Upon taking office, the new US president will immediately face major decisions on domestic and international climate policy. The United States and the rest of the international community have set December 2009 as the deadline for concluding a new global climate agreement. The controversial 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, and new international arrangements are urgently needed. This new round of climate negotiations provides a real chance to ensure strong, equitable action by all major economies, including the United States, China, and India, which in the past have resisted obligations to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions. Simultaneously, the US Congress is likely to take up major legislation to dramatically reduce US emissions—an objective each of the leading presidential candidate supports.

The key to success in managing climate change, of course, will be aligning the international and domestic efforts. New domestic laws must help spur international cooperation. New international agreements must mesh with domestic strategies and political realities. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading scientific authority on the topic, tells us we probably have one last clear chance to deal with the climate problem in time to avoid unacceptable environmental, economic, humanitarian, and security risks. Given this urgency, integrating US domestic and international climate policy is vitally important to the United States and the world.

The truth is this: the United States has neither a sound climate foreign policy nor the right mechanism for creating one. Absent a fundamental change in the way the United States makes and carries forward its climate diplomacy, the next president and Congress may fail to do what is necessary to stabilize the Earth’s climate system in time to avoid disastrous consequences for the United States and the world. Now is the time to consider innovative alternative approaches. For inspiration, we should look to more successful areas of international cooperation, specifically international trade.

Heading in the Wrong Direction

Before delving into the trade model answer to climate policy, it is important to understand why one must conclude the United States is heading in the wrong direction.. There are two main problems with our current approach. First, the United States lacks a compelling bipartisan vision for how it should engage the world on climate change. In fact, the United States does not even have publicly stated negotiating objectives for the climate talks that are already underway. Without further guidance, US climate diplomats seem unlikely to thread the needle—crafting a politically acceptable, economically feasible and environmentally effective climate agreement. Furthermore, in the absence of a bipartisan climate change foreign policy, Congress may fail to design new domestic climate legislation with the international community firmly in mind. A go-it-alone approach would forego important opportunities that domestic climate laws provide to entice and cajole other nations to do more to mitigate their emissions as well.

Second, securing the two-thirds support of the Senate that the US Constitution requires to ratify a new climate treaty would be a truly daunting task. The supermajority for treaties is among the highest bars imposed by the Constitution, equal to the standard for removing a president from office. The Framers expected treaties to be relatively rare—a few agreements with England, France, and Spain. Today, the United States enters into several hundred new international agreements each year, but very few of these are treaties because as a general rule the Senate will not act on a treaty if a single member of the Committee on Foreign Relations asks for more time. These informal committee “holds,” as they are called, can last for years and even decades. So far, climate agreements have been treaties and so long as that practice continues, the prospects for US participation are dim.

Importantly, it is hard to see how the United States could stabilize the planet’s climate without joining new international climate agreements. As any economist will confirm, the Earth’s climate is a public good. Government intervention is necessary to overcome barriers to collective action and to prevent free riders. US participation in international climate agreements is essential given US emissions, capacity for innovation, and standing in the world. Until the United States commits itself internationally, other nations will hide behind US unilateralism and inaction.

The Trade Model

To change course, the US government must approach the climate challenge in an entirely new way. Specifically it should emulate US practices concerning international trade, which has successfully allowed the president and Congress to make progress in the trade arena. Although trade policy is as contentious as climate policy in the United States, the president and Congress eventually come to a consensus on trade issues in a way that has not been the case for climate change. Why? Partly because the United States employs a powerful tool that forces the president and Congress to cooperate. Congress periodically grants the president Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), a comprehensive framework for negotiating, reviewing, and implementing trade agreements. TPA authorizes the president to negotiate new trade agreements, sets forth US negotiating objectives, requires the president to submit concluded agreements to Congress for final approval under streamlined review procedures (“fast track”), and creates mechanisms for improving coordination between the executive and legislative branches.

Under TPA, US negotiating positions carry more weight internationally. The United States can speak with one voice, and other nations understand clearly what is required to secure US participation. This means they are more likely to make politically difficult concessions. Other nations believe Congress is unlikely to ask the president to renegotiate key terms and that US domestic approval is both probable and will occur without unwarranted delay.

Reasonable people differ on whether trade deals give sufficient attention to environment and labor challenges. Regardless of one’s view on this issue, TPA works procedurally. Congress and the president almost always find common ground, and the United States usually joins the trade agreements it negotiates. Almost all major trade deals negotiated by the United States over the past several decades have been done under some form of TPA, including the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement.