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Weary Delegates Set Emissions Cuts for Developed Nations
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"This agreement represents unilateral economic disarmament," said William F. O'Keefe, chairman of the Global Climate Coalition, a lobbying group that represents a number of major U.S. industries.
"It is a terrible deal, and the president should not sign it. If he does, business, labor and agriculture will campaign hard and will defeat it." If President Clinton does sign, significant political obstacles could hinder or prevent Senate ratification of the treaty.
{The president pronounced himself pleased with what he called a "truly historic agreement," saying it was "environmentally strong and economically sound. . . . I wish it were a little bit stronger on developing nation participation," he said Wednesday night in New York. "But we opened the way. . . . It is a huge first step, and I did not dream when we first started that we could get this far."}
As delegates worked well into the 11th day of a scheduled 10-day conference, the gathering degenerated into near chaos overnight. Before the final agreement was signed, official interpreters who had worked through the night went home, leaving Russian, Japanese and European delegates often unable to communicate fully with each other on key remaining issues.
The conference dining hall was down to just a few bananas, as hungry and exhausted delegates worked without food or coffee, and the thousands of environmental and industrial activists and journalists covering the event shivered through the wee hours in a press gallery where the heat had apparently been turned off. Movers waiting to assemble a trade show in the convention hall waited for the United Nations to conclude its business and move out.
Against that tense and difficult backdrop, delegates were able to reach final agreement on many key components of the pact -- including the U.S. proposal to include six major greenhouse gases within the established limits, rather than three -- but discussion on many others was postponed by an obviously frustrated conference chairman, Raul A. Estrada-Oyuela of Argentina.
