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US ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS PROTEST BUSH REVERSAL ON KYOTO Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning · Center for International Environmental Law · Center for Sustainable Development in the Americas · Defenders of Wildlife · Environmental and Energy Study Institute · Friends of the Earth – U.S. · Greenpeace · Minnesotans for an Energy Efficient Economy · National Environmental Trust · Natural Resources Defense Council · Physicians for Social Responsibility · Sierra Club · Sustainable Energy and Economy Network · Union of Concerned Scientists · US Public Interest Research Group · Woods Hole Research Center · World Wildlife Fund April 13, 2001 Hon. Joe Barton Re: Questions Regarding Kyoto Protocol Implementation Negotiations Dear Representative Barton: Thank you for this opportunity to provide our views on action to address the threats of global warming. The steps the United States takes in the coming months and years will affect the well-being of Americans and people in other countries around the world. We believe the agreement reached in Kyoto over three years ago and signed by the U.S. government represents the best next step in a phased program for all nations to take effective action to combat human changes to our earth’s climate. We and other independent observers have concluded that the Kyoto agreement will not harm the U.S. economy. We and other independent observers also believe that the differentiated roles assigned to developed and developing countries in the agreement’s first time period (2008-2012) will lead to broader engagement of developing countries far more quickly than the approach attributed by some to be reflected in the 1997 Senate Resolution 98 (SR-98), i.e., the demand that all countries must act in the same way at the same time. Senate Resolution 98 has been the source of significant confusion for members of the Bush Administration and others. For instance, the President’s Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, stated repeatedly during his March 28 press briefing that SR-98 constituted the Senate’s vote “against ratification” of the Kyoto Protocol. SR-98 was a non-binding statement of the views of the Senate in 1997 on the climate change negotiations as they stood at that time. It bears emphasizing that SR-98 was adopted in July 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in December 1997. Its adoption also came prior to the last three years of international negotiations, which all parties agree are essential for fleshing out exactly how the Protocol will work and what its environmental, economic, and other effects will be. Coming before the Kyoto Protocol, SR-98 simply cannot serve as an evaluation or response to the treaty. SR-98 was written so broadly that even strong supporters of a treaty, such as Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) voted for it. In so doing, Senator Kerry said, “It is clear that one of the chief sponsors of this resolution, Senator Byrd . . . agrees . . . that the prospect of human-induced global warming as an accepted thesis with adverse consequences for all is here, and it is real . . . Senator Lieberman, Senator Chafee and I would have worded some things differently . . . [but] I have come to the conclusion that these words are not a treaty killer.” As we discuss below, objective analyses of the costs to the U.S. of carrying out the Kyoto agreement show that the U.S. economy will not be harmed. As for developing country involvement, the Kyoto agreement’s Clean Development Mechanism was adopted to create opportunities to reduce emissions in developing countries while reducing compliance costs in developed countries. The urgency of prompt action to begin reducing the emissions driving climate change also has been underlined by scientific studies completed since 1997. The scientific understanding of climate change—summarized in the definitive work of thousands of the world’s most preeminent climate change experts collaborating as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—has provided a much stronger documentation of the extent of the threat posed by climate change and the potential costs of inaction. 1. Effect of Kyoto Protocol
on U.S. Economy While the scientific and public understanding of global warming has been maturing, we have also learned how government, business, and ordinary citizens can counter the climate threat in cost-effective ways. Recent assertions by President Bush that the Kyoto treaty will cause serious harm contradict most available research, and were apparently made without considering relevant analyses or any public debate on the matter. The only analysis that President Bush cited in his March 13 letter announcing his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol and reversal on CO2 reductions, was a service report by the Energy Information Administration predicting cost impacts for certain power plant emission control scenarios. The EIA report is seriously flawed as an analysis of electric sector reduction policies, due to unrealistic scenario assumptions and a failure to consider the inexpensive greenhouse pollution reductions that can be achieved through energy efficiency. It uses cost and performance assumptions for renewable energy technologies that neglect their ability to play a role in the expanding power market with appropriate policies. The assumptions made are much more pessimistic than those used in other analyses by DOE and the power industry’s own Electric Power Research Institute. Because the