The Hague Climate Conference

Impressions of the North American Press Coverage

Benito Müller

Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies (OIES)

For those who did not stay until the very end, the picture emerging from the Western press coverage of the final two days at the recent climate change conference is intriguing, in every sense of the word. And it is not the European reporting which delivered the element of surprise. Indeed, the European scene was rather all-too predictable: British tabloids bashing the French, French broad-sheets being indignant, German papers environmentally outraged, and almost all of them blaming the Americans. No, from the point of view of this European observer, the surprise was to be found across the Atlantic.

So what exactly happened in the ‘closed-door talks held in sterile, fluorescent-lighted cubicles used by delegates as offices' in these last days and hours before the suspension of the Conference? Nobody will ever know the whole picture, so let me just try to piece together the story as told in two of Americas biggest metropolitan dailies, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.

The story, it thus seems, is of Frank Loy’s bending over backwards in trying to compromise, Jürgen Trittin’s intransigent Green ideology, and the good services of John Prescott. Yet this is by no means where North American press coverage ends. Let me begin with a look at North America’s junior partner in the informal negotiating alliance known as ‘Umbrella Group’ - USA, Japan, Canada, Australia.

Canadian Impressions

Among the three leading national Canadian dailies covered in this survey, it was the smallest one (the National Post) which least challenged my expectations by indulging in the all too familiar climate change denial and UN vilification.^* Naturally, I did not expect all Canadian reporting to be in this vein. But I equally did not expect what I actually did come across.

Not only did Canada’s largest daily, the Toronto Star, carry almost 30 articles on The Hague, but their content was unexpectedly self-critical: In No easy way out for polluters like Canada, for example, The Star's economics editor told his readers not merely that ‘there was widespread agreement that the United States and Canada were going too far ... in an effort to avoid doing anything significant at home to become more energy efficient and adopt new forms of energy production,’ and that ‘Canada, between now and next May, has a lot of work to do to improve its action plan to achieve our Kyoto commitments in a more responsible way.’

But the same soul-searching attitude prevailed in the Toronto based Globe and Mail. The commentaries continued many days after the suspension of the Conference and their substance was also at complete variance with the reporting of the Post. For one, the Globe and Mail readers were unequivocally reminded that ‘the Canadian climate has already begun changing because of greenhouse gases’ and that ‘it is worth remembering that The Hague was a failure of diplomacy, not science.’ Moreover, Canada is referred to as being ‘shamed,’ as ‘balking on reducing greenhouse gasses,’ and - in an article entitled Environmentally, Canada's going the way of the dinosaur - as playing a ‘leading role in making sure that the climate summit in The Hague was a complete disaster’

Finally, far from being blamed for ideological intransigence, the European Union is generally portrayed as guarantor of environmental integrity vis-à-vis North American loophole-seekers.

The Great American Divide: Public versus Congressional Opinion

Turning my attention to the senior partner at the Umbrella Group, I was even more perplexed to find that almost all of the top 25 metropolitan dailies in the US had actually reported from The Hague (the exceptions being New York Post, Tampa Tribune, and the Indianapolis Star). When I started reading the coverage, I almost reassuringly stumbled across an old faithful, The Washington Times, for I was perplexed by the language I came across in the other papers. A widely syndicated New York Times article, for example, began with the words:

What is one to make of this sort of language? For one, we should be careful not to jump to conclusions, in particular as concerns possible implications about public opinion on the subject matter. By itself, we cannot strictly speaking infer anything about the public mood in the US - although it would be odd to find such wide-spread newspaper opinion to be diametrically opposed to the views of their customers.

Public opinion on these matters can, of course, be - and actually has been - gauged directly by way of opinion surveys, such as the one carried out on behalf of the Washington-based Pew Centre for Global Climate Change:

In conjunction with these findings, I take the language used in the majority of US press coverage of The Hague as significant corroboration of my suspicion that there is really a divide between public opinion on climate change mitigation and the antagonism publicly professed on Capitol Hill. The reason why this discrepancy has not yet resulted in significant grassroots pressures on Congress to change its mind may well be - as reported by Bill Mc Kibben - that climate change has not reached sufficient prominence in the public eye.

However, as I have recently argued elsewhere, there may be a way in which these potential grassroots pressures might be activated, namely through the public realisation of potential regional climate change impacts – a realisation which I felt may be fostered by studies such as the recent Report of the National Assessment Synthesis Team (NAST) on Climate Change Impacts on the United States. In searching the archives of the various papers, I was hence understandably excited to find a practical instance of this sort of grassroots pressure in a Detroit Free Press editorial entitled: Knollenberg view puts Great Lakes at risk.

