Climate policy: showdown in Berlin.

• Author: Flavin, Christopher
• Position: Conference of the Parties to the Rio Climate treaty

In the months leading up to the first Conference of the Parties to the Rio Climate treaty, experts had worried about how much real progress would be made on this vital global issue ("Getting Warmer: Looking For a Way Out of the Climate Impasse," March/April). And, indeed, the outcome remained in suspense well into the pre-dawn hours of the final day, April 7, as a group of exhausted diplomats - struggling to agree on the next steps to be taken by their governments - came perilously close to allowing the entire negotiation to collapse.

The final bargaining ended with a dramatic showdown between the world's two leading emitters of carbon dioxide - the United States and China. In a remarkable reversal of roles, it was the leaders of the centrally planned and heavily coal-dependent China that threatened to walk if a strong negotiating mandate was not agreed to, while the Clinton-Gore administration argued for a vague and weak agreement.

Just before the sun rose in Berlin, the U.S. government, with a helpful nudge from India, backed down, and the delegates agreed to a mandate that was much stronger than most environmentalists dared hope for. Diplomats are charged with negotiating, during the next two years, a protocol to the Rio climate treaty that is aimed for the first time at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide. Governments also agreed to consider adopting specific measures to accomplish these reductions, and to begin a series of pilot projects to transfer less carbon-intensive technologies between countries.

These new commitments do not yet guarantee that the global atmosphere will be stabilized. But given the glacial pace of climate negotiations in the three years since Rio, the renewed commitment to action on climate change that was seen at this meeting was encouraging.

One of the most remarkable developments in Berlin was that the developing countries seized leadership on the climate issue for the first time. For several years, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a group of some 36 nations that are particularly threatened by rising seas, has been active in climate negotiations. Recently, the AOSIS countries have gained a growing list of allies in east and south Asia that face similar threats.

As the negotiations unfolded, the progressive wing of the developing country climate caucus was first joined by the Philippines, Malaysia, and Bangladesh, then later gained the support of Third World "superpowers" India, Brazil, Egypt, and...