On this day, July 25 1997 the US Senate unanimously (95–0) passed Senate Resolution 98 (also referred to as the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.
It said – contra what the USA had already agreed when it ratified the 1992 UNFCCC – that it would sign no deals that didn’t include the developing world making cuts as well. You know, those peoples who had done nothing to cause the problem, and were already on the pointy end.
This was the at the culmination of a very well-funded and well-executed campaign by US corporate interests to reframe international environmental agreements as an attack on US sovereignty, and on the employment prospects of US workers – see for example this and this..
Why this matters.
Shows you the power of corporate mobilisations, dunnit?
What happened next?
The US negotiated a deal at Kyoto, and signed it, but it was never going to get through the Senate, even if Gore hadn’t had the 2000 election pinched from him by the Supreme Court. Then George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto altogether, in March 2001.
And here we are.