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CIEP and CESP Roundtable “Will Obama become the new international climate policy leader? - US and EU roles on the road to Copenhagen”
January 22, 2009. Expectations about the changing role of US climate policy under Obama are very high. Perhaps too high. Will the new President of the United States take the lead in achieving an ambitious climate change agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009? What will be the role of the European Union under these changed conditions? And how will the financial crisis affect the outcome of the negotiations? On February 16, 2008, the Clingendael European Studies Programme and the Clingendael International Energy Programme jointly organise a roundtable discussion about this topic.
Under President Bush the United States took a rather hesitant role towards climate policy. It refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and initiated climate initiatives parallel to the post-2012 United Nations climate negotiations which were interpreted by some as attempts to undermine the UNFCCC climate process. However, President-elect Obama has announced aiming to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 80% towards 2050 and has published plans for an energy policy boosting renewable energy sources and energy efficiency.
Obama’s plans worldwide have received much attention and spurred hopes that the United States will be able to find a way out of the difficult international negotiation process and will take the lead in an ambitious climate change agreement. Questions to be discussed in the roundtable are: Are these hopes justified? And what does this mean for the European Union, that so far has claimed a leadership role in the climate negotiations? Will the United States and the EU share their leadership position and will they jointly convince other parties to join in a climate agreement as well, or will the US rather first aim for a coalition with China as a way out of the present stalemate? And finally, to what extent might the present financial crisis, which has started in the United States and now has spread out over the world, negatively affect the outcome of the climate negotiations?