DEFINING EVENTS, COMMITMENTS & CONSTRAINTS

In October 1993, President Clinton released his Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), which proposed several policies and voluntary measures to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions domestically. Not only did this delineate U.S. plans to achieve emissions stabilization as stipulated under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC), but it also reflected the Administration’s own goals to stabilize U.S. emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. ⁽⁸⁰⁾ Four years later, in December 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted at the third Conference of the Parties (COP-3) of the UN FCCC. After eleven days of tense negotiations, history was made when the U.S. along with other Parties for the first time faced the threat of global climate change dead on by setting legally-binding commitments to reduce global emissions for industrialized (Annex I) countries. In fact, discussions were so intense that the Kyoto Protocol was not agreed to until one day after the official session ended. In the final agreement, Annex I countries committed collectively to reduce global emissions of the six different greenhouse gases by an average of 5.3% of 1990 levels by the commitment period, namely 2008 to 2012. With 1990 as the baseline, the U.S. agreed to a target of 7% reductions, while the European Union and Japan, for instance, agreed to 8% and 6% reductions, respectively. Aware of a likely free-rider problem, the parties also committed to making demonstrable progress by the year 2005.

However, since this historic December 1997 meeting, in the words of the Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, "The President has made clear that he will not submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate without meaningful participation from key developing countries." ⁽⁸¹⁾ Interestingly, the wording "meaningful participation" comes directly from a Senate resolution, namely S.Res. 98 the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which was meant, like a brick through a White House window, to give a strong message to the Clinton Administration. Co-sponsored by 60 Senators, the Byrd-Hagel Resolution passed overwhelmingly (95-0) on July 12, 1992. Since then, the Senate’s Republican majority may have weakened slightly after the November 1998 midterm elections, but its Kyoto Protocol warning still rings loud and clear.

The Kyoto Protocol is based on the principle that those most responsible historically (for GHG emissions) should be the first to make cuts in their current emissions. Based on this principle, we should be first in line. The United States has 4% of the world’s population, but nonetheless spews 20% of all human-caused greenhouse gases. However, by some estimates, developing countries will contribute the majority of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030. The U.S. has thus stressed the principle of basic fairness, i.e. that all countries should do their part, either voluntarily or through binding targets. Yet, at the recent meeting in Buenos Aires (COP-4), developing nations, led by China, refused to even allow on the agenda any discussion of voluntary quotas for poorer nations (i.e. non-Annex I). ⁽⁸²⁾ As a part of the Kyoto Protocol, CDM would permit relatively low-cost emission reductions, in less developed countries and newly industrialized countries, to be internationally recognized substitutions for more expensive reductions at home.

Although CDM is as yet poorly defined, the Kyoto Protocol would in principal count the net emission effects from at least four LUCF activities: afforestation, reforestation, the prevention of deforestation, and increasing the storage capacity of carbon sinks through improved forest health and growth potential. Very preliminary estimates indicate that carbons sinks could comprise a significant portion of total reductions required for the U.S. — for example, decreasing required emissions by 10% ⁽⁸³⁾ would likely result in cost savings greater than 10%. Whether sponsored by government or private groups, activities such as tree planting can help increase the activities qualifying as allowable sinks.

CDM is essential to Kyoto in many ways. First and foremost, it is the one of the few viable ways that we have to convince the U.S. Senate that there will be "meaningful participation" by developing countries. CDM is also key to the Administration’s overall strategy of minimizing costs of emission reductions, including market-based trading. However, the Senate may remain unimpressed, since non-Annex I countries would still not be compelled to make voluntary or binding overall emissions reductions on their own. CDM admittedly "cannot realistically be expected to yield all the gains of binding targets for developing countries, but it might shave costs by roughly 20-25% from the reduced costs that result from trading among Annex I countries." ⁽⁸⁴⁾

Now, the Clinton Administration is caught been the proverbial rock and a hard place. What makes their predicament all the more tense is Gore’s carefully-crafted environmentalist credentials coinciding with his likely Presidential run in November 2000. The historical context of this is illuminating. The road to the current climate change treaty began at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where then-President Bush signed the UN FCCC, which was soon after ratified by the Senate. But Bush was not left to bask in this environmentalist glow. With the Rio Earth Summit held in the midst of the 1992 U.S. Presidential election campaign, Gore did not miss his cue to travel to Rio and lambaste Bush for adopting too weak a stand by only going so far as to agree to voluntary reductions by the year 2000, postponing modest binding targets until 2010. This tongue-lashing took place in the presence of no better witnesses than the international media and so, of course, it would come back to haunt him. Ironically, the Clinton/Gore Administration’s current middle of the road option is essentially the same — voluntary measures for now and binding emissions reductions to 1990 levels by 2010 or sooner.

