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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Treaty to fight warming in effect

Miguel Bustillo Los Angeles Times

Nearly eight years after it was negotiated, the Kyoto Protocol to curtail greenhouse gases in order to combat global warming goes into effect today without the participation of the country that produces roughly a fourth of the world’s heat-trapping exhaust: the United States.

A total of 140 countries have ratified the pact, the first major international effort to reduce the industrial greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists believe to be responsible for increased global temperatures over the past century.

But under the terms of the Kyoto treaty, only developed nations will have to cut greenhouse gases. Thirty-five have agreed to lower them to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Critics of the treaty, including U.S. officials, have argued that it places the developed world at a competitive disadvantage. Emerging economic giants such as China are expanding energy use but are not required under the pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

United Nations officials and numerous heads of state praised the treaty’s formal launch as a long-overdue starting point.

“We have been waiting so long for the start of the Kyoto Protocol, there is a sense this is historic,” Joke Waller-Hunter, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Conference on Climate Change, said in an interview from Kyoto, where diplomats were gathering to commemorate the treaty. “We all know it is only a first step. But you don’t start walking without a first step.”

For the treaty to take effect, nations responsible for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas production had to ratify it. That requirement was finally met last year when Russia agreed to cut its emissions.

However, the consensus of even the strongest Kyoto supporters is that the pact alone will barely make a dent in the global warming problem – especially without the United States, which along with Australia is the only large developed nation not taking part.

Worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, mainly released during the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, are still expected to increase despite Kyoto due to the growing output of developing nations such as China and India.

It is far from certain that the 35 countries agreeing to reduce greenhouse gases will actually do so. Japan and Canada have actually increased their emissions since the treaty was negotiated in Kyoto in 1997 and will have to make major reductions to comply.

Acknowledging it will need stricter policies to comply with Kyoto, Canada is considering forcing auto makers to reduce tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases in new cars and trucks sold in the country – modeling its proposal on a regulation pioneered by California. Canadian officials said they expected a major news announcement today at a Kyoto celebration in Toronto, but declined to elaborate on whether it would be the automobile rule.

Meanwhile, European leaders are already pressing to move beyond Kyoto – and for the United States to resume a role in the discussions. On Tuesday, French President Jacques Chirac called for wealthy nations to go far beyond the treaty’s relatively modest reductions and slash greenhouse gas emissions to a fourth of current levels by 2050. His remarks followed a similar speech by British Prime Minister Tony Blair last month that also called for stronger measures.

“Our first objective this year must be to re-engage the United States in the international effort to fight climate change,” Chirac said during a conference at the French presidential palace, adding that he planned to raise the issue with President Bush in Belgium next week.

Global temperatures have clearly risen over the past 100 years – last year was the fourth hottest ever recorded, according to a recent report by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – and most scientists now believe that human activities are at least playing a role in the shift.

However, there is still significant debate over whether greenhouse gas emissions are the primary cause, with skeptics noting that the planet also began emerging from a natural cooling period dubbed the “Little Ice Age” about 150 years ago.

The United States signed the Kyoto treaty in 1997, and Vice President Al Gore was one of its chief negotiators. But the U.S. Senate refused to ratify it, arguing that it would harm the American economy.

President Bush, who campaigned in 1999 on the promise that he would regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, changed his mind after taking office and withdrew from the Kyoto process in 2001, advocating voluntary steps to reduce greenhouse gases instead.

Environmental groups accuse the United States of burying its head in the sand on global warming by refusing to take part in Kyoto.