Montreal meeting on the Kyoto Protocol and UNFCCC

Officially, the meeting is the "1st Meeting of the Parties serving as the Conference of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and 11th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change." It was supposed to be the meeting where the next generation of climate change agreements would be negotiated. Kyoto has never been a final goal, but a step (and, arguably, a very weak one since it calls for only a 5% global reduction in carbon emissions). Note that the two intransigents -- no, let's call them "insurgents" -- are the US and Australia. Nothing unusual about that. But notice also who's not on that elite list: those "developing nations" that provided one of the reasons for the Bush administration to can the Protocol in 2001.

The US signed the Kyoto Protocol but never ratified it (althought the US both signed and ratified the 1992 UNFCCC that came out of the Rio meetings). While president, Clinton knew Congress wouldn't do it and never pressed it, although he showed up in Montreal and made the pitch for the US to do more (making the Bush delegates' boas quite ruffled). And Bush made the rejection explicit by telling the world to go to hell. This rugged individualism, as we know from elsewhere, is a tad out of control. But, in the end, we need the help of a former president to get our act together. Read on....

Brushing aside the Bush administration's initial protests, all the industrialized nations except the United States and Australia reached an agreement early Saturday to embark on a fresh round of formal talks aimed at setting new mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions after 2012, when the existing pact known as the Kyoto Protocol expires.

The United States, after fiercely resisting any new international talks to address Earth's warming climate, agreed to a separate nonbinding informal dialogue to respond to climate change as representatives of nearly 200 nations concluded two weeks of meetings on the issue....

The United States, which generates a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, had questioned the need to engage in even nonbinding talks on the subject. When the Europeans and Canadians proposed such talks Thursday, chief American climate negotiator Harlan Watson rejected it on the grounds that it would be tantamount to formal negotiations.

"If it walks like a duck and talks like duck, it's a duck," Watson told the other delegates, according to several participants in the closed midnight session.

As Watson walked out, one of the other delegates, baffled, responded: "I don't understand your reference to a duck. What about this document is like a duck?"....

"We can't have an effective global regime without the U.S., but we can move ahead with the discussion about what the regime will be with everyone else at the table, leaving a seat for the U.S. and hoping the U.S. will fill its empty seat," said Michael Zammit Cutajar, Malta's ambassador for international environmental affairs, who helped oversee the initial Kyoto negotiations. "After all, things will change in the U.S. in a few years. There will be a new constellation of forces, and maybe there will be a greater readiness to engage."

So that's all from the Washington Post (Nations Agree to Binding Climate Talks: United States Balks, Agrees to Informal Dialogue). Now let's look at what you get from the NY Times (US, Under Fire, Eases Its Stance on Climate Talks).

The United States dropped its opposition early Saturday morning to nonbinding talks on addressing global warming after a few words were adjusted in the text of statements that, 24 hours earlier, prompted a top American official to walk out on negotiations.

At the same time, other industrialized nations that have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty binding them to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, agreed to start meeting to set new deadlines once the existing pact's terms expire in 2012.

Such is the nature of progress in the 17-years-and-counting effort by the world's nations to act in the face of scientists' conclusions that emissions from burning essential fuels like coal and oil are raising temperatures and could potentially disrupt climate patterns and inundate coasts.

The United States and China, the world's current and projected leaders in greenhouse gas emissions, still refused to agree to mandatory steps to curtail the emissions as the talks drew toward a close early Saturday....

In a sign of its growing isolation on climate issues, the Bush administration had come under sharp criticism for walking out of informal discussions on finding new ways to reduce emissions under the United Nations' 1992 treaty on climate change.

The walkout, by Harlan L. Watson, the chief American negotiator here, came Friday, shortly after midnight, on what was to have been the last day of the talks, during which the administration has been repeatedly assailed by the leaders of other wealthy industrialized nations for refusing to negotiate to advance the goals of that treaty, and in which former President Bill Clinton chided both sides for lack of flexibility.

At a closed session of about 50 delegates, Dr. Watson objected to the proposed title of a statement calling for long-term international cooperation to carry out the 1992 climate treaty, participants said. He then got up from the table and departed....

In Washington, Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, said the administration was determined to achieve greenhouse-gas reductions not through binding limits but through long-term work to develop cleaner technologies.

"If you want to talk about global consciousness," he said, "I'd say there's one country that is focused on action, that is focused on dialogue, that is focused on cooperation, and that is focused on helping the developing world, and that's the United States."

So, what's our story here? Resistance or capitulation? Well, it's obviously resistance. But, apparently, although Watson walked out of informal talks suggesting that they were more formal than informal, the US has agreed to continue informal talks. Now informal talks are what happen if you even show up. So, the US has agreed to show up. That's the result. Since they were already there, this shouldn't have been so difficult, now, should it have?

By the way (though it's a bit late for following the negotiations), here's an activist blog direct from Montreal:

05.58am [10 December] You heard it here first. After hours of intense diplomacy, the decision under article 3.9 of the Kyoto protocol has passed, along with another decision to satisfy Russia’s concerns. Even at 6am there was a huge sense of relief in the plenary hall when Stephan Dion said the magic words “hearing no objection, it is so decided.” Within minutes they had ploughed through the final few decisions, closed the COP/MOP and the COP.

And from the indispensable IISD Linkages:

Early Saturday morning, delegates reached agreement on text for future action under Kyoto Protocol Article 3.9 (future commitments) after a compromise to take into account Russia's desire for consultations on voluntary commitments. Parties also agreed to start the process for a review of the Protocol under Article 9, with submissions being required by 1 September 2006. In addition, Parties agreed on text setting out a process under the UNFCCC on a dialogue for enhancing implementation of the Convention.

Keep an eye also on the blog UN Dispatch for more information, although the UN News Service provides most of this information. And if you're into the technicalities and immediate updates of the negotiations and results, go to IISD Linkages.

UPDATE, Clinton to the rescue:

Environment activists cheered, hugged and some even cried after the delegates passed what they hailed as historic decisions to brake catastrophic changes ranging from desertification to rising sea levels.

"There were many potential points at this meeting when the world could have given up due to the tactics of the Bush administration and others but it did not," said Jennifer Morgan, climate change expert at the WWF conservation group.

The United States, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying a fixation on emissions targets would harm economic growth, a view challenged on Friday in Montreal by former U.S. President Bill Clinton....

Washington agreed to join the open-ended dialogue only after Canada and the European Union watered down the text and spelled out that it would not lead to formal negotiations or commitments or the type of emissions caps enshrined in Kyoto.

"The text that was adopted recognizes the diversity of approaches," said U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson.

Washington favors voluntary measures and big investments in technology like hydrogen or carbon storage. Other countries are seeking to engage Washington for the long haul, hoping President George W. Bush's successor will be less skeptical of UN-led action on the environment.