Competing Agendas and the Climate Change Negotiations: The United States, the European Union, and Japan

October 2001
Citation:
31
ELR 11218
Issue
10
Author
Miranda A. Schreurs

Human-induced climate change is considered by many scientists to be one of the most pressing international problems facing our planet. Yet, international efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions have been repeatedly stymied by differences in national perspectives.

The Kyoto Protocol1 was dealt a near-death blow by the Bush Administration in March 2001. After President George W. Bush labeled the protocol "fatally flawed" and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christine Todd Whitman announced that the Protocol was as good as "dead" in the Administration's eyes, the future of this international agreement looked bleak.2 The European Union (EU) reacted with shock, anger, and dismay.

The author is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland in College Park. Many of the ideas reflected in this Dialogue are based on her book manuscript, Environmental Politics in Japan, Germany, and the U.S.: Competing Paradigms, currently under review.

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