By Coral Davenport, CQ Staff

This week, representatives of more than 180 nations will meet on the Indonesian island of Bali to begin discussing a climate change agreement intended to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But the delegation that will be the most closely watched will not even have an official seat at the table.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators and their top aides plan to meet with attendees and affirm their commitment to participating in the next round of global efforts to cap carbon emissions.

VEHICLE FOR CHANGE?: Warner, left, and Lieberman have introduced a climate change plan that tracks with a regime in place in European nations. Senators say it shows Congress is serious about confronting the problem. (GETTY IMAGES / JOSHUA ROBERTS)

The message will be sharply at odds with that of the official U.S. delegation, which consists of Bush administration officials who remain opposed to mandatory emissions curbs. It also will deviate from positions taken by past U.S. Congresses that deemed the 1997 Kyoto agreement onerous and unworkable.

But assurances from the congressional group — which will be led by Democratic Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee — will pack symbolic punch, coming little more than a year before President Bush leaves office and with Democrats firmly in control of Congress and hopeful they can regain the presidency.

The Democrats have made climate change a top-tier issue since they gained control of Congress, and they are promoting a bipartisan Senate plan that would mandate reducing greenhouse gas emissions 65 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Businesses that do not meet the limits could purchase pollution credits from other companies.

The plan closely resembles a cap already in place in European Union countries and is in line with what many other nations say they would like to see in the next global climate change treaty.

Environmentalists think that strong support from the congressional delegation will add momentum to efforts to build a new treaty, which attendees expect will be signed in 2009, a year after the next president is sworn in. The Bali talks run from Dec. 3 to Dec. 14.

“Having members of Congress there is absolutely essential,” said Stephanie Meeks, acting president and chief executive officer of the Nature Conservancy. “I believe other countries are going to look for signals, not just from the president, but also from Congress. Remember, this is a two-year process, and halfway through this we will have a new administration.”

“Many, many eyes in Bali will be watching what happens with the U.S., and understanding that the people sitting behind the placard reading ‘USA’ do not speak for the wider view of climate change in this country,” said Annie Petsonk, international counsel for Environmental Defense. “The world is beginning to understand that the U.S. point of view on climate change policy is much more variegated than the ‘just say no’ policy of the administration.”

Yet in spite of the congressional assurances, experts say efforts to draft a new agreement could founder if China, India, Russia and other emerging industrial powers refuse to sign on — or if they negotiate emissions targets favorable to themselves. The caps in the Kyoto Protocol vary from country to country and, Bush and other treaty opponents have long contended, weigh heaviest on Western industrialized nations. Bush withdrew the United States from the Kyoto agreement in 2001.

China’s Status

China is the subject of especially intense scrutiny because its rapid economic growth is generating greater emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Even though it signed on to the Kyoto pact, China is not subject to emissions curbs because it is still considered a developing nation. Chinese leaders are expected to lobby for similar treatment in the next agreement. But experts say they are likelier to compromise if the United States, as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, supports the pact.

“China and the U.S. have had each other as the big excuse,” said Jennifer L. Turner, Director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “The fact that the U.S. didn’t ratify Kyoto made China happy. The same thing gets said again and again: What the U.S. does domestically is very important in whether China comes along. . . . The Chinese know the election’s coming up — they see that there’s a change coming. And once the U.S. becomes serious, the Chinese know they have to do something.”

Target Audience

The congressional delegation plans to portray the Senate plan, written by independent Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican John W. Warner of Virginia, as evidence of its new commitment to confront climate change.

Elusive Targets: Click here to view chart

The plan was unveiled in October amid growing political pressure for lawmakers to address causes of global warming. Supporters say its ability to limit overall emissions while allowing businesses to trade pollution allowances in an open market is more politically palatable than alternative proposals, such as imposing a “carbon tax” on emissions from coal, petroleum or natural gas and on consumption of gasoline and jet fuel. Republican senators including Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, both of whom are up for re-election in 2008, have said the plan won’t harm the economy.

However, proponents of the legislation face a difficult test soon after the Bali conference convenes, on Dec. 6, when it will come up for a crucial vote in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Republicans have already narrowed the scope of the bill by, for example, easing regulations on coal-fired power plants. An Environment and Public Works subcommittee approved the bill on a 4-3 party-line vote Nov. 1. Even if the bill clears both houses, Bush is expected to veto it.

The mixed prospects leave some observers skeptical about how effectively the congressional delegation can sell its message of change.

“It will be acknowledged that there is a change in the U.S., but there’s a school of thought that this is unrealistic,” said Rafe Pomerance, president of the nonpartisan Climate Policy Center in Washington. “After all, the United States isn’t exactly believable on this. Other countries will be delighted to hear” what U.S. lawmakers say, he said. “But they’ll be skeptical.”

Bush administration officials also are expected to undercut the senators’ message by advocating a framework for further talks on climate change while continuing to oppose any mandates. Bush says such targets are unnecessary because the United States has managed to cut carbon dioxide emissions on its own, without harming the economy. The administration is touting a new Energy Department report showing that emissions declined 1.5 percent last year.

“Energy security and climate change are two of the important challenges of our time. The United States takes these challenges seriously,” Bush said in a Nov. 28 statement. “This puts us well ahead of the goal I set in 2002.”

Looking for Reassurances

Environmental Defense’s Petsonk says that if the U.S. delegation refuses to commit to a carbon cap agreement, developing nations will probably try to reach out informally to the members of Congress for reassurances.

“It’s unusual diplomatically” but serves the purpose of keeping the door open to negotiate a deal once Bush leaves office, she said.

Attendees such as Kerry view their anticipated status at the conference as validation for long-held environmental views.

“We plan to send a very clear message that the hesitant, weak approach of the last seven years on climate change does not represent the American perspective,” Kerry said in an e-mail interview. “We will meet with many of the leaders at the conference and lend our opinion on ways the next administration can raise the bar. Our delegation will communicate the willingness of Congress to adopt mandatory emissions targets and will push for greater American leadership in future climate change negotiations. This is only the beginning of the process.”

Boxer aides said she had urged all of her fellow senators to attend portions of the conference but added that a final guest list had not been compiled.

Warner, who is recuperating from surgery and retiring at the end of this Congress, will send Chelsea Maxwell, a senior policy adviser who had a hand in drafting the climate change bill.

“Sen. Warner has said he wants that to be a signal that the U.S. wants to move forward, showing the will and direction of the Senate,” Maxwell said. “You can’t ask China or India to do anything unless we do.”

Environmental officials from other Western nations say the presence of leading senators is important, because the chamber ultimately will have to ratify any international climate change agreement.

“It’s no secret that our emissions trading scheme and the Senate proposals are going along the same lines, and that’s something we want to see,” said Malachy Hargadon, Environment Counselor for the European Commission Delegation. “At the moment, that’s not the message we’re hearing from the administration directly.” Of meetings with senators in Bali, he said, “There’s a large sympathy and mutual understanding for the work that needs to be done. While our direct counterpart is the administration, we will see the senators in other settings, and we will listen to them closely.”

FOR FURTHER READING:

Lieberman-Warner plan (S 2191), CQ Weekly, p. 3342; background, p. 2548.