Economy Chills Warming Treaty

KYOTO, Japan, Nov. 30 — The odds against a breakthrough climate treaty emerging from a conference of 160 nations in this ancient Japanese capital were always long. But an unexpected new problem -- Asia's financial crisis -- has further diminished prospects that world leaders will endorse a costly plan aimed at slowing the Earth's apparent warming trend.

As thousands of government officials, environmentalists and journalists from Papua New Guinea to Paraguay arrived here today for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, many Asian countries are preoccupied by bankruptcies, diving stock markets and the disappearing value of their currencies.

"The financial crisis is now, and [global warming] is very long-term," said Melinda Kimble, the lead U.S. negotiator attending preliminary talks today for the conference, which opens Monday. She said the region's financial difficulties "affect the mood" of the conference and color its discussions. "We raise questions about climate change, and what we hear back is, `We have a financial crisis to deal with,' " she said.

The aim of this month's conference is to forge an agreement that would slow the effects of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are accumulating in the atmosphere, allowing sunlight through but trapping heat that Earth emits back toward space. Scientists say such global warming eventually could lead to rising sea levels, flooding, droughts and other dangerous changes in world weather.

A top official with the environmental group Greenpeace International said today that the "explosive issue of the meeting" is whether developing countries -- including such key Asian nations as China, India and Indonesia -- should participate in the U.N. effort to curb the emission of greenhouse gases. The United States insists they must. But because some of those countries are in financial chaos, the likelihood that they will agree to potentially pricey measures to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from factories and cars is even more remote.

Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, while obviously concerned that the conference be viewed as a success, is neck-deep in economic and political problems of his own. Japan's recent economic troubles have forced Hashimoto to turn his attention to such urgent issues as whether taxpayer dollars should bail out failing financial institutions or be used on a wider welfare safety net for the newly unemployed.

"These unfortunate economic events have clouded the meeting," a Japanese official said. "The Asian developing countries, as the richest, were expected to lead the other developing countries into some kind of agreement."

In particular, South Korea, which has the world's 11th-largest economy, had been counted on to nudge poorer developing countries to reduce the gases that contribute to a heating of the Earth, a rising sea level, the swallowing of shorelines and other extreme climate changes.

But South Korea is in no position to lend a hand. The country is in political paralysis after its leaders were compelled to seek a humiliating International Monetary Fund bailout.

As some Japanese officials sought today to lower expectations for the meeting, others said that too much time and effort have been invested to allow the meeting to flop. The once obscure issue of global warming has become one of the most talked-about issues around the world for the past six months, in large part in anticipation of this conference.

"There has been a tremendous run-up to this agreement," said Christopher Flavin, senior vice president of Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group based in Washington, D.C., who spoke at one of the many environmental discussions held throughout Kyoto today. "If we don't seize this opportunity and we don't get legally binding targets, it will be a setback of five years."

Several officials said it would be a catastrophe if temporary economic woes dashed a real chance of solving a climate problem that will affect millions of people for centuries.

"We have to be optimistic. Global warming is so terrible for us," said Penehuro LeFale, the delegate from the Cook Islands, as he stood in a Kyoto conference hall that overlooks leafy hills bursting in autumn colors. Japan has had an unusually warm autumn, and some here worry that there might not be enough snow for the 1998 Winter Olympics, to be held in Nagano in February.

LeFale said each country has its particular worries about changing weather patterns and the effects of global warming. But he said the Cook Islands rest only three feet above sea level, and rising South Pacific seas already have claimed some of their shores. "For us, this treaty is survival."

But he, like others, said he is discouraged that financial concerns about the costs of solutions and now the Asian financial crisis are making "an environmental conference boil down to an economic conference."

U.N. officials had hoped to narrow some of the gaps between the European, American and Japanese proposals in the days leading up to the conference, but informal talks in recent weeks in Tokyo and Vancouver found the major players clinging to their positions.

The Clinton administration seeks a treaty that would stabilize emissions at 1990 levels by 2012, saying that will require deep cuts. The European Union is promoting an aggressive reduction 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2010, although there were hints today that it might soften that position. The Japanese have proposed that emissions be cut by a maximum of 5 percent -- but with so many loopholes that some countries would have to make virtually no cuts.

At preliminary meetings that were scheduled until 11 p.m. tonight, many participants blamed the United States for the lack of progress. "There is a growing feeling that the U.S. is becoming the bully of the conference," said Bill Hale, political director of Greenpeace International.

Because the United States is the largest producer of greenhouse gases, the globe's richest country and the voice insisting on the participation of developing countries in a Kyoto treaty, many say the success or failure of the conference rests largely with the American delegation.

"There will be a political cost to the U.S. if this meeting crashes and burns," said Hale.

But President Clinton is balancing many pressures, including business interests that see a strong stand here for the environment as a sure way to slow economic growth at home. Some American business leaders have argued that adoption of a strong treaty limiting greenhouse gases in the United States would result in the loss of American jobs and force factories to move to countries less constrained by treaty restrictions.

A dozen U.S. congressmen are scheduled to arrive here in the next few days -- many of them intent on making sure that the U.S. delegation is reminded of American industries' concerns.

The Clinton administration has not decided whether Vice President Gore, long concerned about climate change, will attend this week's conference.

Richard Pollack, a spokesman for an alliance of industry, organized labor and advocacy groups opposed to binding limits on greenhouse gases, has let the White House know many people are watching the outcome of Kyoto. "Not only will the general public be concerned if [the Clinton administration] comes back with a bad treaty, but one of his natural constituencies -- organized labor -- will be very upset," Pollack said.

Some diplomats say that in the end, some compromise on a numerical target for greenhouse gas reductions has a good chance of success.

"It looks like it will be a nail-biter," said Flavin, predicting negotiations will last until the final moments of the 10-day conference. "I don't think the U.S. wants to be seen as the country that defeated this agreement."

Staff writer Joby Warrick in Washington contributed to this report.