The evolution of the United States Climate Change Policies and missed leadership opportunities

Abstract

The main objective of this work lies in exposing the evolution and the main features of the US climate policies expressed in its national, subnational, and foreign dimensions that are naturally interwoven. Thus, we assert some of the main features of traditional political approach to climate change include: an emphasis on costs and the impact of measures to address climate change in the American economy and its economic growth; the questioning of climate science as insufficient to justify the costs of the action; the questioning of the differentiation between developed and developing countries as a valid argument for the US to take the lead in international climate action; the resistance to assume mitigation commitments that collide with the principle * Este artículo fue realizado en el contexto de una estancia de investigación en el Georgetown Climate Center, apoyada por el Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas de Argentina y la Comisión Fulbright. ** Doctora en Relaciones Internacionales, Facultad de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR); Magíster en Sistemas Ambientales Humanos, Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios (CEI), Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR); Especialista en Sistemas de Gestión de Calidad en Medio Ambiente, Centro de Estudios en Relaciones Internacionales de Rosario (CERIR); Bachiller Comercial y Licenciada en Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR). Investigadora del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de la Argentina (CONICET). Profesora en varias universidades como la Universidad Nacional de Rosario, la Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos y la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. mbueno@conicet.gov.ar, pilarbuenorubial@gmail.com. ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3408-6271. Recibido: 17 de julio de 2020. Modificaciones: 23 de septiembre de 2020. Aceptado: 25 de septiembre de 2020. Estudios Internacionales 198 (2021) • Universidad de Chile 10 of national sovereignty and fundamental freedoms inherited from the founding fathers and the related tension between the role of States and free market value. We also recognize that political ideology and partisanship continue to play a key role in climate change polices in the US. While political and economic denialism has not been able to immobilize subnational governmental and non-governmental climate initiatives, it has undermined the opportunity and the responsibility of the US to sustain leadership as international projection. This contribution follows a qualitative approach based on the analysis of climate change policies at different scales. It is based mainly on documentary and qualitative data analysis.