The greenhouse effect is a vital process which is responsible for the heat on the earth’s surface. By consuming fossil fuels, clearing forests etc. humans aggravate this natural process. As additionally trapped heat exceeds the earth’s intake capacity this consequently leads to global warming. The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is already 30% higher compared to pre-industrial levels and unmanaged this development is likely to result in an increase of up to 6.4° C towards the end of the century. Especially the poorest regions of the world are facing a double inequity as they a) will be hit earliest and hardest by the adverse impacts of climate change, and b) are least responsible for the stock of current concentrations in the atmosphere. Seeing this the application of the precautionary principle telling us ‘to better be safe than sorry” appears to be imperative and makes traditional cost-benefit analysis become obsolete. Thus combating global warming has become one of the most important issues facing the world in the 21st century. The international climate regime is the main platform to further cooperation between nations and to tackle this problem. Since the first world climate conference in 1979 the international community of states pursues the goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, the 15th COP of the UNFCCC aimed at achieving the final breakthrough with regard to framing new long-term mitigation commitments. However, the regime theory tells us that states behave as rational egoists and solely follow selfishly defined interests to maximize own profits. So it not only has to be assumed that just states with a favourable benefit-cost ratio will take the role of a ‘pusher” in international climate negotiations but also that powerful states are more likely to reach a favourable outcome. Indeed the highly ineffective Kyoto Protocol, which amongst others had to deal with the exit of the United States, the creation of ‘hot air” reductions and an overall lack of compliance incentives, has already shown the difficulties of creating an effective climate regime. In Copenhagen it became obvious that influential actors still do not seem to have an interest to significantly change their energy consumption patterns in order to reduce emissions. The majority of developing countries, politically prioritize the protection of their economic development which heavily depends on the use of cheap energy from fossil fuels. Especially China by no means intends to cut its impressive GDP growth figures to please international crowds. Meanwhile the hands of the US President on the international stage were once again tied by domestic restrictions. However, although it seemed that the long prevailing differences of interests between industrial and developing countries are more than ever insuperable, there is hope. A ‘global race’ towards renewable energy and related jobs has already started. Nations and international corporations are positioning themselves to take advantage of the inevitable transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. This could be the starting point for a sustainable bottom-up policy architecture on the international level replacing the current top-down approach.