Did Rep. Knollenberg care? Difficult to say from across the Atlantic, but he did reply immediately protesting his being ‘deeply concerned about our environment and in particular the Great Lakes,’ and his taking ‘seriously the impact that any global climate change could have on ecosystems and our way of life.’

Business Sector Reactions

When Margaret Orgill tells her readers - in Climate Pact Fiasco Leaves Business Awaiting Rules^* - about the view of many companies that ‘the international fight against global warming will provide big growth opportunities,’ and that the failure to reach consensus at The Hague ‘has dashed business hopes for clear rules over potentially lucrative technology transfer to the developing world,’ it is not particularly surprising that the spokesman of the International Chamber of Commerce would agree with her (‘Business is disappointed with the outcome ... We came here expecting a decision which would have clarified the rules and guidelines of the Kyoto Protocol’). But it is truly remarkable - even if ‘the lure of profits has helped change corporate attitudes to tackling climate change since the Kyoto summit’ - to find Glenn Kelly, executive director of the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) lamenting that ‘American businesses looking for the rules of the road under the Kyoto protocol have been left high and dry’ Could the GCC’s road to The Hague possibly have been via Damascus? Or could it simply be that, since its heyday at Kyoto,

Rep. Knollenberg, for one, is clearly sensitive to the business potential of the Kyoto Protocol (why else would he wish to state explicitly that ‘the language [of his multiple budget riders] does not ... restrict in any way the transfer of energy technology to developing countries’?) The problem is that he seems to want to have his cake and eat it: i.e. to reap the profits from the sale of technology under the Protocol mechanisms without implementing the Protocol itself (‘My language protects the Constitution and the taxpayer by restricting any federal spending aimed at implementing the flawed Kyoto Protocol.’) If so, this would come uncomfortably close to the sort of behaviour which elsewhere I felt obliged to refer to as ‘climate change profiteering.’

Conclusions

• The ‘Cultural Gap’

So who or what was responsible for the outcome of The Hague? According to French environment minister Dominique Voynet, for one, ‘the breakdown reflected a significant cultural gap between the United States and Europe in how they approach economic and social policies. Voynet said the United States places much of its faith in free-market methods that in France would be deemed "the law of the jungle," whereas she noted Europe tends to put more emphasis on regulatory and fiscal methods. "These differences account for why our positions were so radically antagonistic," she said.’

Frank Loy, by contrast, ‘"felt very frustrated by a lot of the stereotypical thinking we encountered here about our country. ... Sure, we may be the world's biggest polluter, but that does not tell you how we are making important progress in reducing our growth of emissions, which is now moving at a rate below that of most European countries. It was troubling to see how some of our partners ignore some fundamental realities."’

Not having been there in these final hours, I am obviously unable to provide an insider analysis of the events leading up to the suspension of the conference, but sometimes a view from outside can also have its merits. And, I’m afraid to say, from this outsider’s vantage point, the European contribution to the events looked rather more like an instance of the proverbial ‘too many cooks,’ than one of some philosophico-cultural gap. Frank Loy was by no means the only one who ended up with eggs on his face, although his turned out to be less metaphorical than others, and it is a good idea if EU member states were to agree on positions and negotiating strategies (how far to compromise) before the final round and to let the final negotiation be carried out by a single Party:

As concerns Mr Loy’s frustration, it may help in overcoming the lamented lack of mutual understanding to point out that a willingness to accept as little as 13 per cent of one’s original demand can be interpreted not only as bending over backwards at championship limbo-dancing levels, but also as having made an initial demand which not even audacious bazaar traders would dare making for fear of affronting their counterparts. Making large concessions in this situation - even if the original demand was made with the best of intentions (placating the Senate) - are likely not be counted as bona fide compromises, but simply as confirmation of having tried to ‘pull a fast one’ in the first place.

• Concessions to US Demands

‘"Nations can only negotiate abroad what they believe they can ratify at home, "Loy said, referring to the need to win two-thirds approval in the U.S. Senate for any global warming treaty. "The United States is not in the business of signing up to agreements it knows it cannot fulfil. We don't make promises we can't keep."’

Nobody can sensibly take issue with this statement by the head of the US delegation at COP6. And personally, I am convinced that what some over-here may have regarded as outrageous demands were made in good faith in the belief that the Senate could not be mollified with anything less. But this coin too has two sides. Concessions for the purpose of enabling a ratification are made in exchange for the promise that, with the concession, there is at least a reasonable chance for the treaty to be ratified. When faced with a demand for such an ‘enabling concession,’ the key question for those asked to concede thus has to be whether this promise could actually be kept?