 

 

KEY PLAYERS

There are several key players with important stakes and influence to leverage as we progress toward formalizing commitments and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. The major players include: us, of course, the "Big Seven" environmental groups; the Clinton/Gore Administration; Congress, specifically the Senate; and industry groups, particularly the Global Change Coalition ⁽⁸⁵⁾ (GCC) and the Global Climate Information Project (GCIP) of the Small Business Survival Committee. ⁽⁸⁶⁾ Among key players in the critical second tier, we have the "experts", meaning economists, who have formed opinions about the net cost/benefit of climate change mitigation, and the scientific community, represented primarily by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) augmented by a small group of dissenting scientists, typically backed by certain fossil-fuel producers’ and users’ groups, conservative think tanks, and/or other pro-development interests; organized labor, which is a minor but potentially pivotal player; and, last but certainly not least, public opinion, both perceived and real.

Given the serious stakes of global climate change, our ideal target is binding and effective implementation of significant GHG emission reductions by 2005. However, given other interest groups and the status of the process to date, our realistic goal is ratification of the Kyoto Protocol as is, without any further weakening or U.S. industry loopholes.

A. The Clinton/Gore Administration

In order to evaluate the most likely net impact of the Kyoto Protocol, excluding the virtually immeasurable benefits of mitigating climate change itself, the Administration has consulted with countless esteemed experts and drawn upon a variety of tools to assess the myriad possible costs and non-climate benefits to its emission reduction policy. Their conclusions lead directly to their chosen strategy and policy emphasis, "The net costs of our policies to reduce emissions are likely to be small, assuming those reductions are undertaken in an efficient manner and we are successful in securing meaningful development country participation as well as effective international trading, and the Clean Development Mechanism in future negotiations." ⁽⁸⁷⁾ The core of the U.S. Administrations position is:

(1) reliance on flexible, market-based mechanisms domestically,

(2) international trading and joint implementation among Annex I countries,

(3) CDM,

(4) meaningful developing country participation,

(5) potential cost-mitigating role of including all six greenhouse gases and carbon sinks,

(6) benefits of restructuring the U.S. electricity sector (assumes that increased competition will drive down fuel consumption by forcing companies to use more fuel-efficient methods of electricity generation), and

(7) additional emission reductions achieved as a consequence of other proposed Administration climate change initiatives (e.g. tax credits, government partnership with construction industry to reduce energy consumption in new homes by 50%).

In essence, the Administration has chosen to emphasize flexibility to achieve U.S. emission targets, stressing that there are many ways to minimize the costs of emissions reductions and that, especially in light of these cost-minimizing mechanisms, "the economic impact of the Protocol will be modest." ⁽⁸⁸⁾ It is unclear whether this strategy is a cause or an effect of industry’s economic catastrophe propaganda campaign or merely a serendipitous coincidence.

However, the Administration is playing a dangerous balancing act. While it clearly supports Kyoto and treaty ratification, it must also deal with the constraints of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution and is not willing to risk another policy failure, like health care reform, especially not while en route to the critical Gore 2000 Presidential election campaign. In typical Clinton/Gore fashion, the Administration is pursuing a high-risk strategy trying to maximize support and please everyone, rather than build key coalitions and minimize or weaken the opposition. Without pressure from environmental groups, the Administration might even attempt to delay meaningful action on the Kyoto Protocol until 2001, i.e. during the first 100 days (honeymoon window) of the Gore Administration.

