Climate Change and American Foreign Policy

293 Pages·2000·27.575 MB·English

by  Paul G. Harris

Climate Change and
Ameriean Foreign Poliey
Edited by Paul G. Harris
Palgrave Macmillan
CLIMATE CHANGE AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
Copyright © Paul G. Harris, 2000. All rights reserved.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-312-23341-9
No part of this book may be used or reprodueed in any manner whatsoever
without written perrnission exeept in the ease of brief quotations embodied
in eritieal articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press,
New York, N.Y. 10010.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieation Data
Climate ehange and ameriean foreign poliey / edited by Paul G. Harris.
p.em.
Includes bibliographical referenees and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-62980-0 ISBN 978-1-349-62978-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-62978-7
1. Climate ehanges-Government poliey-United states. 2. United States
Foreign relations. I. Harris, Paul. G.
QC981.8.C511382000
363.738'747-de21
First edition: August 2000
109 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Transferred to Digital Printing 2011
Contents
Contributors v
Priface Vll
I Introduetion
Chapter 1 Climate Change and Foreign Poliey: An Introduetion
-Paul G. Harris 3
11 Critiquing V.S. Clintate Change Poliey
Chapter 2 Climate Change: Is the United States Sharing the
Burden?-Paul G. Harris 29
Chapter 3 Upholding the "Island of High Modernity": The
Changing Climate of Arneriean Foreign Poliey
-Peter Doran 51
111 Polities of V.S. Clintate Change Poliey
Chapter 4 Governing Climate Change Poliey: From Seientifie
Obseurity to Foreign Poliey Prominenee
-Jacob Park 73
Chapter 5 From the Inside Out: Domestie Influenees on Global
Environmental Poliey-Neil E. Harrison 89
Chapter 6 Congress and the Polities of Climate Change
-Gary Bryner 111
Chapter 7 Regulation Theory and Climate Change Policy
-Andreas Missbach 131
Chapter 8 International Policy Instrument Prominence in the
Climate Change Debate-Karen Fisher-Vcmden 151
Chapter 9 Regime Effectiveness,Joint Implementation, and
Climate Change Policy-Jotge Antunes 177
IV International Nonns and V.S. Clim.ate Change Poliey
Chapter 10 The United States and the Evolution of International
Climate Change Norms-Michele M. Betsill 205
Chapter 11 International Norms of Responsibility and
U.S. Climate Change Policy-Paul G. Harris 225
Notes 241
Index 293
Contributors
JORGE ANTUNES is an independent researcher based in Portugal. He
received his M.Phil. in Environment and Development from Cambridge
University.
MICHELE M. BETSILL is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Col
orado State University, and arecent postdoctoral fellow in the Global Envi
ronmental Assessment Project at Harvard University's Kennedy School of
Government. Her research on global environmental politics focuses on cli
mate change.
GARY BRYNER is Research Professor of Law and Director of the Natural
Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado School of Law. He
is the author of Blue Skies, Green Polities: The Clean Air Act cif 1990 and Its
Implementation; From Promises to Peiformanee: Aehieving Global Environmental
Goals; and, with Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer, Environmental Polities: Domestie
and Global Dimensions.
PETER DORAN is a writer and editor with the International Institute for
Sustainable Development's Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) and the digi
tal editor for ENB at the United Nations climate change negotiations. He
coordinates an organization working on Agenda-21 in Derry, Northern
Ireland. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kent at Canterbury,
England.
vi Contributors
KAREN FISHER-V ANDEN is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
at Dartmouth College. She is an environmental economist who has worked
in the areas of eeonornie instruments for pollution eontrol, eeonornie and
integrated assessment modeling for elimate change poliey analysis, and the
diffusion of effieient teehnologies in developing and transition economies.
She holds a Ph.D. in Publie Poliey from Harvard University.
PAUL G. HARrus leetures at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, and he is
Senior Leeturer in International Relations at London Guildhall University.
He is direetor of the Projeet on Environmental Change and Foreign Pol
iey; an assoeiate fellow at the Oxford Centre for the Environment, Ethies
