The United States has been a mover and shaker in climate change talks for over a decade, but delegates at the Bali summit say US clout is on the wane as countries look beyond the Bush era.
Some say that with US elections due to take place less than 11 months from now, it leaves President George Bush a lame duck when it comes to shaping the climate-change agenda.
For supporters of the Kyoto Protocol — almost wrecked by Bush’s rejection in 2001 — the next White House incumbent is bound to want to end the country’s long years as a climate pariah.
At best, they hope, he or she could steer the world’s number one carbon polluter back into the fold of industrialised nations that commit to targeted cuts in their emissions.
Such expectations have transformed the Bali talks into a waiting game.
”I don’t know what the US delegation will accept, but there will be a presidential election in 2008,” German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel noted.
”Whoever will be the next president, he will be not as far from the climate negotiations as the president we have.”
Senator John Kerry, who lost to Bush three years ago, used the opportunity during a visit to Bali on Monday, at the head of a parallel delegation of US congressmen, to remind nations the clock was ticking.
”Regardless of where the Bush administration has been or hasn’t been, the reality is there’s going to be a new president in 2009,” Kerry said.
”We wanted to bring to Bali the message that the United States is going to be at the table, the United States is going to lead, the United States is going to embrace significantly changed policies in order to deal with climate change.”
Environment ministers in the Indonesian resort island have until Friday to agree a framework for negotiations on a pact on tackling climate change after Kyoto’s provisions expire in 2012.
Bush argues Kyoto is too costly for the US economy and unfair, as it does not include developing countries in its binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But just ahead of the Bali talks, he lost a key ally in this position when Australia changed government and ratified Kyoto.
That has left the US delegation trying to sell a policy mix of voluntary measures and technological transfer — an approach that the rest of the world considers useful but no substitute for legally-binding curbs — and rejecting any attempt to drag it into targeted cuts.
A European diplomat said the US delegation ”is heard but not listened to”.
He meant the United States could not be ignored, given its gigantic economy and the fact no climate solution can be envisaged without its help.
The diplomat and others say it is essential to build bridges to the United States, rather than ostracise it.
Hans Verolme of green group WWF said some countries had suggested pushing back the deadline for wrapping up a new pact to 2010, allowing time for a new US administration to settle in and, hopefully, rejoin the Kyoto club.
But ”nearly all” countries, including the United States, favoured sticking to a date of end-2009.
”The problem with [the 2010 deadline] is that by doing this you leave everything to the last minute, which could give the whip hand to the United States,” he said.
Despite its loss of influence, Washington is not alone on some positions.
Its argument that emerging giants should be coaxed into tougher curbs has gained traction, given that China may already have overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest emitter.
Several industrialised countries also share its worries about the cost of emissions reduction.
Poorer nations, green groups and the European Union want industrial nations to give a big push to negotiations for the post-2012 deal by making the first move on emissions curbs.
They want the final text to refer to cuts by industrialised countries of 25% to 40% by 2020 by 1990 levels.
The United States, however, argues that such figures will ”pre-judge” the negotiations, and three other countries — Japan, Canada and the newly-minted Kyoto convert Australia — are also opposed. – AFP
