cc: michael.grubb@ic.ac.uk, m.hession@ic.ac.uk, t.jackson@surrey.ac.uk, hadi@cmu.edu, sujatag@teri.res.in, a-michaelowa@hwwa.de, Emilio@ppe.ufrj.br, yamagata@nies.go.jp, Jorgen.Wettestad@fni.no, schellnhuber@pik-potsdam.de, gouvello@centre-cired.fr, EHaites@attcanada.ca, shs@leland.stanford.edu, jw18@soas.ac.uk, Jonathan.PERSHING@iea.org, RKinley@unfccc.int, Sylvie.Faucheux@c3ed.uvsq.fr, m.hulme@uea.ac.uk, nkete@wri.org, Z.X.Zhang@Rechten.RUG.NL, pretel@chmi.cz, zkundze@man.poznan.pl, Noble@greenhouse.crc.org.au, jae@pnl.gov, ogunlade@energetic.uct.ac.za, Eberhard.Jochem@isi.fhg.de, hoesung@unitel.co.kr, naki@iiasa.ac.at, kchomitz@worldbank.org, enikitina@glas.apc.org, dlashof@nrdc.org, nishioka@iges.or.jp, pachuri@teri.res.in, "Mack McFarland" , tom.downing@eci.ox.ac.uk, aidan.j.murphy@si.shell.com, CochranV@pewclimate.org, amin97@hotmail.com date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 09:06:54 -0400 from: "Tom Jacob" subject: Re: [New] Editorial for Climate Policy, Issue 2. to: Climate Policy MICHAEL: I've reflected on the traffic offering differing perspectives on how objective you should be in this. My personal view is that editorials offering informed judgement are very appropriate. I would caution, however, that some are engaged in "demonizing" the Bush action just as others are engaged in "demonizing" the Protocol. Neither of those extremes are justified. There are many working formally and informally on both sides of the Atlantic to frame a path forward that can ensure a strong foundation upon which to build, that can be embraced on both sides of the Atlantic. I have not given up on the possibility of that trans-Atlantic bridge. As I suggested in my thought-piece distributed in January, however, such a foundation must be responsive both to the perceptions of environmental risk that are being strengthened by the most recent IPCC findings and the perceptions of economic risk that seem to be predominant in motivating the US action. To discount perceptions along either dimension is to invite political failure. To engage substantively on both dimensions is necessary... Climate Policy on 04/18/2001 08:32:12 To: michael.grubb@ic.ac.uk, m.hession@ic.ac.uk, t.jackson@surrey.ac.uk, hadi@cmu.edu, sujatag@teri.res.in, a-michaelowa@hwwa.de, Emilio@ppe.ufrj.br, yamagata@nies.go.jp, Jorgen.Wettestad@fni.no, schellnhuber@pik-potsdam.de, gouvello@centre-cired.fr, EHaites@attcanada.ca, shs@leland.stanford.edu, jw18@soas.ac.uk, Jonathan.PERSHING@iea.org, RKinley@unfccc.int, Sylvie.Faucheux@c3ed.uvsq.fr, m.hulme@uea.ac.uk, nkete@wri.org, Z.X.Zhang@Rechten.RUG.NL, pretel@chmi.cz, zkundze@man.poznan.pl, Noble@greenhouse.crc.org.au, jae@pnl.gov, ogunlade@energetic.uct.ac.za, Eberhard.Jochem@isi.fhg.de, hoesung@unitel.co.kr, naki@iiasa.ac.at, kchomitz@worldbank.org, enikitina@glas.apc.org, dlashof@nrdc.org, Tom Jacob/AE/DuPont, nishioka@iges.or.jp, kchomitz@worldbank.org, pachuri@teri.res.in, Mack McFarland/AE/DuPont, tom.downing@eci.ox.ac.uk, aidan.j.murphy@si.shell.com, CochranV@pewclimate.org, amin97@hotmail.com cc: Subject: [New] Editorial for Climate Policy, Issue 2. Dear All, There was a good response to my circulation of draft editorial for the next issue of Climate Policy; I am grateful to all those that put time in to read it and react. One thought the editorial was divisive, four strongly supported it with minor amendments, two were sympathetic to the substantive points but questioned its appropriateness as an overall editorial. After reflecting I have decided to follow the suggestion of one of the latter, and submitted the material amended, as a viewpoint article instead (rewritten with a coauthor). I am pleased to say that Henry Jacoby from MIT has agreed to submit a Viewpoint responding to it. In its place, I have drafted the attached Editorial. Again, I would appreciate reactions. With thanks Michael [New] Editorial for Climate Policy, Issue 2. The hour has come, it seems, that we all hoped could be avoided. The fragile bridge that spanned the Atlantic, in terms of a common basis for developing responses to climate change, has been broken. President Bush's statements of March 2001, rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, threaten to leave a gaping hole in the broad tent under which the fractious, squabbling world has been gathering to argue about the way forward. Barely a month after government's accepted the findings of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report - which confirmed both the seriousness of the problem and the technical potential for solutions - uncertainty shakes the very foundations upon which the next steps are to be built. The Kyoto Protocol was always problematic in the US. In his viewpoint article in this issue, Henry Jacoby sets out a considered US view of its problems. Centrally, many in the US had problems with the requirement for industrialised countries to take on quantified commitments without concomitant obligations for developing countries; and the US commitment under Kyoto was deemed too strong for the US realistically to implement. In another viewpoint, I and a colleague set out a view that the Kyoto Protocol has been badly misrepresented in the US debate and that working within the Protocol remains by far the best way forward. The greater danger at a time like this is that the gap in perceptions in different parts of the world could become so wide as to threaten the very possibility of intelligent dialogue or mutual respect for different opinions. On the one hand, in order the justify its actions, the US government may throw great effort into demonizing Kyoto and the thinking which led to it. In turn, other governments and constituencies may be tempted either to idolize it, and/or throw their energies into castigating the US as the destroyer. A vicious war of words that turns into a fundamental schism between the US overall, and the rest of the world, will do little to advance real understanding or effective action on climate change. The important task for the Climate Policy journal is to provide a forum for considered analysis of the issues and ways forward. I make no secret of my own continuing support for the Kyoto Protocol as agreed in Kyoto, and the process built upon it, notwithstanding the stance apparently taken by President Bush. Contrary analyses, that contribute to broader understanding and meet the usual standards of leading academic journals, will be welcome - and indeed, crucial if this journal is to make its contribution to narrowing the chasm of mutual incomprehension that looms before us. One of the core topics in dispute is the feasibility of the Kyoto targets, and the credibility and seriousness of national plans for implementing action on climate change. I am therefore pleased to say that the next issue of Climate Policy will have a thematic focus upon national implementation plans and prospects in the industrialized world, guest-edited by Jonathan Pershing of the International Energy Agency. We plan to follow this with a complementary issue looking at the situation within developing countries, and the nature of their current and possible future engagement in the global political process of responding to climate change. Michael Grubb Editor-in-Chief April 2001