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This paper summarises the recent changes of foreign policy direction in the US, following the election of President Donald Trump. It focuses on the Trump administration's foreign policy relative to climate change. Following a brief background on the Paris Agreement, it provides an analysis of the reasons underlying the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from this agreement, with context on the historical background of the initial US ratification.
The key objective of this paper is to show analytically that the manner in which the Trump administration's foreign policy addresses climate change is not in line with previous US and global environmental concerns. As it will explain, the underlying issue/problem is not global climate change, but rather the nature of Trump foreign policy on the climate regime. This article will highlight the various drivers in the US that lie beneath these policy choices (see Figure 1). It is of paramount importance to address such questions, based on qualitative analysis, applying the analysis-of-factor method to draw out the diverse range of reasons underlying those policy choices.
The author has chosen to examine this topic for both practical and theoretical reasons. Concerns about climate change are mounting, and many now regard it as the major challenge confronting the US and the international community.
Background: Climate Change
Climate change is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century. Increasing evidence of present and anticipated impacts of climate change highlights the need for action (Akasaka, 2005). The evidence of climate change is compelling: Between 1880 (the industrial revolution) and 2015, average global surface temperature rose by 0.9°C (1.5oF), as shown in Figure 2. In 2016, the earth experienced its third consecutive hottest year since records began (Greenfieldboyce, 2017). According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the current rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is likely to cause average temperatures to rise by 0.2°C per decade, reaching by 2050 the threshold of 2°C above preindustrial levels. Some evidence suggests an even more rapid change, which will greatly, and in some cases irreversibly, affect not just people, but also species and ecosystems (Adedeji et al., 2014).
The US is already experiencing the effects of climate change, and these effects will be much worse without action to...