In June when President Barack Obama used his executive power—bypassing the Congress—to order a regulation forcing American coal-fired power plants to cut carbon emissions, his admires hailed it as an aberration. However, giving credence to his foes’ accusation that he has been devising ways to work around congressional opposition against a clutch of controversial issues, now his administration is reportedly working on an international pact that will seek countries to reduce fossil fuel emissions. The pact, which is aimed to be signed at a United Nations summit next year, is expected to again bypass ratification by the Congress that involves a two-thirds vote from the Senate, setting the stage for another showdown between the President and the Congress. Obama is free to sign such pacts with his foreign counterparts but those agreements will neither change the behavior of Americans nor lead to a fall in carbon emissions by the country unless the Congress passes a related law.
So why is Obama pressing for something that is unlikely to be made into a law? First, as his stint at White House is winding down, Obama wants to leave a legacy as a president who has made an earnest attempt to do what he could to address climate change, arguably the most imminent threat that is challenging the very survival of humans and other species on Planet Earth. Based on the perception that climate change cannot be addressed without collective initiatives by countries across the globe, he is aiming to forge a ‘political agreement’ that will encourage other countries, mainly China, to follow suit. Second, the failure of world leaders in Copenhagen in 2009 to forge a new legally binding treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol is fresh in the memory of Obama administration’s climate change negotiators and they don’t want to take chances going ahead. As the chances for a legally binding pact to force reduction of carbon emissions are fairly remote, they feel that this is the only ‘realistic’ way.
Will Obama succeed in pushing this pact through? Technically yes. Section 115 of the Clean Air Act—which states that if air pollutants emitted within US states are found to “cause or contribute” to the endangerment of public health or welfare in another country, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can require the governors of those states to reduce the emissions of the harmful chemicals—alone is more than enough for the safe passage of the pact.
Also, there ample precedents that point to the fact that Obama will not only be able to push through what he wants without sweating much but this may even be hailed as his best strategic move on the world stage by a future generation of fans in different countries. In 1975, Gerald Ford signed the Helsinki Accords that required the US and European countries to recognise the territorial boundaries of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc to respect human rights. The accords elicited hostile reactions back at home at the time, but historians believe that they reduced Cold War tensions and offered some space for dissidents in communist states to express their views and get away with them. The Roosevelt (1933) and the Carter (1981) administrations too went ahead circumventing the Congress for settling claims with the Soviet Union and Iran, respectively, and eventually won backing by the courts for doing so.
As scientists warn that the earth has started experiencing the effects of human-caused global warming—devastating storms, rising sea levels, stronger wildfires and severe droughts—and the UN is running out of its chances to help thwart catastrophic climate-change related repercussions, Obama is likely to be exonerated for bypassing the Congress for what he can claim to be a larger common good.
So why is Obama pressing for something that is unlikely to be made into a law? First, as his stint at White House is winding down, Obama wants to leave a legacy as a president who has made an earnest attempt to do what he could to address climate change, arguably the most imminent threat that is challenging the very survival of humans and other species on Planet Earth. Based on the perception that climate change cannot be addressed without collective initiatives by countries across the globe, he is aiming to forge a ‘political agreement’ that will encourage other countries, mainly China, to follow suit. Second, the failure of world leaders in Copenhagen in 2009 to forge a new legally binding treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol is fresh in the memory of Obama administration’s climate change negotiators and they don’t want to take chances going ahead. As the chances for a legally binding pact to force reduction of carbon emissions are fairly remote, they feel that this is the only ‘realistic’ way.
Will Obama succeed in pushing this pact through? Technically yes. Section 115 of the Clean Air Act—which states that if air pollutants emitted within US states are found to “cause or contribute” to the endangerment of public health or welfare in another country, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can require the governors of those states to reduce the emissions of the harmful chemicals—alone is more than enough for the safe passage of the pact.
Also, there ample precedents that point to the fact that Obama will not only be able to push through what he wants without sweating much but this may even be hailed as his best strategic move on the world stage by a future generation of fans in different countries. In 1975, Gerald Ford signed the Helsinki Accords that required the US and European countries to recognise the territorial boundaries of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc to respect human rights. The accords elicited hostile reactions back at home at the time, but historians believe that they reduced Cold War tensions and offered some space for dissidents in communist states to express their views and get away with them. The Roosevelt (1933) and the Carter (1981) administrations too went ahead circumventing the Congress for settling claims with the Soviet Union and Iran, respectively, and eventually won backing by the courts for doing so.
As scientists warn that the earth has started experiencing the effects of human-caused global warming—devastating storms, rising sea levels, stronger wildfires and severe droughts—and the UN is running out of its chances to help thwart catastrophic climate-change related repercussions, Obama is likely to be exonerated for bypassing the Congress for what he can claim to be a larger common good.
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