B. The Sausage Factory (aka Congress)

The Byrd-Hagel Resolution (B-H) sent a clear message to the Administration, but one that should not be seen as an impossible hurdle. In essence, this non-binding resolution, adopted some five months before COP-3, urged U.S. negotiators not to allow unbalanced commitments to come out of any agreements negotiated in Kyoto. The fact that it passed 95-0 made it unambiguous. Unfortunately, this reality was not shifted significantly by the November elections in which the Democrats actually gained a seat in the Senate instead of losing ground as had been predicted. ⁽⁸⁹⁾

B-H was one of many clear and unambiguous warnings from the Senate that it would not ratify any treaty that proposes new (i.e. post-2000) commitments for the United States if those commitments were not uniform and binding for all parties whether they are industrialized countries, economies in transition, or developing. This fairness theme was subsequently echoed by U.S. negotiators at Kyoto and again in front of an even less sympathetic audience at COP-4 last month in Buenos Aires.

In addition, B-H expressed the Senate’s concerns about "inadequate analysis of potential impacts on the US. economy and lack of scientific evaluation on the potential environmental benefits that might be achieved." ⁽⁹⁰⁾ Since the Administration still has not provided adequate, thorough cost-benefit analyses to the Congress, this second admonition may, in the long run, become a greater hurdle than so-called meaningful participation by developing countries. In practice, the Senate will not ratify a treaty for which it has no substantive supporting data.

In the course of deliberations over Kyoto and proposed emissions reductions commitments, the Senate also raised the questions of whether funding for existing Federal programs that have been previously authorized can be construed as contributing to, or "contemplating" the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, whether the EPA has the authority under existing law to promulgate rules on emissions of greenhouse gases, and whether funding at scientific agencies for global climate change research was being directed to enhance knowledge about global climate change or to fund studies that attempt to advance a specific policy agenda. In part due to a successful lobbying effort by environmental groups, in the end the House voted not to restrict funding for EPA to educate the American people about Kyoto issues. However, part of 1999 Foreign Ops Appropriations Bill (Section 572) requires a detailed accounting of any plans for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol in FY1998 and FY1999.

Looking forward to future prospects for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, we have found the "1998 National Environmental Scorecard" ⁽⁹¹⁾ , put together by the League of Conservation Voters, to be very useful. Noting that we must obtain the votes of 67 Senators for successful ratification, we must sadly note that LCV gave 27 Senators a 0% rating — a dismal record indeed! A 0% rating means that they did not support a single one of several key environmental legislation votes during the entire 105^th Congress. Recent sins aside, even if they gave no support to any of the eight bills LCV tabulated for the Second Session, a 0% score could still have been avoided if they had voted for the environment on any of the several bills rated by LCV during the First Session. Hence, Senators with a 0% rating present slim to no chance of voting in favor of ratification regardless of strategies, compromises, or timing.

In addition, we must count on a few unexpected defectors among the remaining 73 Senators, since many got low, but non-zero, LCV scores based upon voting in favor of barely-related environmental legislation -- such as international family planning funding, selling of public lands, or transfer of public lands to a bombing range — which have weak predictive links with global climate change issues. Also, of the four Republican seats which changed hands as a result of the midterm elections, only one was previously rated at 0% by the LCV. Although it is doubtful that any of the four new Democratic Senators will be anti-environment, it is possible, if not probable, that three or four of the new Republicans will earn 0% on future LCV scorecards. The lesson of this story is that we must convince all Senators with any environmental conscience that Kyoto ratification is a must vote. A possible strategy to accomplish this is to hammer home recent public opinion polls, which show overwhelming public support for a climate change treaty, and drown out the shrill anti-Kyoto rhetoric of domestic industry groups.

C. Domestic Industry Groups

American industry opponents to the Kyoto Protocol are led primarily by the Global Climate Coalition and the Global Climate Information Project — both of whose titles conspicuously lack the word "change". These groups have literally spent millions on anti-Kyoto ads. These industry groups "are spending US$13 million in an advertising blitz (including our video) that attempts to overwhelm and ultimately confuse the public." ⁽⁹²⁾ However, unlike their organization names, their ads notably do not attack science of global warming. Why not? "When industry claims there is no global warming, people think of the tobacco industry saying cigarettes don’t cause cancer." ⁽⁹³⁾ Instead, domestic industry groups are promoting a dual message: (a) reducing emissions in the U.S. will cause economic catastrophe and (b) the treaty is unfair. Given some perspective, the public should know that economic catastrophe cannot really be a rational projection when, on average, energy constitutes only 2.2 % of total costs to U.S. industry. ⁽⁹⁴⁾ However, their job is not to inform or give perspective, but rather to confuse and worry the public. Furthermore, in their eyes, the fairness issue is not adequately addressed by CDM or any other non-binding developing country participation, primarily because emissions trading is inherently unrealistic, will lead to intrusive bureaucracies, and will amount to a complex "shell game." ⁽⁹⁵⁾

