World Leaders to Discuss Strategies for Climate Control

Some advocates are trying to jump-start the process by outlining a different approach to cutting carbon dioxide emissions than is spelled out in Kyoto. Earlier this month the Pew Center joined with the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based group of international business and political leaders, in releasing a novel plan based on 18 months of discussions with policymakers, industry officials and environmental activists from around the world. This proposal would seek to have each industrial sector agree on a global emissions limit and require developing nations to commit to a specific target for increasing reliance on renewable energy sources, either collectively or individually.

"We were trying to come up with something that was meaningful but with maximum flexibility," Claussen said.

The two top senators on the Foreign Relations Committee, Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), have endorsed the Pew proposal and introduced a resolution calling for the United States to take a more active role in climate negotiations.

"It's critical that the international dialogue on climate change and American participation in those discussions move beyond the disputes over the Kyoto Protocols," Lugar said.

Several political leaders on the state and local levels are also pushing for more aggressive action.

Democratic Govs. Janet Napolitano (Ariz.) and Bill Richardson (N.M.) have agreed on a regional climate pact to try to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Nine Northeastern states are hoping to launch a carbon dioxide emissions trading system next month, and California, Oregon and Washington are discussing a similar venture to lower the region's contribution. Mayors of 188 cities have pledged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by about 7 percent; Salt Lake City is three-quarters of the way there.

"We're not waiting for the Congress or the administration to set policy because there's such a leadership vacuum," said Richardson, who will attend the Montreal talks or send a delegate. "States are going to take matters in their own hands. This is a serious problem that requires immediate action."

Many major U.S. companies are also responding to Kyoto. Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson pledged two years ago to cut its 1990 greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent by 2010. So far it has cut them 3.1 percent despite growing fourfold in size during that period.

"We feel climate change is very real," said Johnson & Johnson executive director of energy management Dennis Canavan, who will attend the Montreal talks unofficially. "We want to make sure we minimize our impact on that."

At the same time, some developing countries that had resisted the idea of greenhouse gas limits have been showing a greater willingness to participate in climate talks. Brazil plans to announce in Montreal that it reduced its rate of deforestation by 40 percent between August 2004 and August 2005, according to several sources, which is significant because deforestation accounts for 80 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. Other developing nations, such as Mexico, have suggested they are more open to adopting emission curbs.

Michael Zammit Cutajar, Malta's ambassador for international environmental affairs who helped oversee global climate accords between 1992 and 2002, said developing countries "are prepared to look beyond their current situation as well," provided they get a positive signal from industrialized nations.

This kind of analysis worries Kyoto critics such as Roy Spencer, a research scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville who does not believe the climate will warm as rapidly as many computer models predict.

"Asking people to cut their energy use is like asking people to stop eating," said Spencer, who contributes to the free-market online journal Tech Central Station, which is in part funded by oil companies opposed to mandatory carbon limits. "The solution is in technology."