The Obama Administration's Climate Change Policy Research

With the deepening development of climate change issues, the international community is widely recognized that the pace of global negotiations conserning climate change can not go backwards. U.S. gets much attention because of its status as a great power of greenhouse gas emissions. In2009, the Democratic Party returned to the White House at a distance of8years. The Obama administration shows a positive attitude during climate change policies making process and international negotiations, all this changings are concerning with international economic situation and the domestic distribution of interests, as well as the concept of governance. The reasons of studing the Obama administration’s climate change policies are mainly based on the following considerations. First, the United States as the largest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world, its attitudes towards climate change issue stances international influence and representation; Second, the study of causes of attitude change contributes strategic significance to the promotion of the United Nations Framework Convention on climate Change; Third, the study of U.S. climate change policy has a referenance signicificate to China that under the burden of economic development and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.This paper reviews U.S. climate change policies before the Obama administration firstly. The following parts of this paper focus on summarizing the characteristics of Obama administration’s climate change policies and finding the underlying causes of policy-making through the historical research and comparative analysis method. Through the analysis of the role of Congress and the function of interest groups, this paper attempts to identify the influencial elements during policy-making domestically and predict the direction of Congress and interest groups development.Although the American delegation showed a positive attitudes on the Durban climate change conference held on December2011, the U.S. government hesitated to achieve the agreement upon the second period of Kyoto Protocol and to deliver technical and financial support for developing countries. The gap between attitudes and actions makes the Obama administration’s climate change policies more complicated and confusing and makes the international community lose confidence in American climate change policies. All in all, the Obama administration’s policies towards climate governance deserve further attention.