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A decade after the United States and the European Union first agreed to work together to address climate change at the first Earth Summit in 1992, they are struggling to find ways to talk with each other about the issue. The EU and the US have reluctantly agreed to disagree on their climate change strategies. The fifteen member nations of the EU strongly support the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). The United States, in contrast, has rejected the Kyoto Protocol and instead is advocating what it calls a voluntary, sciencebased approach to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Neither the EU nor the US appears willing to abandon the course it has set out on, and this has complicated their ability to work together in addressing climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement formed in 1997 that if enacted will commit developed countries to reduce their …