But the numbers are still apparently under discussion within the administration. The goals are to be written into a treaty to be negotiated at a preliminary session in Bonn, Germany, beginning Oct. 20, and a final session in Kyoto, Japan, beginning Dec. 1. The European Union is calling for a reduction of the industrial countries' emissions to 15 per cent below the 1990 level by the year 2010. Japan prefers a 5 per cent reduction below the 1990 level by 2012. But in addition to this numerical goal, a series of further issues is going to have to be resolved before a treaty can be signed.
Economists say that flexibility increases the efficiency of compliance and lowers costs.
But regulators sometimes fear that flexibility also opens possibilities for evading and postponing compliance. The American position favors flexibility in general, more so than the European Union, but has not yet got down to specifics. Preliminary calculations suggest that if international trading in emission rights becomes sufficiently widespread to have a real impact on global warming, it will also have an impact on currency exchange rates and patterns of trade. This issue is one on which the Kyoto conference could collapse. The whole history of these negotiations is based on an understanding that the treaty will impose commitments only on the industrial countries.