November 25, 2000

Ministers Unable to Reach Agreement
at Climate Change Conference

Expect to resume talks next year in Bonn

By Jim Fuller
Washington File Science Correspondent

The Hague -- Environment ministers and diplomats from more than 180 countries suspended their intensive negotiations November 25 after failing to reach agreement on guidelines for reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gases believed responsible for global warming.

Conference delegates have been meeting at the Netherlands Congress Center in The Hague for two weeks -- culminating in a last-ditch, all-night session on the final day -- in an effort to hammer out detailed rules for implementing a climate change treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, three years ago.

Conference officials said, however, that the delegates were so close to reaching an accord that they have agreed to resume the conference early next year.

Conference President Jan Pronk, environment minister of The Netherlands, told delegates at the final plenary session that while he was disappointed that an agreement on the rules had not been reached, he held out hope for the near future.

"Personally, I am very disappointed," Pronk said. "I think we are all quite disappointed. And we should be aware that we have been watched -- watched by the outside world. There were extremely high expectations.... We must confess today that we have not lived up to the expectations from the outside world.

"But I believe that the political will to succeed is still alive, and I am confident that we can regroup in the very near future, and complete a deal that leads to effective actions to control emissions and protect the most vulnerable countries from the impacts of global warming."

Klaus Topfer, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, told delegates, "It is better to suspend the talks and resume later to ensure that we find the right path forward, rather than take a hasty step that moves us in the wrong direction."

The delegates agreed to resume the Sixth Session of the Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change -- the formal name of The Hague conference -- possibly as soon as late May in Bonn.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol calls on developed countries to collectively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions -- mainly carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels -- by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Under the treaty, which has not yet been ratified by any industrialized countries, the United States would cut emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels, Europe by 8 percent, and Japan by 6 percent.

Scientists say that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are gradually accumulating in the atmosphere, forcing the Earth to heat up. They say the warming can lead to increased droughts, severe storms, and a rise in sea levels.

Pronk said the conference made progress towards outlining a package of financial support and technology transfer to help developing countries adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change -- such as a rise in sea levels.

He emphasized, however, that key political issues including an international emissions trading system, the rules for counting emissions reductions from carbon "sinks" -- such as forests -- and a compliance regime could not be resolved in the time available. Another issue that was not resolved, according to Pronk, were rules for setting up the so-called clean development mechanism, which would allow developed countries to meet a portion of their emissions reduction targets by funding clean energy projects in developing countries.

Officials reported that one of the main stumbling blocks at The Hague negotiations was the fact that the United States and the European Union (EU) remained divided on several key protocol provisions -- including the amount of credit a country could get by investing in climate-protection projects abroad, and how much credit toward emissions cuts could be gained by using forests to absorb carbon dioxide.

Frank Loy, under secretary of state for global affairs and head of the U.S. delegation, said in a prepared statement that an agreement between the two sides on key issues appeared to be "close at hand" by the morning of November 25 following all-night negotiations, but by the afternoon "the agreement we believed we had this morning" did not materialize.

"The United States is deeply disappointed -- because these issues are of such profound importance, and because we came so close, only to see our efforts unravel," Loy said. "We stand ready to resume our negotiations at any time."

Loy went on to say that the elements of an agreement were sitting on the table "in plain sight. It included some of the toughest issues -- sinks, compliance and ensuring strong domestic action. We were ready to sign on to that agreement -- others could not. But we stand ready to pick up where we left off."

Late on November 23, with conference negotiators deadlocked on key issues, conference president Pronk submitted a compromise proposal that he said would require all sides to make sacrifices.

The proposal was mainly intended to bridge the long-standing differences between U.S. and European Union negotiators. But both sides rejected the plan as unacceptable.

The Pronk compromise proposal suggested limiting the use of sinks, which are existing forests and croplands that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The proposed limits would have cut in half the emissions reduction credits from sinks that were being sought by the United States.

The Pronk proposal also suggested that countries achieve a significant portion of their emissions cuts through domestic programs that scale back the burning of fossil fuels in power plants, factories and automobiles, rather than through international emissions trading.

While this proposal was roughly in line with the EU negotiation position, U.S. negotiators had been pressing for unlimited emissions trading, which would allow companies to buy and sell carbon credits or invest in clean technologies abroad to reach their emissions reduction targets.

A top-level U.S. negotiator at the conference said that because strong economic growth in recent years has expanded the U.S. share of carbon emissions, the United States would have to reduce its domestic emissions by "an extremely aggressive 35 percent" of anticipated levels a decade from now. U.S. officials contend that such reductions could cause enormous disruptions to the U.S. economy, and that the United States would never have accepted the Kyoto emissions reduction targets if it had known that it would be prevented from making unlimited use of market-based mechanisms such as emissions trading.

Loy said in his November 25 statement that listening to the rhetoric at the conference, "one might think that emissions trading is some new, half-cocked notion being offered up here for the first time. Some seem to have forgotten that it is a fundamental feature of the Kyoto Protocol -- accepted as a legitimate means of meeting our targets."

U.S. negotiators have also insisted that nations should be awarded credits for existing agricultural and forestry lands because they absorb carbon dioxide and thereby offset emissions. U.S. negotiators offered -- as a major concession at the conference -- to dramatically reduce the amount of credit the United States could claim under the Kyoto Protocol from carbon that is absorbed by U.S. forests.

But the European Union remained strongly opposed to use of forests as carbon sinks, insisting that such alternatives should be used only as a supplement to actual domestic emissions reductions brought about by switching to cleaner and more efficient fuels in automobiles and power plants.

"Some of our negotiating parties ... chose to ignore physical realities of our climate system, depriving parties of another important pool by refusing them credit for carbon sequestered by their farms and forests," Loy said. "Again, this is not a new idea, but a fundamental feature of the Kyoto Protocol."

Loy also reminded delegates that nations can only negotiate what they believe can be ratified at home. "The United States is not in the business of signing up to agreements it knows it cannot fulfill," he said. "We don't make promises we can't keep."

Environmental non-governmental organizations reacted differently to the results of the conference. The Environmental Action Network, an environmental group headquartered in the United States, charged that the European Union passed up an excellent opportunity to achieve a strong climate treaty.

"The proposal put forward by the U.S. delegation represented major progress toward reducing global warming pollution," a spokesman said. "It also balanced the interests of U.S. business and U.S. farmers with strong pollution reduction provisions. There is no excuse for having walked away."

But another environmental group, the World Wildlife Fund, charged that persistent efforts to weaken the protocol by the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia "brought the talks to the current impasse. Their insistence on exploiting almost every loophole in the Kyoto Protocol stalled the painfully slow progress of the last three years."