Report from BonnGlobal warming negotiations falter At the seventh session since the Berlin Mandate (1995), climate change negotiators trudged through tons of minutia while ignoring the major issues that remain unresolved:
All these, and many, many more important questions remained unanswered at the close of the seventh negotiating session. Nevertheless, for nearly two weeks, approximately one thousand delegates and NGO observers scurried around the halls of the Maritim Hotel in Bonn, caught up in issues such as:
After nearly seven years of NGO participation in the climate change negotiations, nearly 240 NGOs in all, the Secretariat is proposing that NGOs declare allegiance to the aims of the Convention before being accredited as observers. This move came one month after the first appearance of eco-logic Bonn at the March negotiating session. Environmental NGOs have been publishing a news bulletin for the delegates at every session since the treaty was adopted in 1992. Sovereignty International, official publishers of eco-logic Bonn, was granted "provisional" accreditation in 1997 and began the publication in March. Provisional accreditation can be withdrawn if one-third of the delegates (55 nations) object within one year. Since the Secretariat pays the expenses of delegates from 121 nations, the Secretariat usually gets whatever it wants. The question of continued accreditation for Sovereignty International will be decided in Kyoto. One week before the negotiations began in Bonn, the U.S. Senate adopted, by a vote of 95-0, Senate Resolution 98 which set forth specific conditions which must be met by the negotiators if the protocol is to be ratified by the U.S. Senate. The Senate Resolution requires that emission caps be applied equally to developed nations and to developing nations -- a direct conflict with the Berlin Mandate. The existing climate change treaty calls for voluntary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by only 34 developed nations. The Berlin Mandate, adopted by the First Conference of the Parties meeting in 1995 in Berlin, specifically states that no new commitments shall be required of developing countries. Timothy Wirth, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, accepted the Berlin Mandate on behalf of the Clinton-Gore Administration. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), sponsor of SRES98, called Wirth's performance a "blunder." Co-sponsor, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, after the senate vote, that the Resolution was a complete rejection of the Berlin Mandate. A second requirement of the Resolution says that the protocol must not adversely impact the U.S. economy. The Clinton-Gore Administration has had economic analyses in its possession for months, but not until a study was leaked to the press, did the administration admit that the analysis was complete. A study performed by the Argonne National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy predicts that the protocol now being negotiated would impact 70 percent of the American economy and 1.8 million jobs. The study predicted that:
These estimates are based on "middle-of-the-road" emission reduction proposals; not on the most severe target proposals now on the table. Interestingly, Janet Yellen, Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, told a Congressional Committee that "the effort to develop a model or a set of models that can give us a definitive answer as to the economic impacts of a given climate change policy is futile." At the same time, the Clinton-Gore Administration is heralding the projections of climate change models as "scientific certainty" that "global warming is a real and imminent problem." Bonn negotiators met the Senate Resolution with deafening silence. Not a word was said about the Senate action in any of the public meetings. Corridor "intelligence," however, reported a private meeting arranged by Chairman Raul Estrada (Argentina) between a U.S. and Chinese delegate. The unreported outcome is an agreement to a scenario in which the U.S. delegation will sign the protocol in Kyoto, but withhold it from the Senate until after the next election -- or next two elections -- in hopes of getting a more receptive U.S. Senate. Such a scenario will allow the Clinton-Gore Administration to avoid the risk of Senate rejection while continuing to implement restrictive regulations administratively, which effectively implements the provisions of the protocol without Senate ratification. The new Ambient Air Quality Standards, imposed by the EPA, are typical of the regulatory measures that will be required to meet the limitations set by the Kyoto protocol. They are, however, only preliminary steps. In order to meet the stringent requirements being negotiated, the EPA would have to implement many of the 39 specific measures discovered by Representative John Boehner (R-OH) which the EPA has already prepared (see eco-logic, November/December, 1996, p.7). At the final press conference, Robert Ingersoll, a reporter for McGraw Hill, asked what impact the Senate Resolution had on the negotiations. Chairman Estrada said the Resolution was an "internal" matter for the U.S. "It has no consequences on the negotiations." The Senate resolution, and the articles about it published in eco-logic Bonn, did have consequences, according to the report of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Their final report said: "While the Clinton Administration has been moving toward a strong stand on climate change policy, it has been reported that opponents of the administration caused havoc and even engaged in attempts to undermine and discredit the U.S. delegation in Bonn. The intense domestic political battles in the U.S. were, in effect, being played out around the edges of the negotiations at the AGBM, helping to put the brakes on progress." (What was published in Bonn is also published in the following pages so our readers can determine for themselves what is considered as "attempts to undermine and discredit the U.S. delegation"). NGOs of every stripe, as well as the press, were frustrated by closed meetings. Only a few plenary sessions were open for observation; most of the negotiations were conducted behind closed doors. NGOs were given one official opportunity to address the delegates. Three categories of NGOs were allowed to select one spokesperson for a five-minute presentation. Environmental, business and industry, and local government and municipalities were recognized. Sovereignty International fits into none of the categories. Neither did the AFL-CIO. Peter di Cicero, President of the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Department, requested, and was denied, the opportunity to address the delegates. In a letter to Chairman Estrada, he said "I'm writing to express my indignation and to protest your outrageous decision to deny Labor NGOs the same opportunity to address delegates...given to business and environmental NGOs." He said the decision "undermines the democratic process," and that "negotiations conducted in secret prevents meaningful public participation and oversight...by the affected parties." He never did address the delegates. Michael Zammit Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Climate Change, said that the slow progress of the negotiations was due to the failure of the U.S. and Japan to table a meaningful proposal. While each has offered proposals, neither has stipulated a preferred "target and timetable." The first, and most stringent proposal, promoted by the environmental NGOs, came from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS): a 20 percent reduction below 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2005. The European Union has proposed a 15 percent reduction by 2010, with an intermediate "benchmark" of 7.5 percent to be reached by 2005. Other proposals are on the table from various nations, including one which sets a two-degree rise in global temperature as a target which must be prevented. With only one more negotiating session scheduled in October to answer all the unanswered questions, the December Kyoto deadline for a final agreement might seem impossible -- to those unfamiliar with the UN process of consensus. Chairman Estrada announced that he would be in communication with some of the delegates "by phone, fax, and e-mail," before the October session. Since the actual negotiating sessions are closed anyway, and the Chairman's report may or may not reflect the actual events that occurred during the sessions, the wishes of the Chairman and the Secretariat could just as easily be written without all the bother of bringing all the delegates together. It will take that kind of prerogative on the part of the Chair to bring together all the divergent issues now on the table -- unresolved. More than 600 delegates from 145 nations participated in the negotiations. They were "observed" by more than 500 NGO representatives and 125 members of the press. - eco-logic staff Next Article | Table of Contents |