Is There a Role for the United States to Play in Future Climate Negotiations? Maybe.

No one quite knows what's going to happen after 2012, the end of the first commitment period under the Kyoto Treaty. Negotiations are expected to begin shortly on the next round, but the United States won't be seated at the table. U.S. opposition to Kyoto is not based solely on partisan politics, however. While early on the Clinton administration played an active role in the negotiations, White House officials realized that the high economic cost of meeting the Kyoto targets was politically unacceptable and never presented the protocol to the Senate for ratification. The Bush administration has never wavered from its position that Kyoto poses too heavy a burden on the U.S. economy.

So where do we go from here? Can the United States take a leadership role in future global agreements on climate change? For this to come about, many hurdles will have to be overcome in the short run.

Frankly, the absence of domestic U.S. climate policy that is viewed as credible by our trading partners will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to play any kind of serious role in the development of global policy in the near term. To say that the United States lacks standing in global discussions and negotiations of climate policy is an understatement.

That said, should the United States be judged credible in the future it could provide leadership on at least three important issues: developing-country participation, the process employed to reach global agreements, and the proper balance between establishing long-term goals and setting current policy.

It matters little what the European Union, the United States, and the rest of the developed world do if we cannot entice the developing world—countries like China, India, and Brazil—to reduce emissions as well.

We must recognize that these countries place a high priority on economic development and for good reason. Wide-scale international participation in efforts to mitigate climate change will be facilitated if global climate agreements are discussed and negotiated as a part of larger—perhaps much larger—international policy packages that cover trade, development, international finance, and technology transfer. The larger the set of policies under discussion, the more degrees of freedom exist with which to craft compromises and satisfy competing political and economic needs. This form of "policy linking" is not a new idea, but unfortunately it lies outside the current Kyoto framework.

If the key to developing-country participation lies in broadening the negotiations to include things like development, technology, and global trade, then the current UN treaty process, involving some 190 member countries, is too cumbersome.

A more reasonable approach would involve a smaller number of nations, perhaps along the lines of the "Leaders 20 Summit" suggested by Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. This group would include the largest emitters (now and in the future) and the major economic and political powers. While not as inclusive as the UN process, the L20 would be a more manageable and perhaps more cohesive group and would still account for the majority of the world's greenhouse gas emissions now and into the future.

In this new negotiating realm of broadened policy packages, the emphasis will likely be on economic development, giving trade and finance ministers center stage while climate policy might have secondary importance and environment ministers would play supporting roles.

Finally, there is the issue of the proper role of long-term targets, and here I am referring to concentration targets.

Undaunted by the difficulty of meeting their current Kyoto emissions targets, the European Union has gone on record setting a long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration target of 550 parts per million (ppm) for all GHGs. This is equivalent to a carbon dioxide concentration of 470 ppm. These are extremely aggressive goals to say the least—many would argue that they can't be met. Presumably this long-term goal will be reflected in the European Union's negotiating stance as discussions of Kyoto second commitment period targets begin later this year.

I would argue that adopting such specific long-term goals as the basis for near-term policy development—without knowing the technical, economic, and political feasibility of the targets—is fruitless and, in fact, dangerous.

Ultimately, global GHG concentrations will not be determined by government proclamation. Rather, they will be determined by the perceived risks of climate change balanced against the technology available and the economic and political cost of GHG control. We will learn about all these costs and benefits over time and will adjust domestic policies and international agreements accordingly.

While it is important to know how the climate system will react to various long-run concentration levels, current policy should not be solely dictated by such uncertain information. Rather, it should be directed at two tangible goals: first, reducing the cost of GHG control worldwide, and, second, providing incentives for the advancement of alternatives to carbon-based technology. The task for decisionmakers is to foster the development and implementation of economically efficient and equitable policies to attain these twin goals.