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From Leader to Laggard ? The Changing Role of US Leadership and the Kyoto
Protocol. Former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright ...
... really going after that like a real leader should but ... the same country is one thing ?
changing the country ... l edition) No longer a Latin laggard, the country's ...
Submitted by msturtle on March 13, 2008
Category: Social Issues
Words: 1983 | Pages: 8
Views: 106
Popularity Rank: 95,673
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Former U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, once said that "We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future." Now, eight years after her proclamation, U.S. "indispensability" is a topic very well-open to debate. The United States has long been considered to be the leading actor on the world stage. Now it looks like the international community has grown weary of being audience to the increasingly one-nation "play." The administration under George W. Bush has been rife with decision-making outside of international interests and involvement, which includes issues of immense global concern. One of the most heated of these concerns is global climate change, a matter that is tackled in the Kyoto Protocol. Almost every nation has signed onto the treaty, including every industrialized nation except for one the United States, the nation once expected to lead prevention measures on global climate change. The Bush Administration's decision to disregard the Kyoto Protocol has elicited international criticism of the U.S. as a trustworthy global leader.
To understand why the U.S. is expected to participate and lead the Kyoto Protocol, one must examine its roots, implications, and its striking relativity to the U.S. The Kyoto Protocol is a pact formed in 1997, aimed at reducing environmentally harmful greenhouse gases emitted by developed nations to 5% below 1990 levels by the year 2008. It is an agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), born out of the growing concern that unchecked carbon dioxide missions will lead to violent storms, droughts, melting ice caps, and other disastrous events (Guardian Unlimited, 2005). In order to achieve the goals set in the protocol, participating nations engage in emissions trading (selling "surplus" reductions to other nations that will exceed their emissions cap), the development of alternative power sources (such as solar and wind), and...
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