Climate Change: Debating America's Policy Options.

• Author: Lorenzini Aracena, Daniel
• Position: Rese

David G. Victor Council on Foreign Relations Policy Initiative, United States of America, 2004; 165 pp.

Having an extensive background on environmental policy, David G. Victor is a leading expert in the technology, economics and politics of climate change, as this book remarkably shows.

Former Director of the Science and Technology Program at the Council of Foreign Relations of the United States of America, Victor brilliantly exposes a timely study of the several ways to approach one of the most controversial problems of the present foreign policy: climate change.

Experts agree that humans are causing a change in the world's climate, but does this mean that the Earth going to be affected in a dramatic way? Does the U.S. need to become aware and adopt urgent measures to confront this problem, or is it more likely that the future society will adjust to the new reality, without incurring in an expensive budgetary cost? Is the Kyoto Protocol the best strategy for resolving the climate change issue, or is rejection already inevitable? The authorized opinions are very different, but a common ground can emerge with a true effort.

The author's goal is to present the many issues involved in the global warming policy, offering three possible policy choices as hypothetical presidential speeches, without recommending anyone in particular. The right decision has to be made considering the consequences that are likely to occur, and how they will affect Americans, by giving feedback on the options addressed here, leading to a final choice that can serve as a platform for constructing an appropriate policy in the matter.

Following the structure of the book, Part I, entitled >, is a summary of how the problem of climate change has been treated by the U.S. over the last fifteen years, struggling with the development an accurate policy in the subject. The author describes how global warming has become a significant issue on the foreign policy agenda, considering the United States is responsible for one-quarter of world emissions of greenhouse gases. In his view, the climate change policy is a complicated and polarized topic that involves many agents and great costs not without certain benefits, but in the distant future. As he puts it, at one extreme, climate change is viewed as a >. At the other extreme, global warming is seen as a severe threat that requires an urgent restructuring of current industrial economy. Under these circumstances, Victor presents...