Short Wave - A Climate Time Capsule, Part 2: The Start of the International Climate Change Fight

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

In 1992, diplomats and scientists at the United Nations negotiated the first-ever treaty intended to tackle the climate change. This brought the issue to the forefront and led to a series of conferences that have occurred almost every year for the next 30 years. Short Wave host Emily Kwong talks to freelance climate reporter, Dan Charles about how those at the conference wrote a clear and ambitious goal that they didn't even fully understand. Plus — why it rattled the fossil fuel industry. This is part 2 of a two-part series. For part 1, check out "A Climate Time Capsule (Part 1): The Start of the International Climate Change Fight"Email Short Wave at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, shortwavers, Emily Kwong here. And guess what? I have Dan Charles back in the studio. Hey, Dan. Hi, Emily. Hi, you are going to pick up a story you started earlier this week that I really want to hear the ending to. It's the story of how the very first climate change treaty came to be 30 years ago, almost to the day.

And it ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. Yes. We ended at a moment when the negotiations were started. The Europeans wanted the treaty to include a target, you know, a limit on the greenhouse gas emissions, at least from wealthier countries. And the U.S. was dead set against that. So we arrive at this moment, late April, 1992. We're in conference room three at UN headquarters in New York. A French diplomat named Jean-Rupé starts one last negotiating session.

He starts handing out a new draft of this framework control. on climate change. A compromise. In this recording, you just hear the interpreter. Portions of the text are being distributed now in English, and they are now in the process of translation into the other languages. Jean-Rapair was calling this text his proposal as chairman, but the thing is he had not actually written it. The real author was sitting in the back of the room, the U.S. negotiator, Bob Reinstein. It was theater between the high-level people. It had all been choreographed. There was still lots of negotiating to go. Under UN rules, this had to be adopted by

consensus, and lots of countries wanted small changes. But finally, on the evening of May 9th, after Pakistan suggests adding a few words about ways to deliver financial aid to poor countries, Bob Reinstein takes the floor, says that's fine, but now we're done, right? I think we have to end the drafting or the quasi-drafting now and not make any more changes. The way Reinstein tells the story now, Kuwait's delegate had his hand up. Maybe he had another objection. But Jean-Rapair in the chairman's seat just ignored him. Again, we hear the interpreter. I propose that the committee express its agreement and adopt the text and recommend it for signature at the next conference. And people in the room stood up and burst into applause.

You know, after a year and a half of talking, they actually had an agreement. Oh, so Just like that, the treaty was adopted. That's right. But the thing is, there was still a lot of uncertainty about what they had just agreed to. There were no actual limits on emissions, but this agreement did put climate permanently on the world's agenda. Honestly, right then, people were trying to figure out what it all meant, and they still are. Today, on Shortwave, this May 30 years ago, the world made its first big moves to fight climate change. But what did this moment actually accomplish?

And was it a powerful step towards ending climate change or a big missed opportunity? You're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR. Okay, Dan Charles, let's come back to that evening in 1992. What exactly was in the compromise that Bob Reinstein worked out? Yes, this text mentioned the target that the Europeans wanted, which was stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels within a decade. But it was there as a goal, something to aim for. And then also, nations would meet regularly to review their progress toward that goal. But they weren't, sounds like, required to meet that target or even reduce emissions at all.

That's right. The top negotiator from India, Chandra Shakar Dasgupta, remembers looking at this text and thinking, you know, this seems to require cuts in emissions, but when you look at it more closely, you realize there's no actual requirement there. It's a masterpiece of wording. But it doesn't necessarily solve a problem that the agreement is supposed to solve. No, it does not. It does not solve the problem. But it's a masterpiece in the sense that it conceals the fact that it does not solve the problem.

Oh, my. Do you get cynical about international negotiations after a while when you see this? Yes, and no. I mean, there's no other way. forward, you know, we have to negotiate it. That is so interesting. I mean, he's saying basically getting this treaty adopted was a step forward, pretty miraculous, even if it didn't accomplish much.

It was something to build on. That's right. And you hear other delegates in these recordings at the time saying similar things. The treaty did set the stage for possible limits on emissions in the future with these regular review meetings and requiring countries to collect and report data on their greenhouse gas. emissions. So for somebody like Bill Hare, who was a scientist on the Australian delegation, who was really concerned with climate change, it was on balance a moment of hope. I thought, okay, we didn't get what we wanted, but we thought, okay, look, give us another

five years, then we'll get there, right? And apparently the treaty did scare some people on the other side of this argument, like the fossil fuel industry. Bill recalls walking out of that session and seeing his biggest opponent in this battle, Don Perlman, a lobbyist who represented the fossil fuel industry. Perlman was smoking. You could smoke in the UN back then. So here he is with his cigarettes, with one arm over Bob Rhinestine saying, you f***ed us, you f***ed us. Oh, okay. What was he so upset about? Well, I couldn't go ask him. He died in 2005, but Bill Hare figures, Perlman thought this treaty was bad for the fossil fuel business. Makes sense. So this was a moment of hope for some, absolute fear for others as they look