Text Sample: Chapter 4.1.2.1,The exit of the USA from the Kyoto Protocol: The position of the US throughout the climate change negotiations leading up to Kyoto has been heavily influenced by concerns about carbon leakage and the international competitiveness of its domestic industries. In advance to the 3rd COP in Kyoto the US Senate even passed the so called Byrd-Hagel Resolution by 95-0 votes, declaring the ...United States should not be a signatory to any treaty that imposes new greenhouse gas emissions reductions on the economically developed countries unless it also mandates specific new scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period.”. As a result President Clinton adjusted his position prior to Kyoto. During a conference on climate change at the White House he outlined four principles that would guide the US policy. Especially the last principle stressing that as emissions from the developing world will likely eclipse those from the developed world”, the US will in Kyoto ask for meaningful, but equitable commitments from all nations” has been a clear political response to the Byrd-Hagel Resolution. Regarding the fact that Clinton was not successful in including binding reduction targets for developing countries into the Kyoto Protocol already in Kyoto calls for the agreement to be dead on arrival” could be heard. A governmental gridlock between the executive and the legislative became inescapable, and after the Clinton administration finally signed the agreement at the 4th COP in 1998, including a binding reduction target of 7% for the US, the accompanying Senate delegation reaffirmed at an ad hoc press conference that the President could not count on the chamber’s support. Although officially continuing to support the Protocol, the Clinton administration did not put all its political capital behind the treaty and never forwarded it to the Senate for a vote. In 2001 President Bush reiterated the concerns of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution and rejected the Protocol as a fatally flawed” agreement, speaking of remaining scientific uncertainties”, the need for global participation”, and the conviction that compliance would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases for consumers”. One main theoretical neoliberal approach that is capable to explain, why the US took the role of a dragger with regard to the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is an unfavourable benefit-cost ratio since the cost implementing binding strictures on greenhouse gas emissions are expected to outweigh the benefits. In this context Oberthür and Ott advance the view that the stance of the USA on climate change, although being a net importer of energy, is heavily influenced by its position as the world’s largest producer of oil, gas and coal. It is further argued that factors which positively influence the benefit-cost ratio are outweighed by the public perception that the economic costs associated with the implementation of the Kyoto reduction targets would be exorbitant. This perception is in turn primarily triggered by well-organized lobbyists on the part of the industry. One prime example concerning this matter is the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) domiciled in the US and consisting predominantly of oil and coal companies particularly from the US that brought forward a number of arguments to defend their hostile position towards action on climate change. By the means of a highly misleading mass media campaign, worth not less than million, suggesting that there is no evidence for global warming, the organization stressed remaining scientific uncertainties as an inadequate basis for binding limitations of greenhouse gases. Further they argued that the costs of such limitations would be extremely high, so that the GDP of the USA will be reduced significantly. This would in turn lead to economic consequences in terms of large job losses, especially in areas involved in coal mining, oil extraction and processing, or car production. Gail McDonald, the President of the GCC, for instance advanced his view that the Kyoto Protocol, as it does not contain binding reduction targets for developing countries, is ...an agreement that hands countries like China, Mexico, and India, American jobs, harms our economy, endangers our children’s future and promises to do virtually nothing to improve the environment.” The Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which almost one-to-one adopted the perception of the GCC has visualised that the fossil fuel lobby was capable of pushing through its interests. When the GCC closed in 2002, the organization stated that since Congress and the Bush administration agree that the U.S. should not accept the mandatory cuts in emissions required by the protocol” it has successfully achieved its mission. In particular the Republican senator Chuck Hagel was, as a Senior Staff Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee noted, hand-picked by the GCC in order to stop the regulation of greenhouse gases. Besides affecting the public perception of the Kyoto Protocol Oberthür and Ott give two explanations why the fossil fuel lobby has been so influential with regard to promoting its interests concerning the Kyoto Protocol: 1. due to the open” political system in the US powerful lobbyists have an instantaneous access to the policy-makers and 2. in order to finance their election campaigns politicians in the US are very dependent on support from the well-heeled industry. Summed up Argwala and Andresen speak of a fairly unique domestic process” in the US where thirty-four senators who have the power to block ratification […] in many respects control the fate of the entire Kyoto Protocol.” Considering the pressures on part of well organized lobbyists on those senators, Sprinz and Weiß conclude that the strong influence of domestic business” is the reason why the United States can be viewed as a dragger in the international climate negotiations regarding the Kyoto Protocol.

• Climate Change

• International Climate Regime

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

• UNFCC

• Copenhagen Climate Summit

• Kyoto Protocol

• Cancun

Ben Witthaus, born in Duisburg in 1982, got his senior high school certificate in Mülheim an der Ruhr and thereafter started his dual B.A. programme in the fields of politics and economics at the Ruhr-University in Bochum. A first connection to this book’s topic was already established by specializing on resource economics. During his B.A. studies the author further not only spent one year at the well-respected International College of Management Sydney but also got a deeper understanding on the political day-to-day business through his temporary work at the German Bundestag, before finally successfully writing his thesis questioning ‘Turkey’s perspectives of joining the European Union”. In the end of 2008, Witthaus was granted admission to start the intercultural and interdisciplinary master’s programme ‘European Culture and Economy” which he completed one half each in Bochum and at the University de les Illes Baleares in Palma. At the centre of this programme stood the study of the convergence and divergence of the European social, cultural, and economic area in a comparative perspective. The final study excursion to Brussels concluding the master’s programme dealt with the role of the European Union within the international climate regime and contained the dialogue with numerous high-ranked experts on this issue. Thereby the author’s interest regarding the driving-forces of the international climate regime was triggered and the initial point for this study created.