U.N. Climate Chief Blasts U.S. Congress

Raul Estrada is not the first person to accuse the U.S. Congress of being out of touch.

But he may be the first world leader to tell Congressional staffers that they work for a "nuisance."

The author of the Kyoto Protocol, an addendum to the United Nations Climate Treaty, Estrada seems irked by American democracy.

"Congress is acting like the rest of the world doesn’t exist," Estrada told the Washington press. "Perhaps they should get in touch with the rest of the world."

That’s a bit milder than what he told Congressional staffers in Kyoto, whose jaws dropped—even Democratic ones—when he said Congress was "a nuisance.  "We’re going to guess he tendered this platitude when he was informed that his precious Kyoto protocol didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Gore’s barbecue when it came to the two-thirds Senatorial vote.

Estrada, the Argentine who chaired the U.N. negotiations in Kyoto, said he was upset with Congress "not only on this matter, but on others." We suspect he’s referring to the several hundred million dollars he thinks we "owe" in "dues." A lesson in high diplomacy: Call your debtors a bunch of idiots. That’ll make ’em pay right up!

The Kyoto Protocol mandates an emissions reduction of greenhouse gases to 7 percent below 1990 levels by the period 2008–2012. Since we’ve already increased them by 15 percent since 1990, and since 1998 isn’t even halfway between 1990 and 2010, naturally we’re likely to jack them up by about 34 percent over 1990 levels by 2010. Adding on another 7 percent to meet Estrada’s dictate brings the total reduction to 41 percent.

But that’s what Estrada’s trying to cram down our smokestacks and up our tailpipes—that’s right, ours, a citizenry that buys more four-wheel-drive go-anywheres than the economy Pinto and Vega go-nowheres it used to drive. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the planet doesn’t have to do a darned thing. Estrada and Vice President Gore both want to make this commitment "legally binding" for its signatories.

The only way to do that is to write yet another change into the treaty, one that will allow the U.N. to sanction (or worse) any nation that doesn’t go along. And since we can’t possibly meet the standard the Clinton team agreed to in Kyoto, that means us!

What Estrada’s really upset about is that we clever Americans have discovered what this treaty is all about—inconvenience, export of jobs, and surrender of national sovereignty. That’s why the U.S. Senate voted, 95–0 last summer not to even look at a treaty amendment that didn’t apply to the rest of the world or would cost U.S. jobs and capital. That’s also why the Administration recently sent Federal Reserve Governor Janet Yellen to Congress to somehow argue that reducing emissions the required 41 percent wouldn’t hurt a bit!

Actually, Estrada has a point. There is more sentiment against the Kyoto agreement here in the United States than elsewhere. Of course, that’s because a person’s point of view depends upon whose economy is getting gored. But perhaps even more foreign to Estrada is that U.S. opposition emerged because of another "nuisance," known here as "free speech."

There’s little opposition in Germany, because no one has testified to the Bundestag that both satellites and weather balloons show that the forecasts are way off. That testimony occurred in Washington, not Bonn.

There’s little opposition in England, because no one has told Parliament that global warming only warms up the coldest, most deadly winter airmasses of Siberia and that it slightly lengthens the growing season. That testimony occurred in Washington, not London.

And there’s little opposition in Argentina, because no one told the National Popular Assembly that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, makes plants grow better and that wheat crops in the Southern Hemisphere, including Argentina’s (the country’s principal export, besides Evita) are producing millions more bushels, helping their balance of payments. That testimony occurred in Washington, not Buenos Aries.

So Estrada’s right. We are "out of step" because this is the only nation that, however acrimoniously, allows the truth to be told to its highest legislature. As for that legislature, Democrat John Dingell, acknowledged by friend and foe alike as one of the most savvy and perceptive politicians of this age, called Estrada’s remarks "an unprecedented display of arrogance."

Next Round, Buenos Aires

Two weeks after the upcoming Congressional elections, the Clinton Administration will attend the first U.N. meeting after the Kyoto disaster, to be held in—guess where?—Buenos Aires!

That’s because last year, when President Clinton went to visit, Prime Minister Carlos Menem said Argentina recognized global warming was an important problem and was willing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (with a little financial "help" from us, which CNN forgot to report).

In doing so, the Administration thinks it can persuade the Senate that reductions somehow now apply to developing countries, too.

What’s going to happen down there is that the same Raul Estrada will help to write yet another amendment to the climate change treaty, one that will allow the United Nations to "enforce" its provisions here in the United States. We’re sure Estrada’s latest idea, which Congress must approve, will be as popular as his Kyoto pronouncement that our Second Branch of government is "a nuisance."

Satellite Shootdown Redux

Folks who were gloating that a California rocket scientist may have found that orbiting satellites actually show a slight warming when adjusted for orbital decay are starting to think again about whether or not this is good news.

The Administration’s scientists—and that’s a lot of people, given that the federal government provides 99.99 percent (honestly!) of the U.S. climate change research dollars—may have been gloating a month ago, but things appear to have become much more reasoned.

That’s because it’s finally dawning on people that even if the argument about to appear in Nature magazine is correct, the observed warming is still way below where the models predict it to be. In fact, scientists and others touting the satellites up until now have often wondered how it could show no warming whatsoever.

But the Administration’s joy must have turned to sorrow when it saw just when and where it warms up if you accept the latest charge.

First of all, the "artificial" cooling is thought to be 0.12°C per decade. Adjusting the observed trend of –0.04°C per decade results in a warming of 0.08°, which is more than four times less than was forecast, according to the models that serve as the basis for the U.N. Climate Change treaty. And it’s two times below the "adjusted" models that attempt to account for the errors by including a compensating cooling of the greenhouse effect from other industrial emissions (such as sulfate aerosols).

Those models don’t work well anyway, as our readers well know. But it’s more fun to "adjust" the satellite data for the supposed error. When we do so, we see that all of the warming takes place in the winter, and the summer temperature goes from a cooling to a flat trend.

Only people who read World Climate Report know this—which includes all the Congressional staff. Raul Estrada’s right. We are out of step!

Figure 1. Unadjusted satellite-measured winter temperatures (open circles) show no trend over the past 18 years, whereas summer temperatures (closed circles) show a slight cooling.