International Cooperation in the Environment Protection

There are many challenges we face in the today’s globalized world which need to be tackled multilaterally by actors of the international system. Securing good living conditions of the environment is one of those challenges. Unfortunately, the environment has suffered very much under the human activity while we were developing our civilizations. However, no living beings can exist without the healthy environment. That is why it is essential to work more effectively on protecting the environment within the whole international system. In this system there are actors which have more influence over their partners than others. In theory they are called great powers. They hold a power to influence other actors of the international system. Powerful states have a big potential to manage the whole cooperation in the environment protection. They can set the trends and be an example for other actors. Nevertheless, it depends on their motivation to take the lead in this task.The motivation is influenced by many factors, including security of state or set of priorities of those great powers. This thesis is analyzing the perception of security threats by the USA. With a focus on climate change threat and the environment degradation. The USA is great power with a big potential to lead the international cooperation in many areas, incl. the protection of environment, however, their motivation is changing. Not only in time but also with the change of their head of state. Therefore the key focus of this work is a discourse analysis of National Security Strategy documents published by presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The documents are source for determination if the USA perceives itself as a responsible leader of multilateral actions for improvement of environment or it prefers and individual approach.