World waits to see if US will fulfil its pollution pledges

Date: 05/03/1998

By Mark Turner

ALTHOUGH the US won major concessions at the Kyoto climate change conference, Washington will still have its work cut out to fulfil its pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7&percent; below 1990 levels by 2012.

Unlike the EU, whose task is eased by east German industrial decline and a significant switch to gas in the UK, the US boasts a thriving economy which offers few obvious shortcuts to lowering emissions.

This was one of the major arguments used by Washington to counter calls for stricter targets during last December's negotiations.

Meeting the challenge will be particularly tough if the US tries to achieve real reductions, rather than simply buying up the right to pollute from the developing world through emissions trading - a concept still in its infancy which may yet turn out to be less than perfect in practice.

Even if trading in emissions does take off, the European Commission is keen that the US should not simply spend its way out of its commitments.

“Climate change is a serious problem that needs to be addressed not only on paper but in reality,” said Peter Jrgensen, spokesman for Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard.

“Washington should not only reach its Kyoto targets through emissions trading, but with tough domestic measures. It would not be morally right for it to pass on the buck.”

These pleas are, however, likely to fall on deaf ears in the US Congress, which has yet to be convinced that it can accept the Kyoto deal, even with the emission trading option and generous exemptions for the American military.

Recent testimony given by US Under-Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat to the Senate's foreign relations committee revealed an administration struggling to sell the Kyoto package and resorting to emotional pleas and creative accountancy. “When changes in the accounting rules for certain gases and offsets for activities that absorb carbon dioxide are factored in,” explained Eizenstat, “the level of effort required of the US is quite close to the president's original proposal to return emissions to 1990 levels by 2008-2012, representing at most a 3&percent; real reduction below that proposal and perhaps less.”

The fact that the administration is having to resort to such wizardry has heightened growing fears in Europe and among American environmentalists that Kyoto will not be ratified on Capitol Hill, ending any hopes of a meaningful worldwide agreement.

US President Bill Clinton called, in his recent State of the Union address, for a 5.7 billion ecu 'Climate Change Technology Initiative' to help cut greenhouse gases over the next five years But Congress has strongly resisted the idea.

The initiative, which would cost 1.2 billion ecu more than original proposals put forward by Clinton last October, would allow tax credits for energy efficient purchases and provide 2.5 billion ecu for research and development.

The EU and non-governmental organisations argue, however, that while positive, these measures would only scratch the surface of America's fundamental problems with pollution controls. “The US produces about one quarter of the world's greenhouse emissions, depending on which way you look at it,” said Jrgensen. “It has to change the way it uses energy - in housing, transport and a multitude of ways.”

The Commission is nevertheless wary of rocking the American boat too violently, at least until the Kyoto accord is ratified or rejected. “We really don't know what the US position will be. We took the US much further than we expected at the conference. Perhaps we can do so now in the ratification,” said Jrgensen.