Looking
for U.S. Leadership
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More than any other country, the United States is responsible for the existing gulf between Rio’s rhetoric of international environmental consciousness and the post-Rio environmental reality. Not only is the U.S. the world’s only remaining economic and political superpower, it’s also the largest polluter and the largest user of most important resources. Although the United States is often in the vanguard in recognizing global environmental threats and in calling for a multilateral response, it often lags in changing its own behavior. Once considered the leader in environmental regulation, the United States now lags well behind Germany and other European countries in adopting new and innovative regulatory approaches such as ecological taxes, extended product responsibility, and the precautionary principle on avoiding probable environmental damage.
Although a leader in previous environmental conferences and negotiations, the United States (under then-President George Bush) almost single-handedly undermined the Earth Summit. Just days before the Rio summit opened, for example, the United States announced that it would not sign the Biodiversity Convention, despite provisionally adopting the draft version at the end of the negotiation session two weeks before. Instead, the United States emphasized the need to conserve the world’s forests and offered what was considered a small, $150-million aid package to protect forests in developing countries. Southern leaders immediately labeled this gesture as "greenwash," viewing U.S. support for forest conservation as a cynical effort to shift the focus from the North’s responsibility to control industrial pollution to the South’s responsibility to conserve forests as carbon sinks. Malaysia’s Ambassador Ranji Sathia responded, "The [$150 million] does not impress us. They are just trying to divert attention from their failing elsewhere—for example, in the watering down of the climate change convention and their refusal to sign the biodiversity treaty."
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Still, this is a relatively weak record for seven years, reflecting (among other things) the general lack of interest in global environmental affairs by EPA Administrator Carol Browner. The Environmental Protection Agency has essentially abdicated authority over international environmental affairs to the Council on Environmental Quality in the White House and to foreign policy agencies like the Department of State and the U.S. Trade Representative.
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Regarding climate change, perhaps the most important international environmental issue during Clinton’s term, the administration has not played a leadership role either before or after the 1997 negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol. Although the President did elevate the domestic profile of climate change leading up to the Kyoto negotiations, the United States has failed to take significant steps either domestically or internationally to effectively reduce America’s impact on the climate system. In particular, Washington’s preoccupation with ensuring the creation of a limitless global trading market for carbon emissions has colored the U.S. position on every other issue. As a result, U.S. proposals are consistently less protective of the climate system than are those of the European Union.
Nor has the United States done much domestically to implement sustainable development generally or Agenda 21 specifically. In 1993, President Clinton did establish a President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), a high-level advisory committee to outline a national strategy for achieving sustainable development. The PCSD’s final report emphasized both broad national goals and local initiatives. The PCSD did not have formal authority, however, and few of its recommendations have been implemented. As Professor John Dernbach concluded after completing the most comprehensive review thus far of U.S. implementation of Agenda 21:
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In short, the United States is still without any meaningful strategy or framework for implementing Agenda 21 or the other Rio commitments.
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Given the lack of U.S. leadership, global failure to fulfill the Earth Summit’s promises is not surprising. Over time, the details of the precise promises have been lost, leaving us with little else than the general concept of sustainable development as the framework for global environmental policy in the next century. The following discussion outlines several priority steps for moving global governance toward sustainable development, including: (1) filling the remaining gaps in international environmental policy; (2) improving the institutional architecture for protecting the global environment; (3) integrating environmental protection with the global economy; and (4) emphasizing the role of individuals and communities in protecting the global environment.
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Title/Contents
| Promise of Rio | U.S. Leadership
| Policy Gaps | Major
Treaties | Law Principles
| UN Architecture
Integrating Protection
| Emphasizing Individuals
| Conclusion | Reference
Notes | Environment
Packet
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