When facing US demands for enabling concessions, one would be well-advised to keep in mind Congress’s currently undiminished demand for ‘meaningful participation’ of developing countries, in particular China, India and Brazil. As this demand is primarily driven by worries about ‘unfair’ competitive disadvantages, it is highly unlikely that Republican stalwarts and fervent Kyoto opponents like Joe Knollenberg (House Committee on Appropriations), and Jesse Helms (Chair, Senate Foreign Relations Committee) might be moved to change their minds about the ‘flawed’ Protocol in the absence of developing countries taking on (‘grandfathering’-type) reduction targets in the relevant first commitment period. Given the distribution of responsibility for anthropogenic climate change, this of course is morally completely unacceptable and simply a non-starter. Furthermore, Congress has only limited time to deal with environmental legislation, and it is very likely to give priority to such domestic issues as the re-authorisation of ‘Superfund’ (CERCLA) and the Endangered Species Act.

In the short run, it is thus most unlikely that the US delegation might be able to convince Congress to ratify the Protocol, regardless of any concessions they might obtain short of a de facto elimination of their Annex B target. And fudging the US target to the extent which would presently be required for Congress even to look at the Protocol would inevitably kill any developing country support for the Protocol – at least as tool for the industrialised countries to demonstrate the leadership demanded by the developing world as prerequisite to any further reaching participation.

This is not to say that US participation is unimportant, on the contrary. All I suggest is that we should heed Frank Loy’s plea and not ignore the ‘fundamental reality’ that - concessions or no concessions - early US ratification of a text with a chance of coming into force is actually most unlikely. In order to be able to participate in the Convention process more meaningfully in the medium to long term, the US will need to strengthen the hand of its delegation at home by trying to convince Congress that the Kyoto Protocol is worth ratifying as a first concrete step in the climate regime under the Convention.

I am quite aware that this may be easier said than done. But I do not believe it to be impossible. One might, for example, try to explain that - because of trade effects, in particular on crude oil imports - the national economy will suffer much less than is often quoted by opponents of the Protocol. But this may not be all too effective, as many Congressmen will be more swayed by local and secotral economic concerns connected with their constituencies than by overall effects on the national economy. Some members of Congress may be swayed if they are told about the real progress in emission control already happening in developing countries (in particular in China, the main bone of Congressional contention). Others may be persuaded by some gentle lobbying from the emerging climate change sector (although, additional incentives to avoid the temptation of profiteering may be required). Probably the most effective means to influence Congressional opinion is by way of the sort of grassroots pressures witnessed above from Detroit: few elected officials are immune to pressure from their constituency.

• How to proceed.

What is needed at the end of COP6 (Part II) is a text which is ratifiable by sufficiently many parties for the Protocol to come into force by 2002. Such a text must satisfy three necessary conditions: (i) it must be sufficiently specified for the CDM to begin generating early credits, and (ii) it must neither nullify the already limited environmental effectiveness of the Protocol, nor jeopardises the environmental integrity of the entire regime (by building in unsustainable ‘loopholes’ which will have to be carried over into post-Kyoto agreements under the Convention), and last but by no means least, (iii) it has to resolve the issues of funding and adverse effects, technology transfer and adaptation under the convention.

Can this be achieved? I believe so, but only if one keeps in mind that not each and every one of the currently unresolved issues need to be resolved for inclusion in this sort of text. The ‘supplementarity-trading-cap’ issue, for example, can be left open at this stage, for its resolution is not required for early CDM activity. As concerns sinks, an initial positive list will do equally well.

Why do we need such a text? Not just to satisfy the business sector! By far the more important reason was cogently pointed out in the Earth Negotiations Bulletin

I hope that in trying to resolve the current impasse, European and American negotiators and policy makers will not fall victim to trans-Atlantic myopia and keep in mind that while it is possible for a deal to come into force without the blessing of the US Senate, it is not possible without ratification of at least 19 developing countries. An agreement which amounts to nothing more than fudging the Protocol with an ‘Umbrella loophole’ will not be worth the paper it is written on: neither Congress nor developing countries will accept such a text. Unfortunately, latest events do not bode too well in this respect, for it seems to me a folly to think that G77+China could simply be summoned to approve a trans-Atlantic deal (see Box 4). But let me end on a somewhat more optimistic note.

While one of the most quoted statement of The Hague was about a metaphorical loss of entrails, there is no doubt in my mind about the most noteworthy one, namely Frank Loy’s declaration that ‘we will not give up ... the stakes are too high, the science too decisive and our planet and our children too precious.’