The European Union round-the-world mission to save the Kyoto climate treaty being scuppered by President Bush has achieved only partial success.
On the last leg of the mission, the Japanese agreed to support the EU in pressing the USA to stick with the protocol. But - perhaps crucially - Japan did not offer to stand alongside the EU and Russia in implementing the treaty with the Americans if necessary.
This removes a strong bargaining tool from the Kyoto allies trying to coax President Bush to ratify the treaty.
If the protocol could be implemented between Europe, Russia, China, India and developing nations with the US, that might cause food for thought among US diplomats. There would then be nothing to prevent a major global agreement developing in a way which proved against the interests of the USA.
But this will not happen unless the Japanese resolve to step out from under the protective wing of US foreign policy which has sheltered them for so long. The government in Tokyo has not yet decided how far it should go to stand up to the USA. But some parliamentarians are already preparing a resolution for the Japanese parliament, the Diet, and Japan faces elections in July which could change the situation.
The other major powers are keen for the EU to press ahead with the Kyoto protocol without the US if need be. The Russians and developing nations stand to benefit from trading mechanisms agreed under the protocol which allow rich nations to invest in energy efficiency in poor nations if it is more efficient than cutting emissions domestically.
A Russian town on the Volga recently celebrated with the installation on a new municipal heating system courtesy of the Dutch government. The next stage in the diplomatic climate crisis takes place in New York on April 21st under the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.
The EU has promised to bring compromise proposals to attract the US back into the process. But it is hard to see how the developing countries will ever agree to the new fundamental US demand that all nations must fix firm emissions targets before the US agrees to force pollution cuts on its own industries.
At Kyoto it was agreed by all participants including the USA that developing nations would be allowed some time before being brought into the process because they have contributed very little historically to the gases that are thought to be warming the climate. Chinese emissions per person, for instance are around a tenth those of the Americans. And Indian emissions are about a twentieth.
LINKS
- www.eea.eu.int/
- www.epa.gov/
- www.ipcc.ch/
- www.unfccc.de/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html
- www.globalclimate.org/