The Shell-Game Critique

GCIP has adamantly argued that even though the Administration is promoting the flexible, cost-minimizing effects of market-based systems, these emissions trading systems, in fact, have "very little to do with markets." ⁽⁹⁶⁾ GCIP claims that the Administration deliberately chose to design its emissions reduction strategies around these systems, rather than the more direct alternative of an energy tax or a gas tax, in order to hide the true cost of emission reductions from consumers, thereby implying that the costs of Kyoto commitments to American consumers are higher, and perhaps more politically costly, than the Administration has let on. Their criticism centers around the argument that, much like other forms of regulation, the exact costs of the Kyoto Protocol would remain a mystery to consumers, who would nonetheless be paying in the form of lost GDP, lost jobs and increased costs. Industry groups also argue that commitments to reduce emissions, which form the core of the Kyoto Protocol, would create impossible compliance goals, which according to Raymond Keating, Chief Economist of the Small Business Survival Committee, "would require either a massive international environmental police-like force sticking their noses into private-sector and public-sector ventures nation by nation, or extensive domestic regulation under the assumption that each nation will be equally faithful and efficient in their monitoring activities." ⁽⁹⁷⁾

(Dis)Information Discrediting Climate Change

While a strong consensus in the scientific community has consistently backed the concept of climate change, the popular media has happily fed upon a backlash from a small, but vocal handful of dissenting scientists. Upon closer inspection, these dissenting scientists are invariably backed by certain fossil-fuel producers' and users' groups, conservative think tanks, and other interests committed to "business as usual" no matter what the risks. The skeptics generally recycle long-discredited objections to the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change. Their disinformation has found a ready audience among glib conservative columnists, who lack the will or the capacity to evaluate these arguments but not the confidence to make ringing declarations about who is right. For instance, the "Global Warming Petition" circulated over the name of Dr. Frederick Seitz, is said to have gained the signatures of "nearly 17,000 US scientists". This petition has long since been recognized in the serious scientific community as a farce. The signatories are listed in the petition without title, affiliation, area of expertise, or any other means to check the signers' credentials as scientists or even their existence. Indeed, among the names offered can be found the author John Grisham, several doctors from the TV series "MASH", and a Spice Girl. ⁽⁹⁸⁾

Even the prestigious, non-political IPCC has been dragged into the media mud, when in mid-1996, the Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed by Dr. Seitz, entitled "A Major Deception on Global Warming." The WSJ was likely fooled by Seitz’s impressive scientific credentials, which include recipient of the National Medal of Science and past President of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society. However, all that being said, Seitz is not a climate scientist, but a physicist, and so when he accused IPCC scientists of the most "disturbing corruption of the peer review process" ⁽⁹⁹⁾ he had ever witnessed, the IPCC quickly responded with a strong letter cosigned by some 40 IPCC officials and scientists. But, for the average newspaper reader and for all the other media that picked up on Sietz’s original attack, the damage had already been done. Still fuming over the Seitz Op-Ed, IPCC scientists Paul Edwards and Stephen Schneider explained, "news stories are grossly misleading and irresponsible if they present the unrefered opinions of contrarians as if they were comparable in credibility to the hundred-scientists, thousand-reviewer documents released by the IPCC." ⁽¹⁰⁰⁾

D. Minor, But Potentially Pivotal, Players --The "Experts" and Organized Labor

The preceding section reinforced the old adage that the exception proves the rule. The rule in this case is that the scientific community has overwhelmingly accepted the now famous claim, presented in Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report, that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on climate." However, Edwards and Schneider took care to point out that this

… reflects a lowest-common-denominator consensus view of the vast majority of scientists. It does not say that a climate warming signal has been detected beyond any doubt. Neither we nor any other responsible scientists would make such a claim. But it does offer good reason to begin to plan, responsibly, for the possibility — which we now see as more likely than not — that the global climate will warm by at least one or two degrees during the next 50 years. ⁽¹⁰¹⁾

