The influence of transnational corporations on the public policy of the United States of America in the field of environmental safety in the 1990s

The end of the 20th century was marked by significant changes both in the agenda of world politics and composition of its participants. In the 1990s, there was introduced the concept of ecological safety. With the development of globalization, transnational corporations became one of the leading actors of international relations along with states and governments. In the 1980s, scientists discovered that the anthropogenic emissions of gases such as methane and nitrous oxide complicated the greenhouse effect. In 1990, the first assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced that anthropogenic emissions had significantly increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and a doubling of carbon dioxide levels could lead to a global rise of temperature, and, therefore, required immediate reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions by 60 %. US fuel companies quickly realized financial implications of the inclusion of global warming into the list of key public issues; that is why they launched a campaign to prevent the discussion of this problem as a threat to global environmental safety. There were established the Global Climate Coalition (consisting of 54 industrial and commercial corporations) and the Information Council on the Environment (including the National Coal Association, the Western Fuel Association and the Edison Electric Institute) that were organizing propaganda against discussion of the problems of global warming at the government level. The election of William Jefferson Clinton as the President gave environmentalists a hope that America would begin to pay more attention to ecological policy. In his first speech the President promised to restructure energy consumption of the United States by using renewable and ecologically-safe power sources. That caused a new round of controversy with transnational corporations and the Republicans that supported them. The struggle is entering a new phase in 1997, on the eve of the meeting in Kyoto where it was planned to sign an agreement imposing obligations on limiting greenhouse gas emissions for all the developed countries. To counter the will of the President to sign such an agreement, the Senate unanimously adopted the Byrd-Hagel resolution in July 1997. The resolution forbade America to sign a protocol or an agreement that imposes commitments to reduce emissions if such obligations are not imposed on developing countries. Although Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol, the Byrd-Hagel resolution and the Republicans lobbying business interests in the Congress did not give any chance to its ratification, that is why the President dismissed the idea to submit the Protocol to the Senate.

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