Category: Kyoto Protocol

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Denial International processes Kyoto Protocol United States of America

April 26, 1998 – New York Times front page expose on anti-climate action by industry

On April 26 1998 the New York Times ran a front page story. It began thus.

Industry opponents of a treaty to fight global warming have drafted an ambitious proposal to spend millions of dollars to convince the public that the environmental accord is based on shaky science.

Among their ideas is a campaign to recruit a cadre of scientists who share the industry‘s views of climate science and to train them in public relations so they can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that trap the sun’s heat near Earth.

An informal group of people working for big oil companies, trade associations and conservative policy research organizations that oppose the treaty have been meeting recently at the Washington office of the American Petroleum Institute to put the plan together.

Cushman, J. 1998. Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty. New York Times, 26 April, p.1

The context is that the US had signed the Kyoto Protocol (this in itself was a meaningless gesture – it only had force if ratified, and the Clinton administration had no intention of trying to get it through the Senate, especially given the previous year’s Byrd-Hagel resolution, which had insisted the US should not sign any treaty that didn’t put emissions constraints on developing countries (looking at you, China). This was of course exactly the opposite of what they’d signed off on in 1992 (Rio) and 1995 (Berlin Mandate) but hey, consistency and hobgoblins, amirite?

On one level, this was hardly “news” – anyone who had been paying any attention at all from 1989 onwards; the George Marshall Foundation got going on climate, and then the Global Climate Coalition and the “Information Clearinghouse on the Environment” (1991) and the attacks on IPCC second assessment report by various well-connected loons, and THEN the attacks on Kyoto in the run up to the meeting in 1997.

See for example Cushman’s report on 7th December 1997, during the Kyoto meeting – “Intense Lobbying Against Global Warming Treaty: U.S. Negotiators Brief Industry Groups and Environmentalists Separately in Kyoto”

Why this matters

A part of the reason (not the most important part necessarily, and not the part we can do that much about) “we” have done so little on climate change is because of staggeringly successful campaigns of predatory delay.

See also – Ben Franta’s work on the American Petroleum Institute.

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Australia Kyoto Protocol

Feb 28, 2003- Australian business lobby switches from opposition to “no position” on Kyoto ratification #auspol

On the 28th of February 2003, the Business Council of Australia announces that it no longer have a position on whether Kyoto should be ratified on it or not [see here]. There has been a vicious fight within the Business Council of Australia. And the insurgents, people like BP’s Greg Bourne, have been unable to change position but are too big to ignore.

The broader context was the Commonwealth Government of Australia, led by John Howard, had, extracted a sweet deal for Australia at the December 1997 conference in Kyoto, but then failed to ratify it. This meant carbon trading was off the agenda for Australia forestry outfits and banks. It also was a source of frustration and anger for “progressive” business.  Part of Howard’s argument was that business was united behind him. This BCA fight showed it was not.

Why this matters

You get these fights behind closed doors, within business associations – indeed, one of the roles of business associations is to be a venue for these sorts of spats, so they don’t take place devant les enfants. (Business associations have many other roles, providing information to members, lobbying, governments, etc. Providing training, standards, voluntary schemes, but as a venue, they’re pretty cool.) Now, one of the problems for researchers is that you can’t use freedom of information. You can’t interview people while they’re there in the thick of it, probably. And then, of course, when you do get hold of them afterwards. they’re telling you their version, their memories have faded, et cetera. But now I’m getting into methodology and epistemology, which were not, I suspect, why you came to this website

What happened next

It would be another three years before the cracks properly started showing in the Howard regime’s defence. By then Howard had scuppered another attempt at an Emissions Trading Scheme (2004). By April 2006 though, Westpac (a bank) and others formed one of a series of short-lived issue-specific groupings that would release a glossy report, lobby a bit and then fade away…

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Kyoto Protocol United States of America

Feb 16, 2005- The Kyoto Protocol shambles into futile existence, despite Uncle Sam’s best efforts

On this day 16th of February in the year 2005, the Kyoto Protocol finally became international law. It was an agreement reached at the third Conference of the Parties (COP) in December 97, in Japanese city of Kyoto. It had called for rich industrialised countries to cut their emissions by a certain small amount in the period 2008 to 2012… 

But before we get bogged down in the details, let’s go back to the beginning. When the climate issue arrived on the agenda in 1988, small and developing nations said “this is caused by rich countries. They have to take the lead in sorting it out.” And this was relatively uncontroversial in principle, at least. And so in 1992, you get the notion of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” and some sort of loose talk about technology transfer, etc. However – and this is crucial – the proposal to have targets and timetables for rich countries to reduce their emissions in the text of the climate treaty, due to be signed in Rio was opposed successfully.

And it was opposed successfully by our old friend, the United States of America, who basically said (and I paraphrase), “If targets and timetables are in, we will not come to Rio and you will have a worthless treaty.” So Kyoto was the first attempt, the first of many, to try to put targets and timetables back in. It was full of loopholes, famously, the Australian land clearing one (by the way, Australia got an emissions reduction target that allowed it to increase its emissions). And it also was supposed to kickstart carbon trading, something the Europeans had been sceptical about 

In 2001, the new administration of George W. Bush had pulled the US out of Kyoto process. And the following year, Australia had done its little “me too” act, under its deeply inadequate Prime Minister John Howard. 

Kyoto languished in limbo for years, and only got through, because Russia wanted to join the World Trade Organisation. And this was the quid pro quo. After the Russian Duma had ratified this, 90 days later, Kyoto became law for all the good that it did, which was virtually none. 

Why this matters

We need to remember these histories. So we remember who’s to blame – sometimes it’s the actors, sometimes it’s the nature of a given process. We need to remember that the “sausage machine” of international law has not saved us, and is very, very unlikely to save “us.” 

What happened next? 

Well, Kyoto was always supposed to be replaced by something else bigger and better. And this was supposed to happen in Copenhagen. In 2009. It didn’t. The shards of agreement got swept up and glued together in a new pisspot called the Paris Agreement, which is basically the old Japanese “pledge and review” proposal, reheated. And then, six years after Paris, nations met in Glasgow, without their enhanced ambition statements for the most part. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide continues to accumulate. 

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Kyoto Protocol United States of America

Feb 14, 2002 – George Bush promises “Clean Skies” to distract from Kyoto-trashing…

On this day, 14th of February, Valentine’s Day 2002, 20 years ago, George W. Bush, the minority US president sent a Valentine’s Day love letter to the future called the “Clean Skies initiative.” And although the wrapping was attractive, the contents were deeply unhealthy. Clean Skies was supposed to solve the political problem created by Bush for Bush when he had pulled the US out of the negotiations around the Kyoto Protocol, and when Cheney (the real Prez?) had tried to kick start, yet more coal fired power plants. Folks weren’t fooled.

Why this matters? 

We need to remember that those in charge of society who got there being elected, or in this case being elected by their mates on the Supreme Court, do not have our best interests at heart. They have been kicking the can down the road, blindly making ridiculous promises based on unproven technologies. 

What happened next? 

Clean Skies was a “failure” if you judge it on reducing pollution. Looked at another way, it was a success, giving enough of an impression of “action” so the issue of air pollution couldn’t be used against him, even had the Democrats been minded to. Bush was reelected, or elected for the first time in 2004, relatively fair and square, if you don’t count, the swiftboating of John Kerry. And the emissions keep rising, the atmospheric concentrations keep rising. The only thing that doesn’t really rise are the viewing stats on this website.