How others see America

1. What are your impressions of the events that are unfolding here in Kyoto?

Well, it has taken a long time to get underway because, unfortunately, this is the least well prepared conference of a serious kind that I've ever been to in 17 years of international negotiations. And that is largely because the United States and Canada have been so slow in coming forward with any propositions. This is a situation of the world vs the United States to be truthful, because the European Union, the largest trading unit in the world plus the G-77, the developing nations are very concerned to see that the world's biggest waster of energy and emitter, the United States, followed closely by Canada, of course, should meet their global obligations. So there is a pretty tough battle here and it has taken a long time to get underway.

2. Do you think we will get an agreement by the end of the conference?

Well I've always been more optimistic than many over the past two years. I've had some very tough negotiations myself when I was the Minister for the Environment in the United Kingdom until the May elections, and therefore did a lot of negotiations with the United States. I think the thing that has changed is that the United States has recognized that it is a quite impossible position to uphold that having grown rich on pollution, having created the situation in which we are, that the rich nations should then turn to the poor nations who after all have not gotten much out of pollution as a matter of fact, and tell them "you've got to put it right first before we do anything. Now that really is ridiculous. It's also immoral. And I'm not sure which of those is the more telling comment but it is certainly true that I would find it quite intolerable that we should say to these very poor countries, "look here, we have all this wealth, and we have created this wealth because of the use of industrialized processes. We're now going to ask you to forego those processes and we're not going to do anything about our own situation. That would be quite intolerable.

3. I take it that you were not pleased by President Clinton's requirement that developing nations be included under this treaty.

No, because it was dishonest. First of all, President Clinton, in his battle against President Bush five years ago, attacked Mr. Bush for not signing up to the Rio agreement. That was a part of his campaign. On the BBC's television program last Monday, they did a rerun, a clip, -- in these days of television we can see what people did say -- and there he was on the White House lawn, having won, on Earth Day, telling journalists that he was going to meet the Rio requirements which was to bring the U.S. emissions back to 1990 levels by the year 2000. So to come forward now and to say we're not going to do that now until 2010 or 2012, and also, we're not even going to do that unless the developing countries come on board, is just sheer dishonesty. But more important than that, it was worse, because in Berlin in the run-up conference to this one, we all agreed to a Berlin Mandate. I was there when the American representative, who happened to be Tim Wirth at the time, put his hand up to vote for it. I was there because I put my hand up to vote for it on behalf of the United Kingdom. It's no good coming around now and saying that having voted in Berlin for the principle that the rich nations would deliver first, and would not expect the poor nations to join in until they had delivered, then come to the Kyoto conference, which is the conference which is controlled by that Berlin Mandate, and turn around and say "we're not going to do it." I mean that is a double-dishonesty. So you cannot stand by that. That's not something which anybody else in the world takes seriously.

4. How do you respond to the charge that industry will flow from the nations that are controlled by the treaty to those which are not?

Well it's just a great story by the Global Climate Coalition. They invented it. And it doesn't stand up. The truth is that the member companies of the Global Climate Coalition, which is this business based organization opposed to any action on climate change, the member companies of that coalition are already exporting vast numbers of jobs to the developing countries. That's what they are doing constantly. That is how they operate. And it is not going to be accelerated by any decision of this sort. People don't choose to go to India because of the pollution control. They go to India because of a whole range of other reasons. Largely, the question of having a trained work force with wage demands significantly lower than those in the western world. That isn't the reason they move; it doesn't stand up in argument. What does stand up in argument is the one 'round the other way. If the United States doesn't sign up to something of this sort, the European Union businesses will be meeting much higher emission controls than those in the United States. And we will clean up in the world because nobody will buy United States technology if it is behind the lead technology. If you are one of the developing countries, if you are one of the "tiger" economies -- when they become tigers again, after this temporary blip -- they are not going to buy second-rate technology. They will want to have leading-edge technology. And the leading-edge technology will come from the countries that have accepted the demands of global warming, determined to change their systems so they can, in fact, not emit in the way they have in the past. The United States will fall behind. It will be exactly the same as the United States steel industry in the 1980s. You remember they went 'round the world saying it was outrageous, it was all unfair. They really couldn't compete. Someone had to protect them. They did all this and what happened? They went bust. There isn't a United States steel industry in the same sort of way it was then. They killed themselves. It's exactly the same here. The people who will suffer from this is the Exxon corporation because Shell and BP will win. Exxon is now reactionary in these circumstances. Shell and BP are out there changing their policies and their programs to meet the demands of global warming. I know where I'd put my money and where I would be a stockholder. I'd be a stockholder at BP. No wonder their stocks have gone up very sharply since they've become a green petrol company. 5. What is your answer to those who point out that unless developing nations are bound by the treaty, it will really do nothing to reduce emissions since, China will surpass the U.S. in total emissions early in the next century?

