KYOTO, Japan -- Negotiators from around the world agreed Thursday on a package of measures that for the first time would legally obligate industrial countries to cut emissions of waste industrial gases that scientists say are warming the Earth's atmosphere.But details on one contentious issue -- the possible trade or sale of emission permits between countries -- remain unsettled, and may remain unsettled for months, and the United States has said it wants this issue resolved before it signs the treaty. Any treaty is subject to approval by the U.S. Senate.
The agreement reached by delegates from more than 150 nations creates a landmark environmental policy to deal with global warming, and innovative new mechanisms to carry it out.
The nations would have a year to ratify the treaty, starting next March. Talks on "trading" of emissions are expected to take place next November.
Despite the uncertainties, some environmentalists hailed the agreement as a remarkable political and economic innovation, in that it would establish a global system for dealing with what many scientists believe is the overarching environmental concern.
Opponents of the treaty condemned it as economically ruinous.
The accord -- known as the Kyoto Protocol -- would require the industrial nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping greenhouse gases to 5.2 percent below those of 1990. The United States would be required to cut emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels, on average, in the years from 2008 through 2012.
The agreement appears to represent a significant concession by the United States, which previously had insisted on the less stringent course of reducing the emissions to 1990 levels, not below them. It is also a measure of the flexibility in the American bargaining position that Vice President Al Gore said he had ordered negotiators to adopt on a visit here Monday.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the White House can persuade the Senate to accept the agreement, or even whether the United States will sign it.
Many Senators had already expressed reservations about the less stringent administration proposal. By 2000, emissions of greenhouse gases by the United States are expected to be about 13 percent higher than they were in 1990. They are expected to be perhaps 30 percent higher in 2010, if trends in energy use continue and no other action is taken.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., observing the talks, said here today, "Any way you measure this, this is a very bad deal for America." He predicted the Senate would not approve it.
For his part Stuart Eizenstat, the senior American negotiator, said the United States was still waiting for more signs of flexibility from developing nations on the question of emission trading.
"We do not yet have that meaningful commitment coming out of Kyoto," he said. But, he added, the possibilities for such a commitment "are certainly pregnant."
President Clinton, visiting New York, said in a statement that he was "very pleased" by the agreement, which he said was "environmentally strong and economically sound." But he said developing nations had to do more.
And in Washington, Gore called the agreement a "vital turning point." He added, "Clearly, more work is needed. In particular we will continue to press for meaningful participation by key developing nations. We are confident that can be achieved. "
Under the accord, different countries would be assigned different targets, depending on their national circumstances and economic profiles. The European Union's target was set at a reduction in emissions of 8 percent below 1990 levels, and that of Japan at 6 percent. Other targets, albeit within a narrow range, also applied to other developed countries. Some countries may be allowed to increase emissions, but globally, emissions are to be reduced by 30 percent from the levels currently projected for 2010.
After an all-night session that ran into an unscheduled 11th day of discussion, the protocol was approved by representatives of more than 150 countries.
The countries were modifying an agreement, negotiated in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, that called for voluntary efforts to limit emission of greenhouse gases. The burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil is responsible for most emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas.
As a means of promoting reductions in developing countries, the delegates established a special mechanism for transferring energy-efficient technologies and nonpolluting forms of energy production from richer nations to poorer ones. Greater efficiency means fewer emissions, and alternative energy sources like solar and wind power mean none.
The Clean Development Mechanism, as the new arrangement was named, is intended to encourage companies in industrial countries to invest in emissions-reduction projects in developing countries -- modern, fuel-efficient power plants, for example -- and get some credit for reducing their own emissions.
But the agreement was held up for hours on Wednesday night and Thursday morning by the resistance of some developing countries, including China, India and Saudi Arabia, to the inclusion of a provision enabling the industrialized nations to trade or purchase emissions rights. The United States considers this arrangement the cheapest and most efficient way of cutting emissions. Without it, American negotiators said, it would be impossible for the country to meet its emission targets.
In emissions trading, a country or industrial company will be able to meet its emissions reduction target by cutting some of its emissions itself, while at the same time purchasing part of its required reduction from another country or company that achieved excess cuts.
Based on its success with trading emissions of sulfur dioxide, a chemical implicated in acid rain, the United States argues that larger and cheaper reductions can be achieved with this mechanism.
The objectors said that the mechanism could lead to shifting the burden to less developed countries, and that countries and companies might be able to buy their way out of their obligations.
After hours of argument, delegates agreed to allow the parties to the 1992 treaty to postpone negotiations on the principles, rules, guidelines and operations of the trading system until November.
Experts advising the negotiators here say that if emissions are not reduced, the average surface temperature of the globe will rise by 2 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, causing widespread climatic, environmental and economic disruption.
Philip Clapp, president of the the National Environmental Trust in Washington, who has been observing the talks here, called the agreement "a historic landmark in environmental protection." He said it would be remembered "as a central achievement of the Clinton-Gore administration."
But representatives of the American fossil fuel and heavy manufacturing industries saw disaster in the agreement.
"It is a terrible deal and the president should not sign it," said William O'Keefe, chairman of the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group. O'Keefe said that "business, labor and agriculture will campaign hard and will defeat" the treaty if it is submitted to the Senate for ratification.
The protocol is generally viewed only as an early step in a continuing attempt to deal with the question of climate change. It is generally acknowledged that any attempt to deal with the problem requires a global solution involving all countries.
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