Obama's America and Global Warming: A Change in the Political Climate

ISBN-13: 9781472446626 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 120 str.

Hugh Atkinson

Opis

The last two decades have witnessed an ever growing partisan divide in American politics over global warming, Significant elements in the Republican Party became openly hostile to the scientific evidence and, following the election of George W. Bush, legislative action at the federal level effectively ground to a halt inadvertently freeing up the state and local level to develop climate change policies with cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and New York implementing a number of initiatives that brought real and substantive developments. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 seemed to open new possibilities for federal and global leadership once more and whilst the Obama administration has been criticised for a somewhat contradictory and ambivalent approach to the issue there have been some substantive policy developments. This book places the evolution of US policy within broader debates on the politics of climate change in the USA and argues that there still exists a latent potential, often obscured by the complexities of the political system, for America to act as a world leader on the issue.

Recenzje

‘Hugh Atkinson’s timely analysis of policy under Obama is a crucial study of one of the world’s most important states in the struggle to address climate change. An indispensable guide that traverses the pre-Obama years, local and national policy, and international relations with aplomb, this book is empirically rich and analytically insightful’. - Paul Tobin, University of Manchester, UK.

Spis treści

Introduction

Chapter one Two decades of change: consensus and conflict

Chapter two The Obama Presidency

Chapter three Interests, Influence and Power

Chapter four The Politics of Energy

Chapter five Action on Climate Change at State and City Level

Chapter six The USA as a World Leader in Tackling Climate Change and Building a More Sustainable World: Opportunities and Constraints

Conclusion

O autorze

Hugh Atkinson is a tutor in politics and sustainability at London South Bank University. He is a distinguished research fellow at the Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Solutions, Bristol. His main research specialism is in the politics of climate change.