By Rick Atkinson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 8, 1995
BERLIN, APRIL 7 -- The 11-day United Nations conference on climate change staggered to a conclusion today after conferees agreed on the need to reduce climate-altering gas emissions but then deferred decisive action until at least 1997.
Delegates from about 170 nations unanimously approved a compromise plan to set up a two-year negotiating process that will try to set specific targets for reducing so-called greenhouse gases in the 21st century.
The conference also accepted the principle of "joint implementation," a U.S.-touted concept under which industrial countries can offset their own emission reduction quotas by financing cuts in greenhouse gases in developing countries. The United States had tacitly threatened to scuttle the conference earlier this week unless "J.I.," as the principle is known, was accepted.
Contrary to the desire of many developing countries and environmental groups, the delegates in the end avoided setting specific goals or timetables for emission reductions after the year 2000. The United States, Japan and other leading emission producers had stoutly insisted that hard numbers not be applied until a subsequent conference two years from now.
A growing number of climatologists and other scientists believe that human activity is accelerating potentially catastrophic global warming by pumping carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, effectively magnifying the heating powers of the sun.
The Berlin conference was spawned by the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where the dangers of global warming received international attention. Two dozen industrialized nations agreed at that time to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000; although some progress has been made, few are on a clear path toward achieving that goal.
The mixed results here brought mixed reactions, with few participants wholly delighted by the outcome but most apparently relieved that there is still an international consensus to treat global warming as a serious threat to the planet.
"What we've got here today is a road map. If the countries are diligent, it's a road map to success," said Michael Oppenheimer, an official with the Environmental Defense Fund.
Other environmentalists were less charitable. The Clinton administration was sharply attacked for failing to push through emission reduction targets beyond the 2000 levels agreed to in Rio.
"The United States has the resources and the technology to slash global warming pollution. Yet the U.S. performance here was a shocking abdication of leadership," said David Danzig, spokesman for the Sierra Club. Timothy E. Wirth, the undersecretary of state who headed the U.S. delegation, defended the administration's position, which he said recognized the lack of enthusiasm on Capitol Hill for sweeping environmental initiatives while sustaining international momentum for an effective climate treaty.
"There are some who wanted this to be a negotiating session to define exactly how big emission reductions should be," Wirth said in an interview. "But it took seven years to negotiate the targets that were agreed to in Rio. Clearly we can't do here in seven days what took seven years before Rio."
Other participants were divided in their evaluation of what the $16 million conference accomplished. Small island nations, which fear being inundated as melting polar ice caps raise sea levels, voiced dismay at the lack of urgency.
John Schlaes, director of an alliance of 55 U.S. companies and trade organizations heavily dependent on fossil fuel combustion, denounced the conference for failing to exact stiffer commitments for gas reductions from the developing world. "It's clear," Schlaes said in a statement, "the agreement reached by U.N. negotiators in Berlin gives the developing countries like China, India and Mexico a free ride."
Wirth cited acceptance of joint implementation as "the signature piece of the Berlin mandate as far as we're concerned." Because greenhouse gases circulate globally, reducing emissions in one area mitigates their effect worldwide -- and the process is often much cheaper in the Third World.
Although still a fledgling concept -- the United States has only seven small pilot projects underway in Russia, Costa Rica and elsewhere -- Wirth said it eventually will "provide the only real mechanism for the transfer of technology and the flow of funds" from rich nations to the developing world. CAPTION: At the U.N. climate conference, protesters unfurl a banner that reads, "It Is Warm in Here."
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