BY JIM GREEN
United States President George W. Bush and his administration have been condemned around the world for their March 29 announcement that the US will not ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
The decision was predictable: during the recent US election campaign, oil and gas companies donated about US$10 million to the Republican Party and the coal industry donated about $3 million.
On March 13, Bush reversed an election pledge to force electricity utilities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This followed fierce lobbying from the fossil fuel industry and corporate front groups.
The US fossil fuel industry is also pushing to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil drilling. A bill to achieve this was introduced in February by Senator Frank Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. However, substantial political and public opposition still stands in the way of the plan.
Other vulnerable ecosystems are also under threat from the US. Bush recently said that land currently protected as national monuments may be opened for fossil fuel drilling. National forests are also at risk. "We'll be looking at all public lands", Bush said at a media conference on March 13.
Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, 39 industrialised nations committed themselves to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2% below 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. However, the protocol will not become legally binding unless it is ratified by 55 countries, including developed countries that account for 55% of carbon dioxide emissions.
There was some expectation that rules and regulations (and loopholes) governing the Kyoto Protocol would be finalised at a meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in La Hague in November, and that enough countries would then ratify the treaty to allow it to become binding in 2002. However, agreement was not reached at La Hague and the UNFCCC is scheduled to reconvene in Bonn, Germany, from July 16 to 27.
Future of the Kyoto Protocol
While it is technically possible for the Kyoto Protocol to enter into force without the US, this is considered highly unlikely. For all the pontificating from the advanced capitalist countries, not least European countries and Australia, not one of these countries has ratified the Kyoto Protocol — a point made by US government environment spokesperson Christine Todd Whitman on March 29.
Around the world, corporate polluters and their political allies are delighted with the US announcement. However, it may be a hollow victory. There is widespread recognition that global public concern about climate change will sooner or later result in some form of international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions.
Corporate polluters and their political allies in the advanced capitalist countries are determined that if such an agreement is reached, it will be on their terms. They want unlimited use of loopholes, euphemistically known as "flexibility mechanisms" — the use of "sinks" (such as forests) to mop up carbon instead of reducing emissions at the source, the subsidisation of "clean" infrastructure in the Third World (also known as the "Chernobyl Development Mechanism"), and carbon trading schemes (which amount to nothing more than paper shuffling with no impact on greenhouse gas emissions).
In many respects, the Kyoto Protocol was ideal for corporate polluters - any number of loopholes have already been agreed upon. Moreover, the Kyoto targets are modest, to say the least, and nowhere near the reductions of about 60% required just to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on March 30 that the US announcement might be a negotiating tactic designed to extract further concessions through the UNFCCC process.
Third World
Is the killing (or near-death) of the Kyoto Protocol a victory for corporate polluters?
A significant variable is public reaction, including the response of the environment and anti-corporate movements. There is no doubt that big business polluters and their political allies are carefully monitoring the response to the March 29 announcement.
The main justification given by the Bush administration in defence of its March 29 announcement is that the Kyoto Protocol does not mandate reduced greenhouse emissions in Third World countries. This position has been supported by Australia's foreign minister Alexander Downer and industry minister Nick Minchin.
Leaving aside the political, military and economic dominance of the advanced capitalist countries, a few statistics suffice to give the lie to the claim that the Third World shares equal blame for the global warming crisis. On a per capita basis, Australia is the worst greenhouse gas polluter in the world, with per capita emissions seven times higher than China and 16 times higher than India. Australian emissions in 1998 were 16.9% above 1990 emissions.
The US is the worst greenhouse gas polluter in the world, accounting for 25-30% of global emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions in the US are now 10% above the 1990 level and rising. US greenhouse gas emissions are 10 times greater than Third World emissions on a per capita basis.
Third World countries account for less than 20% of global emissions, and they are most at risk from the impact of global warming because of their geography (especially low-lying islands), economies (high dependence on climate-sensitive agriculture) and poverty (a relatively limited capacity to adapt to climate change).
The villains are not Third World countries but big business polluters based in the industrialised capitalist counties. Kingpins of Carbon, a 1999 report by the US Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the US Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, analysed fossil fuel production in 1997 and found that nearly 80% of the fossil-fuel derived carbon that ends up as carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere came from 122 of the world's largest producers of fossil fuels. Exxon and Mobil's combined carbon production exceeded the combined carbon emissions of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Gazprom's carbon production exceeded the carbon emissions of the entire African continent.
The second argument used by the Bush administration to justify its March 29 announcement is that it would be too "costly" to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. But if the richest country on the planet cannot fund a transition to climate-friendly energy, transport and agriculture, how can the US expect Third World countries to do so?
Australia's position
The Australian government is shedding crocodile tears in the wake of the US announcement. Environment minister Robert Hill has announced plans to visit the US to try to convince Bush to change his mind. If such discussions take place, they will focus on this dilemma: can corporate polluters and their political representatives weather the political storm of ignoring climate change or is their best bet to stitch up a shallow international agreement?
On March 29, Hill said that the Kyoto Protocol has no future without US involvement. This will presumably be used as an excuse for the Australian government not to ratify the treaty.
Clearly, the US ruling class gets the greenhouse gangsters' gold medal, but a strong case could be made for awarding the silver medal to Australia, where corporate polluters, in collusion with sections of the political establishment, have been working feverishly to undermine the Kyoto process.
The following prescient comments were published in the December 1997 edition of the Freedom Report, a publication of the US Frontiers of Freedom think-tank: "The Frontiers of Freedom made a crucial contribution to the global warming debate by co-hosting Countdown to Kyoto, a major international conference held August 19-21 [1997] in Canberra, Australia. Members of Australia's government called the conference 'absolutely critical' in solidifying the government's opposition to a Kyoto treaty even if it means defying Clinton administration policy. At the same time, Australia's opposition to a climate treaty means that opponents in the US Congress will not be facing unanimous world opinion in favor of such a treaty."