towards the future. And it's a future we're now living in. Dan, what is your take on how this moment shaped today? Yeah. So for people who wanted strict limits on greenhouse emissions, I'd say it's been 30 years of disappointment. You know, they got an agreement in 1997 called the Kyoto Protocol, which set limits on emissions. But that agreement kind of fell apart. The U.S. never ratified it. Oil and gas industries fought it. And increasingly, climates become this partisan issue with Republicans, for instance, in this country embracing fossil fuels. Right. And shortly after, you're getting like drill baby drill as an actual Republican campaign slogan. Yeah. And after Kyoto, it took almost another two decades to sign the next big agreement on

climate. The Paris Agreement, remember that in 2015? That took a whole different approach. It relies on countries voluntarily setting targets for themselves. And then the UN adds up those targets to see if the world's doing enough, you know, to limit the damage from climate change. But as our colleagues, Rebecca Hersher and Lauren Summer have reported, the world is not doing enough. That's right. The world keeps burning more fossil fuels. And the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is the key thing, keeps going up. You know, in 1992, when this treaty was adopted, the level of carbon dioxide in the air was about 360 parts per million.

Today, the average is about 414. That's a steep jump. Dan, after diving into this history and talking to people who actually helped write the thing, do you consider this first treaty a failure? Like, was there a chance in 1992 that the world could have done more, or at least different, so we'd be in a better place today? You know, there are people who do believe that. I've come round to the view that this treaty was actually a success.

You know, a big accomplishment considering where we were in 1992. That surprises me. Why? Well, one of the people who persuaded me is Michael Oppenheimer, who was watching these negotiations for the Environmental Defense Fund. All of that yada yada about, oh, we just missed an opportunity, is a lot of crap. He doesn't mince words, does he? No. He says there was no way in 1992 that the UN could set meaningful limits on greenhouse gas emissions. He says the science was too new. The political support had not yet been built.

It was much too early to use the international stuff as a lever to get countries to actually act. Too much education had to be done. There were too many obstacles operating, both political and economic, before people. decided this was serious enough to span serious political chits on it. Quickly, what is a political chit? A political chit, as I understand it, is like a debt, you know? It's your political capital. It's the favor that you want to call in, you know, in order to accomplish something. It's important to you.

So you're saying in 1992, no one would be calling in political favors over climate change. Exactly, right. So, you know, at that moment, they didn't get legal limits on greenhouse emissions. but it was an accomplishment just for countries to agree that they'd come back to the table, basically every year to answer this question. What are you doing about climate change? That's true. I mean, it did kind of put this item called, like, Stop the Planet from heating up on the world's to-do list. The way Michael Oppenheimer sees that the real failure was not in 1992, the failure was later, you know, when the dangers from climate change were clearer and countries still wouldn't adopt policy.

to cut fossil fuel burning. In fact, he says, if you look at that 1992 treaty, there is one part of it that is looking better and better as time passes. This is Article 2, what's called the ultimate objective. Oh, yes. This is the section that got you so interested in this story in the first place, where it says the goal is to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and prevent dangerous climate change. That's right. And that goal is so ambitious, you know, stabilizing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. People kind of ignored it during the negotiations because that actually implies you can't add any more to what's already there. You have to stop greenhouse gas emissions almost entirely. People couldn't even imagine that at the time. But now we're realizing that's in fact what's required. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Article 2, not only gets a life, but appears to be the driving force behind all this government policy aimed at achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Dan, you've given us so many ways to look at this treaty from an empty vessel of wordsmithery to something actually incredibly prescient and kind of precedent setting. Yeah, I think it really was.

Yeah. At least this part of it, the part that most negotiators just ignored at the time, because it didn't seem relevant. And now it does. Thank you for bringing us this story, Dan. It's really interesting history, and I loved hearing about it. Thanks for letting me tell the story. I would also like to thank some additional people who helped with this historical investigation.

Jordan Wilms at the United Nations Climate Change Archive, who provided the archival audio, Renata Christ, Hugo Shali, Dan Bodanski, Richard Kinley, Cindy Baxter, and Helen Plume. This episode was produced by Thomas Liu, edited by Giselle Grayson, and backchecked by Margaret Serrino. The audio engineer for this episode was Stu Rushfield. Andrea Kissick is the head of the science desk. Edith Chapin and Terrence Samuel are the executive editors and vice presidents of news. And Nancy Barnes is our senior vice president of news.

I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you for listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science podcast from NPR.