BERKELEY - The nations that have been most responsible for global climate change - those of the industrialised world - have so far also been most resistant to calls for urgent, concerted action.

The leading industrialised nation, the United States is also the world's leading polluter, and the chief polluting sectors hold a hammerlock on American politics.

Nine of the top ten US multinational corporations hail from the energy and automotive sectors, and they have long exercised inordinate influence in the corridors of executive and legislative power.

Reflecting their dominance, the US Congress resolutely rejects the very real promise of energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy alternatives like solar, wind, hydrogen, biomes, geothermal, and small-scale hydroelectric projects.

Most importantly, governments in both advanced and developing nations have failed to shift even a marginal portion of the 300-billion-dollar global subsidy they pay each year to the energy and automotive industries to provide these embryonic alternatives with the support they need to become commercially viable.

Natural events are also outpacing protracted negotiations to establish a global climate protection regime. Indeed, dealing with global warming will require a degree of cooperative global action far beyond anything yet achieved by any international treaty.

Under the 1997 Kyoto protocol, a global agreement negotiated by 160 nations, 38 industrialised and transitional (former Eastern bloc) nations committed themselves to binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions averaging 5.2 percent below 1990 levels. The mandated reductions range from eight percent for the European Union to seven percent for the United States and six percent for Japan.

But most of the reductions are due to be enacted between 2008 and 2012. And if current trends are any indication, when the time comes the US will be in no position to fulfil its commitments. Its greenhouse gas emissions are already 11 percent higher than in 1990 and, in the absence of policy changes, are expected to reach 33 percent above 1990 levels in the year 2010.

The Kyoto protocol establishes a set of ''flexible mechanisms'' for which both the guiding principles and the operational rules have yet to be agreed upon. These form the core of the debate that is due to reach a climactic phase in pivotal climate negotiations to be held in The Hague this November.

At the behest of industrialised nations, an emissions trading system is being established among industrialised nations to allow those for whom further reductions would be expensive (the US and other industrial states) to buy pollution permits from other (developing) nations where reductions would be cheaper to achieve.

In addition, a Clean Development Mechanism would funnel funds, technology, and technical assistance from advanced nations to developing countries to enable them to achieve sustainable economic development while preserving their natural environments by utilising low-carbon, high-efficiency technologies to generate power and by planting forests to absorb excess carbon dioxide.

The US hopes to meet up to 80 percent of its mandated emissions reductions through such mechanisms and thus avoid the pain of curbing its profligate energy consumption habits. Moreover, in what many view as a stalling tactic, the Clinton administration under pressure from a recalcitrant Congress) insists that developing nations ''meaningfully participate'' in the Kyoto emissions reductions before the US Senate will ratify the agreement.

But developing nations insist that since the US has been the chief polluter to date and can best afford to pay the transition costs, it must lead the way. They view demands for their participation in the first round of reductions as a concealed effort to suppress their own industrial development.

Difficult Consensus

Given the substantial differences still remaining between the US and the majority of developing and industrialised nations, achieving a workable consensus will be a tall order. The European Union, Japan, and other states whose emissions amount to 40 percent of the global total have proposed to put the Kyoto Protocol into effect as soon as 2002. To enter into force, however, the agreement must be ratified by at least 55 nations representing 55 percent of global carbon emissions.

That would be very difficult though not impossible to achieve without US participation. November's negotiations in The Hague coincide with US presidential elections. Republican candidate George W. Bush is a quintessential Texas oilman, the embodiment of big energy interests. Democratic candidate Al Gore is the author of ''Earth in the Balance'', in which he asserted that global warming is the greatest challenge facing humanity.

These two men represent opposing poles in the global warming debate, and the outcome of their contest could affect prospects for combating calamitous climate change for years to come.


* Mark Sommer is an author and columnist who directs the Mainstream Media Project, a US-based effort to bring new voices to the broadcast media.