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8
The Political Arena
Overview
This chapter discusses the current political climate both in the United States
and internationally on the climate change issue. It treats the United States
and its policy development separately because of its unique nature—over
the past two decades its policy has developed more or less independently
from the rest of the participating countries; the majority of the other devel-
oped countries of the world have gone through a process of cohesion, while
the United States has historically stood on the sidelines watching but doing
very little politically toward curbing the emission of greenhouse gases and
controlli