U.S. reversal leads to Bali climate accord

NUSA DUA, Indonesia — In a tumultuous final session at international climate talks in which the U.S. delegates were booed and hissed, the world's nations committed Saturday to negotiating a new accord by 2009 that, in theory, would set the world on a course toward halving emissions of heat-trapping gases by 2050.

The dramatic finish came after a last-minute standoff during a day of seesaw emotions, with the co-organizer of the conference, Yvo de Boer, fleeing the podium at one point as he held back tears and the representative from Papua New Guinea telling the U.S. delegation to lead, follow or "please get out of the way."

Measuring steps

The standoff started when developing countries demanded the U.S. agree that the eventual pact measures not only poorer countries' steps, but also the effectiveness of financial aid and technological assistance from wealthier ones.

The U.S. did capitulate in that open session, which many observers and delegates said included more public acrimony and emotion than any of the treaty conferences since 1992, when countries drafted the ailing original climate pact, the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In a broader sense, the closing session of the two-week negotiation here was the culmination of a profound shift over the course of months by the Bush administration from insisting that the 1992 treaty, signed by the first President Bush, was sufficient on its own to avoid dangerous human interference with the climate.

In 2005 talks in Montreal, for example, the U.S. negotiating team walked out of one session, rejecting any formal negotiations over new steps to improve on that pact. But the science, and politics, of climate have shifted dramatically since then.

Four reports

This year, a set of four reports emerged from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, each cementing more clearly than ever that humans were warming the world, and that unabated emissions would lead to centuries of disrupted climate patterns.

Along with the science came the Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" and spiking oil prices, adding urgency to calls for moving away from fossil fuels. Finally, the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's contention that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency.

In May, President Bush signaled the change when he announced his own parallel set of meetings with the countries accounting for 85 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions.

In Bali, European delegates threatened to pull out of those talks unless the U.S. delegation agreed to keep some semblance of concrete targets in the outline for the next two years of talks. Those targets remain in the agreement — including a possible cut in rich countries' emissions of up to 40 percent by 2020 and overall emissions cut in half by 2050 — but they are now a footnote to the preamble, not a main feature of the negotiating "road map."

In the end, the Bush administration did not have to shift from its most staunchly defended goal, which was that it would agree only to a comprehensive new accord that maintained flexibility, allowing nations to agree on a rough goal for global emissions, but using any mix of means at the national level to get there.

But it was a separate issue that precipitated a final-hour floor fight.

Dispute over wording

The last-minute dispute centered on the placement of the three words: "measurable, reportable and verifiable." It was significant because it focused on the role developing countries should have in combating climate change.

The U.S. is pushing for developing countries to take a more active role in reducing greenhouse emissions. India submitted a last-minute amendment that, by shifting the placement of those three words, attempted to sharpen the distinction between poor and rich countries in the text and thus, in the eyes of many delegates, play down the role of poorer countries.

Delegates from several developing countries supported the change, but the U.S. delegation voiced its disapproval. "The formulation that has been put forward we cannot accept because it does represent a significant change in the balance that many of us have worked toward over the last week," Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky said. Boos echoed among the thousands of delegates in the convention hall.

Delegates said seven years of pent up frustrations over the Bush administration's attitude toward global-warming agreements spilled out.

The delegate from Uganda urged the U.S. negotiators to change their minds. "I would like to beg them," said Maria Mutagamba, minister of environment.

Delegates piled on, cheering speakers who criticized the U.S. and booing Dobriansky when she spoke.

When the delegate from Papua New Guinea, Kevin Conrad, asked to speak, opposition to the U.S. had reached a crescendo. "We seek your leadership," he said referring to the U.S. "But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way."

South Africa, Mali, Brazil, Jamaica, Uganda and Tanzania followed with statements supporting India's position or that of developing countries more generally.

None of America's traditional allies came to its defense.

Dobriansky then spoke again. "We came here to Bali because we want to go forward as part of a new framework, we believe we have a shared vision and we want to move that forward, we want a success here in Bali," she said. "We will go forward and join consensus."

The room erupted in lengthy applause.

Xie Zhenhua, China's lead delegate at the conference, welcomed the U.S. "onto this bus." But he quickly added: "The United States is not in the driver's seat."

When talks begin, the focus again will fall on the U.S., the only major industrial country that did not accept Kyoto. That pact requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gases by a modest 5 percent on average in the next five years.

A turning point may come a year down the road after the U.S. election of a new president, who many environmentalists hope will support deeper, mandatory emissions cuts.

The exemption of developing nations from the Kyoto Protocol's mandatory caps has also long been a key complaint of U.S. opponents to the U.N. climate treaty process.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the U.S. welcomed the positive steps but had "serious concerns" about the different responsibilities of developed and developing nations.

"The problem of climate change cannot be adequately addressed through commitments for emissions cuts by developed countries alone," Perino said.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.