A Review of President Obama’s Environmental Diplomacy

Xia Zhengwei & Mei Xi

A Review of President Obama’s Environmental Diplomacy

Xia Zhengwei & Mei Xi

The Obama administration has adopted a more moderate and pragmatic environmental foreign policy away from George W. Bush’s hard-line unilateralism, and put focus on energy saving, emissions reduction and international cooperation. The new policy has yielded some fruits. However, Obama’s environmental diplomacy will be confined by the unchanged nature of the new environmental policy that pursues one-sided American interests, and by the domestic obstruction and other restraining factors.

I

Environmental problem refers to the degradation of the ecological environment caused by climate change. It endangers national development and human existence, and is one of the biggest challenges facing the international community. The problem is engendered by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide emitted by countries particularly the developed countries without selfrestraint in their development process. The United States is the biggest emitter of the world and has major responsibility for the problem. Since the 1980s, out of their own interests, successive U.S. administrations have attached importance to environmental issue and environmental diplomacy. The Clinton administrationparticipated in drafting and signing of the Kyoto Protocol. As the political representative of Neo-conservatism of the United States, the George W. Bush administration pursued tough unilateral foreign policies, and apparently backslid on environmental issues. As a result, the U.S. interests and international reputation were damaged seriously. Proceeding from the overall national interests, President Obama substantially adjusted the Bush administration’s environmental policy after he took office, to reverse the passive and isolated situation and weakness of the U.S. in this field.

First, changing the Bush administration’s attitude of neglecting the environmental issue and placing the issue on important position of the American national security strategy.

President Bush had been busy fighting terrorism after he came into power, and the status of environmental issue in U.S. national security strategy was significantly lowered compared to his predecessor. In the 2002 National Security Strategy report, control of the greenhouse gas concentration was mentioned with few words. It had put little stress on the problem of global warming, shuffling out of American responsibility. On April 9, 2001, President Bush cut environmental protection spending by US$ 2.3 billion in the proposed budget for 2002 submitted to Congress, as well as expressly prohibited allocating any funds on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. President Obama changed this short-sighted approach after he took office. In his speech at United Nations climate change summit on September 22, 2009, Obama acknowledged that America had been slow to respond to climate threat, stressed that the U.S. government had recognized the magnitude of the climate threat, and committed to put climate at the top of U.S. diplomatic agenda. His positive attitude has been considered as a major breakthrough of the Bush administration’s related policies. In addition, the Obama administration put forward climate change to the height of one of the U.S. fundamental national security issues and regarded developing new energy as one of the capabilities to lead the world which was mentioned in the National Security Strategy report issued on May 27, 2010.

Second, changing the Bush administration’s negative attitude toward environmental diplomacy and placing it as a priority of the U.S. overall diplomacy.

Attaching no importance to environmental diplomacy, the Bush administration resisted international cooperation in this field, and tried to avoid international obligation that America should bear. In March 2001, President Bush announced that the United States would not implement the Kyoto Protocol that is aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, which was a heavy blow to international environmental cooperation. In November 2005, when the “Post Kyoto Protocol” negotiation started, the Bush administration once again objected to any discussion about greenhouse gas emissions reduction after 2012, especially mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the “Post Kyoto Protocol Era”. Since the Bush administration took such a wrong attitude towards the UN environmental cooperation, the progress of the international environmental protection was hindered to a large extent, and the prospect of implementing relevant conventions and protocols became uncertain. In contrast, President Obama who values the international cooperation in the field of environment has conducted multilateral diplomacy through the UN and other occasions to return to the international environmental governance system. Therefore, the Obama administration participated positively in multilateral negotiation under the UN framework to strike a deal in 2012 to replace the Kyoto Protocol, with a view to formulating the timetable for the governance of global environment including climate change in time with the international community. Moreover, the Obama administration holds that “the United States should take responsibility for climate change”, which is demonstrated in Obama’s address at the Copenhagen Summit: “As the world’s largest economy and the world’s second largest emitter, America bears our share of responsibility in addressing climate change, and we intend to meet that responsibility”. So the Obama administration has made some compromises and efforts on both the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in 2009 and summit in Cancun in 2010 and brought about positive outcomes ultimately. President Obama was hailed as “Environmental President” and “Climate Crusader fighter” by outsiders as he gives more importance to environmental diplomacy than Bush.

Third, changing the Bush administration’s negative attitude toward emissions cut and energy innovation, and pushing hard for new energy strategy.

