Climate change: a pivotal year

Next year may be pivotal in terms of the outlook for international climate policy, given that considerable political momentum has been built over the past two years.

With the recent round of UN climate negotiations in Bali, the international community is committed to drafting a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by 2009. However, this will prove extremely difficult.

The international community sees the United States in particular as a necessary partner. With a change of government in Australia, and subsequent shift in climate policy in late 2007, the United States remains the last major developed country holdout. Therefore, in 2008, possible changes in US domestic policy across three dimensions will influence heavily the direction of international policy:

• Major US policy changes often have arisen not from top down, but via state initiatives, which are then adopted on the federal level. California has taken the lead here.

• The US Congress is currently working through many new pieces of legislation addressing climate change, energy policy, and climate adaptation, although major progress is unlikely before 2009.
• A Democrat victory in presidential and congressional elections in November 2008 probably would see increased international action on climate change. Nonetheless, even major Republican presidential candidates have voiced support for policies that could be more sympathetic than the Bush administration historically has been.

However, in a matter as vital as curbing climate change, the fundamental problem of collective action remains: the readiness of states to pursue their own interests rather than those of the broader international community.