and Soeiety (OCEES) at Mansfield College, Oxford University, and an
exeeutive eomrnittee member of the International Studies Assoeiation's
Environmental Studies Seetion. Dr. Harris is editor of The Environment and
American Foreign Policy (Georgetown University Press) and author of the
OCEES report, Understanding America's Climate Change Policy, as weil as
numerous articles on global environmental polities and poliey.
NEIL E. HARruSON is Assistant Professor at the University of Wyorning.
He is author of Constructing Sustainable Development and theme editor for
UNESCO's Encyclopedia cif Life Support Systems. He has published on inter
national environmental polities and poliey, elimate change poliey, sustain
able development, and technologie al innovation. Dr. Harrison's present
research uses theories of eomplex adaptive systems to explain international
elimate change polities.
ANDREAS MISSBACH is foreign poliey editor of the Swiss weekly Vl-'Ochen
zeitung, and he is assoeiated with the Institute of Soeiology at the Univer
sity of Zurich.
JACOB PARK is a research fellow in the Harrison Program, Department of
Government and Polities, University of Maryland, and a fellow of the U.S.
Environmental Leadership Program. His research exarnines the politieal
eeonomy of global warrning, international business-environment issues,
and environmental governanee in Asia.
Preface
T
he Projeet on Environmental Change and Foreign Poliey at Lon
don Guildhall University began in early 1998. The projeet began
by examining environmental aspeets of United States foreign pol
iey. The eore objeetives were to show how environmental ehanges infiu
enee the Ameriean foreign poliey proeess; to analyze the aetors and
institutions-both domestie and international-that constrain and shape
U.S. aetions on environmental issues; to understand better the eentral role
played by the United States in international efforts to address problems of
global environmental change; and to eritieally assess Ameriean interna
tional environmental polieies. Other objeetives of the projeet are to "test
the waters" of research in this field; to showease research that has not been
foreed into traditional empirieal, epistemologieal, or ontologie al boxes, in
the expeetation that new areas and issues will be illuminated; to give insight
to governmental and nongovernmental praetitioners and aetivists that may
improve their understanding of environmental issues in Ameriean foreign
poliey; to get these ideas "onto the street" where they might have some
positive effeet on poliey-making and scholarship; and to enlighten students
and laypersons interested in international affairs, Ameriean foreign poliey,
and environmental proteetion.
Two dozen seholars from several countries eontributed to the Projeet
on Environmental Change and Foreign Poliey in its first two years. In
aehieving our initial objeetives they have exarnined Ameriean domestie
polities and foreign poliey generally, international environmental diplo
maey, theories and philosophies of international relations and the environ
ment, and U.S. leadership in the post-Cold War world. To date the projeet
V111 PreJaee
has resulted in two manuscripts: this volume, dedicated to understanding
the place of climate change in American foreign policy; and a second vol
urne, The Environment and Ameriean Foreign Poliey, published by Georgetown
University Press, which examines a host of environmental issues in the
context of American foreign policy, ranging from ocean pollution and
environmental security to whaling and environmental trade sanctions.
Some of the chapters in this book will be rather controversial in their
arguments and conclusions. One objective of the project has been to
include-or at least not exclude-altemative perspectives. These less main
stream views of U.S. climate change policy often "speak" to people outside
the United States, whereas the mainstream interpretations and analyses fre
quently do not. We hope that all readers leam from the work presented
here, including the more unorthodox chapters.
I wish to thank the authors for their important contributions to this vol
urne and to the Project on Environmental Change and Foreign Policy. The
contributors and I are grateful to the anonymous referees for their helpful
comments, and to the kind, professional staff at St. Martin's Press, especially
Ruth Mannes, for their diligence in bringing this book to readers.
Paul G. Harris
London, England
I.
Introduction