Future U.S. Climate Policy: International Re-engagement?

What is the outlook for engaging the United States in international cooperation to mitigate climate change? The question is crucial, as any global effort to curb global warming will be unsatisfactory without U.S. participation. It is also a pressing question for Kyoto party countries, currently at a loss regarding how to re-engage the U.S. We discuss the constellations of domestic pressure factors that influence policy outcome in favor of or against re-engagement. We start with a description of conceptual policy alternatives to the Kyoto Protocol discussed in U.S. policy discourse. We go on to assess recent trends in U.S. climate policy, and the degree to which they encourage re-engagement. Finally, we describe international factors that work for or against U.S. re-engagement in the climate regime. We conclude that the possibility of re-engaging the United States in an effective climate regime continues to be small, as the constellations of domestic actors that constitute the political majority seem rather stable. Furthermore, as long as the domestic strategy for handling the climate change problem remains undecided, international re-engagement is difficult.