Wooing the opposition
two months after a pact on climate change and energy with India, the us has announced the signing of a similar agreement between us ambassador to China, Joseph Prueher, and Madame Zhu Lilan, China's minister of science and technology, in Beijing. "I am particularly pleased that the Chinese government is declaring a new willingness to work with us in the international effort to address climate change,' us vice-president Al Gore said while announcing the agreement. The China agreement is the result of the us -China Forum on Environment and Development co-chaired by Gore and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji.
The ostensible reason stated by the us for the agreement is to answer critics of China's entry into the World Trade Organisation ( wto ), by showing China's willingness to pledge stronger cooperation on efforts to protect the environment. But since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol laid down targets for developed countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases ( ghg s), the us has focused diplomatic efforts on winning over India and China, two countries opposed to project-based emissions trading under the Clean Development Mechanism ( cdm ) without per capita allocations. The us administration is eager to push cdm because the mechanism will bring down the cost of reduction per tonne of carbon by a dramatic 95 per cent. But developing countries like India and China will be saddled with higher costs of reduction when they are called to reduce emissions in the future, unless per capita allocations are made.
These countries have made their acceptance of cdm conditional to the principles, rules and modalities set for the mechanism in November 2000, when the sixth conference of parties ( c o p -6) to the climate convention will take place in The Hague.
The wording of the agreements with India and China are remarkably similar (see box: Common agenda ), revealing clearly that the us had more than China's wto accession at heart. In both countries, the us has a strong two-point agenda. The first is to get both countries to agree to support cdm at c o p -6. The second is to get the two countries to take on commitments in the global effort to combat climate change by pushing the point that they can take on measures to reduce climate change without affecting economic growth.
The attempts to get what they call "meaningful participation' from developing countries follows a 1997 us Senate resolution not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol unless key developing countries participate, due to fears that they will have an