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Discordant Paths

December 14, 2005

The Bush administration is involved in two sets of international negotiations. One aims at a new global trade agreement. The other involves climate change.

In the trade talks, the administration has been a constructive player. In the climate talks, the administration has been nothing short of myopic.

First, the positive news. The administration is pushing for sharp reductions in price supports and other farm subsidies that distort markets, put developing nation farmers at an unfair competitive disadvantage, and unhelpfully encourage production on marginal farmland.

A better way to help farmers that doesn’t create such distortions is to pay them for good land and water stewardship. The 2002 farm bill authorized a set of popular programs to help farmers conserve soil, protect grasslands, improve wildlife habitat, develop farm-based renewable energy, and keep pollution out of nearby waterways. A trade deal that encourages a shift to conservation payments would set the table for a 2007 farm bill where conservation becomes the centerpiece of farm aid.

Unfortunately, Congress has never fully funded farm conservation programs and is on the verge of cutting them even more. The administration should pressure Congress to pull back from this cliff.

Now, the bad news. The administration sent representatives to the international climate talks that recently concluded in Montreal. They did everything but throw spitballs to block negotiations aimed at strengthening the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed by President George H.W. Bush and led to the controversial Kyoto protocol. Kyoto sets binding emissions reduction targets but expires in 2012. The administration, which pulled the United States out of the Kyoto protocol, consented at the last minute to taking part in pallid international climate discussions that will be "nonbinding" and don't lead to any new commitments. As scientific evidence accumulates that greenhouse gas emissions are altering the climate, the administration will go no further than taking part in a glorified debating society.

The administration holds to the silly line that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can somehow be achieved without targets, timetables, or any other reliable way to measure progress. An administration headed by a chief executive with a MBA degree seems to have forgotten one of the first rules of business management: what gets measured gets done.

What’s needed is a transfusion of policy smarts and political will from the trade team to the climate negotiators.