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| Fig. 1: Global Consumption of Renewable Energy. (Courtesy of British Petroleum) [4,5] |
Any consideration of the current presidential administration's approach to environmental protection and energy issues requires careful study of the approach of its predecessors. The previous Republican administration, that of George W. Bush, expressed many of the same views. Indeed, for the eight months prior to the September 11 attacks, the Bush Administration's focus was inward, with one of its most momentous decisions being its reversal away from the Clinton Administration's support for the Kyoto Protocol. [1]
To the ire of the international community, though not to its surprise, the Bush Administration's chose not to implement the Kyoto Protocol in the United States. The choice did mark a break, however, between the European community and the United States; the former had been pushing hard for the U.S. to join in the Protocol's implementation. Gerhard Schroder, the German chancellor, told the Los Angeles times that "It is important that the US accepts its responsibility for the world climate. They are the biggest economy in the world and the heaviest energy consumers." [2] Perhaps even more importantly, for the Protocol to go into effect, at least 55 countries needed to ratify it, and the 55 countries were required to represent at least 55 percent of the emissions of all industrial countries. [3] The Bush Administration's decision not to implement the Protocol in the United States came from a fear that the exemptions provided to developing countries would make American industry less competitive in the international marketplace. In Fig. 1, one may observe the relative lack of use of renewable energy sources in parts of the developing world, with Africa, for instance, in 2001 providing a tiny fraction of the developed world's consumption. [4] Leaning on the 1995 Senate vote on the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, a unanimous 95-0 declaration that indicated the Senate's opposition to the Protocol's implementation, Bush stated that "the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns." [3] Today, the Trump Administration raises many of the same concerns when confronting international agreements that seek to reduce carbon emissions, balking at the burden such treaties would place on American industry.
© Cyrus Reza. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] D. E. Sanger, "Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global Warming," New York Times, 12 Jun 01.
[2] J. Borger, "Bush Kills Global Warming Treaty," The Guardian, 29 Mar 01.
[3] G. Kahn, "The Fate of the Kyoto Protocol Under the Bush Administration," Berkeley J. Intl. Law 21, 548 (2003).
[4] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy," British Petroleum, June 2016.
[5] L. Tarhuni, "Paris Climate Accord," Physics 240, Stanford University, Fall 2016.