WASHINGTON — On the eve of critical negotiations on global warming, the Clinton administration is preparing to argue that measures to curb greenhouse gases must be cost-effective if a climate agreement reached three years ago is to survive.
More than 160 countries that crafted the Kyoto climate treaty in 1997 begin two weeks of intense negotiations next week in the Netherlands on how to implement the accord, which calls for industrial nations to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 5.5 percent over the next decade.
"If we don't have significant progress ... we will have set back substantially the ability of the nations of the world to meet their (Kyoto emission) targets," Undersecretary of State Frank Loy, who will head the U.S. delegation, said in an interview.
None of the industrial nations has ratified the Kyoto agreement. They are awaiting details on rules and policies for implementing the accord, including provisions that could significantly impact the cost of compliance.
The U.S. delegation is expected to take to the negotiations a detailed plan aimed at mitigating the cost for cutting greenhouse gases — mostly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.
The package of proposals includes:
"Achieving meaningful reductions (of greenhouse gases) is a very big assignment, and we ought to make it as easy or as cost-effective as possible," said Loy.
U.S. officials disputed criticism by many environmentalists that the American proposal may thwart real reductions in greenhouse gases. They maintain that the flexibility provisions sought by the United States in implementing the treaty will produce the most economic reduction of heat-trapping emissions.
"We are going over there seeking a treaty that has environmental integrity," said Assistant Secretary of State David Sandalow, a key U.S negotiator.
But many environmentalists argue the U.S. proposal amounts to massive "loopholes" that will make Kyoto treaty compliance cheap but produce little actual reductions of greenhouse gases — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — from U.S. industry, power plants and motor vehicles.
"These loopholes would make the treaty virtually irrelevant from an environmental standpoint," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based environmental advocacy group.
For example, he said, instead of U.S. industry cutting greenhouse emissions, it would be cheaper to buy pollution credits from Russia, where annual carbon emissions already are far below 1990 levels because of the country's economic collapse.
Likewise, U.S. negotiators acknowledge that more than half the 500 million metric tons of carbon reductions needed to meet the Kyoto target could be achieved if their negotiating partners were to accept the U.S. proposal on carbon-absorbing forests and agricultural lands.
These "do-nothing tons" of carbon reductions would be achieved without requiring additional land management or a greater reduction in carbon put into the air, but they would count against the Kyoto targets, said Jennifer Morgan of the World Wildlife Fund.
European negotiators are expected to demand that limits be set how much a country can depend on trading. Germany and France wants no more than half of the required emission reductions to come from trading.
"We are strongly opposed to that," said Sandalow. If the Europeans insist on capping trading credits, "no deal is better than a bad deal."
|
To
send us your comments, questions, and suggestions click
here |