THE outcome of the US presidential election may be crucial in deciding the
fate of the Kyoto Protocol. If vice-president Al Gore wins then the talks, which
many say were only half a day from success, could continue from where they left
off. If it鈥檚 victory for George W. Bush, an oil man from an oil state, they may
have to start over.
For many a Bush presidency spells doom for the climate. But things may not be
quite what they seem. Slowly, even Republican America is embracing the global
warming issue鈥攁lbeit often only to make money.
鈥淭he mood is changing in the US,鈥� says Larry Craig, a US senator from the
Midwestern state of Idaho. 鈥淓nergy producers increasingly share the general
population鈥檚 environmental ethic鈥攚ith or without Kyoto.鈥� This, as chief US
negotiator Frank Loy points out, is a far cry from three years ago in Kyoto. 鈥淚n
Kyoto, corporations came to block action. In The Hague, they contributed
constructively,鈥� he says.
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Craig is no green liberal himself鈥攈e is chairman of the Republican
Policy Committee and board member of the National Rifle Association. He has just
spent a week in The Hague in friendly talks with all sides. 鈥淚 entered the
climate change debate a few years ago as a sceptic,鈥� he told New
杏吧原创. 鈥淏ut today, in observing the science, my scepticism is less than
it was by a considerable extent. I find the scientists are in much greater
agreement.鈥� When pushed, he said he believed half of global warming might be due
to human activities.
And it is not just the business community that sees gains in being green. If
the Protocol is finally agreed, it will probably offer tens of thousands of
farmers in the US the chance to cash in by reducing the amount of ploughing they
do. This cuts the oxidation of organic matter and results in more carbon being
stored in soils. This novel carbon 鈥渟ink鈥� scheme survived every late-night
redraft and remains on the table for when talks resume. With carbon credits
eventually likely to be worth up to $50 a tonne, soil sinks could be
worth more than a billion dollars a year to American farmers.
Farmers could also gain from the protocol by planting carbon sink forests on
their land and by charging for wind turbines to be erected on their land. Their
representatives have traditionally been hostile to the Kyoto Protocol, fearing
higher energy prices. But this month the American Farm Bureau wrote to the
government signalling a change of attitude if a farm bill due to come before
Congress prioritises sink projects.
And if American farmers have a change of heart, so will their senators. 鈥淭his
is a critical shift which greatly improves the chances that the Senate will
ratify the Kyoto Protocol,鈥� said Philip Clapp of the US National Environmental
Trust. Assuming, of course, that there is eventually a completed Protocol to be
ratified.
