Cold delegates, hot air.

KYOTO

The Reverend Thomas Malthus is known for his Essay on Human Population, in which he predicted that population growth would inevitably outpace food supplies, producing starvation and ecological ruin. Before he died, Malthus recognized that his pessimism was unfounded, and he recanted. But his original take on the question was shared by many of the representatives from 160 governments, environmental groups, industry associations and other "NGOs" (non-governmental organizations) who gathered in Kyoto for ten days beginning December 1 to put the finishing touches on an international agreement on global warming. Environmentalists placed three penguin-shaped ice carvings outside the hall with hopes that melting ice-birds would make a wonderful television image. Unfortunately, Mother Nature refused to cooperate; in the chilly weather, the birds stood for days. Greenpeace had similar luck with its solar-powered coffee stand, which was closed for days owing to lack of sun.

This meeting capped months of international negotiations in Bonn and Geneva to limit industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that environmentalists claim are overheating the planet. Never mind that the computer models upon which these predictions are based could not even predict the present climate.

Spurred by a United Nations scientific report that announced that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate," the Clinton Administration embraced the call for an international treaty that would limit emissions by controlling the use of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas. Having failed to implement an energy tax in 1993, the Clinton - Gore team now seek to use supply controls and mandated conservation to produce the same result: higher energy prices. Economists warn that these restrictions could cost approximately $2,000 per household per year.

Although the conference was ostensibly about protecting the Earth's climate, there was clearly a broader agenda to limit economic growth, consumption, and population. As one Japanese environmentalist explained to the Daily Yomiuri: "We must halt the current worldwide trend of mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal. Unless we understand that preventing global warming means giving up our current lifestyle, we will fail."

This antipathy to human consumption didn't lead to the canceling of daily receptions for delegates. Indeed, many environmental ministers were disturbed that the U.S. insisted on holding its briefings at times that interfered with receptions. It would be a shame for all that food to go to waste. However, someone at the conference evidently thought that delegates should experience life under a climate treaty and turned the heat way down. Shivering conference-goers donned their coats inside, and perhaps wished that a little global warming would show itself before the fortnight was over.

For the first week, the cold air clearly affected the negotiations. Developing nations stood firm in opposition to any treaty commitments. With three to five million deaths a year from a lack of safe drinking water in the Third World, delegates from developing nations apparently realized that they have more pressing environmental concerns than a potential modest temperature rise a century in the future. Europe and the United States may be wealthy enough to afford an energy starvation diet -- and much of Asia certainly was before the markets crashed -- but poorer nations are not. Even if exempted from a treaty, they would feel the pinch of slower economic growth and contracting export markets overseas.

However, Third World participation was of the greatest concern to the U.S. delegation, as President Clinton had insisted that only a global treaty would be acceptable. A Department of Energy study released last summer predicted that if the U.S. were to sign a treaty from which developing countries were exempt, energy-intensive industries would migrate overseas to elude energy-use controls. Moreover, developing nations will be the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the coming decades as their economies expand.

From day one, U.S. representatives sought to entice the developing nations to cooperate. Even a symbolic commitment to reducing emissions in the future would have sufficed. No dice. When Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.) sought to persuade the Chinese delegate that China's involvement was warranted, he received a curt rebuke: "Do you expect us to keep our people poor?" Though Lieberman wouldn't say it, for many Green representatives, the answer was surely yes.

The involvement of developing nations remained a sticking point throughout the first week of negotiations, as did the level of cuts that industrialized nations would accept. Clinton called for reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2012, close to a 30 per cent cut. The European Community, which will be treated as a single emitter under the treaty, called for more. Shutting down Soviet-era factories throughout Eastern Europe has already curtailed emissions significantly, especially in Germany, leading the Europeans to demand reductions to 85 per cent of 1990 levels. The American delegation, at least at the outset, found this totally unacceptable.

By the time Al Gore arrived to save the negotiations, the weather had warmed and the penguins had begun to melt, as had the resolve of the U.S. negotiators to win any meaningful concessions at the bargaining table. After announcing that "we have reached a fundamentally new stage in the development of human civilization," the Vice President instructed the U.S. delegation to show "flexibility." To the Clinton - Gore Administration, a bad climate treaty was better than no climate treaty.

The final draft commits the United States to reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 93 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012, substantially greater cuts than the Clinton Administration first proposed. Accounting for expected increases in energy use, this means that the U.S. will have to cut emissions by more than a third. Other industrialized nations have similar commitments; the European Union must cut emissions to 92 per cent of 1990 levels, and Japan to 94 per cent. Developing nations, such as India, China, Mexico, and Brazil, committed to absolutely nothing.

Without the participation of the developing nations, the treaty is dead in the Senate. On July 25, the Senate passed a resolution 95 to 0 warning the President against signing any treaty that would exempt overseas competitors and have a significant impact on U.S. economic growth. Were the treaty sent to the Senate in early 1998, it would certainly fail to get the two-thirds support needed for ratification. Thus, Gore announced that the treaty will not be submitted to the Senate for ratification in the foreseeable future.

Instead, the Administration will begin treaty implementation on its own, through budget proposals, new regulations, and further international negotiations. The next Clinton budget is slated to include $5 billion in subsidies and tax credits for ecologically correct energy sources too costly to compete in competitive markets, and possibly new foreign-aid moneys to "encourage" developing nations to climb aboard the global-warming bandwagon. The Administration is also exploring ways to incorporate global-warming policies into other regulatory initiatives.

In addition, another round of international negotiations is scheduled for Buenos Aires in 1998, where Gore will have another opportunity to woo the developing world.

Unfortunately, the Senate position on these matters is neither firm nor strategic. Rather than oppose the very idea of a climate treaty, opponents have listed a set of conditions that must be met for a treaty to be acceptable. Unfortunately, we have seen this pattern before. President Clinton waited more than three years before submitting the Chemical Weapons Convention to the Senate for ratification. (Bush signed the CWC in 1993, and it wasn't ratified until 1997.) By that time the resolve of many treaty opponents had wilted, and it passed. Clinton and Gore will bide their time as environmentalists and their friends in the media continue to proclaim the approach of the greenhouse apocalypse. Eventually, some developing nations will agree to some vague commitments, allowing Clinton (or his successor) to proclaim that the Senate's conditions have been met. The question is, what will the Senate do then?