WASHINGTON, July 13 (UPI) -- In an initial draft of its 2004 platform recently released, the Democratic Party unveiled several positions certain to surprise its anti-Bush supporters in Europe.
For example, the party will not to describe the war in Iraq as a mistake or to call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region. And, in a shift from the Al Gore's 2000 platform, the Democrats have for the moment dropped any reference to the need to endorse the Kyoto treaty on global warming.
This shift -- on an issue over which the media has spent an awful lot of time excoriating the Bush White House -- did not receive much coverage outside of obscure ideological sites. Great political hay has been made over the idea that President Bush is actually distinct from his domestic political counterparts and the bulk of the world when it comes to Kyoto.
This is increasingly, however, not the case,
Europe's Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom, said more than two years ago that the purpose of Kyoto is to, "level the playing field for big businesses worldwide."
While the anti-global warming pact's problem, as far as U.S. politicians and the public are concerned, is its substance, it is also true that any related political problem is largely a result of the administration's failure to communicate its actual position. This is further compounded by remarkably uninformed reporting of the issue.
Early indications are that both factors will remain constant as the campaign proceeds.
For example, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin, "Recently announced that his nation would soon ratify the Kyoto Protocol."
What Putin in fact did was assert the vote of the Russian Legislature would be expedited, while making clear that he supports Kyoto only so long as it is not in its present form.
Putin's rhetoric on the issue has not changed for two years. His party controls the Duma and he controls the party. Even a casual observer sees this as a sign that Russian ratification of Kyoto is not on the agenda in the near
The same piece in the AJC said Bush had, "argued against signing Kyoto."
Yet the United States signed the Kyoto Protocol on Nov. 12, 1998, and it has not, as has been otherwise commonly reported, withdrawn from it. In fact, the United States sent another delegation to an international meeting on the subject, the just-completed mid-June 2004 Subsidiary Body negotiations in Bonn, Germany. In attendance was a full delegation of 28 State Department, EPA and other U.S. government officials.
The main issue, illuminated by the Democrats' retreat in the face of certain pro-Kyoto political costs, is that Bush has merely continued the Clinton-era policy of refusing to send the signed Kyoto agreement to the Senate for a vote.
The president could formally renounce the U.S. signature on the protocol, as Bush did when he withdrew the United States from the treaty on the International Criminal Court. No such communication to the United Nations has been issued regarding Kyoto, as the U.S. State Department readily confirms.
Until the president affirmatively strikes out on a different course by pulling the U.S. signature off the Kyoto pact, nothing will change.
With the Democrats in retreat on the issue, as can be seen by the aforementioned dropping of Kyoto from the party platform, it should be clear to all concerned that any purported differences simply do not exist beyond rhetoric.
Now that the Democrats have quietly abandoned the signature issue of their last candidate for president, it should stand as verification that the Republicans and Democrats do not differ on ratification of Kyoto as a matter of policy. The have both put it on the back burner.
Should this development circulate through the European salons where such matters are the topic of conversation, it should prompt some interesting discussions, especially among those who are at least rumored to be strongly pro-Kerry -- in major part because they believe he would move forward on Kyoto.
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(Christopher Horner is an attorney and the head of the Cooler Heads Coalition, which, according to its Web site, was formed to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
