The collapse of the climate change talks in The Hague at the weekend was the best possible thing that could have happened. This was precisely the kind of shock everyone needed. When did climate change last dominate the headlines? Coverage of the conference was making little impact, being relegated to a few paragraphs inside the newspapers - until it all disintegrated.
Then, thanks to John Prescott's fiery temper and his flouncing out, some drama was finally infused into the tedious technicalities that had dominated the conference. When all the talk is about how much carbon is released by different ploughing methods, you don't have a cat's hope in hell of impinging on the public consciousness, but when Prescott throws a dramatic tantrum ("I'm gutted") and the mudslinging is gets nasty, then people take notice.
With any luck, The Hague's collapse will nail one important popular myth - namely, that the international community has the matter in hand, and one can leave the politicians to sort out the details. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kyoto was a botch from the start, and it was inevitable that it would come unstuck. For several months, environmentalists have been warning that the conference would collapse. Many of them were so disillusioned by Kyoto and the talks since, that they argued no deal would be better than some of the compromises being suggested.
One thing is for sure, The Hague was never going to be the conference to "save the planet". The most obvious criticism of the Kyoto agreement in 1997 was that the targets agreed to cut carbon emissions were always pathetically inadequate; a mere 5% over 1990 levels while scientists were unanimous that cuts of 60-80% were required. But that could be countered by the argument that at least it was a first step. The far more damning criticism of Kyoto was that the whole international effort had been hijacked and corrupted by America's ideological obsession with the disciplines of the market as a panacea for all ills. Ironically, it was the Europeans whom Mr Prescott was accusing of "political purity" and lack of pragmatism at the weekend.
Such a charge better applies to the US which insisted on a market for carbon trading which would enable them to buy the right to carry on polluting. Under this rubric, they wanted to plant forests to absorb carbon in so-called carbon sinks, and even claim carbon credits for changing the way they ploughed their fields.
What that did was firstly to drive the international negotiations into a quagmire of mind-boggling detail - much to the fury of the Europeans who justifiably claim that regulation rather than a market approach to environmental pollution reaps better results. Negotiators got stuck over questions such as how this market was to be monitored and regulated without corruption.
None of that was made any easier by the fact that scientists are very uncertain about how and whether carbon sinks work at all; some estimated that the US proposals would lead to massive increases in emissions. Secondly, the consequences of the US market-based approach (perhaps intentionally) with its highly technical negotiations, alienated any sustained public interest. It has become a textbook case of how to kill off public participation.
Arguably, it was the last which has proved most destructive of the international effort. There is no point blaming the politicians for their failure. What has been singularly lacking over this issue has been any widespread popular campaign. We've had no Seattle-style protests. Instead we've had the fuel tax campaigns and a public stubbornly recalcitrant about changing its own lifestyle, unwilling to turn out for a demo on climate change. Politicians respond to pressure. When they have big, angry demonstrations outside their conference centres, it focuses their minds. When their mailbags are bulging with outraged voters, they respond.
What's needed now is the kind of global protest movement which Jubilee 2000 developed over debt relief. That movement spawned a mass economics lesson on the global finance system, so now we can start on another bit of the curriculum: geography. As Jubilee 2000 draws to a close next month, climate change has been mooted as a possible successor issue. The potential for a comparable coalition of non-governmental agencies is there. It is as much a matter of concern for the Red Cross and Oxfam as for the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds and Greenpeace.
Such coalitions are not easy to assemble; they involve overcoming rivalries, but together, they would have far greater impact in a world crowded with good causes. Jubilee 2000 is a powerful example of how old-fashioned campaigning, of letter-writing and petitions combined with email succeeded in pushing debt relief up the international agenda and getting reform.
It is only this kind of mass campaign which has any hope of shifting the US. Between now and next May when the climate change talks resume in Bonn, much attention will be focused on persuading the US and its allies in the Umbrella Group to give ground. That task will not be made any easier if George W Bush is ensconced in the White House with his oil industry chums at his elbow; he doesn't believe there is such a thing as global warming.
But curiously, while news reports from The Hague have cast the US envoy Frank Loy as the villain of the piece, opinion polls indicate that the US public has one of the highest levels of environmental awareness in the world. They give generously to environmental causes and some states such as California and Arizona have pioneered important environmental initiatives. The puzzle is why this environmental conscience doesn't feed into the federal political system in the same way as it often does at a state level.
Is it because this conscience doesn't determine voting (Ralph Nader, the Green party presidential candidate, won only a pitiful 3% of the vote) or because the Washington establishment is paralysed by special interests such as the oil companies and fear of jeopardising the US economic boom? If, and it's a big if, such a political block could be shifted by mobilising public concern, the US could play a very different role, leading efforts on climate change rather than sabotaging them. Forest fires in the Rockies, tropical diseases in New York and violent hurricanes on the East Coast will all help in bringing home the consequences of climate change.
Meanwhile, it's business as usual in The Hague's international conference centre this morning. Oil industry executives are settling down for an international get-together. Rest assured, their conference is unlikely to collapse in bitter disagreement and this evening, they'll have plenty to celebrate over their cocktails. If that doesn't outrage, what will?
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
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