WASHINGTON -- Will American lawmakers kill the massive global agreement to cut the emissions that are heating up the planet?
The Kyoto Protocol, one of the most complicated treaties ever negotiated, calls for the U.S. and 37 other industrialized nations to start cutting "greenhouse gases" in 2008. Parliaments in Europe and Japan are wrestling with a number of far-reaching economic proposals to comply, by raising taxes, restructuring electric utilities and promoting emissions-trading systems.
But the U.S. is different. Here, the treaty's opponents, including coal-industry interests, many oil companies and some automakers and other players in heavy industry, have mustered forces to block ratification in the Senate -- and given the pact's supporters a case of the jitters.
Without support from the U.S., the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, the Kyoto pact in its current form would be dead in the water. A two-thirds Senate vote is necessary for ratification. But American lawmakers aren't ready politically to consider the economic sacrifices that could be required under the treaty, and they may not be for several years. And until the treaty is ratified, the Republican-led Senate isn't likely to pass legislation that would implement any of the measures.
Even if it is ratified, it is now clear to many people that the U.S. won't be ready to take up serious greenhouse-gas emissions reductions by the 2008 deadline. Noting that it took Congress 10 years to deliberate the 1972 Clean Air Act, Eileen Claussen of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change recently warned her group's 21 major company members, including DuPont Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and BP Amoco PLC, that the chances of the U.S. meeting the deadline are "very small indeed."
She worries that companies in Europe and Japan won't carry out emissions-cutting plans if they see their U.S. counterparts withholding political support and investments in cleaner technologies.
Uncertainty in the U.S. has set off a global game of chicken. Politicians in the Netherlands, for example, are already deeply absorbed in the game. Paul Hofius, counselor for the environment at the Dutch embassy in Washington, says the Dutch parliament is readying a package of measures to sharply reduce CO2 emissions. But there's a big catch: Unless the U.S., producer of one-quarter of the world's CO2 emissions, also takes action, the Dutch plan may be trimmed back or shelved.
"The competitive factor is a big issue here," Mr. Hofius says. Dutch companies planning major investments in more expensive energy-efficient equipment don't want to come up against U.S. competitors that aren't hindered in that way, he notes. "We could have a lot of economic damage from this."
'Not a Problem'
But with a third of the Netherlands below sea level, Mr. Hofius notes, politicians also worry about doing nothing. Many scientists say rising sea levels and more violent storms will result from rising temperatures. It isn't hard for politicians to explain to constituents what that might do to the Netherlands, Mr. Hofius says. "For us, ratification is not a problem."
Ms. Claussen, a former assistant secretary of state who oversaw planning that led up to the treaty, says the political logjam here has the potential to force the signatories to renegotiate. If the pact were rewritten, its target levels could be postponed or diminished. The treaty requires the U.S. to cut carbon-dioxide emissions to 7% below 1990 levels. The European Union faces a reduction to 8%, and Japan to 6%, below previous levels.
The White House could have done more to prevent the impasse, Ms. Claussen says. "I think this is pretty damning of the administration," she says. "My view is that they negotiated it and then walked away from it."
Frank E. Loy, undersecretary of state for global affairs, counters that the administration has been pushing the issue hard. He agrees with Mr. Hofius that European nations are becoming skeptical of the U.S. commitment, but he believes the treaty is still "doable."
"I think it is true," Mr. Loy adds, "that as time goes on costs will go up if ratification should take place later." Ideally, he says, ratification would take place early because it would give U.S. industries more lead time and incentive to invest in emissions-reducing technologies, such as an electric utility required to switch from coal-fired plants to gas.
At the moment, only 13 of the 84 nations that have signed the Kyoto Protocol have ratified it. Most of them are small island nations such as the federal states of Micronesia that fear rising sea levels will swallow up their economies and, eventually, their cultures if prompt action isn't taken. Most industrial nations are unlikely to ratify the pact until 2001, after a scheduled round of talks to establish compliance mechanisms and the rules for emissions measurements.
So far, the Senate hasn't had a count of votes that would support the treaty. But the White House, sensing weak backing, has decided to delay submission for ratification. Ms. Claussen says she thinks that an attempt at ratification might not happen until 2002 or 2003.
The political climate could change. A new set of emissions data released recently indicates that in 1998, for the first time, carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S. remained flat while the nation's economy grew by 4%. Previously, many economists argued that emissions and economic growth moved in lockstep.
"The only way you can get these rules through [by 2008] is if this turns out to be a lot easier to do than most people think," Ms. Claussen says. Some experts think the 1998 emissions data are a sign that market forces are already responding to a demand for lower emissions, but others worry that they may turn out to be a fluke.
Agricultural interests may be another political factor that could make ratification easier. At the moment, polls indicate that farmers, who have been treated to a heavy grassroots lobbying campaign against the treaty by the coal industry, are suspicious of Kyoto. But many of them are looking closely at a farming technique that might be encouraged under an emissions-trading system. It involves using agricultural land to store more CO2 as a way to cut greenhouse gases. Scientists believe relatively undisturbed soil has greater capacity to hold CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere.
"A regulatory scheme isn't going to work," says Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, of Kansas. But an emissions-trading scheme that pays farmers to minimize plowing with "no-till" or "low-till" practices would give farmers a positive role in the fight to cut emissions, he says.
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