The climate change stalemate: ideological tensions in international climate change negotiations

Though support for the theory of human caused global climate change grows in the scientific community, international political action has been lagging. Despite efforts since the early 1990s, a functional, effective international climate regime has yet to emerge, and so worldwide greenhouse gas emissions grow daily. To date, the best (but ultimately failed) hope for a climate treaty came in 1997 with the Kyoto Protocol. In the Protocol's negotiations, the United States and Germany stood out for their bold but contrary stances. Germany successfully positioned itself as the global leader in climate change mitigation while the United States cemented its position as the climate laggard. While their positions can be read easily, their reasoning cannot. How can we account for such very different positions by two of the world's richest and most developed democracies? This thesis seeks to examine the theoretical underpinnings of each country's climate positions in an effort to draw greater conclusions on the state of transatlantic climate policy