The United States may be sought to commit billions of dollars to help other countries develop or improve their energy capacities as well as to restructure its own domestic energy policy during the upcoming climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, Steven Groves argues in a testimony before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Comittee. However, the Bernard and Barbara Lomas fellow of the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom warns that the U.S. government should first seek domestic consensus on climate change policy before making commitments to the international community. Making promises before domestic consensus is reached, he adds, is a premature move.
Groves also writes that while the U.S. could lead the world in confronting climate change, it must demonstrate this leadership without sacrificing its own national interests and sovereignty. According to him, the U.S. government should first establish what is politically and economically possible before it makes any pledges.
