Will Obama Save the World?

Obama has put climate change rather high on his list of second term priorities, most likely due to Sandy and the widespread drought of 2012. Fatalists will think that he is coming too late, 16 years after the Kyoto protocol, and advocates think it was only a matter a time before the United States got involved. It is possible that the first group is right…as well as the second. While the French are used to a strong executive, we probably don’t have a very good frame of reference.

Indeed, the president can’t do anything without Congress’ approval, from deciding on tax levels, grants and subsidies for industrial programs, to creating a quota system, or even ratifying international treaties, the last of which only the Senate handles and must pass with a two-thirds majority.

The American president has a much smaller grip on Congress than his French counterpart. In the United States, each chamber comes up with its own daily agenda (and may very well not even touch the climate issue); any bills are done by themselves, and not by the executive as in France, where the occupant of the Elysée is entrusted with a central authority. Add to this the fact that the two chambers in the United States must vote on the same terms (neither is dominant), that the decree notion doesn’t exist (a bill contains all of its amendments, which explains why some bills are 1,000 pages), or the opposition can just as well prolong the debate in a thousand and one ways, and you understand why there are no shortcuts. There is only the regulatory weapon of the Environmental Protection Agency which is directly tied to the president. It is powerful: By limiting the emissions of power stations to 450 grams of CO per kilowatthour, the Environmental Protection Agency has put a ban on carbon. Obama could use it to limit car use which would be a small revolution in the United States. Regulations alone will never make a program extensive, coherent and exciting. Yet that might be what is needed.