EIA report was not an analysis of the Kyoto agreement, it did not consider the agreement’s flexible market mechanisms, which the United States has spent the last three years negotiating with other signatories, and which are intended and expected to lower compliance costs significantly. Moreover, the report did not take into account the additional flexibility and savings that could be derived from actions undertaken in the forestry sector, as they are anticipated in the draft rules. It is therefore not surprising that the report grossly overstates the costs of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The President’s declaration ignored the two relevant government analyses of the costs of implementing the Kyoto agreement. Those studies show that we can reduce greenhouse gas pollution to levels called for in the Kyoto agreement without harming the U.S. economy. In 1998, the White House Council of Economic Advisors concluded that the costs of implementing the Kyoto Protocol would be “modest”¾no more than a few tenths of 1 percent of gross domestic product in 2010. That would be equivalent to adding a month or two to a ten-year forecast for achieving a vastly increased level of wealth in this country. (CEA, “The Kyoto Protocol and the President’s Policies to Address Climate Change: Administration Economic Analysis,” July 1998). A subsequent and more detailed study by five Department of Energy national laboratories found that policies to promote increases in energy efficiency and use of renewable energy resources would allow the United States to make most of the emission reductions required to comply with the Protocol through domestic measures that could save consumers money, ease our energy problems, and actually improve economic performance over the long run (Interlaboratory Working Group, “Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future,” ORNL/CON-476, November 2000). The modest costs of implementing Kyoto pale in comparison to the impacts that are threatened by unabated climate change. The commitments in the Kyoto agreement are needed to preserve options to stabilize greenhouse gases at safe levels and to lay a foundation for action by all countries to take further steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 2. Role of Developing
Countries under the Kyoto Protocol We especially appreciate an opportunity to express our views on the relevance of developing country commitments to U.S. implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and the 1992 Framework Convention. In our view, the roles assigned to developing countries in the 1992 Convention and the Kyoto agreement will lead to comprehensive efforts by all countries to combat climate change more rapidly than other approaches. The consensus of the U.S., Europe, Japan and other developed-world parties to the 1992 Convention was that a negotiating approach of insisting that developing countries adopt specific quantitative emission reduction obligations on the same timetable as developed countries would delay rather than speed increased engagement by developing countries. Along with our industrialized allies, the U.S. agreed that binding legal commitments by developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the first compliance period were not necessary to avoid adverse economic impacts on our economies. We believe those judgments are correct. The facts show that over the medium term, developing country emissions threaten neither the effectiveness of the treaty nor the competitiveness of the United States. We identify five basic reasons why the approach suggested in SR-98 is unnecessary and counterproductive. U.S. competitiveness is protected Specific emission reduction commitments by developing countries are not necessary to safeguard the competitiveness of U.S. industry. More than 90% of U.S. industry would not face a significant increase in their production costs assuming a sensible policy to limit emissions that recycles the value of emission allowances back into the economy. For the small number of firms that would face significant cost increases (increases of more than 3%) competitiveness concerns can be addressed through border tax adjustments that can be adopted unilaterally by the United States under the rules of the World Trade Organization. (See J. Andrew Hoerner, Burdens and Benefits of Environmental Tax Reform: An Analysis of Distribution by Industry, San Francisco: Redefining Progress (2000).) Responsibility for the problem of climate change An approach that ignores the cumulative contributions of developed countries to current greenhouse gas concentrations will delay agreement on cooperative actions to reduce emissions. Global climate change is driven by the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere over the past centuries. Most greenhouse gases are extremely persistent, and stay in the atmosphere for a hundred or more years before breaking down. The industrialized countries, which harbor less than 25 percent of the world’s population, are responsible for about 75 percent of the accumulated carbon dioxide emissions currently in the atmosphere. The U.S. alone is responsible for more than 25 percent of the atmospheric CO2 buildup. India, with over 1 billion people, is responsible for just over 2 percent, while China, the world’s most populous country, accounts for about 8.5 percent. Now, and for many years to come, industrialized countries like the U.S. will continue to be the biggest source of the problem. Emissions from U.S. power plants (500 million tons of carbon per year) exceed the combined emissions