The always excellent Issues in Science and Technology (and if you don’t subscribe you should) has a great essay in its winter issue by Richard Benedick, former deputy assistant secretary of state and chief U.S. negotiator of the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Protect the Ozone Layer. The essay is titled “Avoiding Gridlock on Climate Change” and appears on pp. 37-40. Mr. Benedick knows something about international environmental agreements. His essay is not yet online, but I have excerpted some key passages below.

He begins by leveling some string criticism at the annual gatherings under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

These UN mega-conferences have by now developed a predictable pattern. Considerable time is occupied by tedious problems of coordinating positions and tactics, both inside the huge national delegations and within blocs of countries such as the European Union and other regional or “like-minded” coalitions. There are the usual dire warnings— fully justifiable—of impending global catastrophe. There are trivial protocol debates and ritualistic ministerial speeches exhorting complicated and unrealistic actions. There are cultural diversions such as boat rides on the Rhine or dance performances in Marrakech. As the end nears, all-night negotiating sessions contribute to a sense of destiny. But despite the customary self-congratulatory finale, the results at Nairobi, as at preceding meetings, were embarrassingly meager. . .

Part of the problem, as he sees it, is a short-term obsession with targets and timetables.

The climate meetings, obsessively focused on short-term targets and timetables applying only to industrialized nations, have become trapped in a process that is unmanageable, inefficient, and impervious to serious negotiation of complex issues that have profound environmental, economic, and social implications extending over many decades into the future. . .

He suggests that that the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol actually serves the interests of industry, oil-producing countries, and the Bush Administration. These views qualify him for instant “non-skeptic heretic” status (sorry, couldn’t resist;-).

The Kyoto Protocol, lamely defended by its proponents as “the only game in town,” now best serves the interests of politicians whose rhetoric is stronger than their actions and of those commercial interests and governments that want no meaningful actions at all—notably, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Near East oil producers, and the U.S. administration, which is not unhappy with the treaty’s lack of progress. . .

In a crucial passage, Mr. Benedick goes a long way to dispelling some of the myths of the ozone experience. Reading the following closely.

It is worth recalling that the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, later characterized by the heads of the UN Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization as “one of the great international achievements of the century,” was negotiated by only about 30 nations in nine months, with delegations seldom exceeding six persons and with minimal attention from outside observers and media. I doubt whether the ozone treaty could have been achieved under the currently fashionable global format.

We might draw some useful lessons from the ozone history. In the late 1970s, the ozone science was actually much more disputed than the climate science of today, and the major countries that produced and consumed chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were hopelessly deadlocked over the necessity for any controls at all. In this situation, the first international action on protecting the ozone layer was neither global, nor even a treaty. Rather, it was an informal accord among a loose coalition of like-minded nations, including Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and the United States, to individually and separately ban the use of CFCs in aerosol spray cans.

This measure alone resulted in a temporary 30% drop in global CFC consumption (temporary because these “wonder chemicals” were continuing to find new uses in numerous industries.) But the action was nevertheless significant for the future. The resultant technological innovations demonstrated to the skeptics (in this case the European Community, Japan, and the Soviet Union) that controls were feasible, at least for this class of products. It also gave the United States and other proponents of a strong treaty the moral and practical high ground in later negotiations to restrict all uses of CFCs. Yet, if anyone had actually proposed a 30% reduction target, it would surely have been rejected as impossible.

An important lesson here is that a specific policy measure, not an abstract target, could stimulate unanticipated technological innovation. The policy measure drove the agreement on targets in the later ozone protocol, not vice versa. In contrast, the half-hearted performance of most governments with respect to climate policy measures has not matched their political rhetoric about the urgency of targets.

Another important lesson from the Montreal history was that not all countries need to agree in order to take a substantial step forward. It is also relevant to note that, in contrast to Kyoto, developing nations did accept limitations on their CFC consumption, but only when they were assured of equitable access to new technologies. Technology development is the missing guest at the Kyoto feast. . . [Emphasis added. –RP]

He makes a case that climate change needs to be grappled with piecemeal, eschewing the fantasy of a single global agreement that will drive policy and technology. As highlighted above, experience suggest that the direction of causality is precisely backward — it is the presence of smaller scale agreements and technological innovation that makes global agreements possible. This is the lesson drawn by Pielke and Betsill (1997) (PDF).

The climate problem could be disaggregated into smaller, more manageable components with fewer participants—in effect, a search for partial solutions rather than a comprehensive global model. An architecture of parallel regimes, involving varying combinations of national and local governments, industry, and civil society on different themes, could reinvigorate the climate negotiations by acknowledging the diverse interests and by expanding the scope of possible solutions. To be sure, even here success would require a degree of genuine political will among at least a significant number of key governments. Nonetheless, by focusing on specific sectors and policy measures in smaller, less formal settings with varying combinations of actors and by not operating under UN consensus rules, the possibilities for achieving forward motion would be increased. The process and results could be termed protocols or forums or agreements, but their essential character would more closely resemble a pragmatic working group than a formal diplomatic negotiation. . .

He discusses some details on issue areas where he thinks that subglobal cooperation and coordination might take place. I don’t reproduce any of the details here, other than to list these issue areas:

Energy research and development
Transportation
Power generation
Agriculture, coal, and adaptation technologies
Other technology R&D agreements
Government procurement policies
Regional cooperation

He concludes by observing that we need to be expanding our options, not foreclosing them, a view often advocated here.

There are no easy answers; we could begin by admitting that over a decade of global negotiations has not brought notable progress. We should be open to new ideas.

Ever the diplomat, in the end he offers some conciliatory words to the UNFCCC suggesting that his vision might operate in parallel. My reading of his argument is that the reality is that progress on climate change won’t be made until we break free from the current approach.