[609] in peace2
EU Acts on Korea as U.S. Pulls Back; bonus: global climate change
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (felixauyeung@juno.com)
Mon Mar 26 20:03:08 2001
From: felixauyeung@juno.com
To: peace-list@mit.edu, save@mit.edu
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 00:22:10 -0800
Message-ID: <20010327.085811.-360081.6.felixauyeung@juno.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
CONTENT:
1. EU Acts on Korea As U.S. Pulls Back
2. A Setback Is Feared on Global Warming
3. The Climate Protectors Need U.S. Leadership and Ingenuity
EXERPTS:
"With North Korea hinting it might feel compelled to abandon its
moratorium on missile testing and resume its nuclear program, suspicions
have grown in Europe that the Bush administration is seeking to kill
chances of an agreement to sustain the "rogue state" threat from North
Korea that the administration has cited as a prime motivation for
building a missile defense system."
"Rainer Hinrichs-Rahlwes, the German environmental minister, said that
"maybe it will be necessary to ratify the Kyoto protocol without the
United States and to instead pave the way for them to join later." The
Japanese are also likely to voice their concern early next week,
according to environmentalists following the issue."
(comment):
with an ever-confused w. bush, who won with a mushy middle campaign but
whose policies are shaped by archaic conservativism, whose adminstration
seems reluctant to engage anything and just wants to inflate the rich
including the arms industry, we may see europe break off as an
independent power (cases: GMO ban, WTO corporate welfare suits,
independent european peace-keeping force, depleted uranium
investigations, climate change initiatives, and please--- anti-NMD)
sooner than the eventual later, which may be the only good thing these
four years will bring, not necessarily because the eu is better, but
because it provides an alternative perspective of the world and how to
achieve real peace.
(environmentalists note: the gcc is alive and kicking, despite the large
campaign, including "dirty jobs", that knocked the big 3 automakers out
of the organization.)
***
1. EU Acts on Korea As U.S. Pulls Back
William Drozdiak
Washington Post Service
Monday, March 26, 2001
Energizing North-South Talks Is Goal of Visit by 3 Mediators
STOCKHOLM European Union leaders announced here this weekend that they
would dispatch their own team of mediators to help invigorate the peace
process between North and South Korea and fill a breach left by the Bush
administration's decision to postpone talks with the North.
.
Prime Minister Goran Persson of Sweden said he would soon travel to the
region with two other European Union envoys to hold discussions with the
leaders of both Koreas about how to expedite reconciliation between their
countries and to defuse the nuclear missile threat posed by the North.
.
"The aim is to express support for the process started by the South
Korean president, Kim Dae Jung, a process aimed at bringing to an end one
of the last conflicts with origins in the Second World War," said Mr.
Persson, whose country holds the current presidency of the EU.
.
The decision by the 15 EU leaders, who concluded a two-day summit meeting
in Stockholm on Saturday, broke from their past deference to U.S.
leadership when dealing with the Korean Peninsula and other Asian trouble
spots. European officials said there was unanimity that a bold new
initiative was required to compensate for any delay caused by a U.S.
policy review.
.
"It's becoming clear that the new U.S. administration wants to take a
more hard-line approach toward North Korea," said the Swedish foreign
minister, Anna Lindh. "That means that Europe must step in to help reduce
tension between the two Koreas, not least because the outside world is so
worried about North Korean missiles."
.
Just before leaving office in January, aides to President Bill Clinton
say, they were close to a deal that would have curbed North Korea's
testing program for long-range missiles and fortified safeguards to
thwart development of nuclear weapons. But President George W. Bush has
expressed skepticism about those negotiations and demanded a reassessment
of the proposed agreement before deciding whether to proceed.
.
Mr. Bush has voiced distrust about making any deals with North Korea's
leader, Kim Jong Il. And Secretary of State Colin Powell, while not
disavowing the engagement policy of the previous U.S. administration,
contends that any agreement regarding the nuclear missile threat must be
scrupulously checked.
.
General Powell said there were strong objections within the Bush
administration to a perceived lack of verification procedures that must
be clarified with Mr. Kim's government.
.
"We're going to make sure that he understands that some of the things he
has put on the table are not ready to be picked up because we have to
work on how one would monitor and verify the kinds of things he is
talking about," General Powell told a group of newspaper editors on
Friday.
.
