newsroom

TODAY Friday 27 March 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Kyoto? Nice Town. Oh, You Mean the Treaty!!

These have not been happy weeks for the scattered forces that support the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

First, there's the problem of the scientists. "Reassessing Kyoto Agreement, Scientists See Little Environmental Advantage" reads the headline on a long article in the Washington Post last month. Reporter Joby Warrick quotes the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the influential Bert Bolin, who wrote recently that "The Kyoto conference did not achieve much with regard to limiting the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If no further steps are taken during the next ten years, CO2 will increase during the first decade of the next century essentially as it has done during the past few decades." He is seconded by Jerry Mahlman of Princeton, who says "The best Kyoto can do is to produce a small decrease in the rate of increase." The treaty "tacitly accepts" that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will double. "It's the proverbial hippopotamus in your living room. Nobody wants to notice the hippopotamus, but pretty soon it's moving around and wrecking your living room."

[Does Mahlman really want to use "proverbial" here? It's not like he's talking about the truly proverbial 800-pound gorilla or the proverbial pig in the poke. Is the hippo-in-the-parlor metaphor common usage these days? Besides, wouldn't you have to flood the living room?]

Treaty opponents are thrilled. Instead of casting doubt on IPCC scientists, they're quoting them. Here's Pat Michaels' World Climate Report: "Kyoto: Damn The Economy! Full Speed Ahead! Drastic Clinton-Gore Plan Costs Much, Does Little."

And no one on the anti-treaty side hesitates to play the nationalism card. That the developing countries refused to commit themselves to any quantifiable obligations under the Kyoto text is a gift to the super-patriots of the Congress. Stuart Eizenstat, the chief US negotiator at Kyoto, says that the Senate won't be asked to ratify any text that hasn't been amended to include specific undertakings for all signatories. He promises that the US will secure such amendments at this fall's follow-up conference in Buenos Aires.

It didn't help much when the chair of the Kyoto conference, Raul Estrada of Argentina, came into Washington last week and served up a fat pitch that treaty opponents hit out of the park. "Congress is acting as though the rest of the world doesn't exist, not only in this matter but on others," Estrada said. "Perhaps they should get in touch with the rest of the world."

"An unprecedented display of arrogance and self-importance!," steamed Congressmen Dingle and Sensenbrenner, for public consumption. "We should do what is right for generations of Americans, not just react to international pressure."

Oy.

In the meantime, Congressman Sensenbrenner's House Science Committee gave a cold, almost rude, reception to President Clinton's request for increased R&D for energy efficiency. Doubts about the science and politics of the Kyoto protocol were cited by hostile interrogators as reasons for going slow on the R&D requests.

Treaty supporters are revving up a techno-optimism counter-attack, but nothing's going to work until Stuart Eizenstat comes home with some trophies from Buenos Aires.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

I know it's over and all that, but you might want to revisit the Kyoto Conference for the edification provided by Bill McKibben's daily on-the-scene dispatches. Since the anti-Kyoto spin these days is that US negotiators got snookered by clever Asians (I believe youthful exposure to Charlie Chan movies may be a factor here), it's instructive to read how things looked at the time and in the place.

In 1924 on this day was born Sarah Vaughan, "the Divine Sassy." "She was the most prodigious of the female jazz singers," writes William Gottlieb. "Her amazing range and adventuresome swoops and leaps were both breathtaking and musical." She made the planet worth saving.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

3/26: Hungary
3/25: Solidarity With Counterfeiters
3/24: A Fair Price for Water
3/23: Unattractive Progress on Transportation
3/20: The Thrill of Demography
3/19: About This Global Economy Business...
3/18: Toilet Heresy
3/17: St Patrick and Your Asteroid Insurance
3/16: Rebellion in Tennessee
3/13: Good News from the Senate
3/12: Children and Cancer
3/11: Save Our Beaches!
3/10: Die Gruenen und der SDP
3/9: In Search for the Holy Grail of the Forests
3/6: My Doom, Your Gloom
3/5: The Great D. P. Moynihan
3/4: "An Earthquake in Insurance"
3/3: Salmon Farming
3/2: Our Friends the Duck Killers
2/27: Trust El Nino
2/26: That Darn Triple-A
2/25: Cutting a Deal on Endangered Species
2/24: Fire? Again?
2/23: Garbage
2/20: Population Rebellion in the Sierra Club
2/19: The Trouble With Cattle

To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.