The Bush administration was doubtful of the “Greenhouse Effect” theory, criticizing the argument that use of fossil fuels would cause global warming was short of scientific proofs, and insisting that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would pull down U.S. economic growth. Consequently, it was perfunctory to international climate cooperation on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and refused to accept emissions reduction target of the Kyoto Protocol; internally, it did not pay enough attention to energy innovation to cut emissions. U.S. poor performance on emissions reduction had obstructed the international efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas effects.

The Obama administration, being aware of the harm of global warming and the necessity of emissions cut, has enhanced international climate collaboration and stepped up efforts on energy saving and emissions reduction at home. Meanwhile, recognizing that traditional fossil fuels are the major cause of greenhouse gas, Obama pointed out that “the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet” in his inaugural speech. So Obama has placed great emphasis on the development of alternative energy. For example, he elevated climate change and new energy issue to the strategic level, put forward “Clean Energy Strategy” comprehensively and systematically, and planed to implement carbon emissions cap-andtrade system on a national scale to effectively achieve the emissions reduction target.

In the US$787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009, new energy including efficient battery, smart power grids, carbon storage and carbon capture, and renewable energy such as wind and solar energy was underscored. Obama also promised to spend US$150 billion over 10 years on developing new clean-energy programs. In terms of new energy diplomacy, the government preferred bilateral dialogue and cooperation. For instance, the United States signed memorandum of understanding about enhancing bilateral cooperation on climate change, energy and environment with China on October 28, 2009. During Obama’s visit to China in November 2009, the two countries signed agreement on the establishment of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center. In January 2011, when President Hu Jintao visited the United States, the two countries signed large-scale new energy cooperation agreements worth more than ten billions of dollars, which pushed U.S.-China new energy cooperation to a climax. On November 24, 2009, the United States and India signed an agreement to collaborate on accelerating clean energy technologies. And in November 2009, the United States and the European Union launched cabinet-level dialogue which sought to further bilateral collaboration on new energy and promote transforming the economy of both sides into clean and sustainable energy economy.Since the beginning of the new century, the environmental situation of the United States has become complicated and grim. The environmental problems have not only caused a lot of climate disasters and subsequent non-traditional security crises, but also have often been intertwined with traditional security issues, seriously affecting the U.S. security, political and economic interests. The United States cannot separately handle the environmental threat which is a worldwide and century-long problem, so it has to rely on the cooperation with countries in the rest of the world. And enhancing environmental diplomacy is a necessary approach for America to relieve environmental pressure and a requirement of safeguarding its national interests. Specifically, the reasons for the Obama administration to strengthen environmental diplomacy are as follows.

II

1. Since the environmental issue has been globalized, the United States cannot stand aloof.

The exacerbating of the greenhouse effect has caused catastrophic consequences on a global scale. First is the frequent occurrences of extremely bad weather and natural disasters. In recent years, the frequency of high temperature, hurricanes, drought, floods, and other kind of extreme weather and natural disasters is unparalleled, bringing about food crisis and deterioration of human ecological environment. Second is that rising sea level due to accelerated melting of polar ice has threatened the human living environment. Experts predict that if the trends of global warming continue to deteriorate, many costal cities may be submerged under water in 15 to 20 years; if the entire Antarctica ice sheets melted, sea level would rise by 6 meters with devastating consequences. After he visited Antarctica and saw the terrible scene of ice sheet melting, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave a strong word of warning for the world: “risk of global warming has reached a critical point, and Antarctica is on the verge of a catastrophe—for the world”. Actually, the earth is a “Noah’s Ark”, and if it sank, no one and no country could survive, so did America and the Americans. The natural disasters caused by the greenhouse effect have also hit the United States: its coastal cities New Orleans was left in ruins after Hurricane Katrina in 2006, and if the momentum of accelerated polar ice melting could not be effectively controlled, the U.S. coastal cities including New York may be swallowed by the sea water in a number of years. Therefore, since America cannot be an exception from the natural disasters, it is an inevitable option for America to participate in global environmental governance through environmental diplomacy.

2. A major objective of promoting the U.S. environmental strategy is to boost the U.S. economy.

President Obama’s National Security Strategy report pointed out that at the center of their efforts was a commitment to renew the U.S. economy, which serves as the wellspring of American power. Heavily hit by the financial crisis, the U.S. economy has been in decline for 18 months, and the recovery is still weak up to now. In particular, the unemployment rate remains high at 10% and the number of unemployed reaches as many as 15 million, which has become the No.1 problem harassing American economy and society. Boosting the economy and reducing the unemployment rate are the top priorities of the Obama administration. The core of addressing environmental issue is developing new energy and promoting environmental diplomacy, which are important means and paths to renew the U.S. economy. Developing new energy alternatives to fossil fuels and other environmental protection industries can be the new U.S. economic growth point, for instance, clean energy industry could create five million jobs. And promoting environmental diplomacy and strengthening international environmental cooperation are conducive to giving full play to the unique advantage of the United States—exporting its advanced environmental protection technology and equipments, thus largely increasing U.S. export revenue. During President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to America, China signed a total amount of US$43.9 billion orders with the United States, most of which focus on carrying out bilateral cooperation on new energy-based environmental protection industry.