The ambivalence shown by the Bush administration has dismayed the leaders
of both Koreas. Senior EU officials said Kim Dae Jung told them he came
away deeply disappointed from recent talks with Mr. Bush in Washington.
He said he feared the hesitation in the U.S. capital might lead to the
demise of his "sunshine policy" of peaceful reconciliation with the
North, which was begun last June when he signed a joint declaration with
the North Korean leader at their first summit meeting in Pyongyang, the
North Korean capital.
.
With North Korea hinting it might feel compelled to abandon its
moratorium on missile testing and resume its nuclear program, suspicions
have grown in Europe that the Bush administration is seeking to kill
chances of an agreement to sustain the "rogue state" threat from North
Korea that the administration has cited as a prime motivation for
building a missile defense system.
.
EU officials said the European leaders agreed over dinner in Stockholm on
Friday night that it was important to maintain a dialogue with Pyongyang
and instill new momentum in the Korean peace process, even at the risk of
antagonizing the Bush administration. The officials said the idea of a
European initiative was first broached by Kim Dae Jung during a visit
here after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. They said he
stepped up his pleas for an EU role after his disappointing talks with
Mr. Bush two weeks ago.
.
North Korea affirmed its support when Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Su Hon
delivered a formal invitation to the Swedish government Thursday night,
asking that a European mediation team be sent to Pyongyang.
.
Mr. Persson said he planned to travel to both Korean capitals before the
end of May. He will be accompanied by the EU's foreign policy official,
Javier Solana, and its external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten.
***
2. A Setback Is Feared on Global Warming
Eric Pianin and William Drozdiak
Washington Post Service
Saturday, March 17, 2001
Environmental Groups See Bush's Turnaround as a Bar to World Pact
Environmental groups and some lawmakers eager to get international global
warming talks back on track say that President George W. Bush's
abandonment of a campaign pledge to curtail carbon dioxide emissions from
power plants has hurt the chances for a deal this summer.
.
Mr. Bush's decision, revealed Tuesday in a letter to Senate Republicans,
has provoked dismay in Europe. Green parties exercise growing clout on
the Continent, and resentment is building against the reluctance of the
United States to engage in an international effort to combat global
warming.
.
"This letter was a real poke in the eye to the European Union," said
Kalee Kreider, global warming director of the National Environmental
Trust. "This letter sounds like they want to walk."
.
Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York, an influential
moderate allied with environmentalists, said, "I don't think that will
enhance the prospects for productive negotiations."
.
Talks on how to comply with a protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in
1997 that prescribes sharp cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide - a gas
that scientists cite as a major factor in the planet's rising
temperatures - collapsed in November. European governments have since
pointed out that the United States is responsible for 25 percent of
carbon dioxide emissions while representing 4 percent of the world's
population.
.
Many U.S. allies in Europe had feared that a Republican administration
would be tempted to backslide on the global warming issue. But EU
officials said they were pleasantly surprised at a meeting of
environmental ministers of the Group of Seven nations, plus Russia, in
Trieste, Italy, two weeks ago.
.
The administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Christie
Whitman, told her counterparts at the meeting that Mr. Bush intended to
set "mandatory reduction targets" for several pollutants, including
carbon dioxide.
.
"She made it clear that the U.S. government recognized the problem and
was willing to act," a senior EU official said. "We all believed that
this was a good omen for the next round of negotiations and that we
actually might get an agreement on how to put Kyoto into effect." Those
talks are scheduled to take place in Bonn in July.
.
Mr. Bush's letter announcing he was reversing his position came in
response to a pressure campaign from four Republicans in Congress - led
by Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Senator Larry Craig of Idaho - and
lobbyists from the coal and oil industries and some utilities.
.
Representatives of those industries contended that efforts to curtail
carbon dioxide would be expensive and burdensome for the U.S. economy and
were counter to the Bush administration's goal of increasing domestic
energy production.
.
"Obviously, the administration noticed there was a lot of concern" among
industry leaders, said Glenn Kelly, executive director of the Global
Climate Coalition, which represents oil and coal producers.
.
The president's decision undercut Mrs. Whitman's efforts in the past
month to assume a leading role in future talks with European leaders over
climate change issues, many specialists agree. Mrs. Whitman has declined
to comment publicly about Mr. Bush's decision. Officials of the
Environmental Protection Agency said she had relied on Mr. Bush's
campaign statements when she assured the G-7 environmental ministers of
the president's support for limiting greenhouse gases.
