this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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It's good to consider why these discussions "go nowhere". I'd argue that influential countries following through with promises would set good examples (not really happening but would be great if it did). Showing complete disdain for climate talks and policy however encourages other governments to do the same.
So no forcing IMO, but just a desperate "Can't we all do better?"
The thing is, a large part of what got this government selected was their ongoing discussion around industrial deregulation. The basic position on that in the Republican party is that this isn't a problem for the government to address. To them, it's a problem for consumers and businesses to handle in the marketplace. If consumers want to do business with companies who make climate pledges and carbon pledges, then things will go that way. If, instead, the majority of people vote with their wallets and their choices that they don't care, then this admin and the party behind them say that's the way it should be.
That's part of why I said that the USA has made it perfectly clear as a country that we don't give a damn. We've regularly protested public nuclear power (to the point that one of the most effective nuclear plants was shut down after a small incident, and is now being bought for private use by Microsoft), along with the construction of new hydroelectric dams, solar farms, and wind turbines. We've even had some protests against urban cogen (energy recapture, etc). Those protests cut across the political spectrum, too. Entire states have voted for government officials on the basis of "bringing back" coal power (and thus coal mining, processing, etc.).
Most of the discussions between government delegates and officials at summits like these are around regulation and government policy restricting corporate pollution and changing energy sources away from coal and the like. If, as the host, you are already certain based on previous discussions and public statements that the answer from one nation will essentially boil down to the idea that governments should not legislate or regulate industry, and their delegates and officials will actively discourage others from doing so - to the point of putting the two nations on a more antagonistic footing than they already are over mere discussion, why invite them? It's just going to be an upsetting waste of everyone's time.