They are more genial than they were three years ago in Japan, in part because they seem to have accepted a little more of the science around climate change, in part because the political equation has shifted some, and mostly because they're winning the bulk of their battles to weaken the treaty. An incredulous journalist at the press hearing, who identified himself as a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, rose to defend the true faith. Craig responded that five years ago he would have agreed. But I think there is now a coalescing of the science. Language like that leads some in the environmental community to think they might have a prayer of Senate ratification, albeit some time in the distance after the Europeans and Japanese go first and a deal is brokered with the Chinese and the Indians to bring them into the process.
Environmentalists are unwilling to surrender the Kyoto process.
And with that as the context, many American environmentalists and international scientists seem willing to go along with loopholes they admit are way too broad, simply to get the process underway. And other American campaigners were touting plans to pay farmers for changing tillage practices, less because they believed it would really sequester much carbon than because they thought it might bring crucial farm-state senators on board any Kyoto coalition. At bottom, environmentalists like Oppenheimer are banking on the thought that once some kind of treaty is finally approved and business and government begin to make even the most modest attempts to implement it, they'll find the going easier than they expected. Energy use is already going up much more slowly than economic growth. And he better be right, because the incentives that will emerge from this week's negotiations will be bare at best.