.
Margot Wallstrom, the EU environment commissioner, said she was
"concerned" about Mr. Bush's contention that more research was needed
into the causes of climate change before governments could decide on the
best solutions.
.
She said the latest United Nations studies produced strong evidence that
global temperatures could rise sharply in the next century, exacerbating
the threat of violent storms and the inundation of coastal areas.
.
"The intergovernmental panel on climate change has once again confirmed
the evidence on the causes of climate change and the solutions," the EU
commissioner said. "Nobody should ignore these warnings."
.
Rainer Hinrichs-Rahlwes, the German environmental minister, said that
"maybe it will be necessary to ratify the Kyoto protocol without the
United States and to instead pave the way for them to join later." The
Japanese are also likely to voice their concern early next week,
according to environmentalists following the issue.
.
White House and State Department officials said it was premature to
speculate on the impact of Mr. Bush's decision until the administration
completed a review of global warming policies.
.
"Our message to other parties, and that includes European countries, is
they shouldn't make any assumptions about our policy until our review is
complete," said Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman.
.
"The president's letter does address our long-standing concerns about the
Kyoto protocol," he said.
.
But Mr. Reeker added, "The president has said he expects the
administration will be active in terms of global climate change."
***
3. The Climate Protectors Need U.S. Leadership and Ingenuity
Michael Zammit Cutajar
IHT
Tuesday, March 20, 2001
BONN The debate surrounding the recent decision by the president of the
United States not to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant to be regulated
under the U.S. Clean Air Act has been accompanied by criticisms of the
Kyoto Protocol and its scientific foundations.
.
The 1997 protocol, which is not yet in force, assigns targets to the
United States and other developed countries for limiting their emissions
of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Three concerns expressed in
this context invite comment.
.
"The Kyoto Protocol is unfair because it does not assign emission
limitation targets to developing countries, including populous
industrializing countries such as China and India."
.
The developing countries, which are not covered by the first round of
emission limitation targets under the protocol, account for some 40
percent of current global emissions of carbon dioxide from fuel
combustion (the main source of greenhouse gases). This amounts to some
two tons of carbon dioxide per head, whereas the developed countries
average some 12 tons and the United States alone emits more than 20 tons
per head. Fairness suggests that the latter countries act first to limit
emissions. Equity and differentiated responsibility are among the
principles that guide the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
and also underpin its Kyoto Protocol.
.
"The protocol would cause serious harm to the economy of the United
States."
.
The economic impact of emission limitation has to be carefully evaluated.
The protocol does not prescribe domestic limitation measures; each state
party is free to choose the approach that makes most sense in its
national circumstances. In some circumstances, shifting from
carbon-intensive coal to cleaner fuels can make good economic sense.
Moreover, the protocol provides a great deal of flexibility to parties
for meeting their emission targets, notably through the use of emissions
trading, other "offshore" mechanisms and accounting for the absorption of
carbon by sinks such as forests and farmland. This flexibility is
intended to lower the costs of compliance.
.
"The state of scientific knowledge of global climate change - causes,
effects and responses - is incomplete."
.
Scientific knowledge of climate change has been improving steadily. The
precautionary principle, which was embraced by the framework convention,
states that lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a
reason for postponing action to combat serious threats.
.
Recent reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have
found stronger evidence than before of the impact of human activity on
the stability of the global climate, and of the adverse effects of
climate change, especially on poor and vulnerable people in all
countries. These reports provide a sound scientific basis for
precautionary measures.
.
The 1992 convention is accepted by virtually all states. It was signed
for the United States by President George Bush and ratified during his
administration. Its principles offer a unifying platform for an equitable
and effective global strategy to address climate change, progressively
engaging all countries. The Kyoto Protocol is designed to be a step in
this strategy.
.
It is to be hoped that the current review of climate change policy by the
U.S. administration will lead to a renewal of the constructive engagement
of the United States in the climate change negotiations that are due to
resume formally in July.
.
America has the world's biggest economy, is by far the largest source of
greenhouse gas emissions and bears the greatest responsibility for
dealing with their consequences. It also has the greatest capacity to
find innovative and profitable technological responses to this challenge.
This is an opportunity for it to demonstrate political and industrial
leadership and ingenuity.
.
The writer heads the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change. He contributed these personal views to the International
Herald Tribune.
