Senior Ministers Arriving in Japan to Try To Salvage Climate Summit

KYOTO, Japan, Dec. 7 (Sunday)—Senior ministers from dozens of nations began arriving here today to attempt to salvage a week-old climate summit that has produced plenty of spectacle -- from a marauding 20-foot dinosaur to a commando raid on a gasoline station -- but little progress toward a treaty to curb global warming.

Weary diplomats were hoping an infusion of leadership -- and particularly the presence of Vice President Gore -- could help them cut through a tangle of problems that threaten to block the world's first binding agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. More than 160 nations began negotiating the pact last Monday, but quickly hit a snag over how to share responsibility for cuts in fossil fuel use blamed for warming the planet.

Several possible compromise proposals have surfaced, and some officials expressed optimism that some kind of agreement would be reached by the time the meeting ends on Wednesday. Instead of a single emissions reduction goal for every nation, for example, compromise proposals could allow different countries to adopt different emission reduction goals depending on their individual needs.

By late Saturday, talk of compromise was being overshadowed by angry rhetoric and posturing as delegation leaders dug in to await instructions from home. Negotiators, however, met in private to try to smooth over differences, while outside the halls a small army of advocacy groups competed for the attention of the several thousand journalists assigned to cover the talks.

"It's time for some adult supervision," one frustrated U.S. official said during a lull. "You would have liked by this point to at least have a few things nailed down."

Gore, who was scheduled to leave Washington for Japan today, was to speak to the conference on Monday as part of a one-day mission intended to demonstrate the Clinton administration's commitment to curbing global emissions of greenhouse gases. But White House officials said the vice president was not backing away from the positions that have triggered the most controversy in Kyoto, including his insistence that developing countries play a "meaningful" role in curbing concentrations of heat-trapping pollutants in the atmosphere.

That condition drew a string of angry denouncements from such countries as China and India, which lag far behind the West in per-capita emissions and which have flatly rejected the idea of binding limits that might hamper their efforts to modernize. "In the developed world only two people ride in a car, and yet you want us to give up riding in a bus," said Shukong Zhong, an economic adviser to the Chinese government.

The increasingly strong rhetoric matched the tone outside the conference rooms, where thousands of activists representing environmental groups, industry lobbyists and other advocates have set up camp alongside as many as 5,000 journalists. Some have sought to woo TV cameras with offbeat demonstrations and colorful events that have given the conference a touch of the surreal.

This week, delegates entering the conference hall have been greeted by a sharp-fanged one-ton metal dinosaur built from auto parts and various flotsam from fuel tanks and gasoline pumps. Created by two members of the environmental group Greenpeace International, "Carbonosaurus" was shipped to Japan from Europe, where it has been a regular visitor at recent international conferences on climate change. The 20-foot-high creature was hauled into the conference complex on a flat-bed trailer and parked by the conference door, where it has become a popular backdrop for photographs among conference guests and tourists.

"This conference has been hijacked by the fossil fuel industry," explained Greenpeace spokesman Holger Roenitz, a German, "but we think fossil fuels are the technology of the past."

Greenpeace, which has seized oil drilling platforms and blocked whaling vessels as part of civil disobedience campaigns in the past, said it was refraining from such illegal activities in Japan. But another environmental group briefly seized control of a Kyoto gasoline station earlier in the week in a protest against the petroleum industry.

Other demonstrations have been more mild, but no less unusual. One of Greenpeace's continuing exhibits is a small outdoor hut with solar-paneled walls that brews free cups of "solar coffee" for conference visitors. In a parking lot nearby, one lone demonstrator uses a bicycle-powered generator to juice up his amplifier and microphone.

On Saturday, a pair of ice-sculpture penguins joined the dinosaur in the ranks of silent protesters outside the conference gates. All day the penguins slowly melted, dripping water on hand-lettered signs that read, "The Rich Get Richer While We're Getting Hotter," and "Al Gore, cut greenhouse gases now -- or go home."

Whether the penguins would stick around long enough for Gore's arrival was doubtful. But environmental groups have made it clear that the vice president may get a less than heroic reception if he fails to deliver in Kyoto.

Some were already drawing comparisons to President Bush's trip to the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992, when environmental leaders and Gore himself sharply criticized the president for not taking a strong position on fighting global warming. A daily newsletter produced by environmental groups at the summit on Saturday featured a cartoon that depicted Gore walking a tightrope while balancing a globe in one hand and a dollar sign in the other. The caption, "Gore in the balance," was a play on the title of Gore's 1992 book in which he described global warming as mankind's greatest environmental threat.

Gore was not expected to take a direct role in negotiations during his visit, but both he and President Clinton have been calling world leaders in recent days to try to win support for the administration's climate plan, White House officials said. The president in October proposed reducing greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels between the years 2008 and 2012, while calling for an aggressive program of incentives and tax breaks to encourage businesses to cut pollution early.

The European Union and many developing countries have urged far more aggressive reductions. Until now, negotiators at the conference have largely delayed detailed discussions of the emissions targets, focusing instead on other issues that are considered true treaty-killers. They include the question of emissions limits for developing countries and various Western-backed proposals for emissions-trading schemes and "joint-implementation" programs, which would let Western businesses claim credit for making clean energy investments in poor countries.

Developing nations have repeatedly rejected any consideration of the proposals in Kyoto, insisting that industrialized countries take more responsibility for solving a problem that they, in large measure, created.

The Clinton administration, meanwhile, has said it will reject any accord that does not include such flexible provisions that ease the costs for industries. Members of the U.S. Congress have said they will oppose any treaty that does not include limits on developing nations.