U.S. Assumes a Tough Posture Before Conference on Global Warming

WASHINGTON — Days before the start of negotiations aimed at setting the world on a course toward reducing global warming, the Clinton administration on Wednesday said that it is willing to walk away from the international conference if the talks do not produce a pact that, in its view, is economically and environmentally sound.

“The bottom line,” said Undersecretary of State Stuart E. Eizenstat, the chief U.S. negotiator, is “we do not simply want to have an agreement at any cost.”

On each of several contentious issues, Eizenstat indicated that the United States believes that there is little room for movement when the talks begin Monday in Kyoto, Japan.

The sticking points include:

* Europe’s insistence on a complex formula that would commit the United States to greater reductions in emissions of “greenhouse gases” than the U.S. has proposed, while at the same time allowing some European nations to increase their emissions significantly.

* The United States’ insistence on including a wider range of gases in an agreement than other nations have recommended.

* The role of developing countries in the pact, a subject that could prove especially nettlesome.

China, India and other major developing countries--which within two decades are expected to be spewing a greater volume of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the already industrialized nations--have insisted that they have no obligation to commit themselves to the agreement’s limits.

Eizenstat was equally insistent that the key developing countries must assume a “meaningful role” in reducing their emissions for the talks to succeed.

This being a major international negotiation--and, he said, among President Clinton’s top priorities--his comments going into the talks are intended to lay out the toughest stance the United States will probably take.

Still, he signaled that the administration did not expect miracles. He said the conference--with as many as 160 nations represented--is intended to merely “get the world on the right path so a solution [to global warming] is ultimately possible.”

The United States has proposed that the pact participants commit themselves to stabilizing their emissions at 1990 levels in a five-year period beginning in 2008.

The European Union has called for emissions levels that are 15% below the 1990 figure by 2010. The United States’ emissions, if they continue on their current course, are forecast to be about 30% greater in 2010 than they were in 1990.

Europe’s proposal is further complicated, in the U.S. view, because it lumps the total emissions of the 15 members of the European Union into one category.

Germany has cut its emissions by closing inefficient plants in its eastern territory, and Britain has reduced its emissions by shifting to natural gas for power utility plants rather than burning coal.

Under the EU proposal, these cuts would allow Greece and Portugal, for example, to make sizable increases in their emissions, while at the same time Europe would still hit an overall target of a 15% cut. Such accounting, Eizenstat said, gives Europe a “strong advantage.”

He said the United States will insist on including in the pact emissions targets for three exotic but increasingly emitted and powerful gases--hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfurhexafluoride. Their use in Europe as cleaning agents is expected to increase significantly.

The question of developing countries’ involvement in the pact has already proved politically sensitive in the United States.

Several developing nations have insisted that they are under no obligation to commit themselves to reducing their emissions. But the U.S. Senate has made it clear that it will not approve any pact that does not assign them a role.