An economic consensus is also developing, in 1997 more than 2,500 economists, including eight Nobel laureates, signed a statement declaring, "Sound economic analysis shows there are policy options that would slow climate change without harming American living standards, and these measures may in fact improve U.S. productivity in the long-run." ⁽¹⁰²⁾ This "no regrets" approach implies that the large, but inherently immeasurable benefits from climate change mitigation are supplemented by other benefits to society, such as lower input costs from better fuel-efficiencies, which also result from emission reduction programs. This concept can also be explained in economic terms by graphically displaying the level of abatement against economic costs. In this case, some argue that part of the marginal cost curve would be below zero. There would be negative marginal costs (i.e. net societal benefits) up to a certain level of abatement. Lending support to this thinking, experts at five national laboratories, managed by the Department of Energy, found that "a third of the emission reductions necessary to return to 1990 levels by 2010 could be achieved through the adoption of existing energy-efficient technologies at no net resource cost, or even some savings." ⁽¹⁰³⁾ The National Academy of Sciences reached qualitatively similar conclusions in a 1992 report. ⁽¹⁰⁴⁾

Lastly, we must not forget the importance of organized labor, especially since their rallying calls against a 1997 extension of fast-track authority, effectively stopped Administration negotiation of further free trade agreements dead in their tracks and confirmed the power of unions. Unfortunately, U.S. labor unions include some reactionary elements, such as the Industrial Union Department of the AFL-CIO, which opposes any treaty that causes any job losses. However, leaders of the AFL-CIO and other large unions generally do not want to see organized labor oppose environmentalist causes and are hoping to adopt a two-part stand: support a climate change treaty and demand meaningful aid for displaced workers. Although, to date, they have still not come out with a formal position, this seems the most likely scenario.

E. Public Opinion

Referring to an October 1998 poll which showed overwhelming bipartisan public support for taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Adam Markham, director of WWF's Climate Change Campaign, said "These large and growing numbers show that, despite a well financed misinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry, most Americans know that global warming is a serious problem and they want to see their government take the lead in resolving it." ⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ Although we have not yet been able to obtain direct polling data from the WWF, their press release summarized the results of the recent poll:

-- Nearly 8 out of 10 Americans support the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and a strong majority believes the United States should cut its greenhouse gas emissions even if other countries do not. A national survey of 1,000 registered voters found that a growing majority of the electorate is concerned about global warming and wants to see Washington take the lead in responding to this pervasive environmental threat.

-- By political affiliation, 84 % of the Democrats, 79 % of the independents and 73 % of the Republicans surveyed said they would support a treaty to reduce CO₂ emissions.

-- More than one-third of the voters surveyed -- 34 % -- said they thought the Kyoto Protocol should be strengthened, while 66 % said the US should act unilaterally to reduce domestic CO₂ emissions, regardless of what other countries do. An even larger majority -- 71 % -- said they disapproved of Congressional efforts to block the EPA from implementing domestic carbon pollution reduction programs.

-- Perhaps most importantly, 75 % of those surveyed said they would be willing to pay $10 more per month in their electricity bills to purchase clean energy such as solar or wind power from their utility companies; 64 % said they would pay $20 per month more. ⁽¹⁰⁶⁾

But there is bad news along with the good. Industry groups recently came out with a poll of their own. According to the GCC, "a new public opinion poll of people who voted in the Nov. 3 elections shows that 6 out of 10 are opposed to implementing the Kyoto Protocol, because of the high costs it would impose on the U.S. economy…. 68% favored more emphasis on research and 71% support accelerated voluntary efforts to restrain greenhouse gas emissions." ⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ However, given how poorly their previous tactics have held up against scrutiny, we doubt the results of this supposed poll can refute our own. However, without a closer look at the WWF polling data, we cannot confirm or deny a bias against non-respondents, meaning that responses might be biased in favor the Kyoto Protocol if only because those who knew what it was and what it entailed, and therefore could answer the question, were more likely to support it. A non-response error could mean that those who might not understand the concepts embedded in the questions might only be tabulated non-respondents, when in reality they might strongly oppose emissions reductions as prescribed by the Kyoto Protocol. A closer look at the WWF polling data is therefore warranted.