Lobbyists Turn Up the Heat at Global Warming Forum

KYOTO, Japan, Dec. 3—J.R. Spradley Jr., a Washington lawyer in a nice suit, a sharp haircut and tasseled loafers, is the kind of guy who makes environmentalists crazy. He tells them there's no scientific proof that global warming exists, that it's the "emperor's new clothes" and that what they're trying to do at this week's global climate conference threatens to "wreck the entire world economic system."

Spradley is a paid consultant for a major electric-power producers' organization, one of more than 800 industrial lobbyists working hard here this week to derail the kind of comprehensive, binding global warming treaty that environmentalists say is critical to Earth's future.

In a conference hall full of environment ministers, environmental activists, recyclers, bicyclists, solar-powered coffee makers, windmill enthusiasts and a young English fellow who lived in a treehouse for three months to protest a shopping mall development that threatened a forest, Spradley is about as popular as an alligator in a kiddie pool. He knows that to environmentalists he's a bad guy, but he says industry's message needs to be heard.

"How many people were following Moses when he started? And there was only one guy saying the Earth was round in the beginning; it's nothing to be ashamed of," said Spradley, who represents the Edison Electric Institute in Washington.

Delegates from more than 150 nations are gathered in Kyoto this week with one main goal in mind -- to do something about global warming. While there is wide disagreement about the extent of the problem and the best way to combat it, there is a broad consensus among nations from the South Pacific to the Arctic Circle that this 10-day conference needs to produce some kind of treaty.

There is also an understanding, which is driving massive lobbying efforts on all sides of the question, that what happens here this week could affect the shape of energy production and use for decades to come, and the global climate indefinitely. Billions of dollars are at stake, thousands of jobs stand to be created or lost, and lifestyles around the world could improve or decline because of the action taken in Kyoto this week.

The conference is about as "green" an event as is imaginable, an environmentalists' paradise. Every piece of paper is printed on recycled stock, video screens continuously warn about the dangers of climatic change. Environmental scientists and activists from around the world, many of them dressed in khakis and baggy sweaters, hold forth with stacks of statistics and research papers. Local hotels tout their own environmental awareness, asking guests to reuse towels to cut down on laundry waste. Even the young Japanese workers offering information and directions to conference hall bathrooms wear bright green jackets.

It's not a crowd that thinks much of representatives of oil, coal, automotive, agricultural and other industries fighting any binding agreement in Kyoto. Greenpeace staged a news conference this afternoon to blast industrial lobbyists for their "obstructive role" and for "unabashedly playing games with science and statistics." The Kyoto conference feels like a big truck that already has started rolling with environmental interests trying hard to control the wheel and industrial lobbyists riding on the roof, banging to be let in.

One environmental group, Friends of the Earth, is distributing a leaflet that shows a jowly man in a cowboy hat and bolo string tie, looking a lot like J.R. Ewing of "Dallas," with little bow-tied puppets of President Clinton and Vice President Gore sitting on his considerable lap. The idea, endorsed by many environmentalists here, is that the U.S. government's environmental policy is controlled by major oil and automotive companies that are "making billions of dollars from fossil fuels whilst helping to wreck the Earth's climate," as the leaflet puts it.

Friends of the Earth also has set up a ballot box to solicit votes for the "top of the Dirty Dozen." People are asked to choose their least favorite among 12 groups and companies -- including the Exxon, Mobil and Shell Oil companies; the Ford Motor Co.; and the Global Climate Coalition, an American organization comprising those oil companies, the Big Three automakers, mining and transport companies, steel makers and chemical producers that has led the charge here against binding emissions targets.

"It is visceral," said coalition president Gail McDonald, cited personally in the Friends of the Earth flier. McDonald, former chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission in the Clinton administration, said the opposition to her group's position in Kyoto this week has been vehement.

"For a person who used to get a certain degree of deference as a public official, it's hard," McDonald said. "I remind myself each day that I need a thicker skin."

McDonald's coalition is among the largest lobbying groups here, with upwards of 100 members scheduled to arrive before the conference ends next Wednesday. Greenpeace, perhaps the largest international environmental delegation at the conference, has about 40 members. McDonald's group was the leading force behind this fall's $13 million advertising campaign in the United States, which warned that strict reductions in greenhouse gases would cause catastrophic economic results and endanger the lifestyle of every American.

"We're often seen as the guys in the black hats," McDonald said. "But we do feel great entitlement to make the case for the companies we represent." But, she said, in the charged atmosphere of Kyoto, "it's not always a perspective that's appreciated."

Many representatives of industry say the entire process here in Kyoto has been hijacked by environmentalists who have not fully considered the economic impact of what they are proposing. They note that delegates to the conference are overwhelmingly environment officials and that far too few represent their governments' economic or business interests.

They say that binding cuts in emissions with a specific timetable for action, such as the U.S. proposal of cutting emissions to their 1990 levels by between 2008 and 2012, would not achieve their environmental goals and would harm economies. They also oppose schemes that would set emissions limits for individual countries but allow a country that had reached its limit to buy "emissions credits" from one that had not.

"We'll be paying Botswana so we can continue making Pontiacs in Detroit, which is a lousy way to run a government," said a Washington lobbyist for a major American corporation, who asked not to be identified.

Environmentalists, in turn, accuse the industrial leaders of being "confusionists" who misrepresent the scientific facts and overstate potential economic impact, trying to undermine the Kyoto process simply to protect their own profits.

At its news conference, Greenpeace said that if General Motors were a country, its gross revenues of $168 billion in 1995 would have given it the 23rd-largest economy in the world. GM's revenues were larger than the combined gross national products of the 42 nations in the Alliance of Small Island States, many of which face the greatest threat from global warming.

With that kind of money, plus the huge political contributions oil, gas and auto companies make to members of the U.S. Congress, which must ratify any treaty signed by American delegates here, the major industrial firms have inordinate power, Greenpeace spokesman Kalee Kreider said.

"It's not like Joe Sixpack can hop on a plane to Kyoto to say how he feels," Kreider said.