ABSTRACT

This chapter offers an in-depth examination of the ambitious initiative to ensure energy security and tackle climate change within the Western Hemisphere proposed by the new Obama administration at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April 2009. The chapter explores the domestic and regional factors that eventually undermined the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA), including the resurgence of resource nationalism in Latin America, the shale gas and tight oil revolution in the United States, and a dysfunctional U.S. political system at the federal level that prevented the passage of comprehensive climate change legislation. The chapter also provides an analysis of the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative.