Links tagged “paris”

"They fear that if Mr. Trump was able to withdraw based on his signature, a future president could easily rejoin with another signature. Their solution: have the Senate take a vote to ratify the deal as a treaty, and defeat it. Yet withdrawal takes more than three years and full withdrawal won’t be finalized until after the 2020 election, according to the treaty’s terms, meaning if Mr. Trump were defeated, a future administration could reimpose it.

“President Trump made the least satisfactory choice among three alternatives when he announced he would keep his campaign promise to get the United States out of Paris,” Mr. Ebell said. “He accepted that President Obama’s mere signature accepting the treaty was valid, and that all he needed to do was send another signed letter of withdrawal.”

Some scientists who are skeptical of extreme climate change scenarios embraced the idea of forcing a Senate vote now. Dr. Richard Lindzen said the Senate should go even further and revoke any consent it has given to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, launched in 1992, whose semi-regular reports help propel the debate and provided the framework for Paris negotiations.

“Bush 41 signed this to lay claim to being our ‘environment president.’ Unfortunately, he committed us to the global warming alarm narrative,” Mr. Lindzen said.

Former Obama UN climate envoy Todd Stern: "A perception floats in public that under President Trump the US has stepped out of the Paris Agreement. But, at [the] Katowice, [Poland UN climate summit] we find that the US is as deeply engaged at the moment in several negotiations behind closed doors."

Another prominent climate activist not worried that the U.S. will actually withdraw is former Vice President Al Gore. See: Gore not worried about Trump’s UN Paris exit: No exit until after 2020 election – ‘A new president could simply give 30 days’ notice, and we’re right back in’

UN Chief: 'We need a complete transformation of our global energy economy'

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: "Nor are we doing enough to capitalize on the enormous social, economic and environmental opportunities of climate action.” (Guterres, a longtime socialist leader who led the Socialist International before becoming UN boss.)

“Climate action offers a compelling path to transform our world for the better,” Guterres continued. “In short, we need a complete transformation of our global energy economy, as well as how we manage land and forest resources. We need to embrace low-carbon, climate-resilient sustainable development.”

The “green” economy “means embracing carbon pricing,” Guterres continued, arguing that the gas (CO2) exhaled by every human being is “pollution” that must be taxed and regulated.

The biggest change to come out of COP24 is the establishment of a “rule book” that participating nations will use to report their greenhouse gas emissions and funding efforts. Additionally, the rules will allow countries to monitor the carbon reduction efforts of other governments. The U.S. expressed some pleasure over the new agreement, believing it will force other countries to be held more accountable for their carbon emissions.

Nothing from the two week-long summit is binding. The lack of any major breakthroughs attracted criticism. “In the climate emergency we’re in, slow success is no success,” Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, stated.