Politics of global warming (United States)

Global climate change was first addressed in United States policy beginning in the early 1960s. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines climate change as "any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time." Essentially, climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns, as well as other effects, that occur over several decades or longer. Climate change policy in the US has transformed rapidly over the past twenty years and is being developed at both the state and federal level. The politics of global warming and climate change have polarized certain political parties and other organizations. This article focuses on climate change policy within the United States, as well as exploring the positions of various parties and the influences on policy making and environmental justice repercussions.

The United States, although a signatory to the , has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the protocol. In 1997, the US Senate voted unanimously under the Byrd–Hagel Resolution that it was not the sense of the Senate that the United States should be a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. In 2001, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, stated that the Protocol "is not acceptable to the Administration or Congress".

The United States, along with Kazakhstan, have not ratified the . The protocol is non-binding over the United States unless ratified. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and (as of January 2015^[update]) Barack Obama did not submit the treaty for ratification.

In October 2003, the Pentagon published a report titled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall. The authors conclude by stating, "this report suggests that, because of the potentially dire consequences, the risk of abrupt climate change, although uncertain and quite possibly small, should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern."

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