Ultimatum

by Matthew Glass

“It does sound like it’s been awful for her.”

  “But they’ll use that, right? Anything they can. They’ll use that to divert attention from the issues.”

  Ogilvie nodded.

  Joe Benton shook his head in frustration, and kicked at a fallen pine cone that lay at the side of the path. It skidded away across the snow.

  “I watched your address to the joint session,” said Ogilvie.

  Benton looked at him in surprise.

  “Your legislative program is extremely impressive.”

  “Is that British for downright crazy?”

  Ogilvie smiled. “I think it’s fantastic. It’s not my place, but I wanted to tell you that.”

  Benton laughed. “Go ahead. You can tell me stuff like that any time.”

  “It’s bold. It’s visionary “

  “And it’s got every special interest group in the country out to wring my neck. You’d think I’d shoved a red-hot poker up their ass.”

  “Well, in my experience, for what it’s worth, it’s only when they act as if they’re skewered with a red-hot poker that you know you’re doing the right thing. When you feel their claws sunk into your flesh, as one of my predecessors said, that’s when you know you’re on the right track.”

  “I can feel them, Hugh.”

  “Well, there you go. But I’m serious, Joe. What you’re doing truly is a new foundation. If you pull it off, in my humble opinion, you’ll do something extraordinary for this country.”

  Benton stopped. “Thank you, Hugh. I value your opinion. You know, I really believe, the Relocation, we have to see it as an opportunity. Otherwise, it’ll be a burden that will crush us.”

  “That’s what I try to make people understand. The scale of our relocation is much smaller than yours, of course, even proportionately. But even so, it’s desperately hard to make people see how we can use it as a chance to build. That’s the British for you, I suppose. Never see the silver lining if there’s a chance of seeing the cloud.”

  “No, Hugh, it’s hard. It really is.”

  Ogilvie nodded. “Anyway, it’s not my place to draw comparisons, but there isn’t one. With your predecessor, I mean.”

  Benton smiled. Then he started walking again.

  Ogilvie asked about the Iraq-Syria initiative, and Benton talked about progress in the talks, which wasn’t substantial.

  “Well, it certainly sent a message to anyone who was watching,” said Ogilvie.

  Benton looked at him. “What message?”

  The prime minister’s lips twitched in a slight smile. “That you will deal with things. I presume that was the intent.”

  Suddenly Benton felt as if he had got a glimpse of the acuity behind Hugh Ogilvie’s agreeable exterior. “I think that’s a good message.”

  “I think probably it is. Provided, of course, you can keep your domestic support onside while you do these things. I’d imagine you need every bit of support you can find to get your program through Congress.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “And of course the question we’re all asking outside the U.S. is, what’s the next thing you’re going to deal with?”

  “Maybe there isn’t a next thing.”

  “Mr. President,” said Ogilvie with a hint of mischief, “there’s always a next thing.”

  Benton didn’t say anything to that. After they had walked a little longer, he stopped. “You want to head back? It’s damn cold.” He looked around. “I hope you can remember how we got here, because I sure as hell can’t.”

  They turned and walked in silence for a while.

  “What do you think about Kyoto 4?” asked Benton eventually.

  There was a change in Ogilvie, almost imperceptible, but something about him became a little more cautious, more guarded, as if he sensed they had got to the thing the walk was really about.

  “I don’t have particularly high hopes of it,” he replied.

  “No?”

  “With respect, Joe . . . the United States hasn’t been a great adherent of the Kyoto process.”

  “You think that’s the problem?”

  “I think it has been. A big part of the problem.”

  “I appreciate your frankness, Hugh. But I don’t think anyone has been a particularly assiduous adherent of the process. I don’t think even Great Britain’s record is perfectly clean.”

  “True. But you see, Joe, when the United States is the delinquent, everyone else feels they have a license to offend.”

  Benton nodded. “That’s well put.”

  “Hardly original, I’m afraid. I said exactly the same thing to President Gartner. And to President Shawcross, if it comes to that.”

  “That’s even better put,” said Benton.

  Ogilvie smiled.

  “It’s ridiculous, though. Hugh, the Chinese have been bigger emitters than us for twenty-five years. Their emissions are more than double ours today. Even if we wanted to solve all the world’s emissions problems ourselves—even if we just shut the United States down and stopped our emissions cold, right now, this minute—it still wouldn’t be enough without China. And yet it’s us everyone points at.”

  “An historical irony. Um, Joe. I think we might want to go up there.”

  Benton, stopped, looking around at the crossroad where he had just turned right. “You sure?”

  “Trust me. Cook, Shackleton, Ross. Nation of great explorers, the English.”

  “All right, if you’re sure.”

  They turned.

  “What were you saying, Joe?”

