White House inaction on climate change is not Obama's fault

Report says environmental groups are to blame

A research paper written by a Harvard academic has suggested that President Barack Obama is not to blame for America’s apparent inaction on tackling the threat of climate change.

Scholar Theda Skocpol, who is due to present her findings at a Harvard forum next month, has instead put the blame for these failings on environmental groups, who she says were blind to extreme Republican opposition to their efforts. These groups failed to consider just how opposed certain groups would be to environmental reform and naively though they could still win them over with ‘insider grand bargaining’.

Obama is unlikely to make climate change an major issue, despite campaigners calling for him to do so

(Image source - CBS)

Skocpol also states that climate change will not be a major issue for Obama in his second term as President, which will come as a blow to campaigners who have appealed for Obama to take action following several high profile events such as Superstorm Sandy that they believe were results of global warming. "Whatever environmentalists may hope, the Obama White House and congressional Democrats are unlikely to make global warming a top issue in 2013 or 2014," she writes.

Skocpol writes that these high profile events are not enough in themselves to get the issue of climate change on the national agenda, and believes that 'fresh strategies will be needed, based on new understandings of political obstacles and opportunities'.