A Climate of Despair

Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day has been an international festival of environmental celebration and protest. With President George W. Bush’s rejection of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls on industrial nations to help slow global warming by cutting carbon dioxide emissions, environmentalists and governments alike might be excused for feeling there’s little to celebrate — and much to protest — as this year’s Earth Day (April 22) rolls around.

Last month Bush announced that he was abandoning the Kyoto Protocol, having concluded that the international agreement could hurt the American economy, particularly during a burgeoning energy crisis. Governments around the world condemned the President’s stance as uninformed and even reckless, noting with outrage that the U.S. is home to 4% of the world’s population but produces 25% of its greenhouse gases.

Bush is reluctant to sign up to an international agreement that would require American industries to install expensive new anti-pollution equipment in factories. The Administration insists that it has by no means spoken its last word on global warming and pledges a coherent — if unspecified — policy at some later date. It would like this line to be seen as thoughtful caution;

European and Japanese ministers visiting Washington during the last two weeks say it is political dithering.

And many governments are not willing to wait. Last week, members of a European Union delegation, which had been stonewalled by the Bush Administration in Washington, toured Russia, Iran, China and Japan to drum up support for the Kyoto agreement. The E.U. is keen to press ahead with Kyoto even without the U.S., but the Japanese, whose Washington delegation was as large as the E.U.’s, seem willing to wait at least until the Administration announces an alternative plan. “U.S. participation is very important,” said Japanese Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi. The Japanese also agree with the U.S. on several important issues — such as emissions trading, which would permit countries that exceed their required cuts to sell credits to other countries, and counting CO2 absorption by forests as part of targeted reductions.

In a joint letter published last week in the Swedish daily Göteborgs-Posten, European Commission President Romano Prodi and Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson indicated a willingness to renegotiate parts of the Kyoto deal to meet U.S. objections. “It would be a tragic mistake to tear up the agreement and start over from scratch,” they wrote. “We would lose time, and that would make us all losers.” They also stressed that the E.U. would ratify the protocol with or without the participation of the U.S. The E.U.’s strategy — and those of the U.S. and Japan — may become clearer later this week when world environment ministers meet in New York to discuss last week’s compromise proposals from Jan Pronk, president of the United Nations’ forum on global warming, aimed at salvaging the Kyoto Protocol.

Bush’s decision has energized environmentalists as well. Friends of the Earth — one of the more than 5,000 organizations in 184 countries that make up the Earth Day Network — is urging the world to “give President Bush a taste of what climate change means and how much people are concerned about it” by flooding the White House with e-mails. Even before Bush’s move, this year’s Earth Day activities were set to focus on fossil fuels and global warming. One of the most prominent events is Earth Car Free Day (April 19) with scores of cities around the world participating.

For all the storm Kyoto has caused, its original provisions seem modest: a 5% reduction in emissions below 1990 levels for most industrialized nations, with the U.S. — as the world’s worst CO2 offender — receiving an incrementally tougher 7% cut. Developing countries that signed the treaty would get a pass for a while.

Simple atmospheric arithmetic suggests that this kind of sliding scale for emissions makes sense, but a closer look explains the Administration’s objections. The category of developing countries, for the purposes of the accord, included China and India, major powers by almost any measure. Giving two such heavyweights a CO2 waiver while the U.S. had to carry its share was galling to some. Proponents of the deal counter, as the biggest polluter, the U.S. should shoulder more of the reduction burden. Says Kjell Larsson, Sweden’s Environment Minister and current President of the E.U.: “The U.S. has made it more difficult by using the argument of their economy and saying, ‘We cannot afford to take action.’ What do you think the argument from the least-developed countries in the world would be?”

Yet the cuts the protocol requires are deeper than they seem….Yet the cuts the protocol requires are deeper than they seem. The Kyoto terms were drafted four years ago, but they would not go into effect until 2008. The CO2-reduction goals would not have to be met until 2012. U.S. greenhouse emissions are projected to grow more than 20% by then, which means that getting 7% below 1990 levels could actually require a 30% cut in output. Even then, the difference may not be enough to have any real impact. British Prime Minister Tony Blair believes that in order to put the brakes on warming a reduction of 60% may be needed. So sobering are these numbers that even nations that still support the pact have had trouble apportioning the burden, and the most recent talks, at the Hague last November, collapsed. The next meeting is scheduled for July in Bonn.

No matter how the talks turn out, the kind of bitter medicine the protocol prescribes, with the U.S. taking the biggest slug, did not go down well in Washington even before Bush arrived. In 1997 the Senate, which must ratify treaties, voted 95 to 0 that any global-warming pact that came before it must treat developed and developing countries equally. Such a repudiation is one more argument the Administration is using to pull the plug on Kyoto — though the Senate was probably driven by more than mere conscience. One of the 1997 resolution’s sponsors was Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, from the coal-producing state of West Virginia. Other interests — notably the oil and coal industries, both heavy contributors to Bush’s election campaign — also had the President’s ear.