  “I was going to ask you about the EuroCore.”

  “What about the EuroCore?”

  “What do you think they really think about Kyoto 4?”

  Ogilvie considered the question. Benton waited to hear what he would say. As Britain had continued to stand outside the European currency zone, while remaining a member of the European Union, it had become increasingly detached from the Franco-Italian-German-Polish dominated EuroCore. Its main claim to a place on the international stage was now as a bridge between the EuroCore and the United States, a middleman able to understand and interpret each party to the other. Although it was Washington that tended to place a value on this role. More often than not, the Europeans saw London as an unnecessary nuisance.

  “The EuroCore,” said Ogilvie eventually, “doesn’t see itself as a major player in this area. Not in the sense of having to lead the way.”

  “I know, and I don’t understand that. Nine percent of the world’s emissions come out of the EuroCore. Surely that puts them in a critical role whether they like it or not.”

  “The EuroCore’s a funny thing. It’s got quite a schizoid personality. Sometimes it speaks utterly with one voice. Other times, it conveniently fragments into its constituent parts. And when that happens, given the voting arrangements, there’s no way for those who want to speak as a bloc to be able to do so. This is one of those issues. The EuroCore—or certain countries within the EuroCore—think they can slip in under the radar. All they have to do is stand back and let the United States fight it out with China and India. They know that’s where the process is going to fail again. So they don’t need to be the bad guys. In fact, they can be the good guys. You’re going to see them proposing quite extraordinary reductions and of course they don’t have the slightest intention that any of this will happen.”

  “No change there, then.”

  “Well, I’m afraid not, Joe. I’m sorry, but I’m going to be frank. I take on board what you said about the level of Chinese emissions. But as long as the United States continues to provide this convenient umbrella of non-compliance you just have to expect everyone else to come in and shelter underneath it.”

  “Including the United Kingdom?”

  Hugh Ogilvie didn’t reply to that.

  They crunched over the ice. They were almost back at Sequoia.

  “You want to take this discussion inside?” said Benton.

  “Sure.”


  Benton took him back to Aspen, the presidential cabin. Connor Gale was inside, playing a computer game.

  Benton smiled. “None but the brightest and the best,” he said, as they went past him to the study. “Yes, Connor, you can tell Ben we’re back.”

  “I think he knows already, sir,” said Gale, nodding at the window. Hoffman was coming toward the cabin through the snow.

  “Well, we’re not done,” said Benton, and he closed the door of the study.

  There was coffee on the sideboard.

  “Coffee all right for you?” asked Benton. “Or should I call for tea? Something stronger?”

  “Coffee’s fine,” said Ogilvie.

  “You want something to eat?”

  Ogilvie shook his head.

  Benton poured. He sat down, took a sip, felt the coffee warming him.

  “I don’t think Kyoto 4 is going to be enough,” said Benton. “Even if we get agreement.” He looked to see Ogilvie’s reaction. “What would the world say if it knew that?”

  “Hallelujah, I suspect. The emperor’s been wandering around without any clothes for too long now, don’t you think?”

  “Thirty years.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So what do we do, Hugh?”

  Ogilvie frowned. Benton could see him considering carefully what he should say next. “The United Kingdom is committed to the Kyoto process, Joe. We don’t think there’s a better alternative.”

  “But it’s a busted process, Hugh. You said so yourself.”

  “Maybe now’s the time to fix it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what are you proposing?”

  “I’m not proposing anything.” Benton paused. “I’m just saying, confidentially, that we ought to look at what we’ve got here. We’ve got negotiations for a treaty in a process where three previous treaties have failed to deliver, and if you ask me, that doesn’t sound like there’s much hope for the fourth. And the way it’s shaping up, even if the fourth one gets delivered down to the last subclause of a subclause, it still won’t be enough.”

  “Won’t it?”

  Benton hesitated, wondering how much to reveal to Ogilvie. It would be easy to tell him everything. He remembered what Olsen had warned him about the British prime minister.

  “Let’s just say our analysis suggests that it won’t.”

  “Using what data?”

  “Hugh,” said Benton, and he held up his hands.

  Ogilvie smiled, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “The point I’m making,” said Benton, “is we’re kidding ourselves on Kyoto.”

  “Well, a little is better than nothing, even if it’s not as good as a lot.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before, just once or twice. I don’t think that’s good enough anymore. Hell’s bells, Hugh! The world can’t wait for Kyoto 4 to fail. It doesn’t have the time.”

  Ogilvie put his fingertips together thoughtfully, almost in a manner of prayer. “There are two things here, Joe. There’s the process and there’s the content.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Let’s distinguish. I suspect you’re right on the content. Will it be enough? Probably not. You may know more than I do about that.” He paused meaningfully. “On the process, I suspect that’s where we differ. The United Kingdom does believe that a multilateral, UN-mediated approach is the only way to ensure an equitable and truly global solution.”

