The EU vs. the USA: Which is the Climate Change Leader?

The European Union (EU) has always been the leader in global climate change conventions, summits, and treaties, while the US has always dawdled. There has never been a climate change agreement without the EU, but those have always been relatively weak without the US signing on. Indeed, both unions must be satisfied to pass climate change legislation in a meaningful and decisively global way, but the US lacks some institutionalized support that the EU enjoys. The reasons why the EU is the global climate change leader and will continue to be so:

Reason #1: the European Union specializes in cross-border politics and negotiations. It is possible to travel fifty miles and experience ten different languages and just as many different cultures. The EU also must conduct trade and business in the same manner. There are cultural gaps, but not cultural misunderstandings. This sense of unity contradicts the long favored narrative of American "individual ruggedness," perhaps most heralded during McCain and Palin tactics of pushing their platform of being a "Maverick" and a "Rogue." Americans love the idea of making things happen without help, but global issues demand global cooperation. In the global web of political issues, non stands out more than climate change, where again, Americans at the senatorial level don't want outside influence.

Reason #2: the EU's "precautionary principle." The precautionary principle is stated in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty (Article 130R). "Community policy on the environment shall be based on the precautionary principle that preventive action should be taken, that environmental change should as a priority be rectified at source and the polluter should pay." As a standard, the EU has a pre-emptive strategy toward threats to their well-being, and climate change is the biggest environmental threat today. In contrast, the United States is still griping with whether or not climate change is real, whether the study of climate is a real science, whether hacked emails reveal a conspiracy to prevent the pursuit of happiness of Americans everywhere. Many are making the mistake of waiting for irrefutable evidence, despite the consequence of irreversible damage.

The United States continues daily to resemble the "Divided States" with televised displays of internal conflict regarding climate change legislation and health care reform. The Democratic party seems hell bent to make something happen, rightfully so because something needs to happen. The Republican party seems hell bent to keep things as they are, or at least make it seem the Democrats are going in the wrong direction. These Divided States, with the Republicans holding 41 seats in the Senate (enough to snuff any new legislation), provide a cold wall that global warming legislation cannot surmount. President Obama cannot make the same mistake Al Gore did as VP; Obama cannot sign a climate change treaty without knowing it will pass in the Senate (a US Senate that far from the EU in geography and ideology).

Photo Credit: European Parliament