A decade ago, the idea that the planet was warming up as a result of human activity was largely theoretical. We knew that since the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, factories, power plants, automobiles and farms have been loading the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases, including carbon dioxide and methane. But evidence that the climate was actually getting hotter was still murky.

Not anymore. Just last week two separate studies published in Science linked a significant increase in the temperature of the oceans with global warming caused by human activity. An authoritative report issued in January by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also found that the trend toward a warmer world has unquestionably begun. Worldwide temperatures have climbed more than .6C over the past century, and the 1990s were the hottest decade on record. After analyzing data going back at least two decades on everything from air and ocean temperatures to the spread and retreat of wildlife, the IPCC asserts that this slow but steady warming has had an impact on 420 physical processes and on animal and plant species on all continents.

Glaciers, including the legendary snows of Kilimanjaro, are disappearing from mountaintops around the globe. Coral reefs are dying off as the seas get too warm for comfort. Drought is the norm in parts of Asia and Africa. El Niño events, which trigger devastating weather in the eastern Pacific, are more frequent. The Arctic permafrost is starting to melt. Lakes and rivers in colder climates are freezing later and thawing earlier each year. Plants and animals are shifting their ranges poleward and to higher altitudes, and migration patterns for animals as diverse as polar bears and beluga whales are disrupted.

Faced with these hard facts, scientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening, and almost nobody questions the fact that humans are at least partly responsible. Nor are the changes over. Already, humans have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide, the most abundant heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, to 30% above pre-industrial levels — and each year the rate of increase gets faster. The obvious conclusion: temperatures will keep going up.

Unfortunately, they may be rising faster and heading higher than anyone expected. By 2100, says the IPCC, average temperatures will increase between 1.4C and 5.8C — more than 50% higher than predictions of just half a decade ago. That may not seem like much, but consider that it took only a 5C shift to end the last ice age. Even at the low end, the changes could be problematic enough, with storms becoming more frequent and intense, droughts more pronounced, coastal areas ever more severely eroded by rising seas and rainfall scarcer on agricultural land. But if the rise is significantly larger, the result could be disastrous. With seas rising as much as 88 cm, enormous areas of densely populated land — coastal Florida, much of Louisiana, the Nile Delta, the Maldives, Bangladesh — would become uninhabitable. Entire climatic zones might shift dramatically. Agriculture would be thrown into turmoil. Hundreds of millions of people would have to migrate out of unlivable regions.

Public health could suffer. Rising seas would contaminate water supplies with salt. Higher levels of urban ozone, the result of stronger sunlight and warmer temperatures, could worsen respiratory illnesses. More frequent hot spells could lead to a rise in heat-related deaths. Warmer temperatures could widen the range of disease-carrying rodents and bugs, such as mosquitoes and ticks, increasing the incidence of dengue fever, malaria, encephalitis, Lyme disease and other afflictions. Worst of all, this increase in temperatures is happening at a pace that outstrips anything the earth has seen in the past 100 million years. Humans will have a hard enough time adjusting, especially in poorer countries, but for wildlife, the changes could be devastating.

As in any other area of science, the case for human-induced global warming has some uncertainties…As in any other area of science, the case for human-induced global warming has some uncertainties — and like many pro-business lobbyists, President Bush has proclaimed those uncertainties a reason to study the problem further rather than act. But while the evidence is circumstantial, it is powerful, thanks to the IPCC’s painstaking research. The U.N.-sponsored group was organized in the late 1980s. Its mission: to sift through climate-related studies from a dozen different fields and integrate them into a coherent picture. “It isn’t just the work of a few green people,” says John Houghton, one of the early leaders who at the time ran the British Meteorological Office. “The IPCC scientists come from a wide range of backgrounds and countries.”

With the U.S. essentially sidelining itself in the global-warming fight, it is possible that the battle may never be effectively engaged. What’s causing the most distress is that all this comes at a time when many other pieces of the global-warming solution seemed to be falling into place.

In the U.S., state and local governments have been increasingly active in implementing greenhouse programs of their own, clamping down on emissions within their borders, stepping up mass-transit initiatives and enforcing conservation laws. Corporations in such sooty industries as oil and autos have been imposing on themselves the very restrictions Washington won’t. Outside the U.S., green-leaning developed nations like the E.U. members and emerging polluters like China and Mexico have seemed to be getting the message, implementing new programs and testing new technologies to control global warming.

What was needed to complete the picture was a vigorously engaged U.S. to control its own titanic greenhouse output and help get Kyoto enacted. The developments of the past few weeks cast doubt on whether that will happen, and for now, other nations may have to go it alone. “The science is so much more solid that humans are not going to sit by and foul their own nests,” says Fred Krupp, executive director of the advocacy group Environmental Defense. “We have to do something now.”

