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TODAY Tuesday 21 October 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: The Silver Republic and the People's Republic

"An Italian wearing an English suit, dreaming of Paris." Thus the Porteno, the citizen of Buenos Aires, one of the world's most pretentious cities, obsessed with not appearing insignificant. If you have a taste for architectural bombast (and the consequent irony of seedy decay), Buenos Aires can be a wonderful place. Strong coffee, red wine, bloody steaks, opinionated strangers -- all can be had for a song by grand boulevards culminating in circles punctuated by obelisks and equestrian statues. Plus one of the world's prettiest national flags: horizontal bands of sky-blue, white, and sky-blue, with a yellow sun blazing from the center. Buenos Aires is a city, and Argentina is a country, very strong on 19th Century trappings, the kinds of things that appeal to 10-year-old boys who play with toy soldiers.

In recent years, the distance between Argentine pretension and Argentine influence has shrunk a bit. Nothing so grand as the late 1940s, before Juan Peron and bad investments and falling commodity prices bankrupted the country, but a definite comeback nonetheless. Under Carlos Saul Menem (a Peronist turncoat), Argentina has tamed its military, shrunk inflation and artfully established cordial relations with its neighbors, especially through Mercosur, the regional common market. Well-off for a developing country, bad-off for a developed country, newly accommodationist, the Silver Republic has emerged as something of an intermediary between rich North America and would-be rich Latin America.

It is no accident, then (as the Marxists used to say), that President Clinton enlisted President Menem in his climate-change campaign to win overseas friends and placate the United States Senate. Since the constitution requires Senate ratification of any climate change treaty negotiated in Kyoto, and since the Senate has gone on record promising opposition to a deal that doesn't bind all nations (somehow), Bill Clinton needs some influential Third Worlders to say: "Yes, we too will bite a bullet, though I can't tell you exactly what caliber."

Actually, what Menem said was "We agree with the United States that a global problem such as climate change requires a global answer coming from all countries." Perfect for spin purposes. "Argentine Endorses Curbs on Emissions," read the headline in the Sunday Boston Globe; "Argentina Backs US in Restricting Global Gases," said The New York Times.

Argentine writ doesn't cut much in East Asia, however, and so it was pleasing (from a Machiavellian's point of view) to learn in this morning's Greenwire that Vice President Gore and the State Department have been conducting secret negotiations with the Chinese government to win Beijing's support for greenhouse gas reductions in exchange for no-cost technology transfers. "We'll promise to reduce our emissions someday if you promise to give us lots of money so we can buy the energy-saving technologies you're always talking about, but only after you use the stuff yourself," is a rough translation of the official and semi-official leaks trickling from the Forbidden City. Look for a Menem-like press conference and photo-op when Chinese President Jiang Zemin pays a visit to Washington next week. Also look for Abe Rosenthal and the new China Lobby to describe any deal as a shameful act of appeasement, redolent of Munich, 1938.

This diplomatic deftness, alas, may be outweighed by the sobering news that in 1996 greenhouse gas emissions in the US increased 3.4% over 1995, faster than the rise in energy consumption, faster than the overall growth of the economy. So much for the Rio "commitments" to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Strictly fuhgettaboutit. But so much, as well, for overly rosy scenarios in which emissions trading permits can do all the heavy lifting. Even to meet the excruciatingly modest goals of the Clinton Administration (due to be announced tomorrow), we're going to have to figure out how to grow the economy, spur new technologies and reduce greenhouse emissions at the same time -- all during an Age of Cheap Oil. The world will almost certainly become hotter and stormier before the tide turns..

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

These lines are written aboard Metroliner 115, hurtling south to Union Station, Washington (are you surprised to know that Amtrak operates the fifth-fastest regularly-scheduled train in the world?). A short walk away from the station is the Dirksen Senate Office Building. There we are conducting a panel on environmentalism for the 21st Century. At the panel we will announce our co-sponsorship (with Second Nature) of the Green Apple Awards . Everything starts at 9:00 am and ends at 10:00 am. So if: a) you're reading this early Tuesday morning; and b) if you're within striking distance of the Capitol, do drop by. Free coffee. Lavish donors are assured access.

 

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10/10: Clinton Waffles!
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10/08: Girls and Puberty
10/07: Japan The Genial Host
10/06: You Don't Need A Weatherman...
10/03: Cochise County, Arizona

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