Bonn Voyage.

• Author: Bodansky, Daniel

Kyoto's Uncertain Revival

REPORTS OF Kyoto's death seem to have been exaggerated. Just when most observers were writing Kyoto's obituary; the international community reached a breakthrough in Bonn, resolving many of the key political issues and thereby breathing new life into the Kyoto process. But although Kyoto has shown surprising resilience, it is hardly a done deal. Much work remains before it enters into force, let alone before it can be considered a success. Moreover, despite the events in Bonn, the United States does not appear likely to join Kyoto anytime soon. This means that even if Kyoto does go forward, it will apply to only about a quarter of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases, with no near-term prospect for expanding its coverage.

Thus, amid justifiable celebration of the Bonn agreement, a critical assessment is in order. While Kyoto is an impressive achievement, bearing little resemblance to the bogeyman of conservative lore, the very features that make Kyoto so remarkable--its novelty; complexity and ambition--may also undermine its long-term workability. Even many of us working over the past few years to bring it into effect were painfully aware of its weaknesses. Generally, our response was to suspend disbelief and soldier on. To us, the negotiations had the same quality that Woody Allen once ascribed to relationships: like a shark, they had to move forward or they would die. Kyoto may have problems, we acknowledged, but it's the only game in town. Better to push it over the finish line and hope it works than to start all over again, with no guarantee of doing better.

The silver lining in President Bush's repudiation of Kyoto is that it has created the possibility of a new, more openended dialogue about climate change policy. For the past five years, Kyoto has sucked most of the oxygen out of this debate. Even in the wake of the U.S. decision, it has continued to cast a long shadow, with supporters proposing modest fixes and opponents (including the President) concentrating on Kyoto's sins without--so far, anyway--proposing any constructive alternative.

In going forward, the first step is to move beyond the ritualistic justifications and denunciations of Kyoto in order to take stock of the deeper lessons it teaches. Fundamentally; Kyoto treats a long-term problem as though it were a short-term crisis. Just as importantly; its architecture reflects a rationalist paradigm that tends to ignore the messy institutional and political realities of international life. Kyoto attempts to create a complex, global system from scratch rather than proceeding experientially, building from the bottom up. In considering what to do next, we are well advised to remember that most successful international regimes such as the GAIT have developed differently, starting small or simply (or both) and adding parties and complexity in a step-by-step manner. [1]

A Retrospective on the Climate Change Negotiations

WHATEVER ITS weaknesses, that Kyoto was adopted at all was a remarkable accomplishment. Climate change is perhaps the most intractable issue facing the international community. Most scientists believe the problem is serious, but many uncertainties remain, allowing skeptics to argue for delay until more is known. Most of its adverse effects will not be apparent for many decades, well beyond the planning horizons of most governments or individuals. It requires an unprecedented level of international cooperation, since emissions everywhere contribute to the problem. And it is ubiquitous. Virtually every human activity--manufacturing, transportation, agriculture--emits greenhouse gases. Climate change thus presents policymakers with the worst imaginable combination of features: it requires them to begin taking actions now, affecting most aspects of daily life, to combat a distant and uncertain threat.

When climate change first emerged as a political issue in the late 1980s, the initial international response focused on the science. In 1988, with the active support of the United States, the United Nations established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide periodic scientific assessments (the most recent one appeared earlier this year). Very quickly, however, the European Union and small island states (who fear being inundated by rising seas) began to call for mandatory reductions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The debate ever since has focused on whether to establish national emissions targets and, if so, at what level of stringency and with what mechanisms of implementation.

In the initial round of negotiations prior to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the first Bush Administration successfully fended off European efforts to establish legally-binding emission targets. Instead, the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change contains only a nonbinding political aim, together with a long-term objective (stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations at non-dangerous levels) and various principles to guide the evolution of the regime (e.g., equity between industrialized and developing countries, cost-effectiveness and precaution).

The ink had barely dried on the Framework Convention, however, when many countries began to argue that the Convention's "commitments" were inadequate. The new Clinton Administration agreed and in 1995 accepted the Berlin Mandate, which called for the negotiation of additional commitments for industrialized countries. Two years later, the negotiations concluded with the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.

As one of the most innovative and ambitious international agreements ever negotiated, Kyoto has inspired hyperbole by proponents and opponents alike. The real story is, as usual, more complex.

Kyoto sets forth both a long-term architecture and short-term commitments. At the core of the long-term architecture are legally-binding national commitments to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions, which apply to multiple-year commitment periods" and govern emissions of six greenhouse gases, among them carbon dioxide. In achieving these commitments, Kyoto allows countries considerable flexibility. It prescribes a result, but lets counties determine how to achieve that result, including through the use of market-based mechanisms such as emissions trading or through forestry and agricultural activities that remove carbon from the atmosphere (so-called carbon "sinks").

Generally, critics focus not on Kyoto's long-term architecture but on its short-term emission targets for the five-year period running from 2008 to 2012. These targets, however, were intended to be the first word on combating climate change, not the last. Of course they were politically rather than scientifically based and did not include developing counties. But no emissions target could have had a scientific basis since scientists do not (and probably cannot) agree on what levels of greenhouse gases are "safe." [2] The Kyoto targets at least head the world in what most scientists agree is the right direction, toward lower emissions, and could eventually include developing countries. In the long term, developing country targets will be essential for stabilizing emissions. Kyoto does not preclude such targets; it merely reflects the view that industrialized countries should take the lead in reducing emissions, both because they created the problem in the first place (through their historical emissions) and ha ve the greatest capacity to respond.

Although, by some measures, the Kyoto targets are relatively modest and by themselves would not significantly curb global warming, even so they probably require too much too soon both politically and economically. The U.S. target, for example, is "only" a seven percent reduction from 1990 emissions levels. But given high economic growth over the past decade (and the lack of significant domestic action to curb the resulting increase in emissions), the reductions from...