Dubya steps on the gas and leaves the world fuming

Among the loud torrent of protest that last week greeted US President Bush's rejection of the world's attempt to stem the pollution that is wrecking the climate, was a still, small voice from the tiny South Pacific archipelago of Kiribati.

"We may drown if the sea level continues to rise," said Baranika Etuati, director of the government's environment department. "There are also a lot of changes in the weather - frequent droughts, severe storms. It is a terrible economic problem. It is our very survival."

Half a world away, the wealthy American constituency that gave birth to Bush and his environmental recklessness just keeps on consuming. The car manufacturer, Daimler-Chrysler, has just launched in the US the world's largest people-carrier, a four-wheel drive family bus known as a 'Unimog', which stands nearly 3 metres tall, weighs 5.7 tonnes and does just ten miles on a gallon of diesel.

As the vehicles expand so do the people who fill them. A recent study revealed that the US is suffering an epidemic of obesity with 61% of all adults officially overweight, a third of them by more than 13 kilograms. The US Centers for Disease Control estimates that 300,000 Americans die each year from obesity-related illnesses.

Given what we know of the United States, it was perhaps not surprising George 'Dubya' Bush said what he did. But it was the callousness of his words, the naked self-interest of his sentiment and the disregard he showed for the health and safety of the rest of the world that really shook people.

Shortly before he met German chancellor, Gerhard Schrder on Thursday, Bush told reporters: "We have an energy shortage. I look forward to explaining this today to the leader of Germany as to why I made the decision I made."

Stressing that he was still prepared to work with countries to reduce pollution, he added: "But I will not accept a plan that will harm our economy and hurt American workers." His officials, meantime, were putting out the same message in briefings: the agreement to cut climate-wrecking carbon emissions which the world has been fumbling towards for a decade was, as far as the US is concerned, dead.

The anger that resonated around the world was palpable. "This is outrageous and sabotages many years of hard work," said Sweden's environment minister Kjell Larsson. "It's extremely worrying," was the reaction of the European environment commissioner, Margot Wallstrm, who is leading an emergency delegation to Washington tomorrow.

"It is not acceptable that national economic worries mean the world cannot act against a global threat," declared the Danish environment minister, Svend Auken. "It is a low point in world environmental history," added the Australian Green senator, Bob Brown. And in Washington, the president of the Worldwatch Institute, Christopher Flavin, said Bush had sparked "the most serious international environmental policy crisis in years".

In Scotland, many felt the same. "It is tragic," said Ken Collins, chairman of the government's Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). "It beggars belief that a world leader could display such crass and irresponsible selfishness," said Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland.

Even the governments in London and Edinburgh were moved to criticism. The situation was "exceptionally serious" said Britain's environment minister, Michael Meacher, while a spokesman for the Scottish Executive said the Bush administration's statements were "very disturbing".

The Kyoto Protocol agreed in Japan in 1997 would oblige the US to reduce its emissions of "greenhouse gases" like carbon dioxide that will heat the earth's climate by 7% of 1990 levels by 2012. Unfortunately over the last decade US discharges of carbon, which make up a quarter of the world's emissions, have risen by more than 10%.

Fumes from gas-guzzling cars and pollution belched out by factories and agriculture rise up in the atmosphere and stop heat escaping back into space. The overwhelming majority of the world's scientists now agree this is gradually warming the globe, and could see temperatures rise by as much as 6 degrees centigrade this century.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the dramatic changes this could trigger in the world's weather system are a serious threat to human health, the environment and society. Millions could be submerged under water or forced to migrate by rising sea levels and floods, droughts will become more prolonged and storms more severe.

What really puzzles European diplomats is that all this was accepted by the US as recently as March 4, when the G8 environment ministers - including Christine Todd Whitman from the US - agreed a communique in Trieste. "We express our concern about the seriousness of the situation," it said. "We commit ourselves to strive to reach agreement on outstanding political issues and to ensure in a cost- effective manner the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol."

When she went back to Washington, however, all Whitman's strenuous efforts failed to convince Bush to back the line she had agreed. As a result she was obliged to confess the US had "no interest" in implementing the Kyoto Protocol.

The key question now is how best to persuade Bush to change his mind. First will come the shuttle diplomacy, as Wallstrm flies to Washington tomorrow to try to find out exactly what the US administration is thinking.

