US Rejects Climate
Policy Attacks
By Tim Hirsch
09 December, 2004
BBC
News
The
US has been defending its decision not to take part in the Kyoto Protocol,
just two months before the international agreement to cut greenhouse
gases comes into force.
Senior US negotiator
Harlan Watson attacked the treaty as being politically motivated rather
than based on science.
Speaking to reporters
at the UN climate change convention in Buenos Aires, he suggested European
countries were in no position to lecture the Americans about cutting
emissions.
If the State Department
official responsible for representing his government at these events
likes to be popular, he is clearly in the wrong job.
The chain-smoking
diplomat is well used to finding himself the target of attacks from
all sides, as the Americans resolutely refuse to contemplate re-joining
a process they claim is a threat to economic growth.
Asked by one Brazilian
journalist at the news conference here what it was like to be the "bad
boy in the movie", Dr Watson replied: "Perhaps there is a
perception that it is more important to agree to things rather than
taking actions.
"Agreeing to
Kyoto does not necessarily mean that you are going to meet those commitments."
The US is keen to
emphasise the large amount of government money going into research into
technologies such as hydrogen fuel and new forms of nuclear power, which
could decrease reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and coal in future.
But Dr Watson admitted
that even with proposals to reduce the "carbon intensity"
of the US - that is, the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each
dollar of the economy - his country is projected to emit about 15% more
greenhouse gas in 2012 than in 1990, compared with a reduction of 7%
signed up to by the Clinton administration in 1997.
On the treaty itself,
the negotiator did not mince his words.
"The Kyoto
protocol was a political agreement. It was not based on science."
The Americans get
most irritated when they are portrayed as the villains in contrast with
European governments which sometimes appear to be wearing a "green
halo".
The US says strong economic growth means it uses more fuel
Dr Watson was asked by a German journalist what had gone wrong with
the American way of life to make it produce twice the emissions of European
economies with similar living standards.
"Nothing went
wrong in the US," he said. "We are blessed with economic growth
which implies more energy use, which typically implies more emissions.
"I might say,
by the way, that your sweeping statement about European reductions does
not hold across the board, because there have been substantial increases
in a number of countries in Europe."
He may well have
had in mind Portugal, whose emissions have risen by 36% since 1990,
or Spain, where the growth has been 33%.
The EU is well off course for its target of achieving the cuts set out
in Kyoto, but the bloc argues it is tackling the problem through measures
such as the Emissions Trading System.
This starts in the
New Year and is designed to put economic incentives on cleaner technologies.
The criticism of the US at this conference goes beyond its refusal to
ratify Kyoto.
Dr Watson angered
many countries and environmental groups by trying to block discussion
of the link between climate change and worldwide efforts to improve
international disaster relief.
The suspicion of
green groups is that the US is fearful of admitting there is a link
between industrial emissions and the damage caused by floods, storms
and droughts.
After the huge payouts
made by the tobacco industry in lawsuits, some believe the courts could
well replace conferences like this as the forum for future debates over
the causes of global warming.