Warming Talks Cool Over "Compliance"By Henry Lamb BONN - When the Clinton administration signed the Kyoto Protocol, he said to the United Nations, and to the rest of the world, "The United States will accept legally binding emissions reductions mandated by the United Nations." Neither Bill Clinton, nor anyone else in the world, knows what "legally binding" means. Delegates to the U.N. global warming talks in Bonn, Germany, are just beginning to give meaning to the term. They must decide how compliance is to be monitored, who will do the monitoring, and perhaps most difficult, what will be the penalty for non-compliance. Early negotiations indicate that the delegates are thinking of a special "compliance body" to do the monitoring. There is wide disagreement about how such a body should be comprised. Some delegates suggested that the compliance body be a permanent, standing body, but South Africa and several Small Island States, want the body to be flexible in size, depending upon the amount of work it has to do. Other delegates suggested that the body be small, consisting of experts appointed by selected governments, but serving at the pleasure of the U.N. rather than their national governments. Switzerland wants the body to have equal representation from nations that are bound by the Kyoto Protocol as well as those that are not bound. Twenty-two months after the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, and 12 months after the U.S. signed it, and after a two-week meeting in June of this year, and after a week of talks here in Bonn, the compliance negotiators are still stumbling around looking for a starting point. The final agreement is supposed to be reached and adopted at COP6 one year from now. Despite the lack of agreement to date, the history of past negotiations suggests that they will likely make the deadline. Much of the negotiation that is public, or even reported, is for public consumption back home. The real negotiations go on behind closed doors, and the most thorny issues are never agreed until the last minute. In Kyoto, the Protocol was not finally agreed until nearly 12 hours after the meeting was scheduled to adjourn. China, so far, is the only nation that has consistently refused to budge after its position on an issue has been announced. The U.S., on the other hand, frequently announces publicly, a position that is likely to gain favor at home, and then privately, acquiesces to the demands of other nations. Unlike the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate, where elected officials stand and debate an issue that is eventually decided by a public, recorded vote, issues at the United Nations are decided by "consensus." Nameless, appointed individuals bargain in secret sessions until agreement is reached. If the agreement reached is inconsistent with the outcome desired by the leadership, the agreement can be returned for further "consultations." Only when an issue such as the compliance mechanism is resolved in a way that is acceptable to the parties and to the leadership, is the agreement announced to the public. Such was the case in Kyoto when the Protocol seemed bogged down in irreconcilable differences. Private meetings at the last minute produced a consensus which the delegates defended by saying "that's the best we could get." The final agreement was acceptable to the leadership. During the negotiations, delegates may huff and puff for the benefit of the press, but in the end, whatever the consensus, it will be what the leadership wants. The details of the compliance regime are not as important at this point as the enforcement mechanism. Brazil and Iran want financial penalties imposed upon nations that fail to comply. Australia suggested that offending nations should be able to choose from a menu of consequences. This is the real meat of the controversy. Does this U.N. body have the authority to impose financial penalties on the United States, or any of the other 37 nations bound by the Kyoto Protocol? Presumably, should the U.S. ratify the Protocol with the ambiguous "legally binding" language, it will have to accept whatever the delegates define "legally binding" to mean. Since the primary objective of the Protocol is to provide an excuse to force the transfer of money from developed countries to developing countries, it is likely that the menu of choices Australia suggested, will turn into a list of fines to be paid for various degrees of non-compliance. The enforcement of any compliance regime begs the question of the appropriateness of subjecting the United States to any foreign entity that has the power to impose financial penalties. Does not sovereignty mean the superior power? If the U.N. has the power to impose a financial penalty on the United States, is the United Nations' power not superior to the United States? Bill Clinton has already agreed to this principal, when he signed the Kyoto Protocol. Fortunately, there are enough Senators who respect national sovereignty, that the Protocol has not yet been ratified. The delegates meeting in Bonn are convinced that it will be ratified, perhaps, after the next U.S. election. The delegates seem oblivious to the fact that nearly two years after the Protocol was adopted, it has not been ratified by a single nation that is bound by it. When the rules for implementation are agreed at COP6 next year, they believe all nations will quickly jump on board. Whatever the compliance regime turns out to be, it will translate into American tax dollars moving South and East. No one, but no one, thinks for a moment that there is any chance at all that America can or will meet its Kyoto target. Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO), and chairman of Sovereignty International. |