The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2017

22 JULY-AUGUST 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Kinney, then a mid-level FSO, joined the office in 1989. In August 1990, State pulled in Robert Reinstein, a veteran trade negotiator from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative with a strong science and energy background, installing him as the OES deputy assistant secretary for environment. The OES Bureau’s first cli- mate negotiating team—the trio of Reinstein, Reifsnyder and Kinney—enlisted the support of a career lawyer in State’s Office of the Legal Adviser, Sue Biniaz. In June 1990, President George H.W. Bush surprised every- one—including the State Department—by announcing that the United States would host the first round of negotiations for a United Nations climate agreement in February 1991. With little time, no money and no venue, the small OES team scrambled to pull together an event in Chantilly, Virginia, that would host hundreds of diplomats and scientists from around the world. From the beginning, developing country negotiators argued that climate change was a problem caused by industrialized nations, and that developing countries would be the primary victims. They maintained that it would be unfair for developing countries to forego the fossil-fuel driven lifestyles enjoyed in the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed nations. And, in what ultimately became history’s greatest shakedown, devel- oping countries sought to condition their support for climate action on receiving, technology and capacity building from devel- oped countries. Following 18 months of tough negotiations, Pres. Bush signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the June 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (the “Earth Summit”) in Rio de Janeiro. The U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent promptly in October 1992, reflecting a bipartisan consensus that is virtually unheard of today. The UNFCCC set forth the ultimate objective of stabiliz- ing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere so as to avoid “dangerous [manmade] interference in the climate system.” Among many other provisions, it articulated the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.” In essence, this justified putting the burden for emission reductions squarely on developed countries (the so-called “Annex 1” countries). The Kyoto Protocol: DOA in the USA By the mid-1990s, the realization that rising global emissions would blow past the convention’s initial goal—returning greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990s levels by the end of the decade— prompted calls from the European Union and others for stronger action. Developing countries continued to resist emission targets for themselves, arguing that it would be unfair to expect them to give up eco- nomic growth and poverty reduction because of a global problem that was not of their own making. Faced with growing economic competition from rising powers like China and India, many Americans feared that higher (clean) energy costs would put the United States at a severe economic disadvantage to rivals having no emission limits. In July 1997, six months before the conclusion of the Kyoto negotiations, the U.S. Senate adopted the Byrd-Hagel Resolution by a vote of 95-0, expressing Senate opposition to any agreement that would harm the U.S. economy and that did not require emission limits for developing countries. Developing countries did not budge, despite the efforts of then-Vice President Al Gore in Kyoto. Faced with the unhappy choice between blowing up a deal or going along with it in hopes of later overcoming domestic opposi- tion, the United States went along with UNFCCC adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, which imposed specific GHG reduction targets only on “Annex 1” (developed) countries to be achieved by 2008- 2012. During its final three years, the Clinton White House never sent the Kyoto Protocol forward for Senate advice and consent. In April 2001, President George W. Bush announced that he would not seek the Kyoto Protocol’s ratification, effectively pull- ing the plug on a deal that had in any case been dead on arrival in the United States three years earlier. This move angered much of the world, prompting blowback in other arenas. Still, Russia’s rati- fication of the protocol in October 2004 put it into force in 2005; it was a clever move by Vladimir Putin that was less about combat- ing climate change and more about isolating the United States. Despite real U.S. progress on climate and emission reductions in the ensuing years, much of the world saw the United States as Pres. George H.W. Bush signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the June 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (the “Earth Summit”) in Rio de Janeiro.