While most European Union governments are far from meeting their own Kyoto targets — even as their leaders berate the U.S. — several European nations are introducing new technologies that would make conservation not only easier but also economical, if not profitable.

An effective program to fight climate change need not involve huge increases in energy prices or draconian rules that choke industries at the smokestacks. The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends a range of new devices, including hybrid gas-electric cars that run half the time on a traditional internal-combustion engine and the rest of the time on batteries, boosting gas mileage considerably. Also promising is the combined cycle-gas turbine that can be used in place of traditional turbines to generate electricity. The new hardware operates at up to 60% efficiency, nearly twice that of any other turbine. Add a device that captures escaping heat and use that to warm buildings, and the efficiency jumps to 90%.

In its report, the IPCC was particularly keen on wind power. The E.U. produces 70% of the world’s wind-generated energy, with Germany, Spain and Denmark leading. The Netherlands will soon be getting into the game in a big way, building one of the world’s largest wind farms some 8 km offshore, a remote location that can take advantage of brisk sea breezes while keeping the noisy mills out of human earshot.

Germany is investigating the possibilties of wind power, too. “The North Sea is a gigantic reservoir for wind energy,” says Sven Teske, energy expert with Greenpeace Germany. “With the construction of offshore wind plants, Germany can contribute greatly to climate protection.” The Germans already generate 2.5% of their electricity from wind energy, sparing the atmosphere 4.8 million tons of CO2 a year. A study carried out by Greenpeace and the German Institute for Wind Energy in Wilhelmshaven found that CO2 reductions could reach 12 million tons a year by 2005 if offshore wind plants were used. In all, some 21 million tons could be saved if the countries bordering the North Sea meet their wind energy targets by 2004.

Britain announced plans earlier this month for 18 new offshore wind farms as part of the Labour government’s effort to ensure that 10% of the country’s electricity comes from renewable sources by 2010. Last June, a study by the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change showed Britain among the most probable nations to meet the targets. Greenhouse gases dropped 6.5% between 1998 and 1999 alone, Environment Ministry officials boast, while toxic CO2 emissions have been cut by 9% between 1990 and 1999. Potentially quadrupling current British wind power, the sites will be home to some 500 turbines expected to generate enough power to supply more than a million homes. “I want Britain to be a leading player in this coming green industrial revolution,” Prime Minister Blair said in a recent address on the environment. He’s backing that promise with nearly $150 million for development of wind, wave and solar power.

For a look at what a government can do if it really cares, visit Iceland…For a look at what a government can do if it really cares, visit Iceland, which is using its unique natural resources to meet its energy needs. From under the snow-covered lava fields that make up the bulk of the Icelandic land mass, hot water from the island’s volcanic underbelly boils and surges to the surface in the form of steaming geysers and hot springs. This inexhaustible source of energy is a godsend to Iceland’s 276,000 inhabitants, who meet 90% of their needs from geothermal and hydroelectric power. That gives Icelanders a marvelous opportunity: they are now trying to eliminate the use of fossil fuels entirely and make Iceland the first country in the world to get all of its energy from clean, renewable sources. If they succeed, they may — by the choice of their fuel technology — show the rest of the planet that it’s possible to fight global warming.

The goal in this tiny North Atlantic nation is to create the first hydrogen economy. Its centerpiece will be the hydrogen fuel cell, the versatile little power plant that combines hydrogen with oxygen from the air and gives off only energy and water vapor. The good news is that hydrogen can be derived from water, a virtually unlimited source. The bad news is that the electrolysis process used to extract it requires large amounts of energy. Iceland’s advantage in this field is that it can provide the necessary energy with its nonpolluting sources.

Last month, Icelandic New Energy, an international consortium that includes Shell Hydrogen, DaimlerChrysler, Norway’s Norsk Hydro and Iceland’s energy holding company Vistorka, officially launched two projects aimed at promoting hydrogen. One four-year program will introduce three buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells into Reykjavik’s city transport fleet. The first two years of the project will focus on environmental research, building up infrastructure and training staff. The buses, produced by DaimlerChrysler at $1.1 million each, are scheduled to go into regular service at the end of next year, spearheading a gradual switch of the nation’s 180,000 vehicles and 2,500 fishing vessels to hydrogen power.

The second program, a venture between Icelandic New Energy, California’s DCH Technology and Skeljungur, Shell’s Iceland distributor, will begin replacing conventional chemical batteries with fuel cells — for example, to power mobile homes or houses and businesses that are not on the regular electric grid. During a four- to six-month trial period, the partners will distribute fuel cells for free to see how they perform. If that goes well, the cells will be mass-produced and sold at a price determined by the size of the market.

