The Politics of Obstinance: Issue Framing in Australian, Canadian, and American Climate Policy.

Australia, Canada, and the United States share a number of important attributes. They are all English speaking former British colonies. They are continent sized countries with substantial portions of their economies devoted to natural resource extraction and processing. In relationship to climate change, they are also substantial emitters of greenhouse gas emissions, and all three have faced political struggles related to domestic and international climate policy. The United States and Australia are alone among the developed states in refusing to be bound by the Kyoto Protocol. Canada has ratified the Protocol, but its emissions have continued to rise precipitously, and it will be unable to meet its Kyoto commitments without generous use of the flexibility mechanisms contained in the Kyoto Protocol. Given the similarities in the situations of these three states, how do we explain the variation in domestic and foreign policy responses to climate change? This paper will argue that the interaction between international norms and domestic norms fundamentally shaped the domestic framing of climate change as a political problem. The paper will explore the initial framing of climate change as a political problem in each country and will emphasize the role of international and domestic actors in defining the problem and its political significance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]