At the very last minute, the United States yesterday swung behind part of the environmental deal negotiated in Montreal. The Bush administration still refuses to commit to the mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions outlined in the Kyoto Protocol. It has, however, decided to join in wider talks on tackling global warming on the basis that it will not be bound by any outcome.
It was always absurd that Washington took part in the UN-sponsored talks in Canada, asserting loudly that it simply would not change its policy on climate change. When its chief negotiator walked out after a stinging attack by the Canadians because the US continues to create more carbon gases than any other country, Washington’s position looked as if it were descending into farce. The plain fact is that America does produce the greatest amount of these gases. The only point at issue is whether the gases do in fact contribute to global warming or whether, as the White House prefers to believe, the climate is changing as part of a natural cycle. It has been assumed that negative domestic reaction to the administration’s hard-line rejection of Kyoto, headed up by trenchant criticism from former President Bill Clinton who in 1997 originally committed the US to the Kyoto protocol, was what forced this limited softening in the American position at Montreal.
This is in fact not the whole story. American big business, on whose behalf Bush threw out ratification of the Kyoto deal almost as soon as he first sat down at his desk in the Oval Office, has been redoing its sums. The assumption had been that to implement an environmental clean-up package would damage US competitiveness in world markets. Corporate America did not want to take on an extra cost, especially since Kyoto would not become mandatory until 55 nations had signed it. When Bush came to power, the Russians were still hesitating. All that changed in November 2004 when Moscow signed and so the treaty’s terms came into force for all signatories in February this year.
Considerable investment is now being made, especially in Japan and Europe, on cutting carbon emissions in part through technological development. Here is a new market from which American companies are voluntarily excluding themselves. Worse, as trading rivals now make the key environmental investments, they are stealing a march on US firms who, under a different White House, will probably eventually have to make them anyway. To cap it all, China and India, America’s rising international competitors, have both ratified Kyoto and hope for special status for their emerging industries. By keeping itself out of the loop of the negotiations that would define the extent of the latitude Beijing and New Delhi will be allowed over pollution, Washington has thrown away a valuable diplomatic lever.
The Bush White House may never admit that it is wrong, but its big business backers are altogether more subtle and clever. Hence the grudging US change in Montreal. As ever with US politics, to make sense of them, you need to “follow the money.”
