Politics of Global Warming

The issue of climate change can be broken down into two parts: the science of global warming and the politics of global warming. While much more research needs to be done on the science, it is the political aspect of climate change that is more problematic.

Although the first research on climate change was published in the 1970s, it was not until the early 1990s that the issue moved from the scientific world into the political forum. In 1990, the world’s leading climate scientists called on governments to find a way to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. This call prompted the nations of the world to make climate change a focus of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development that was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: One of the two most important achievements of the Rio Conference – the other was an agreement to protect biodiversity – was the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). This agreement is called a “framework convention” because it provided only a basic outline for the international efforts that will be required to prevent climate change. The UNFCC’s objective was “to achieve…stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The details of how this should be accomplished were to be worked out at later international conferences.

Every country in the world was to take responsibility for the problem. However, the developed countries, recognizing that developing nations had first to ease the poverty of their citizens, were to take the lead in the fight against climate change. First, guidelines were created that would have them reduce their 2000 greenhouse gas emission levels to 1990 levels. Second, they were to provide technological and financial assistance to help the developing world fight climate change.

By the mid-1990’s, it was apparent that little progress had been made in slowing climate change. Carbon dioxide emissions continued to increase both in the developed and developing worlds, and little assistance to prevent global warning had flowed to the developing countries. Most governments did little more than talk about controlling greenhouse gases. Those who were acutely concerned about climate change looked with hope to the next major international conference in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.

Kyoto Protocol: The purpose of the Kyoto Conference was to set mandatory reduction targets, rather than guidelines, for greenhouse gases produced by the developed countries. The outcome of the Conference, the Kyoto Protocol, was not intended to provide a complete solution to the problem of climate change. Scientists had predicted that a complete solution would require emission’s reductions of 60 to 70 percent. Reductions of this magnitude would be unacceptable. Rather, Kyoto was regarded as merely a first step in the process.

Kyoto’s targets actually required countries to cut their emissions below 1990 levels, not just return them to that level. The agreement suggested means by which the reductions could be achieved. These suggestions included passing laws that would encourage organizations and individuals to reduce emissions and expand carbon sinks. The target date for the reductions was to be 2012, although substantial progress was required to be shown by 2005.

Kyoto also established the principle of emissions trading. This is a procedure by which a country that exceeds its emissions reduction target, perhaps because of an enhanced commitment to energy efficiency, is able to sell its unused emissions credits on the open market. An important clause of the Kyoto accord was one that created a clean development mechanism. The purpose of this clause was to move the developing countries economically in a direction that would minimize the production of greenhouse gases. In addition, the Kyoto agreement included clauses that considered such important details as how reductions were to be calculated and reported, and how technology was to be transferred to developing countries.

To come into effect, the agreement required that 55 countries approve or ratify it, and that the industrialized countries that ratified the treaty together had to produce at least 55 percent of the industrial emissions. By 2001, more than 80 countries had ratified the Kyoto agreement, but this number did not include enough industrial countries to bring the treaty into effect. The most important country not to sign was the United Sates. Shortly after assuming office in 2001, President George W. Bush announced that the United States was withdrawing its support of the Kyoto agreement. This was a serious blow to the fight against climate change, since the United States is the largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world. It would be hard to reach the 55 percent threshold for industrialized countries without U.S. ratification.

The U.S. decision threw the fight for climate control into disarray. Another conference was held in Bonn, Germany, in 2001, in an attempt to rescues the Kyoto accord. After vigorous debate, a compromise was reached that would reduce global-warming gas emissions by a total of 5.2 percent by 2010. The Bonn agreement was approved by more than 180 countries and left the United States isolated from the rest of the world.

Position of the International Players on Climate Change: The diplomatic process of negotiating climate change control has revealed at least five main viewpoints.

United States: The United States is the only major country that has rejected the entire process as flawed.

The Americans have three major reasons for opposing the Kyoto Protocol. The first is based on the minority scientific view that, while climate change may be occurring, it may be for natural, rather than for anthropogenic reasons. The U.S. government is not willing to proceed with policies that might have a devastating economic impact without stronger scientific evidence.

The second, perhaps more important, concern is that emissions reduction could not be accomplished without causing profound damage to the economy of the United States. Critics of the U.S. government were quick to point out that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and several other members of Cabinet have close ties to the oil industry. Their concern might have been more closely related to the impact that control of greenhouse gas emissions would have on that industry.

The Americans’ final concern is that no significant progress had been made on an agreement to limit the growth of greenhouse emissions of developing countries. They pointed out that emissions are growing much more rapidly in percentage terms there than in the developed world, and that attempts to forge an agreement parallel to Kyoto for developing countries had been a failure.

European Union: The EU nations have remained steadfast in their commitment to fight global warming. Both at international conferences and in their actions – for example, by expanding alternative energy use and working towards more efficient use of conventional energy – they have gone the farthest of any of the developed nations in fighting climate change. At Kyoto and at Bonn, they were the leaders in the push to achieve a treaty.

Canada, Russia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand: This group of developed countries occupies the middle ground between the United States and the European Union. They have not gone as far as the Americans in backing away from earlier commitment to fight greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, as the need to make drastic reforms has approached, they have looked for an easier way out. At Bonn, they were successful in having the value of carbon sinks increased in importance so that targets for reduction of actual greenhouse gas emissions could be lowered. This change was of great benefit to Canada because of its vast areas of forest and agricultural land.

Developing World: Led by China, the world’s second largest producer of greenhouse gases, the Group of 77 developing countries rejects any responsibility for a problem that it feels was created by, and therefore should be solved by, the developed world. The group’s attitude was expressed well by the leader of the Chinese delegation at Kyoto: “In the developed world only two people ride in a car, and you want us to give up riding the bus!” At the same time, there is no denying the fact that rapid population increases in developing nations have caused increased greenhouse gas emissions. The clearing (and

burning) of rainforests, the use of coal and other fossil fuels, and the expansion of animal herds have added carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.

Alliance of Small Island Nations: Not surprisingly, small island nations, some of which face the potential risk that they may c0mpletely disappear under rising ocean levels, take the problem of global warming very seriously indeed. At Kyoto, they pushed for an across-the-board 20 percent reduction in emissions. Because these countries have little political or economic power in the world, their needs and recommendations received relatively little attention. Citizens of these countries were, understandably, not persuaded by the suggestion that it would be cheaper to relocate all their residents, in the event of flooding, than it would be to solve the problem of global warming.

What Will Happen Next?

In the extended drama that is the climate-change debate today, we have completed only the first scenes of the first act. While the worst impacts of global warming may not be felt until near the end of the century, scientists suggest that we have only until about 2015 to make substantial changes in our lifestyles. After that, it will be too late to stop the damage. Is there the political will to make these changes? Only time will tell.