Malcolm Wallop from the Frontiers of Freedom Institute described the Countdown to Kyoto conference as "the first shot across the bow of those who expect to champion the Kyoto Treaty". The conference was opened by then deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, who argued that tough greenhouse gas emission standards would be too costly for Australia.
In the lead up to the 1997 Kyoto conference, the Australian government parroted misinformation from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) about the economic cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. ABARE's climate change research was heavily funded by fossil fuel corporations and lobby groups.
Industry groups who provided funding to ABARE were allocated a place on its steering committee with the promise that they would "have an influence on the direction of the model development". The predictable findings — that greenhouse gas reductions would savage the economy and destroy thousands of jobs — were disputed by 131 Australian economists who signed a statement saying that ABARE had overestimated the costs and underestimated the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) lodged a complaint with the commonwealth ombudsman about the industry bias of ABARE, and in February 1998 the ombudsman upheld the complaint.
At the Kyoto conference in 1997, Australia nearly killed the Kyoto Protocol before it was born and was rewarded with a target far more generous than comparable countries: an 8% increase between 1990 and 2008-2012. The Australian delegation also secured the so-called "Australia clause", which allows for creative accounting on levels of land clearing as an alternative to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by industry.
Grovelling
Last year, the Australian government was subject to intense pressure from fossil fuel corporations and industry lobby groups. In addition, the coal industry threatened to launch a multi-million-dollar campaign to combat the federal government's (perceived) threat of tougher greenhouse gas emission rules.
The government fell over itself to accommodate big business. Industry minister Nick Minchin issued media releases on August 23 and September 6 that stated that maintaining industry's "international competitiveness ... is a framework for the Government's greenhouse policy processes". That includes working internationally "to get Australia the best possible greenhouse position" (in other words, undermining the Kyoto Protocol) and assisting in "minimising the burden of greenhouse measures on business through cost-effective actions" (more "cost-effective" for industry because they involve corporate welfare packages such as the $400 million Greenhouse Gas Abatement Program, the R&D Start Program and the International Greenhouse Partnerships Program).
Minchin further promised that the government would not "discriminate against particular projects or regions in greenhouse policies and programs" (such as new coal-fired electricity plants in Queensland or the aluminium industry).
The only mandatory greenhouse measure in Australia is a scheme to force electricity suppliers to increase renewable energy sources by 2% before 2010. This legislation passed both houses of federal parliament late last year. However, the additional usage of renewable energy will be less than 2% because no allowance has been made for increasing electricity demand, and the definition of renewable energy has been stretched to include non-renewable and environmentally destructive projects such as burning woodchips from old-growth forests and large-scale hydroelectric power stations.
Another government initiative is the Greenhouse Challenge program, better described as the "Greenhouse Greenwash" program. Several hundred companies have joined the program, which provides advice on reducing greenhouse emissions. Some companies have acknowledged that their participation has been motivated by a desire to avoid or stall mandatory change. All participating companies have received "participation certificates" even though the executive director of the Greenhouse Challenge Program admitted in a Senate estimates hearing on May 3 that only one in 10 companies had met their emission reduction targets.
Corporate front group
The Lavoisier Group is a corporate think-tank led by Peter Walsh, a former finance minister in Bob Hawke's Labor government. It includes such luminaries as Ray Evans from the Institute of Public Affairs. It is supported primarily by the mining industry according to the July 15 Sydney Morning Herald.
Last year, the Lavoisier Group held meetings around the country, including a June 27 dinner for a select group of federal parliamentarians in the House of Representatives dining room. In its submission to the federal parliament's treaties committee last year, the Lavoisier Group argued that the Kyoto Protocol poses "the most serious challenge to our sovereignty since the Japanese Fleet entered the Coral Sea on 3 May, 1942".
The crackpot conspiracy theories of the Lavoisier Group have been transformed into government policy, albeit in modified form (see Green Left Weekly, October 11). The Lavoisier Group's ranting about the risk of invasion by Kyoto eco-fascists is echoed in comments from the Liberal MP and treaties committee chairperson, Andrew Thomson. During public hearings of the committee last year, Thomson wondered aloud whether Australia would find itself at the mercy of international greenhouse inspection committees dominated by "hostile" developing countries. Speaking on ABC radio on September 28, Thomson questioned the "strange notion of inspections like having Richard Butler go into Iraq".
The Lavoisier Group asserts that bureaucrats have been "extremely reluctant" to let ministers know that Australia can withdraw from the treaties to which it has subscribed. Likewise, Thomson expressed concern about bureaucrats "eager to secure budget funding and authority and policy importance".
The latest ploy by Canberra has been a A$3.9 million, six-week-long television and newspaper advertising campaign featuring TV personality gardener Don Burke. The campaign encourages households to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cutting down on waste, washing clothes in cold water, turning televisions off at the power point, planting trees, turning the fridge temperature up a notch, using lower-wattage light globes, servicing cars regularly and so on.
Robert Hill has acknowledged that Australian households generate only 20% of Australia's greenhouse emissions. More worthy targets would be the electricity industry (32.3% of total net greenhouse gas emissions in 1998); "stationary energy emissions" (17.4%), mostly from the manufacturing, construction and industrial sectors; land clearing (12.3%) and agricultural emissions (17.6%).
The campaign hasn't been a success. The government has been attacked for using tax-payers' money for self-promotion. Moreover, the tactic of claiming to be responding to climate change always ran the risk that the government would be "outed" for its real record. As a March 14 report in the Melbourne Age noted, the campaign was designed to promote the government but "has instead reignited political debate about its environmental record".