By Henry Lamb
(November 27, 2000)
Just before dawn Saturday morning, John Prescott stormed out of the climate change negotiations at the Hague, signaling dismal failure for the two-week negotiating session, which puts the future of the entire Kyoto Protocol in great jeopardy.
Prescott, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, and Frank Loy, U.S. chief negotiator, reached agreement on the major outstanding issues sometime after 3:am. "We physically shook hands," Loy said. "Are we in now in full agreement, is this a deal?" Loy said that Prescott, and representatives from two other European countries in the room said "yes."
The deal fell apart when Prescott could not sell it to the rest of the European Union.
Jurgen Trittin, Germany's environmental minister led the resistance to Prescott's deal, and, in the end, it was rejected, causing a collapse in the negotiations that stunned veteran observers.
Jan Pronk, President of the Conference, had issued his own set of proposed agreements on Friday, in an effort to avoid a negotiating stalemate. By late afternoon on Friday, Pronk said in a public statement that agreement on the details may not be possible, and the effort shifted to the development of a "broad statement of principles" on which the delegates could agree.
This maneuver is called "saving face." It frequently occurs to avoid the appearance of failure while setting the stage for further negotiations at a later date.
The undecided U.S. Presidential race, and the possibility of a new slate of U.S. negotiators, undoubtedly provided motivation for the U.S. negotiators to surrender even more ground to the European Union in an effort to achieve agreement before the Hague conference ended. Thus, the near-dawn session between the U.S. and the U.K.
When the deal was rejected by the European Union, it revealed a breach that has heretofore hovered just beneath the surface, and threw the entire Kyoto process into an unprecedented diplomatic typhoon.
Until now, the friction within the European Union has not erupted in the climate change talks. The German environmental minister represents the Green Party, a near-militant extremist group. With support from Dominique Voynet, France's environmental minister, who is also a Green Party member, and four Nordic countries, the environmental purists flexed their muscles and derailed five years of tough, expensive negotiations.
"We came so close," Prescott said. A spokesman for the U.S.'s National Environmental Trust, said this was the European Union's' "best opportunity to achieve a strong climate treaty, and they decided to pass it up."
In an effort to make the failure appear to be something other than the disaster it is, the U.N. spin doctors decided not to "adjourn" the conference, but to "suspend" the negotiations, until COP 6 - Part II, to be convened in May or June, 2001. This unprecedented invention throws the negotiating schedule into a cocked hat. COP 7 is already scheduled for Morocco in the fall of 2001, with several inter-sessional meetings required before then.
In practical terms, the failure in the Hague has left the Kyoto Protocol in diplomatic limbo. Add the growing likelihood that a new slate of negotiators will bring a Bush philosophy to the table, and the emergence of Green Party Power in the European Union, and the startling declaration of the French President that the Kyoto Protocol is the first "component of an authentic global governance," then all the ingredients are present for a big bang that may well disintegrate the entire global warming industry, and possibly thwart the U.N.'s global governance agenda.
The heart of the matter is the U.N.'s effort to reconcile an immovable object with an irresistible force. On the one hand, the United States negotiators are limited by the reality of Senate ratification, based on the principle that government is empowered by the consent of the governed. On the other hand, the Green Party extremists have no such concept, nor patience with a government that cannot simply impose its will upon the people.
"It's extremely difficult to negotiate between groups where political cultures are so different," laments Dominique Voynet. Jergen Trittin says his people think the U.S. position is "ridiculous."
This fundamental philosophical difference on the source of political power is the baseline conflict that cannot be reconciled. It is the same conflict that spawned two world wars. In recent times, this conflict has been camouflaged by propaganda that promotes "global" problems that can be met only by "global" action, directed by a central body of power wielders. Much progress has been made by the proponents of centralized government power. The Millennium Declaration, adopted by most of the world's heads of state, and the U.N. General Assembly, attest to that progress.
The failure of the climate change talks lays bare this fundamental conflict. It is an unexpected development that gives American citizens an opportunity to reexamine the role the United States is playing in the world, and the role it should play. Were it not for the necessity of Senate ratification, the current U.S. negotiators would have given away the store. Frank Loy repeatedly told his European colleagues that he had to negotiate abroad what was possible at home.
A new slate of delegates may insist that global agreements be based on the American principle that requires the consent of the governed before empowerment. Were this principle to replace the Green Party mentality that "government knows best," we could see a whole new era of international negotiations. We could see a whole new era of national development, based on voluntary agreements among nations, without the approval and enforcement of a "big brother" United Nations machine.
The failure of the climate change talks may be the collapse of the house of cards built with U.N. propaganda over the last two decades. The United States now has the opportunity to exert its influence, rather than acquiesce to the influence of the Green Party extremists that drive the U.N. global governance agenda. The collapse of the climate change negotiations may be the best possible outcome of the Kyoto experience.