EU official scorned for sensible talk on Kyoto treaty

Feb. 20, 2004
A dust-up in Europe over the Kyoto Protocol typifies discussion there on climate change.

Bob Tippee

A dust-up in Europe over the Kyoto Protocol typifies discussion there on climate change.

Loyola de Palacio, the European Union's energy commissioner, said in Spain that Europe might have to reconsider its strategy if Russia doesn't ratify the treaty.

The EU strategy is to march blindly forward with the Kyoto accord, requiring stabilization of greenhouse-gas emissions at 1990 levels, and to hope the rest of the industrial world blindly follows.

Much of the rest of the world, however, questions the need. The US won't ratify the treaty. Unless Russia ratifies it, which officials have indicated won't happen, Kyoto won't take effect.

Individual EU members—Spain among them—sensibly worry about the high costs of compliance.

Palacio's statements in Spain did nothing more than assert the obvious. If Europe pursues Kyoto goals by itself, European industries will bear heavy costs not shared by non-European competitors.

For daring to express reality, the energy commissioner drew the wrath of her colleagues.

Margot Wallstrom, the EU's environment commissioner, called Palacio's statement a "disgrace" and complained that she had acted "disloyally."

One of Wallstrom's associates, quoted in the Financial Time, explained her distress like this: "By talking about changing our position or speculating on Kyoto not coming into force, she [Palacio] is taking the pressure off Russia."

So goes European debate about climate change.

Science, in Europe, begins and ends with computer modeling central to findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Because IPCC extrapolations say that average global temperature might rise in this century and that some of the increase might result from human activity, official Europe asserts there to be scientific consensus about a threat and concentrates on implementation and enforcement of a flawed response. Disagreement becomes disgrace. Debate becomes not a path to enlightenment but a tool of pressure.

The subject of climate change deserves serious study—more than computer modeling—and fair debate. Official Europe should quit trying to foreclose this process.

Palacio issued a realistic warning about the growing likelihood that the world won't follow Europe over the Kyoto cliff. That's no disgrace. That's public service.

(Author's e-mail: [email protected])