At the same time, strengthening international environmental cooperation and developing new energy will also help promote American economic security and save massive amount of spending on importing oil and gas. The United States is the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels and the largest oil importer, and its global greenhouse gases emissions accounts for 1/5 of the world, impairing the ecological environment of the world and the United States itself. The United States relies on energy imports heavily and has spent too much money on it; moreover, if the world oil crisis reoccurred, its impact on the U.S. economy would be disastrous. On the negative effect of the U.S. traditional energy consumption structure, President Obama once stated, “It is clear that our addiction to fossil fuels is one of the most serious threats to our national security in the 21st century.” For ensuring the U.S. energy and economic security, the Obama administration has decided to develop alternative energy sources, known as clean energy plan that allows low-emissions or zero-emissions. Obama’s new energy policy will not only help stimulate U.S. economic growth, but also encourage polluters to reduce pollution, thus promoting U.S. economic transformation from high emissions to low carbon and opening up a broad prospect for further economic development. Obama’s environmental diplomacy directly serves this target.

3. For rebuilding U.S. moral authority and dominance in the international environment and development affairs.

Dealing with environmental problems resulting from climate change is intimately related to the survival and development of mankind. It is the gravest challenge and one of the substantial historical subjects of the world today, and is one of the issues of most concern by the international community, however, out of national egoism, the Bush administration carried out tough unilateral policy towards this issue. It even withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, seriously impacting the international environmental cooperation and damaging global cause of environment and development. Such extremely irresponsible policy and acts run counter to the wishes and interests of countries all over the world, and were so unpopular that America’s image and reputation were tarnished, making it isolated at an unprecedented level. President Obama launched “New Deal Diplomacy”after coming into power, and adjusted Bush’s unilateral climate policy. He has replaced hard-line approach with flexible means, unilateral stance with cooperative attitude, and giving perfunctory excuse with bearing emissions responsibility. A main starting point of the adjustment is to remedy the mistakes of his predecessor and to rebuild America’s international image and moral authority. In addition, as the world’s only superpower and with advanced environmental technology, the United States has unique advantage in the field of environment and development. By making full use of this advantage to strive to develop new energy-based environmental protection industry, and promote U.S.-led international environmental cooperation, the Obama administration aims to foster new economic growth point, facilitate the transformation of U.S. economy into low carbon economy, and lead the new trend of global low carbon economic development to lay the foundation of U.S. dominance in the field of environment.

4. Domestic political situation and public opinion are propitious for Obama to change policy and implement new environmental diplomacy.

The Bush administration’s frustration in environmental diplo-macy was a salient manifestation of its overall frustration in its unilateralism diplomacy. Its inappropriate foreign policies including environmental policy were a major cause for the ebb of the prevailing New Conservatism in the U.S. and defeat of the conservative Republicans in presidential and congressional elections in 2008. The election results also indicated that the U.S. climate politics had reached a critical turning point, and the U.S. domestic political situation, public opinion and media opinion had shifted in favor of environmental policy reform and environmental diplomacy. In the past 20 years, the U.S. Congress has always been a major bottleneck of environmental legislation. Along with the Republican failing in 2008 House and Senate elections and losing the majority party status, as well as the Democratic Party who advocated reforming the Bush’s environmental policy controlling the Congress and the White House, the U.S. Congress has been easier to keep pace with the administration on environmental issues and to pass new environmental legislation. In this context, the U.S. Congress passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on February 17, 2009 and the American Clean Energy and Security Act on June 26 in the same year with the total spending up to US$787 billion. The state-level governments have pioneered environmental policies. For instance, as early as in 2004, California introduced standard much more restrictive than the national Clean Air Act, which was followed by other 13 states and Washington D.C., and was adopted by the Obama administration in January 2009. Furthermore, most Americans favored coordination with the international community on the environment and climate issues rather than Bush’s conservative environmental policy. A survey found that after the Bush years, the American public is “far more interested in restoring the country’s image abroad, fighting climate change, and pursuing security through diplomacy, alliances and international institutions than in continued pursuit of national objectives through the sole projection of military might.” From August 9-20, 2009, an international research project of University of Maryland has conducted a survey on American’s attitude on climate change, the result showed that 78% of the 1,174 respondents were in favor of the United States to change its stand on the Kyoto Protocol and join a new international agreement limiting the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. So some scholars pointed out that after Obama took office, expectations of the America society on adopting and enforcing more powerful measures to handle climate change exceed any time before.

