– David Victor
(Jerry Ferguson / Wikipedia (CC-BY 2.0))
The United States has gambled away their influence on international climate diplomacy since 1990. With its climate plan U.S. President Barack Obama may actually bring more movement in the climate than its critics think again, says the international law expert David Victor.
to climate change in recent years by U.S. President Obama basically heard only silence. In June, he has decided to go in a speech outlining how the U.S. wants to tackle this looming global problem. This was first of all remarkable. Only: The new U.S. climate plan is broadly the old climate plan
It contains dozens of measures, of which most are already underway., Energy efficiency is to be increased, fuels with high CO2 pressures such as coal are replaced by cleaner natural gas technologies are promoted with super low emissions. Already, analysts, lobbyists and politicians make it here, what effects the various details on emissions and economy will have. But virtually no one talks about the most important test for Obama’s plan: its international influence.
As global warming was for the first time in 1990 in a prominent position on the international agenda, the U.S. was the undisputed number 1 in the world economy and the largest polluters in the world. Since then, the U.S. share of emissions of various greenhouse gases has declined by 16 to 13 percent, and this decline is expected to continue. U.S. emissions have stagnated around since the late nineties to now continue to fall again. Meanwhile, the greenhouse gas emissions of the rest of the world, especially from China, continued to increase. In 1990, the United States would not have been able to stop global warming alone, but at least they could show the way the world unilaterally. However, that did not happen – and now the climate problem is bigger and harder to solve, because theThe key question now is whether a new U.S. climate plan has any effect on other countries.. Until further notice, the answer is probably: no. U.S. credibility in international climate diplomacy is damaged, because it only as a critic of measures against global emissions – will be perceived – as the Kyoto Protokokll. However they were not good at developing alternatives that work.
Other countries have long understood that, given the stalled U.S. domestic policy is no American diplomat can make serious promises. It is unlikely that any global agreement to reduce emissions would come through Congress. Significantly, Obama’s plan mainly regulatory and support measures which he can enforce alone. Legislative initiatives that rely on Congress largely missing. Although the U.S. influence on international negotiations appear weak, but there is a glimmer of hope. In recent months, the Obama Government has again stepped up its attempts to directly cooperate with China in programs for low-emission technologies. At the summit in June agreed Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to work for a long-term ban on fluorocarbons -. Highly potent greenhouse gases that are relatively easy to get to gripsConcrete measures that deal with individual take things countries or groups of countries, are for the United States now arguably more effective than global climate forums. Because smaller collaborations lead lighter in action, they might even be the most viable way to climate cooperation to other countries.
In the immediate vicinity Canada could prove to be the country that develops the greatest influence internationally. The planned pipeline “Keystone XL” which will bring oil from Canadian tar sands to lucrative markets could be the first concrete success. Whether it is depends on the United States. If not, the oil would probably take other paths, and a refusal by the United States could force the Canadians to hang credible programs for emission reductions. Because greenhouse gas emissions affect the entire planet in a place that everyone should plan whether from a small town or a large nation can be judged by whether it advances the global climate agenda. Measured by this could mean a reboot Obama’s new plan – if the U.S. thereby gain more influence, both on measures of other countries as well as to himselfDavid Victor teaches at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California at San Diego. His research group studies how international agreements can be effective. In 2011 he published the book “Global Warming Gridlock: Creating More Effective Strategies for Protecting the Planet”.
