AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — When international talks broke down last week on controlling industrial pollution that is warming the Earth, you might expect businesses to have welcomed it. They didn't.
True, some industries oppose measures compelling them to curb the greenhouse gases they pump into the air. Others would accept, even embrace, new regulations.
But they all know it won't be business as usual for much longer, and they are impatient to know what the new rules will be.
Two weeks of talks at a U.N. climate conference in The Hague broke down Nov. 25 over setting guidelines to meet targets fixed three years ago in Kyoto, Japan, for reducing heat-trapping gases.
"We were disappointed at the failure," said Nick Campbell, of the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, which claims to speak for 7,000 companies worldwide. "Clarity is the main thing, so that businesses know where they stand."
Scientists warn that carbon dioxide and other gases — mostly from power stations, factories and vehicles — are contributing to new climate patterns already blamed for severe storms and droughts. Unless the gases are curtailed, they say, in the next 100 years, rising sea levels will inundate coastlines, wash away entire island nations and cause dramatic shifts in world agriculture.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, emissions are to be cut by an average 5.2 percent from 1990 levels, reaching that goal by 2012. Thirty-eight countries accepted reduction targets: the United States by 7 percent, Japan by 6 percent and the European countries by a total of 8 percent.
In fact, the cuts will be far more painful.
The 1990s saw robust growth, both for economies and the energy systems that fueled them. Estimates say that for the United States to meet its target, it will need to slash emissions by more than 30 percent from what they would be in 2010.
When the protocol was adopted in 1997, most businesses were horrified by the vision of strict new regulations dictating expensive clean technologies, enforced with heavy penalties.
A main issue of contention was "flexible mechanisms" — whereby countries could claim credit for actions to reduce carbon emissions outside their own borders.
If, for example, a U.S. company converts a factory in Africa from coal to solar power, will it count toward the U.S. reduction quota? Or can a country unable to meet its target buy credits from another country that has exceeded its target?
The United States pushed hard for unrestricted use of such mechanisms, but finally agreed to accept a limit. The talks foundered when the Europeans — themselves divided on the issue — rejected the final U.S. offer on how high that limit should be.
Many large companies already have begun reducing emissions and experimenting with trading and other mechanisms in the hope of earning credits once the treaty goes into force.
"We are not out there throwing bricks at this process. We are developing the knowledge and gathering the experience about the regulatory regime that we believe will come," said Judith Bayer, of United Technologies Corp., which owns such companies as Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines and International Fuel Cells.
DuPont has spent $50 million on making existing plants greener, Jacob said. And Bayer said UTC is committed to reducing its energy use by 25 percent in the next seven years. "That program will go forward," she said. "We won't back down just because there was no agreement reached in The Hague."
So far such programs are voluntary, and those companies that are on the road to reductions will continue, said Bayer. "But some are just beginning. This will have a chilling effect on their willingness to move forward on voluntary programs."
"We have no future unless we get this right," said Fred Krupp, head of the Washington-based Environmental Defense. "That's why The Hague was such a sad moment."