Tuesday, December 2nd, 1997
By Lee Poston
Daily Diary Archives
Waiting for Goredot
Greetings from the Big Chill, where not only did the temperature outside
drop significantly today, but the heat and lights in the media and
environmental groups' hall was suddenly turned down as well. It's either
an effort by the Conference Center to make us suffer to save energy, or a
plot by the oil and coal industry to get us to change our tune on global
warming.
The big news of the day was the announcement by US President Bill Clinton
that Vice President Al Gore will be dispatched to Kyoto for an eight-hour
whirlwind visit to the negotiations. Reports are that his limousine will
remain idling at the curb while he makes a speech and meets with some
delegations. He won't supplant the current negotiating team, which is
headed by Stuart Eizenstat of the State Department, who replaced
Undersecretary of StateTimothy Wirth just over a week ago, when Wirth
announced he will head Ted Turner's new billion-dollar United Nations
foundation.
Climate Chronicler, Andrew Kerr, said he expected two weeks ago that Gore
would attend. Hopefully to deliver a revised or improved US position. Three
reasons for this. In past international talks on acid rain and the hole in
the ozone layer, the US has never laid all its cards on the table right at
the start. And would President Clinton actually be prepared to embarrass
his friends, the leaders of the German and UK governments, who have much
more progressive positions? OK, perhaps. But more importantly, according to
an analysis done for WWF by respected US energy analysts, America could cut
its carbon dioxide emissions 10% below the 1990 level by 2005 and double
that by 2010 while savings billions of dollars on energy bills. We won't
know until Monday morning exactly what new ideas Gore has in his briefcase.
WWF's communications staff was thrilled today to learn that the previous
day's press conference resulted in widespread international coverage, with
Michael 'the Unknown Comic' Rae of WWF-Australia featured prominently in
many stories. Michael is currently experimenting with shopping
paraphanalia other than paper bags to wear as headgear.
On the negotiating front, there were heated discussions today about QELROs
- no, not a New Age band playing to sold out audiences throughout Inner
Mongolia! Actually, this wonderful acronym stands for Quantified Emissions
Limitation and Reduction Objectives. Basically, these are the targets and
timetables for emission reductions that industrialized countries have to
agree on here. They would form the heart of the Kyoto protocol that
hopefully will be signed at the end of the conference. The latest proposal
floating around is for countries to meet any targets not in a fixed year
but averaged over a period of years. WWF says that the shorter the period,
the less open it is to possible abuse and the sooner the period starts the
better, if we are to avoid dangerous levels of global warming.
Canada has finally announced its position. Sadly, it aims to only shave
its greenhouse gas output by a mere three percent by 2010 and five percent
by 2015. And it wants to give itself maximum leeway by including emissions
trading, joint implementation, as well as credit for exports of natural gas
and nuclear power as ways of avoiding cutting emissions at home. The
proposal is another in a lengthening line of disappointments.
'Sinks' also became a burning issue today with time running out to meet
the chairman's cut-off of Tuesday evening to bring together rival
proposals. This is not a diversion into bathroom equipment but the proposal
by countries including the USA, Australia, and New Zealand to rely on
vegetation to absorb some of their carbon emissions. But yesterday the
former head of the most authoritative intergovernmental scientific panel on
climate change warned the meeting that the science on sinks is still
desperately uncertain. WWF is not alone in arguing that it's too early to
include sinks at all if Kyoto is going to be a water-tight agreement which
can be easily policed. Against the best advice, some countries still
persist in arguing for sinks to be included. The only conclusion we can
draw is that they are raising the issue to torpedo a strong outcome here.
Well that's all for today. It's taken so long to write this Climate
Chronicle, that it's begun snowing outside. In tomorrow's edition, we'll
summarize the results of the official European Commission documents and
answer the burning question -- "How will the EU meet its greenhouse gas
targets?"