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TODAY Thursday 30 October 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Europe Alone

The combined Gross Domestic Product of the members of the European Union is much larger than that of the US. The EU's population is double ours. It has more eager applicants for membership than it wants (Turkey) or can accommodate (Poland). So why does the EU matter so little in global affairs?

Less than Japanese, but more than Americans, Europeans depend on trade for wealth. Their commerce is all over the world, and growing in places like Brazil and Argentina that had heretofore been assigned to the American sphere of influence. So why are they so relatively uninfluential?

These musings on Bismarckian themes are prompted by the discussions going on these days in Bonn, underwhelming provisional capital of a non-imperial Germany. There the representatives of the world's governments are trying to hammer out differences before the opening of the Kyoto conference on climate change at the beginning of December. The work is not going smoothly. There are large differences in negotiating positions, and they are not being narrowed.

There is a proposal on the table endorsed by China and 77 other developing countries which calls for the industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly and soon. But no one, not even its proponents, is using this proposal as the basis for negotiations. It's generally agreed that first the rich powers are going to have to decide how much they're willing to do and when they'll do it; when that's done then everyone can turn to the question of how much and when the poorer countries will have to pitch in.

There are three rich-country proposals: the European, the American, and the Japanese. Months ago the Europeans put theirs on the table. It calls for binding reductions in greenhouse emissions by the rich countries 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. Next came the Japanese, who proposed a complicated formula that ends up requiring reductions between 2 percent and 5 percent by 2010. And on 22 October, the Americans finally weighed in, with a typically Clintonian swirl of market mechanisms, pump priming, partnerships, modest subsidies, no new taxes, and a commitment that Al Gore's successor will have to get the country back to 1990 levels sometime before 2012. Without proposing a specific formula, President Clinton also made it clear that the non-rich countries would have to bind themselves to do something or other from the get-go. The proposal was made with a cold eye cast on the chances for treaty ratification in the US Senate in 1998 ("Heading Down the Right Path").

European officials expressed everything from disappointment to distress to contempt. They had felt let down by the Japanese, and seemed genuinely surprised that the US offer was even more lax. But what is surely most distressing to them is that no nation outside of Europe with a mean elevation more than five feet above sea level has rallied to their standard. The Canadians quickly signed on with the US; the Australians and New Zealanders still want to emit more, but they liked the American proposal best of all. In fact, no one besides Europeans, Pacific islanders, and members of environmental organizations seems to think that there's any purpose in considering the European proposal as a realistic option. All hardball players assume that if indeed a treaty is negotiated in Kyoto, it will be on the basis of the American and Japanese proposals.

What a comedown! The Europeans are upset and embarrassed, and they're dispatching EU Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard to Washington next week to twist American arms. Good luck, Mrs. B. She won't be meeting with anyone higher than the rank of Undersecretary, and you can doubt that she'll be able to move many members of the Senate. She may also visit Tokyo to try to persuade Mr. Hashimoto's government. Equally fruitless, I would guess.

If the Europeans decide to make a big fight of this, their only hope of victory will be gallant but self-sacrificing. It is conceivable that a Kyoto treaty might oblige different nations or regions to proceed at different rates of speed. The Europeans would be bound by X, the Americans and Japanese and Canadians by Y, and the Australians and New Zealanders by Z. It may be that similar distinctions could be made among the developing nations, but no such apparently convenient demarcations are visible. Just because Argentina is richer than the Sudan doesn't mean that it's prepared to accept a ten-stroke handicap.

Sadly, I think that the loss of European heft in the world is largely because Europe no longer poses a credible military threat. After plunging the world into the worst human-made disasters of all history, the European states these days are blessedly pacific. They can't police the Balkans. They don't send aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf or the Taiwan Straits and they don't threaten force against unruly neighbors like Algeria. They can't hang tough against Iran or Iraq. No one is scared of Europe. I don't mean to criticize this reluctance to use or threaten force, but Bismarck and DeGaulle were probably right to believe that an influential state must retain the capacity to subdue other states and the apparent will to do so if required. Whether a state wants to be influential, well, that's another question.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

Speaking of Kyoto and things climatic, have you looked into the Climate Change feature of our In the Trenches section recently? Leonie Haimson works like crazy to bring you the latest, fastest-breaking news, and you owe it to yourself to keep abreast.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

10/29: Duck! (Again)
10/28: Civil Society and Conservation
10/27: Who Owns the National Forests?
10/24: Meanwhile, Back at the Infirmary...
10/23: "Heading Down the Right Path"
10/22: Markets and Medium-Greens
10/21: The Silver Republic and the People's Republic
10/20: Duck!
10/17: The Energy Non-Crisis
10/16: Drillbit Diplomacy

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