries, noting that every offset would represent a retreat from the protocol’s aim of reducing the level of greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2% below the 1995 level by 2012.

Getting credit for sinks was an important issue for the United States before it pulled out of the Kyoto process. Its huge swaths of agricultural land would have given farmers fresh sources of income, as they could tap into a planned network of emission trading with countries unable to meet their reduction targets.

By offering generous credits for carbon sinks, the protocol drafters seemed to be trying to make the agreement as palatable to Washington as possible so the U.S. can rejoin in the future. It was also a lure for Russia, which stands to earn as much as $10 billion in selling surplus emission credits. Because Russia’s industrial activity has shrunk dramatically since 1990 and it has vast forests soaking up remaining emissions, it will have no trouble meeting its reduction targets with an emission quota to spare.

Delegates also managed to finesse financing details to sidestep U.S. objections to any additional funding burdens in the accord. Even though Washington has said it will not ratify the protocol, it is bound by the 1992 Rio de Janiero Convention on climate change and its formula for distributing costs.

The Kyoto Protocol would establish a $1-billion annual fund for aid to developing countries to create nonpolluting industries and deal with the consequences of global warming. A special category was created for the United States to contribute on a voluntary basis rather than according to the binding structure applied to the rest.