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By Curtis Moore, Independent Consultant and a Former Counsel, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Negotiators in Bali are in theory supposed to produce a "roadmap" to future agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. What might emerge instead, however, is a roadmap to a confrontation of historic proportions, a rematch between George Bush -- or, at least, his surrogates -- and his opponent in the 2000 campaign for the Presidency, former Vice President Al Gore.
The two could not be further apart on an issue than they are on global warming. Bush is casual and sanguine, Gore urgent and demanding. Bush’s emissaries to Bali, to their credit from their perspective, have thus far succeeded beyond all expectations in obstructing and slowing negotiations. The result has been, in the words of one journal that specializes in covering the proceedings, a "shift" in tone, with parties "already casting blame for the apparent failure of talks" in one arena.
Ten years ago negotiations reach a similar stage in Kyoto, when they seemed hopelessly bogged down. Then Gore, whose signature issues even then were the threats of global warming and stratospheric ozone depletion, arrived unexpectedly on a White House jet. In a matter of about 13 hours he forged the consensus that became the Kyoto Protocol.
For the past several days Gore has been in Oslo, Norway to accept the Nobel Prize for Peace for his work to raise public concern over global warming. By all accounts his talks have been stemwinders, with an "almost historic aura," according to one observer.
Thursday, Gore arrives in Bali where the situation today is much the same as 10 years ago in Kyoto. But on this occasion, those who have created the logjam are representatives of the United States.
Say what you like about the Bush's appointees, there can be no doubt that some of them -- at least judging from their work in Bali -- are geniuses at negotiation. Bush's second term as President expires in January, 2009, so in theory, decisions about international policy on global warming after that should be the responsibility of the person elected President in November, 2008. But Bush appointees in Bali have maneuvered themselves into a position that could freeze the current status quo, or something close to it, until as late as 2012.
So far, U.S. negotiators have:
-- Refused to allow any reference to scientific evidence that rich nations should cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, saying that would "prejudge" the outcome of negotiations.
-- Demanded striking draft language in the draft calling for "sufficient, predictable, additional and sustainable financial resources" to help poor nations adapt to climate change, saying it is vague.
-- Opposed asking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific body that asses global warming sciences and makes recommendations for action, for an updated report prior to the 2009 climate meeting. James L. Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality and is in Bali, said it was too much, "a huge amount of work for the IPCC."
-- Rejected requests by developing nations such as China and India for industrialized countries to provide more money to ease the transfer of clean energy technology overseas and by poor nations to help them slow deforestation. American representatives said that while the United States endorses the goals in principle, it opposes specifying how much money developed countries should contribute.
Some of these are deal killers. Compelled in part by the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, passed in 1997 95-0 by the Senate demanding reductions by developing nations as a prerequisite to American participation in a global warming agreement, Bush's negotiators have insisted on "measurable and reportable national mitigation actions" by the poorer countries. But for China, the price of agreeing to this is technology transfer. Thus, by refusing to agree to technology transfer, U.S. negotiators guarantee China will reject America's demands for emission reductions by developing nations. That in turn, triggers the terms of the Byrd-Hagel resolution, allowing the White House to blame, at least in part, a Democrat, Sen. Robert C. Byrd.
Similarly, China refuses to agree to curb its emissions unless developed nations will commit to specific numeric reductions, which the U.S. rejects.
Thus, when Gore steps off the plane, he will arrive at a situation remarkably similar to that in Kyoto ten years ago. But there is one critical difference.
Then, the American public seemed barely aware of global warming, much less concerned. Now, two-thirds of Americans want action on global warming, and they want it now.
Then, there had not been a Hurricane Katrina, films of polar bears adrift on ice floes, record-setting heat waves throughout not merely the United States, but the entire world.
In Oslo, Gore could hardly have been more passionate. Saying that "our world is spinning out of kilter" and that "the very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed," he warned that "we, the human
species, are confronting a planetary emergency -- a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here." But, he added, "there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst -- not all -- of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly."
Surely, few would have predicted a year ago–even a few months ago -- that Bali might be where George Bush and Al Gore -- or at the least, their respective values -- would once again confront each other. And perhaps that confrontation will never transpire. But if it does, its outcome would determine exactly what sort of roadmap to the future is produced.