Political Climates and the Global Climate: The First Six Months of the Obama Administration and the Congress

摘要

In December of 2009, the nations of the world who contribute much of the greenhouse gas (GHG) that is emitted into the atmosphere will gather in Copenhagen to work collectively on a treaty to succeed the Kyoto pact. The last time they gathered was in Amsterdam in December of 2000 to put the final touches on what became the Kyoto Treaty. The United States (US) was something of an outlier in the drawn-out discussion that had preceded the meeting in Amsterdam. But the differences between the US and the vast majority of other nations were being worked out. At the end of the conference, the US delegation returned to Washington, DC, with a sprinkling of optimism. It reported to the president that a couple of more months of negotiations in the new year could lead to a document that the US could sign.