When the US led the way on global warming

Not that Gore absolutely closed the deal. That happened only after a final, 36-hour marathon negotiating session that concluded about 5 or 6 o'clock on a Saturday morning with the announcement that the world's industrial nations had agreed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. By 10 am, sleep-deprived reporters filing their last stories had the hallucinatory experience of seeing the press center literally being dismantled. Turned out that the climate change conference had run well beyond its allotted time and the venue was being prepared for the next meeting. But for a few hours, the final Kyoto Protocol negotiations might have been held outside on the lawn.

Critics of the protocol point out that despite his administration's very strong support, President Clinton did not submit the protocol for Senate ratification. Of course, just prior to the Kyoto negotiations the Senate passed a resolution 95-0 urging the administration not to accept any agreement that did not cover emissions from developing countries; or which threatened the US economy.

The Kyoto Protocol does not require developing countries to limit their emissions. That was always intended to be left to future negotiations. As for the impact on the US economy, it is an issue that has been debated ever since.

It would have made no sense, therefore, for President Clinton to submit the protocol to the Senate where its opponents were salivating over the possibility of killing it. Better to keep it on the shelf and let the new Gore administration have a go. Instead, George W. Bush was elected president, and shortly after he took office Bush killed the protocol on behalf of the US.

After rejecting the Kyoto Protocol without proposing an alternative international mechanism, the administration hunkered down and refused to play. It questioned the validity of the climate science; issued bowdlerized reports that downplayed the link between human activities and global warming; and dismissed all entreaties to consider mandatory reductions in US emissions.

But the world moved on. The Kyoto Protocol came into force and the international community began to look forward to a post- 2012 agreement, after Kyoto expires, that would require much deeper emissions reductions. Dozens of US states and municipalities mandated cuts in their own emissions and an increasing number of major US companies began calling for uniform, nationwide mandatory reductions. And the House and the Senate, under Democratic leadership, began moving towards consideration of a record number of bills that would require sharp reductions in US emissions.

Now, the administration is pledging to do its part and "work with other nations to establish a new international approach" to climate change," Bush told a US-sponsored climate conference last month.

Bush said he wanted to reach an agreement by next summer with the major emitting nations, both industrial and developing, to set a long-term goal for reducing emissions. By setting this goal, "we commit ourselves to doing something about it," Bush said. However, Harlan Watson, the chief US climate negotiator, told Le Figaro last month, "We do not expect these countries to commit to specific objectives."

A UN-sponsored climate meeting will take place in Bali, Indonesia, in December, to begin negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The Bali conference "should set in train an effective negotiating process, covering all major issues and approaches," according to notes delivered by Mogens Peter Carl, European Commission director general for environment, to the US climate conference. The EU wants to basically "cut and slash developed countries' emissions by 2020 by a very large percentage [20 to 30%], and we want that to be guaranteed by a binding agreement."

This is not "pie in the sky, nor is it a vague, aspirational goal," Carl said. Developing countries should also commit to reducing their carbon intensity in the short-term, "so as to open up the road for absolute reductions at a point in time."

The US is going to Bali with a kit bag loaded with goals, aspirations, and voluntary initiatives. It remains to be seen how much of a leadership role it can effect; and the extent to which the administration's approach will complement or conflict with the European's.

Perhaps we can already surmise how the latter issue will play out: Bush's proposal that each nation set its own greenhouse gas reduction goals is the antithesis of an international regime of mandatory reductions enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol, and crucial to the EU.