Kyoto signatures

Patrick Crow
Washington, D.C.
[email protected]

The United Nations opened the Kyoto global warming treaty last week and got six signatory nations, Argentina being the largest.

A signature lays the groundwork for a nation's later ratification.

The treaty would take effect 3 months after ratification by 55 nations that participated in the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, if those 55 include industrialized nations that produced 55% of the 1990 emissions.

Last week, Raul Estrada Oyuela, who chaired the Kyoto negotiations, said he hopes to revive a plan at the next global warming meeting, Nov. 2-13 in Buenos Aires, that would allow developing countries to agree voluntarily to binding emissions limits.

Estrada, formerly Argentina's ambassador to China, said negotiations at the next meeting will center on methods to trade emissions allowances among nations.

But he added that the trading system, a keystone of the Clinton administration's global warming policy, may be phased out after 8 years due to worries that it would tend to perpetuate emissions from industrialized nations.

U.S. ratification

The two key nations in the ratification process are clearly the U.S. and China.

The U.S. produces a third of the emissions from industrialized nations, and it wants the participation of China, which is due to become the world's top source of emissions within 20 years.

Estrada said, "Nobody believes the U.S. is going to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in the first 2 years," but he added that the U.S. Senate might do so as early as 2001.

The Global Climate Change Coalition, a U.S. group that includes oil associations, said the protocol would require the U.S. to cut energy use by 30% and carbon emissions by about 40% in a little more than 10 years.

Gail McDonald, GCCC president, said the Clinton administration has admitted in congressional hearings that the protocol is a "work in progress" because it does not commit developing nations, with more than 50% of current emissions, to reductions.

"This so called 'work in progress' is not good enough to risk millions of American jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars.

"With each passing day, it becomes more apparent that the stringent targets and timetables agreed to in Kyoto are unrealistic and impractical. We urge the President to reject the treaty, start over, and work closely with the Congress."

Independents wary

Gil Thurm, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said last week, "The so-called 'global warming' debate is really interesting. For a long time, the Clinton administration was talking about global warming. Now, if you listen to them carefully, you'll hear they're talking about global climate change.

"One of the reasons they're doing that is that they are starting to find out, like we've been arguing for a long time, that the earth is warming at times and cooling at times, and they're starting to learn from scientists that there is a warming and cooling cycle.

"Now instead of talking about global warming and scaring folks about that issue alone, they're trying to cover all bases, so whether it cools or warms, there is some kind of global climate change and, obviously, it's our fault. That sort of nonsense has to stop."