Placing it in Context: The Changing Climate of U.S. Environmental Policy

Authors : Rana İZCİ CONNELLY

Pages : 131-154

View : 18 | Download : 8

Publication Date : 2019-10-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :To many observers, President Trump’s administration is a real environmental  nightmare and represents a serious retrograde step for international cooperation on  climate change. As this study argues, however, his zealous anti-environmentalist  stance is not something new in American environmental history and can be  regarded as the continuation of anti-environmentalist dynamics in U.S. politics  since the 1980s. The study starts with a brief historical analysis of American  environmentalism since the 1980s, then examines the battles on environmental  protection and climate change during the Presidencies of Barack Obama and  Donald Trump in order to shed light on the future direction of U.S. environmental  policy. Its focus is on climate change as the indicative and most encompassing  issue of the day. The intention of the study, which covers the related discussions  until summer 2018, is to understand the background and rationale behind policy  responses rather than to comprehensively list individual policy decisions.
Keywords : American environmentalism, anti environmentalism, climate change sceptics, climate change, fracking