ABSTRACT
Introduction In 2001, the George W. Bush administration pulled the United States (US) out of the Kyoto Protocol, signalling an end to the climate policies pursued by the Bill Clinton and Al Gore administration. Domestically, the US Congress failed to pass national climate legislation and actively prevented the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from pursuing various climate related activities. As a result, it was not the United States but the European Union that emerged as the global champion of progressive climate action (Schreurs et al. 2009). Almost 15 years later, in Paris in December 2015, the Barack Obama administration announced that the United States would once again pursue a global leadership role on climate change. Obama committed the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) by 26 to 28 per cent of 2005 levels by 2025 premised on numerous domestic policy measures that had been or were to be implemented. Many Congressional representatives, states, and industries, however, objected to the president’s plans and have launched initiatives to slow or block their implementation, including through the courts. There have even been calls to pull the US out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, for example, by the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. The multi-level and polycentric nature of the US political system has made it possible for supporters of action at various levels to act as climate pioneers while at the same time opponents of change have been successful in slowing and at times, blocking policy action. This chapter explores efforts to promote US leadership on climate change at the local, state, national, and international levels, as well as the counter-initiatives of industrial and political actors seeking to prevent the introduction and implementation of domestic climate policies.