Well there are two things at fault with that. One thing is that we are talking about a different time scale. We're talking at this conference about what we are going to do now, between now and the year 2010. In those circumstances we are, by far, the largest emitter, the rich countries. Also in those circumstances, we are the countries that have made their wealth on those emissions. Therefore we are responsible for paying the costs. The second thing is that when we come to the point at which China will become the world's largest emitter, first of all it will be at sometime in the future, sometime after 2010, probably. We're also talking about a shift in the statistics. People talk now about the largest per-capita emitter which is the United States. It is also the largest overall emitter too. Of course China will be the largest overall emitter, but it is vastly larger than the United States. It has 1.4 billion people now. It adds to its population the same number that the Australians have every year. So of course when you come to the year 2010 it will be the largest emitter. It is the largest country, vastly bigger than anywhere else. But it will still be true in 2010 that the United States will be the largest per-capita emitter. And it will still be the largest waster.

You see the United States is not only a big emitter, it is a terrible waster of energy. If you want to see the figures they are fascinating. If you want to compare people properly, you have to say how many men's work does it cost for the energy requirement of each citizen. In other words, instead of using electricity and gas and the like, you had physical people doing it, how many would you need? You would need 120 for every American You'd need 60 for every European. You'd need 8 for every Chinaman. And you would need one for every Bangladeshi.

Now that is hugely, hugely revealing. What it says is simply this. It says that America uses twice as much energy but it doesn't have twice the standard of living. It has a higher standard of living than Europe, but not all that much. It therefore uses twice as much energy to produce nothing like twice as much result. So what we in Europe say is if we can cut our energy requirement so we will cut our emissions by 15% overall, what the blazes is the United States doing when it wastes so much, complaining that it can't manage it.

Of course you can manage it. In the United States, you are so wasteful, you can manage it without blinking your eye. You won't notice it. All you have to do is terribly simple things. You know, in every corner of almost every room in America, there's a little red un-winking eye on the television set or video or whatever else it is. That's a stand-by button. When you've got your machine on stand-by, it uses half the energy it uses when it's on. So for 24-hours a day you're using half energy. That's equal to the output of several electricity generating plants that you could close down. Just change the technology. So when you buy a new television you didn't have the stand-by system. Why is it that in every office, some secretary has stuck a notice on the photocopier "don't turn this off." It's because it takes some time for the photocopier to warm up. If you buy a Cannon photocopier nowadays, it doesn't have to warm up. That can happen to any photocopier. You can change the technology. That will mean the United States can waste less, be more efficient, sell better, and win in world markets.

Or you can do the opposite and disregard all this, not do what you need to do, and we'll beat you. And we'll beat you up hill and down dale because we will be more efficient. We'll be using less power, our goods will be cheaper, and people will want to buy them because we will be at the leading edge of technologies. If you want to export American jobs to other countries, the easiest way to do it is not to do anything about global warming. Let the Europeans do it and your jobs will go to Europe. So I'm really shooting myself in the foot asking you to behave properly.

6. What is your take on the U.S. Senators' concerns that legally binding commitments are an infringement upon national sovereignty?

Oh I've got no take, it's just rubbish! I have got my national sovereignty constantly being attacked by the United States. Your pollution is changing my climate. I'm not having you telling me that I've got no say in what you do. You are changing my climate. My constituency will be underwater because of your pollution. Don't talk to me about national sovereignty. The United States has got to realize that it lives in the world. It is not the United States' world. It's our world: the world of poor people and rich people alike. The United States Sovereignty is of no account in a world that is being destroyed by the United States' pollution. So those two senators ought to go back and understand this. If you want a World Trade Organization, if you want the United States to be able to sell in the world, then the United States has got to realize that it must stop destroying the climate of the rest of the world.

Next Article | Table of Contents