According to insiders, Europe's 15 leaders will raise the issue when they have dinner with Bush on the eve of the European summit on sustainable development in Gothenburg, Sweden, in mid-June. That is scheduled to be the US president's first visit to Europe, and will be closely followed the next month by the crunch attempt to salvage the climate change negotiations at a meeting in Bonn.

Urgent talks will also be held between Europe and other potential climate waverers, Canada, Russia, Japan and Australia, who have all sided with the US in the negotiations to date. Assuming the US remains intransigent, the longer-term strategy will probably be to build strong backing for the Kyoto Protocol amongst the rest of the world.

That is what is now being suggested by policy analysts. "Rather than chasing the chimera of US ratification, the EU should focus on alliance-building. But the EU must first put aside its internal squabbles," argued Christian Egenhofer from the Centre for European Policy Studies.

The last major international summit on climate change broke up in disarray at the Hague last November with bitter personal accusations flying between the British deputy Prime Minister and the French environment minister, Dominique Voynet. They disagreed over how much should be sacrificed to entice the US on board.

Egenhofer's hope is that alliance-building will transform the potentially harmful short term effects of EU ratification of the Kyoto Protocol into long term benefits by stimulating markets for the renewable and other technologies that will replace carbon fuels. "Time will be working for the EU. Those unwilling will not be able to drag their feet forever," he claimed.

The prospect that the US could be coaxed into accepting the Kyoto Protocol because its companies will be keen to get a slice of the post-carbon business may seem far-fetched, but there are some fascinating straws in the wind. British government officials pointed out that US car makers had agreed to reduce carbon emissions from cars to gain access to the EU market, the biggest in the world.

"The USA cannot insulate itself from climate change," maintained Dunion from Friends of the Earth. "It is already suffering economic costs from the impact of insurance claims due to bad weather. In 1997 when the Kyoto agreement was negotiated, US insurers paid out $3 billion in disaster-related claims - two thirds of the total worldwide."

If a call for a mass consumer boycott of US oil giants gathers pace, it could also have a helpful economic impact. The proposal by leaders of the powerful Green grouping in the European parliament is due to be debated by MEPs this week.

"Europe must stand up to irresponsible US policies by rejecting them at the petrol pump. We call on all EU citizens to boycott the US oil multinationals, namely Exxon, Texaco and Chevron," declared Alexander de Roo, vice-president of the European parliament's environment committee. "Unless the US rethinks its position, direct boycott is the only language they will understand."

Whatever language Bush understands, the world has got to start speaking it soon. Otherwise it is not just the still, small voice of Kiribati that will be submerged, but ours too. "History," observed SEPA's Ken Collins last week, "will judge us by our actions now."

just where do we go from here?

President George Bush has ratted on the US commitment to reduce the pollution that is causing climate chaos across the globe. What can the world now do to make him change his mind?

Option 1: declare war on the US. Probable outcome: disaster, though it's important to remember that the most powerful nation on earth could not win in Vietnam.

Option 2: worldwide economic sanctions. Probable outcome: tough sanctions rarely work because big business never really buys them - which is why the world would never agree to them.

Option 3: escalating economic pressure. Probable outcome: if Europe was successful in persuading the world outside the US to sign up to combating the climate chaos caused by pollution, this would spark a wealth-creating industrial revolution in alternatives to carbon fuels that could end up forcing the US to join in.

Option 4: exploit Britain's special relationship with the US. Probable outcome: while it may do no harm for Tony Blair and other European leaders to sit down with President Bush and try to convince him of the error of his ways, it is hard to believe that it would make much difference at the moment.

Option 5: boycott US multinationals. Probable outcome: if a boycott - already being called for by the Greens - was well organised, carefully targeted and universally adopted it might help; but if not, it would be a damp squib.

Option 6: a combination of options 3,4, and 5. Probable outcome: subtle economic leverage by nations, cosy person-to-person chats between Blair and Bush and an effective consumer boycott - an unbeatable blend of gentle bullying, diplomacy and blackmail - surely stands the best chance of success.

Option 7: there is no option 7.

Option 8: stop watching US TV shows. Probable outcome: politically ineffectual, as, apart from The Simpsons, ER and The West Wing, not many people watch them anyway - though it could bring intellectual benefits.

Option 9: do nothing. Probable outcome: disaster, as low-lying Pacific islands are flooded, droughts in Africa cause millions to starve, and storms wreck Florida - and Glasgow.

www.epa.gov/globalwarming/ www.globalwarming.org/ www.climatetreaty.com/ www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/HotMike/ document-12.15.1997.0.html

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