Of course, the environmental foreign policy is also connected with Obama’s personal factor. “Whether to use these powers (administration) to promote environmental and energy policy is largely depends on presidents’ political philosophy, policy agenda, political resources and leadership capability.” Obama began to pay attention to climate change as early as he was a Senator. On foreign policies including environmental diplomacy, Obama wants to lead the world by being “moral model”, which meant to focus on softer means to safeguard the U.S. national interests. In Obama’s mind, to properly address climate change and other global non-traditional security threats is crucial for the maintenance of the U.S. national security. Significant adjustments like using “soft diplomacy” to respond to climate change, will not only repair the damaged U.S. international image and foreign relations, but also claim the moral high ground, which is conducive to rebuilding the U.S. leadership and influence in the world.

III

The “Climate New Deal” and environmental diplomacy has yielded certain results.

First of all, it has pulled the U.S. back from the passive and isolated situation to a certain degree, and thus American international prestige and influence have somewhat enhanced. The new environmental protection policy, as well as the green initiative, has received favorable remarks from the international community, particularly the world environmentalists.

Secondly, the Obama administration has impelled energy innovation and emissions reduction actions, and strengthened international cooperation in the environmental protection industries including development of clean energy with the relevant countries. The American and international emissions reduction and environmental management efforts have obtained some substantial fruits; America’s role as a major actor in international environmental field has been invigorated to some extent; it helps promote recovery and development of the U.S. low carbon economy and overall economy.

Last but not the least, the Obama administration moved out of shadow of the Bush administration environment unilateralism, returned to multilateral cooperation and the UN-led international environmental governance system, and pushed forward the international community’s efforts on coping with climate change to achieve some success. The G8 Summit, dominated by the United States, held in L'Aquila, Italy on July 8, 2009 reached consensus on the long-term goal for greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and for the first time agreed to set a goal of limiting global warming to within two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which has become a common goal recognized by all the countries, marking “a clear step forward” on the road of addressing the global warming issue. On June 29, 2009, the United States joined International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in an Assembly meeting held in Sharm el Sheikh, further enhancing the universality and authority of the organization. The United States also participated in six climate change meetings convened by UN and the world climate change conference in Copenhagen at the end of the 2009 where Obama had a high-profile appearance. In these meetings, despite the divergences in some issues with other countries, the United States and other countries made some compromises and agreed on several important issues for the overall interests. For example, the Copenhagen conference reached a consensus on the maintenance of “dual-track principle” on emissions reduction and the establishment of low-carbon economy as the main channel of coping with climate change. When returning to the White House after the Copenhagen talks, President Obama said, “It is the first time in history that the world’s major economies met to confirm the danger of climate change and it is everyone’s responsibility to take actions.” He also believed that the extremely difficult and complicated negotiations had cemented the foundation for the international community’s actions in emissions cut for the next few years. In the Cancun Conference ended recently, the United States and other countries reached the Cancun Agreement, bringing hope for global cooperation to jointly cope with the challenges of climate change. Just as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Cameron said, “The Cancun agreement is a very significant step forward in renewing the determination of the international community to tackle climate change through multilateral action.”

However, the adjustments of Obama’s new environmental foreign policy are basically tactical rather than fundamental, on shallow level rather than on deep level, and presentational rather than substantial. In other words, Obama’s new policy has not touched the U.S. hegemony and power politics in the international environmental field, and its role and influence are still limited.

First, it adheres to unjust and unreasonable emissions reduction principle, leaving the international climate negotiation in deadlock for a long time.

The essence of controlling greenhouse effect is to limit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The emissions reduction principle will directly determine the fate of the international climate negotiation. On this principled issue, the Kyoto Protocol，the Bali Agreement and other important international conventions and agreements adopted by the UN weather agency and the World Climate Conference have made it clear that the developed and developing countries should implement“dual track mechanism”—both comply with the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, namely, developed countries set out mandatory emissions reduction targets while developing countries put forward voluntary emissions reduction targets. This principle is fair and reasonable because the greenhouse effect is mainly caused by developed countries which emitted greenhouse gases immoderately in the process of industrialization for hundreds of years, and to this day they are still the world’s major emitters of greenhouse gases whose emissions per capita is much higher than those in developing countries. The emissions per capita in America are 5 times more than those in China, over 10 times more than those in India, and far more than those in any of the least developed countries. Now the developed countries have highly developed economy and the ability to assume a quantified emissions reduction targets; in terms of historical responsibility, development stage and real capability, the developing countries cannot bear the same emissions reduction obligation. The Obama administration insisted that the developed and developing countries, especially large developing countries, should both abide by mandatory quantified emissions reduction principle, otherwise it would refuse to accept specific emissions reduction target. The unreasonable demand, perceived as depriving the development right of developing countries, is not acceptable for the developing countries. The United States maintain its irrational position so far, resulting in a complicated knot in international climate negotiation.