For the mobile fuel cells, refills will be available from hydrogen canisters at Shell service stations scattered around the country. The buses will start with a central fuel depot in Reykjavik, but as hydrogen usage spreads to other vehicles, more fueling facilities will be integrated into the Shell network. “Fossil fuels are only 100 years old,” says Icelandic New Energy general manager Jon Björn Skulason. “They may last another 50, and then it could be the turn of hydrogen for 150 years after that.” By demonstrating that an entire economy — albeit a small, isolated one — can free itself of fossil fuel dependency, Iceland could be a source of hope and inspiration in a world threatened by climate chaos.

Outside Europe, other countries are unexpectedly taking a leadership role in curbing global warming. Mexico, which for decades has been choking on its own exhaust, is planning to double its output of geothermal power — energy generated by natural underground heating — which would place it third in the world in geothermal production, behind the U.S. and the Philippines. President Vicente Fox is also promising a bill that would open the national power grid to electricity produced by all manner of alternative sources.

China, with 11% of the world’s CO2 output — second to the U.S. — has cracked down on emissions and reduced its greenhouse output 17% between 1997 and 1999, eliminating more than the entire CO2 production of Southeast Asia. Beijing’s goal was less to curb global warming than to clean the air and protect the health of its population. But whatever its motivations, the policy is paying environmental dividends. “When China takes action,” says climate expert Kevin Baumert of World Resources Institute, a Washington think tank, “it has global implications.”

In the U.S., municipal governments are working to duplicate such successes. In 1993, Portland, Oregon became the first U.S. city to implement its own CO2-reduction plan, joining a global partnership of municipal governments that eventually included Denver, Minneapolis, Copenhagen and Helsinki. The goal was to slash CO2 emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2010. Portland’s strategy involved a six-point program that included synchronizing traffic lights, planting 75,000 acres of trees (which absorb carbon dioxide) and buying low-CO2 vehicles for the city’s fleet. By some measures, the program is working spectacularly, with mass-transit ridership increasing 30%, auto commutes to downtown falling 15% and solid-waste disposal from homes shrinking 13%. But the city’s CO2 output has actually risen, mostly because of an unanticipated population boom in the Pacific Northwest.

What makes the burden on cities lighter is a sudden burst of environmental awareness from a surprising source: industry. In recent years, more and more multinationals have been turning unexpectedly green, and one example is British Petroleum. Shortly after Kyoto was signed, BP chief executive John Browne set his company’s goal of cutting CO2 output 10% below its 1990 levels; four years later, he is halfway there. BP has achieved this in part by reducing the amount of greenhouse emissions that flare away in oil fields and refineries. The company is also looking into cutting carbon content in fuel and boosting the efficiency with which it burns. The oil giant and Ford Motor Co. are providing a $15 million grant to Princeton University, partly to study “sequestering” carbon — stripping the greenhouse element from hydrocarbons, burying it underground and burning the hydrogen that remains as clean fuel. “You can run a company on the basis that you only do what the law demands,” says Browne. “We use compliance with the law as a minimum and then go beyond that.”

Last October, BP, Alcan, DuPont and others joined with Environmental Defense to launch the Partnership for Climate Action, pledging to reduce their greenhouse emissions to levels meeting or exceeding Kyoto’s requirements. Ford, DaimlerChrysler and Texaco have not yet joined, but last year they did quit the misleadingly named Global Climate Coalition, an industry group opposed to emissions controls. Honda and Toyota have introduced hybrid cars with emissions 40% lower than standard models of the same size.

In the short run, there’s not much chance of halting global warming, not even if every nation in the world ratifies the Kyoto Protocol tomorrow. The treaty doesn’t require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions until 2008. By that time, a great deal of damage will have been done. But we can slow things down. If action today can keep the climate from eventually reaching an unstable tipping point or can finally begin to reverse the warming trend a century from now, the effort would hardly be futile.

It was only a dozen years ago that the first President Bush was sitting where his son is now, promising to battle the greenhouse effect with what he called the “White House effect.” At that time, the science of global warming was a black art, and strategies to combat it seemed more visionary than practical. But that has changed. Science appears to have cracked much of the greenhouse riddle, and both government and business are learning to use that information in ways that could eventually put the brakes on warming. If Washington wants a role in that effort, the climate-change crisis stands a greater chance of being averted. If not, a far warmer world may one day want to know why.

— Reported by Maryann Bird/London, David Bjerklie, Robert H. Boyle, Andrea Dorfman and William Dowell/New York, Massimo Calabresi, John F. Dickerson, Barry Hillenbrand and Dick Thompson/Washington, Helen Gibson and Thomas Sancton/Reykjavik, Joe Kirwin/Brussels, Sachiko Sakamaki/Tokyo and Regine Wosnitza/Berlin