Position Changes From The United States In The International Climate Conference On The Impact Of Public Opinion On The Diplomatic Negotiations

Fueled by the tendency of globalization and informationization, foreign affairs have been developed towards democratization and brought into the public. In international political system, public opinion has become the important factor which should be taken into account during the international negotiation process. Governments have to fully consider the social effects that raised by the moves and results of negotiations, especially the highly related topics.Climate change is a burgeoning international issue. Viewed from the aspect of traditional foreign affairs, it falls into the low-political category. However,due to the increasing knowledge of reality and harmfulness of global warming, climate issue has been gradually placed on the top of the agenda of international talks. The results of the climate talks directly affect the public's interests. Therefore, the public has the urgent demand to express their opinions on such a highly related issue.The paper investigates the changing stance and strategies of the US in international climate talks and the trend of American public opinion on climate change issue, with the international climate talks from UNFCCC till now as the background. Specifically, the paper describes and analyses the talks and the standpoints of the US using the historical records, reflects the American public opinion by the polls. In a final note, based on the above-mentioned analysis, the paper tries to find out the regularity between the changing stance and strategies of the US in international climate talks and the trend of American public opinion, make a conclusion that public opinion is a key factor affecting the performance of diplomatic negotiation, furthermore, deduce the conditions under which public opinion can exert influence on international negotiation by using this case.