Second, it has not yet accepted the Kyoto Protocol, and is difficult to completely get rid of the isolated and passive situation in area of international climate and environment.

As an important international climate convention, the Kyoto Protocol was achieved at World Climate Conference under the framework of the UN held in 1997. It consists of explicit rules and specific requirements on emissions reduction principles and obligations, international emissions reduction monitoring mechanism, funding and technical assistance the developed countries should offer to developing countries and other critical issues the countries should follow, so it is a guideline for the international community in addressing climate change. In view of the U.S. fundamental and long-term interests, the Clinton administration approved and signed the Kyoto Protocol. Obama largely followed the foreign policy of the Clinton administration, but with regard to the Kyoto Protocol issue he chose the opposite direction: he did not ratify it but inherited the mantle of the Bush administration’s policy. This made the United States become the only developed country outside the protocol. The protocol is the touchstone of a country’s sincerity to join the international climate cooperation. Obama’ position of rejecting the protocol has brought severe shocks to the international greenhouse effect control efforts and environmental cooperation, making the United States continue to lose the trust of the world and actually drifted away from the mainstream of the international climate and environmental cooperation system. The Obama administration’s goal that the United States should resume the leading force of international endeavors to tackle climate change and environmental cooperation has become empty talk.

Finally, it continues to evade the due responsibility for emissions reduction.

Unlike the Bush administration’s refusal to set emissions reduction target, the Obama administration has made some commitments on emissions reduction, but the target is rather low and far below the U.S. responsibility and capability. In June 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act that contains a large number of compensation clauses, promising a 17% emissions reduction from 2005 levels by 2020, which is equivalent to only 4% emissions reduction from 1990 levels. At the Copenhagen climate conference held in December 2009, the Obama administration proposed to adopt this extremely low emissions reduction figure as the U.S. emissions cut target. At the Cancun conference, the emissions cut target raised by the United States is not only far below the Kyoto Protocol requirement, but also the lowest among all the developed countries. The EU promised a 20% cut in emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 on the basis of 2005 levels. It noted that the target will be increased to 30% if other developed countries also raise their targets; Japan proposed that it will cut emissions by 20% providing that other developed countries make comparable efforts. America’s negative attitude towards emissions reduction has made a bad start among developed countries, pulling down the other developed countries’ will and commitment, evading its own responsibility to a large extent, and declining its status in the world environmental area.

The reason that the Obama administration has not reformed its predecessor’s environmental policy substantially and makes no big contribution to the environmental diplomacy lies in the strong domestic resistance. The greatest resistance is from conservative force and its base camp—the Congress. The Republican Party, as the representative of the U.S. conservative thoughts and forces, advocates the conceptions of “small government, big enterprises” and ultra-liberalism, and opposes to control enterprises emissions by legislation. Because it is haunted by the Republican members in the Congress, the United States has not formulated a clear and effective emissions reduction act so far. In the 2010 Congressional election, Republicans regained control of Congress, and exerted greater constraint on the administration’s environmental diplomacy and efforts on reducing emissions. In addition, there are also strong anti-environmental protection forces in the U.S. economic circle, such as large enterprises of petroleum, chemical industry, manufacturing, transportation and other industries and the agricultural sector, which always oppose the government’s legislation on limiting emissions. Although they are small groups, they have great energy, and are big patrons of the Democratic and Republican parties in their elections, so they have critical influence on the formulation of environmental policy. As a result, the government will not be against them too much and go too far on the issue of environmental protection and emissions reduction.

As the common aspiration and the fundamental interests of the world, controlling the greenhouse effect and protecting the environment have become an irresistible and big tide of the age. Therefore, the Obama administration will continue to adjust the U.S. climate policy in the direction that is conducive to environmental protection in view of the trend and national interests. Given the domestic resistance and its reluctance to alter the hegemonic practice of condescending its own interests above the international community, the United States will not adjust the outdated environmental policy in a fundamental way, which indicates that the United States will remain the major obstacle to the substantive progress on international environment and climate cooperation in future.

Xia Zhengwei is Associate Professor in Department of History of Shanghai University.

Mei Xi is a graduate student in Department of History of Shanghai University.