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By Peter Zeihan and Bart Mongoven European leaders have expressed dismay over U.S. President George W. Bush's June 1 call for the creation of a long-term dialogue among the 15...

By Peter Zeihan and Bart Mongoven

European leaders have expressed dismay over U.S. President George W. Bush's June 1 call for the creation of a long-term dialogue among the 15 largest greenhouse gas-emitting countries. The plan, they say, is another stall tactic designed to allow the Bush administration to appear as though it is trying to work with the international community on climate issues, when in reality it is not. Such action, they say, would take time and attention away from the difficult work being done on the issue via the Kyoto Protocol process.

In reality, however, the Bush plan signals the end of Kyoto -- and the beginning of a new international consensus that relieves Kyoto's pressures on governments.

The United States, China, India, Canada and Australia produce more than half of the world's greenhouse gas emissions -- and those emissions are growing. To be effective, then, any climate regime that endeavors to make real cuts in emissions must include these countries. By bringing the Pacific Rim countries into alignment on the issue, Bush has brought the United States far more power over global greenhouse gas emissions policy than Europe ever has had. With this, Bush takes from Europe its one global foreign policy success story.

The Regime

Signed in 1997 by more than 75 countries, the Kyoto Protocol is the recognized international regime on climate change. The protocol is an addendum to the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, in which parties agreed essentially to cut greenhouse gas emissions if it was convenient for them. Since cutting those emissions is highly inconvenient, very few followed through, making the protocol necessary.

Under Kyoto, each party agreed to cut its emissions by a specific amount from 1990 levels by 2012. (The European Union signed up for an 8 percent cut, the United States for 7 percent and Japan for 6 percent.) But the agreement expires in 2012, at which point all participants are once again legally free from the deal. Moreover, the protocol imposed no emission restrictions on developing countries -- including China and India -- which explains why poorer countries so strongly support it.

Though from a U.S. perspective Kyoto was flawed in many ways, it was this lack of restrictions on developing countries that rendered ratification a nonstarter in the United States. Despite the tone of the current political conversation in the United States, in a 1997 vote both Republicans and Democrats unanimously vowed to reject any climate treaty that did not include commitments from developing countries. Sens. John Kerry, Paul Wellstone, Barbara Boxer and many of the climate issue's current champions were among those who essentially declared Kyoto dead on arrival. Within four months of taking office, Bush did the same, saying the United States would take no part in talks regarding a treaty it had no interest in joining.

Amazingly, the global reaction to Bush's announcement was shock. Bush became an environmental pariah at home and around the world, with Greenpeace dubbing him the "Toxic Texan" and European leaders pleading for the United States to reconsider.

European Logic

From the European standpoint, simply bringing the United States into the climate change conversation is far more important than forcing it to cut its emissions by 2012. Given that the United States is the world's single-largest source of carbon emissions, any deal that does not have explicit American buy-in simply cannot achieve the ultimate end goal: reducing global emissions to the point of heading off the worst-case scenario of global warming.