Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

Year after year, at the UN climate negotiations, the nations of the world gathered with the hope that finally the world's largest historic polluter would come to the table and join efforts to address climate change.I Year after year, the peculiarities of the United States (US) Republican Party's denial of climate science, and the institutional roadblocks of the need for a supermajority in the US Senate for ratification of any treaty, were widely known and discussed. The US delegation repeatedly described how their hands were tied by a resolution passed in July 1997 prohibiting the nation from joining any international agreement that did not also bind India, China and other developing nations during the same time-period.2 Ambitious global action to address the problem was hamstrung for over two decades by this lead player's inability to move decisively, and without that leadership, other nations wondered why they should sacrifice their own development.

This dynamic finally shifted during Barack Obama's second term. After receiving a Nobel Peace Prize in the exuberance of the global community that the superpower might act more multilaterally, Obama took the lead at Copenhagen in 2009 in redirecting the expectations of nations in addressing the problem of climate change.3 Instead of binding and differentiated expectations for emissions reductions based on national wealth and level of responsibility for the problem of climate change (their historical emissions), countries would "pledge" whatever level of reductions they chose, and then would "review" each other's efforts. The next six years of negotiations leading up to the Paris Agreement were spent turning that new approach into a defensible proposition.

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