A Climate of Despair

For a look at what a government can do if it really cares, visit Iceland, which is using its unique natural resources to meet its energy needs. From under the snow-covered lava fields that make up the bulk of the Icelandic land mass, hot water from the island's volcanic underbelly boils and surges to the surface in the form of steaming geysers and hot springs. This inexhaustible source of energy is a godsend to Iceland's 276,000 inhabitants, who meet 90% of their needs from geothermal and hydroelectric power. That gives Icelanders a marvelous opportunity: they are now trying to eliminate the use of fossil fuels entirely and make Iceland the first country in the world to get all of its energy from clean, renewable sources. If they succeed, they may — by the choice of their fuel technology — show the rest of the planet that it's possible to fight global warming.

The goal in this tiny North Atlantic nation is to create the first hydrogen economy. Its centerpiece will be the hydrogen fuel cell, the versatile little power plant that combines hydrogen with oxygen from the air and gives off only energy and water vapor. The good news is that hydrogen can be derived from water, a virtually unlimited source. The bad news is that the electrolysis process used to extract it requires large amounts of energy. Iceland's advantage in this field is that it can provide the necessary energy with its nonpolluting sources.

Last month, Icelandic New Energy, an international consortium that includes Shell Hydrogen, DaimlerChrysler, Norway's Norsk Hydro and Iceland's energy holding company Vistorka, officially launched two projects aimed at promoting hydrogen. One four-year program will introduce three buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells into Reykjavik's city transport fleet. The first two years of the project will focus on environmental research, building up infrastructure and training staff. The buses, produced by DaimlerChrysler at $1.1 million each, are scheduled to go into regular service at the end of next year, spearheading a gradual switch of the nation's 180,000 vehicles and 2,500 fishing vessels to hydrogen power.

The second program, a venture between Icelandic New Energy, California's DCH Technology and Skeljungur, Shell's Iceland distributor, will begin replacing conventional chemical batteries with fuel cells — for example, to power mobile homes or houses and businesses that are not on the regular electric grid. During a four- to six-month trial period, the partners will distribute fuel cells for free to see how they perform. If that goes well, the cells will be mass-produced and sold at a price determined by the size of the market.

For the mobile fuel cells, refills will be available from hydrogen canisters at Shell service stations scattered around the country. The buses will start with a central fuel depot in Reykjavik, but as hydrogen usage spreads to other vehicles, more fueling facilities will be integrated into the Shell network. "Fossil fuels are only 100 years old," says Icelandic New Energy general manager Jon Björn Skulason. "They may last another 50, and then it could be the turn of hydrogen for 150 years after that." By demonstrating that an entire economy — albeit a small, isolated one — can free itself of fossil fuel dependency, Iceland could be a source of hope and inspiration in a world threatened by climate chaos.

Outside Europe, other countries are unexpectedly taking a leadership role in curbing global warming. Mexico, which for decades has been choking on its own exhaust, is planning to double its output of geothermal power — energy generated by natural underground heating — which would place it third in the world in geothermal production, behind the U.S. and the Philippines. President Vicente Fox is also promising a bill that would open the national power grid to electricity produced by all manner of alternative sources.

China, with 11% of the world's CO2 output — second to the U.S. — has cracked down on emissions and reduced its greenhouse output 17% between 1997 and 1999, eliminating more than the entire CO2 production of Southeast Asia. Beijing's goal was less to curb global warming than to clean the air and protect the health of its population. But whatever its motivations, the policy is paying environmental dividends. "When China takes action," says climate expert Kevin Baumert of World Resources Institute, a Washington think tank, "it has global implications."

In the U.S., municipal governments are working to duplicate such successes. In 1993, Portland, Oregon became the first U.S. city to implement its own CO2-reduction plan, joining a global partnership of municipal governments that eventually included Denver, Minneapolis, Copenhagen and Helsinki. The goal was to slash CO2 emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2010. Portland's strategy involved a six-point program that included synchronizing traffic lights, planting 75,000 acres of trees (which absorb carbon dioxide) and buying low-CO2 vehicles for the city's fleet. By some measures, the program is working spectacularly, with mass-transit ridership increasing 30%, auto commutes to downtown falling 15% and solid-waste disposal from homes shrinking 13%. But the city's CO2 output has actually risen, mostly because of an unanticipated population boom in the Pacific Northwest.

What makes the burden on cities lighter is a sudden burst of environmental awareness from a surprising source: industry. In recent years, more and more multinationals have been turning unexpectedly green, and one example is British Petroleum. Shortly after Kyoto was signed, BP chief executive John Browne set his company's goal of cutting CO2 output 10% below its 1990 levels; four years later, he is halfway there. BP has achieved this in part by reducing the amount of greenhouse emissions that flare away in oil fields and refineries. The company is also looking into cutting carbon content in fuel and boosting the efficiency with which it burns. The oil giant and Ford Motor Co. are providing a $15 million grant to Princeton University, partly to study "sequestering" carbon — stripping the greenhouse element from hydrocarbons, burying it underground and burning the hydrogen that remains as clean fuel. "You can run a company on the basis that you only do what the law demands," says Browne. "We use compliance with the law as a minimum and then go beyond that."

Last October, BP, Alcan, DuPont and others joined with Environmental Defense to launch the Partnership for Climate Action, pledging to reduce their greenhouse emissions to levels meeting or exceeding Kyoto's requirements. Ford, DaimlerChrysler and Texaco have not yet joined, but last year they did quit the misleadingly named Global Climate Coalition, an industry group opposed to emissions controls. Honda and Toyota have introduced hybrid cars with emissions 40% lower than standard models of the same size.

In the short run, there's not much chance of halting global warming, not even if every nation in the world ratifies the Kyoto Protocol tomorrow. The treaty doesn't require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions until 2008. By that time, a great deal of damage will have been done. But we can slow things down. If action today can keep the climate from eventually reaching an unstable tipping point or can finally begin to reverse the warming trend a century from now, the effort would hardly be futile.

It was only a dozen years ago that the first President Bush was sitting where his son is now, promising to battle the greenhouse effect with what he called the "White House effect." At that time, the science of global warming was a black art, and strategies to combat it seemed more visionary than practical. But that has changed. Science appears to have cracked much of the greenhouse riddle, and both government and business are learning to use that information in ways that could eventually put the brakes on warming. If Washington wants a role in that effort, the climate-change crisis stands a greater chance of being averted. If not, a far warmer world may one day want to know why.

— Reported by Maryann Bird/London, David Bjerklie, Robert H. Boyle, Andrea Dorfman and William Dowell/New York, Massimo Calabresi, John F. Dickerson, Barry Hillenbrand and Dick Thompson/Washington, Helen Gibson and Thomas Sancton/Reykjavik, Joe Kirwin/Brussels, Sachiko Sakamaki/Tokyo and Regine Wosnitza/Berlin