ABSTRACT
International relations have long focused on managing conflict and competition. The result is a virtual obsession with power and leadership, categories which are largely meaningless for international environmental management based on cooperation, transparency and accountability as its primary tools. However, old habits die hard so the question persists as to which country is ‘leading’ on environmental policy or which has the ‘best’ environmental policies. Two factors have tended to limit the impact of foreign experience on US environmental policy in general and on climate change policy in particular. These are the American obsession with ‘leadership’ and an underlying resistance to foreign entanglements. Climate change policy is arguably the most complex task ever undertaken internationally. It is all but inconceivable that one country – even if it is the United States – will be capable of generating all appropriate responses through its domestic policy process alone, with international agreement designed to confirm and translate the results.
