Concern about climate change isn’t something new, as scientists began noticing the effects of the compounded levels of CO2 on the Earth’s temperature during the early 1950s and the 1960s. This increase in CO2 caused scientists to advocate for change, which obviously required them to enter politics, something that scientists historically have avoided; in “ The Curve: Science and the Politics of Global Warming” by Joshua P. Howe, He states that “ When scientists began to realize in the 1960s that changes in the global atmosphere wrought by increasing CO2 and other human activities could threaten environmental and human system, their exclusive access to these global processes and spaces forced them to serve as climatic spokespeople”. Prior to the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N was one of the bodies to take a step towards rectifying the changes that global warming was causing on global climate; the U.N proposed the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, this was signed by George H.W. Bush when he was the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio De Janeiro, this treaty, however, had a nonbinding nature and therefore as a result failed (Howe).
The Kyoto Protocol was a second attempt towards the same direction that the treaty U.N Framework Convention on Climate Change proposed, the Kyoto Protocol, however, was rejected congenially by Al Gore’s colleagues in the senate as they wanted to include developing countries in the treaty. Furthermore, at the conference, European nations and the USA were divided over how to deal with the problem at hand, European nations probably had government regulations in mind to control carbon emissions where as USA probably had a more capitalist approach in mind. Moreover, there were many reasons why the Bush Sr. administration was reluctant to sign the Kyoto Protocol. First and foremost, it would have made it hard for American industries to compete with industries in the developing side of the world. In addition, the USA is also heavily dependent on fossil fuels, particularly oil. Signing the Kyoto Protocol would have thus made the USA explore alternative energy resources, it would have led to new policies that would have created uncertainty, and lastly, it would have led to slow economic growth. Moreover, to solidify one of my previous points, it’s also noteworthy to add that Europeans also had proposed a measure that would increase the cost of a barrel of oil to ten dollars through taxes; this clashed with President Bush’s economic conservative ideology, during his run in 1988 campaign said, “ Read my lips: no new taxes.” (Howe).
In conclusion, United States did and still resists international agreements on climate change because it will have an appalling effect on industries and plenty of jobs. It will lead to USA’s products becoming less competitive in the international market, it will potentially put many companies out of business and will lead to many companies letting employees off at a large scale. I believe that USA will only sign an international agreement if developing countries agree to sign the international agreement too.
Will Wright 