The changing vector of the United States climate policy in 1992-2023

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to analyze the US climate policy, starting with the preparation and signing of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) and its Kyoto Protocol (1997) and ending with the debate on raising the US public debt ceiling by 2023. It is shown that this policy is characterized by pronounced inconsistency, which is a reflection of bipartisan disagreements and an ambiguous approach to this problem, which is demonstrated by the Congress and the Administration of the US President. The country that signed the Kyoto Protocol has not ratified it. At first, supporting the Paris Climate Agreement (2015), the United States then withdrew from it and almost immediately after that rejoined the Agreement. The reason for this inconsistency is that, in general, the two main US political parties have fundamentally different attitudes to the problem of controlling the anthropogenic climate change. Therefore, almost every change of the White House Administration, with the victory of a candidate for the US presidency from an opposition party, leads to a reversal of the climate policy vector by 180 degrees. Such political practice is one of the reasons why it is impossible to fulfill the main goal of the Paris Agreement.