from 146 countries, roughly three-quarters of the countries in the world. Given the numbers, calls for “global participation” in emissions reductions obligations are either unsupported rhetorical flourishes or imprecise shorthand for a much more circumscribed set of countries, like India, China and other “key” developing countries. However, even the national emissions from large developing countries such as South Korea, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Venezuela, and Argentina added together are less than 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions. India and China, with a combined population over eight times greater than the U.S., have total carbon emissions only 60 percent of U.S. carbon emissions. In claiming the Kyoto Protocol is “unfair”, President Bush asserts that the Protocol exempts 80 percent of the world’s population. Yet, 80 percent of the global warming problem comes from just 20 percent of the world. The United States is the biggest emitter of global warming pollution. Fairness in responding to climate change One-third of the world--about 2 billion people--has no access to electric power services. Another one-third of the world’s population lacks reliable access to electric power and transport services. Most of the remainder of the world lives in industrialized countries and enjoys relatively high standards of living. These are the countries covered by the Kyoto agreement’s first compliance period. Carbon emissions from developed countries differ greatly in scale and character from those in most developing countries. For example, U.S. per capita CO2 emissions are 20 times those of the average Indian and more than 10 times those of the average Chinese person. In contrast to wealthier developed nations, carbon emissions from the poor nations are primarily “survival emissions” created by people trying to meet basic human needs for food and shelter. By and large, poor countries lack the financial, technological, and institutional abilities to fight climate change. The mean U.S. income is almost $29,000 per person, while Indian and Chinese counterparts earn about US$ 400 and US$ 700 respectively. None of us can deny the reality that poverty, air pollution, access to clean water, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases are major problems afflicting the world’s poor countries. To insist that these countries divert resources immediately from attacking these problems to limiting greenhouse gas emissions in order to satisfy U.S. claims of “unfairness” would, in our view, be fundamentally unfair, while also guaranteeing an impasse in climate change policy negotiations. Even without binding targets, developing countries are already acting to reduce greenhouse gases Despite their many other pressing problems, developing countries—including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and India—are in fact reining in their greenhouse gas emissions through energy, transport and other policies. For example, while U.S. CO2 emissions continue to rise (now about 13 percent above 1990 levels), emissions in China have dropped more than 17 percent since 1997. China’s energy efficiency and conservation measures since 1980 have resulted in avoided emissions of more than 400 million tons of carbon per year, an amount nearly equal to emissions of the entire U.S. transportation sector. Ironically, U.S. government agencies—the Export Import Bank (Ex-Im) and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)—are undermining these accomplishments by making it more challenging for developing countries to limit their emissions. OPIC and Ex-Im have provided loans or guarantees for projects worth $7.7 billion in energy intensive sectors in India and China between 1994 and 2001. To the tune of roughly $28 billion since 1992, U.S. taxpayers are unwittingly party to a carbon-heavy investment portfolio via these two institutions. By comparison, $462 million has been provided to promote clean energy technologies during the same time period—or about 60 times as much for fossil fuels as for renewables. International relations It is frequently asserted that the U.S. is a country that takes its international commitments seriously. The 1992 Climate Convention (signed by George Bush, Sr. and unanimously ratified by Congress in 1992) reads: “developed countries should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.” The language of SR-98 contradicts the very treaty that the U.S. Senate and 185 other countries ratified. The U.S. should not use the specific approach suggested in SR-98 as a basis for international negotiation on climate change for the very simple reason that it would impede rather than assist progress towards the goal of greater developing country participation in efforts to mitigate global warming. As mentioned above, the SR-98 proposal on developing countries is not needed to address economic concerns in the U.S. Accordingly, it would not be in America’s interest to confine itself to that approach. We hope these views assist you in moving forward on equitable and effective measures for dealing with climate change at the domestic and international levels. We invite you to contact us at your convenience if you would like to discuss any of these issues further. Respectfully, Daniel Becker Christine Bustany Kert Davies Christiana Figueres Gene Karpinski Michael Noble David G. Hawkins Karen Hopfl-Harris David Hunter Alden Meyer Wm. Carroll Muffett Kilaparti Ramakrishna Debbie Reed Don Ryan Katherine Silverthorne Jon Sohn Carol Werner
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