  “Which this same approach has failed to deliver for thirty years,” pointed out Benton.

  “Which we have failed to deliver for thirty years, Joe.”

  “All right, I accept that. What’s going to change it now?”

  “You?” Ogilvie looked at him questioningly. “Take away the umbrella, Joe. Stop being the delinquent.”

  “Let’s say I was prepared to do that. What’s to stop everyone else still offending?”

  “I can’t guarantee that.”

  “That’s the point. It’s not good enough. I can’t take that to the American people, they’ll never buy it. I can just about take them something saying the whole world is going to do its part, and yes, it’s going to cause some pain. I believe the American people will accept that. But if they’re going to take pain, I’ve got to be able to tell them they’re not the only ones.”

  “Well, what I can guarantee,” said Ogilvie, “is that if the United States doesn’t stop offending, no one else will.”

  “Agreed. I have no argument with that. That’s the bind we’re in.” Benton tapped his finger on the arm of his chair. “I want to know why the others will stop. Tell me that and I’ll have something to work with.”

  Ogilvie opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it.

  “They’ll have signed up, right? That’s what you were about to say, isn’t it? They’ll have treaty obligations.”

  Ogilvie didn’t reply.

  “What about sanctions?” said Benton.

  “They’ve never been a part of the Kyoto process.” Ogilvie shrugged. “Maybe they should be.”

  “You think anyone’s really going to sign up to that? You said yourself, Hugh, no one expects they’re really going to implement the full cuts they’ve signed up to.”

  “Joe, I think I can say, if you show you’re going to keep every single word of your commitment; and if you show real initiative in the level of cuts you propose, then the United Kingdom will be able to support you if you push to have serious, genuine sanctions written into the treaty.”

  Benton gazed at him.

  “I can see you’re less than overwhelmed,” said Ogilvie.

  “What are we going to do, Hugh? Set up a court to monitor compliance? And then have two-, three-, four-year legal processes to figure out whether sanctions should be applied? Look at the WTO. Look how it works there.”

  “Perhaps we could streamline it,” said Ogilvie. “I’m thinking off the top of my head now. Maybe we could work out a regime where the sanctions are applied and the scrutiny comes later.”

  “Same problem,” replied Benton impatiently. “Anything that really looks like it’s going to bite, I don’t think it’ll happen.”

  “That’s rather a pessimistic outlook.”

  “Exactly. And this is me talking. I’m the biggest optimist in my administration!”

  Ogilvie smiled slightly.

  “Hugh, let me be hypothetical. Will you permit me?”

  Ogilvie waited.

  Joe Benton sat forward in his chair. “Let’s say, I went outside the process. Not against it, but in parallel with it.”

  “Joe, Britain is committed to a multilateral process. I don’t know what you’re asking, but I can’t see us realistically supporting a competing approach.”

  “In parallel, I said. Just hear me out.” Benton paused. “Let’s say the United States decided to impose sanctions on a particular country. It doesn’t matter which. And not being the delinquent anymore, as you describe it, but making serious cuts, deep cuts in our own emissions, and expecting the other country to do the same. Now, I won’t ask you what the position of the United Kingdom would be, because I don’t think that’s fair. And anyway, since I wouldn’t take any action that wasn’t in our mutual interest, I would assume the United Kingdom would support us.” Benton waited just long enough to make sure Ogilvie got the point. “What I would like your view on, is what do you think would be the attitude of the EuroCore? Would they support it? Could I rely on them to impose similar sanctions themselves to really make it work?”

  Ogilvie frowned uncomfortably. “I take it this is a significant country you’re talking about? A major emitter?”

  “It ain’t Albania.”

  Ogilvie’s frown got deeper. “I think it’s very hard to answer those questions without knowing the details of the situation.”

  “I understand. It’s hypothetical. Fill in any details you need to fill in.”

  Ogilvie was silent. Benton waited.

  “I doubt it,�
�� said the British prime minister at last.

  “That they’d support it?”

  “Yes, that they’d support it. Rumain, definitely not. Sometimes I think his whole raison d’être is to throw spanners in the works of your foreign policy. DiMarco? Not at this point. Ingelbock, maybe. Koslowski, he’s a hard one to judge. The Poles have a number of issues with Russia at the moment, and if you gave them something on that. .. I’m not sure what it would be, but if you could give them something in that area, maybe they’d get behind you. But I’m guessing, Joe. And it’s just as likely they’d all give you no support at all. More likely than not, actually. If this was a significant country, as you say, your sanctions would open up opportunities for them.”