Climate Change, can America stop it?

Initially President Bush didn’t want to sign any binding agreement climate agreement, “For the economically conservative President Bush, a carbon tax was both undesirable and politically untenable” said Joshua Howe. The president was under pressure from both the US senate which unanimously voted not to sign any such agreement without the guarantees from other developing nations. Large industrialists would have experienced losses if the Kyoto agreement was to be signed, so they fiercely lobbied against it citing concerns of unemployment. Industrialists would certainly have a lot to lose in the case of any global climate agreement as it would limit their productive capabilities resulting in a loss of profits. The US also did not like the idea that an international body would have control over how much it could pollute the environment. The idea that any group could have control over a portion of US policy was a terrifying prospect for the bush administration.  The administration believed a global body would limit the options of US foreign policy going forward, potentially challenging the position of the US in the global hierarchy. According to Howe, “Americans were unready and unwilling to sign an agreement ultimately aimed at changing the lifestyle they had worked for and defended for so long”. Americans were more willing to ask developing nations to shoulder the brunt of the regulations as it would result in lower losses to their own industries, meaning fewer changes in the affluent domestic lifestyle enjoyed by Americans.

 Thus, it makes sense that unless an alternative environmentally friendly fuel is found, the American state will remain in opposition to any binding regulations. The only ways in which the US would accept a treaty which binds it to environmental regulations would be if the American people would be willing to sacrifice a portion of their affluent domestic lifestyle. Even if this was the case industrialists would have to be willing to give up a portion of their production and lose profits, which goes against the ideology of capitalism, so in my view it is unlikely that any such agreement would be signed in the near future. Scientific proof is irrelevant to the signing of any treaty as unless the effects of climate change were to end the world tomorrow, the issues such as loss of profit, potential unemployment, loss of global power, and an infringement of American ideology would always outweigh whatever scientific research would conclude.