Meeting the Paris Climate Goals Was Always Hard. Without the U.S., It Is Far Harder. By BRAD PLUMER JUNE 2, 2017. Continue reading the main story Share This Page. Continue reading the main story. Share; Tweet; Email; More; Save. Photo. A gas flare …
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/climate/climate-goals-paris-accord.html?_r=0
It’s official — on June 1, President Trump announced that “the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord,” but suggested that he would be open to new negotiations that are “fair” to the United States.
Here at the Monkey Cage, we’ve provided in-depth analysis over the years on the Paris accord, climate change, energy security and environmental developments. For a full listing of these posts, see below.
In our June 1 post, Joshua Busby at the University of Texas answers the big questions: What does this mean, and what’s next? He writes, “Under the normal rules of the agreement, the United States cannot withdraw until November 2020,” but “there is a nuclear option.”
Jessica F. Green, an New York University professor and frequent contributor on environmental policy topics, explains why the Trump decision would not roll back the considerable U.S. progress on environmental protection. She notes, “States, cities and many companies in the United States realize that sensible climate policy is, well, sensible.” With U.S. companies pursuing green options and U.S. utilities phasing out coal-powered plants, she points out that the U.S. government does not control — or make — many of these decisions.
ttp://www.washingtonpost.com/video/business/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-paris-agreement-on-climate-change/2016/09/30/b3d0a8c6-8747-11e6-b57d-dd49277af02f_video.html
Monkey Cage contributors have also looked closely at the Paris accord itself. Was there too much flexibility in the wording? What made the Paris accord different from other climate change negotiations? More broadly, what happens to global security if the effects of climate change force millions to migrate? And what are the nuts and bolts of energy politics, aviation emissions and U.S. energy conservation programs? We invite you to keep reading.
A set of talking points circulated in support of President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement included this statement:
“The [Paris] deal also accomplishes LITTLE for the climate
“According to researchers at MIT, if all member nations met their obligations, the impact on the climate would be negligible. The impacts have been estimated to be likely to reduce global temperature rise by less than 0.2 degrees Celsius in 2100.”
The researchers in MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change who led the relevant analysis find this statement to be misleading, for two reasons.
First, the 0.2 degree-figure used in the talking point reflects the incremental impact of the Paris Agreement compared with the earlier Copenhagen agreement. If you instead compare the impact of the Paris Agreement to no climate policy, then the temperature reduction is much larger, on the order of 1 degree Celsius — 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit — by 2100. This would be a significant reduction in the global temperature rise, though much more is needed if the world is to achieve its goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius or less.
Second, the analysis accounts only for countries’ pledges under the Paris Agreement, assuming no further strengthening of the commitments in years after 2030. The Paris Agreement is a milestone of the ongoing UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is committed to ongoing annual meetings to regularly revisit and ratchet up nations’ climate goals, making them more ambitious over time.
The relevant MIT researchers believe that the Paris Agreement is an unprecedented and vital effort by nearly 200 countries to respond to the urgent threat of global climate change.
http://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-issues-statement-research-paris-agreement-0602
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, an international pact to work to slow climate change that the U.S. entered last year under an executive order from then-President Barack Obama.
While Trump does have the power to pull the U.S. out of the agreement, it will not be able to happen overnight. Any member must wait three years before they are eligible to withdraw, which is stipulated under Article 28 of the accord.
Each member also has to wait an extra year for the formal notice of withdrawal to take effect, so the U.S. will formally be a party to the deal at least until late 2020, shortly after the next presidential election.
However, the Trump administration will be free to ignore the U.S. pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions during the time the country is still formally a part of the agreement because the commitments are not legally binding. Trump is also welcome to adjust the U.S.’s portion of the agreement without withdrawing.
There is a second route out of the agreement that the White House could have chosen to pursue: Any member that withdraws from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a 1992 environmental treaty, would be out of the deal.
Under the Paris agreement, Obama established some domestic policies like the Clean Power Plan through executive action, which bypassed the then Republican-controlled Senate.
The Trump administration’s plan to rescind that agreement stands in contrast with other major world powers that compete with the U.S., like China and India. Just this year, China agreed to invest $361 billion into renewable fuel over the next three years.
If Trump follows through on his promise, experts agree that greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures will increase more precipitously than they would have if the U.S. remained party to the accord.
However, the Sierra Club released an estimate that 60 percent of the emissions reductions promised under the Paris agreement could be met by local initiatives were they to replace coal with clean energy. This afternoon, 61 U.S. mayors released a statement reiterating their dedication to “adopt, honor, and uphold the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement.”
Advocacy organizations are also preparing to use lawsuits as a method to delay the dismantling of climate-related programs domestically. Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, tweeted that “the law will need to play a major role in pushing back against the attempted dismantling of our environmental and health protections.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-withdrawal-paris-climate-agreement/story?id=47778917
China, the EU and India, which along with the US make up the four biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, have restated their commitment to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
Top EU official Donald Tusk said at a summit with China that Brussels and Beijing would step up co-operation.
Mr Trump announced the US was leaving for economic reasons, saying the deal would cost American jobs.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the US would still curb emissions.
Amid widespread international condemnation of the US decision, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would “not judge” Mr Trump.
The Paris agreement commits the US and 194 other countries to keeping rising global temperatures “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels and “endeavour to limit” them even more, to 1.5C.
The UN World Meteorological Organisation said on Friday that, in the worst scenario, the US pullout could add 0.3C to global temperatures by the end of the century.
European Council President Donald Tusk said after meeting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that the two powers took their responsibilities seriously.
“Today, China and Europe have demonstrated solidarity with future generations and responsibility for the whole planet,” he told reporters at a joint news conference.
The man accused of being the logistics chief behind the Paris terror attacks was booed by radical Muslim inmates after arriving in jail – because he failed to carry out his suicide bombing.
Salah Abdeslam spent his first night in Fleury-Mérogis prison on Wednesday after being extradited from Belgium.
He was arrested over last November’s attacks in the French capital which claimed 130 lives.
Upon arriving behind bars, the 26-year-old was whistled and jeered by extremist lags enraged by his alleged failure to detonate his suicide vest during the Paris onslaught.
Salah Abdeslam spent his first night in Fleury-Mérogis prison on Wednesday after being extradited from Belgium.
He was arrested over last November’s attacks in the French capital which claimed 130 lives.
Upon arriving behind bars, the 26-year-old was whistled and jeered by extremist lags enraged by his alleged failure to detonate his suicide vest during the Paris onslaught.
Investigators say Abdeslam told them he had arranged logistics for the November 13 bombing and shooting attacks and had planned to blow himself up at a sports stadium there but backed out at the last minute.
The terror group has had Europe in its sights for up to four years, it is feared, and sent dozens of jihadists back to carry out lone-wolf attacks.
“It served to put all of our agencies on edge. Just like a smoke screen, it allowed them to calmly prepare,” said Marc Trevidic, who retired as France’s chief counter-terrorism judge last year.
The offensive was orchestrated by Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian mastermind behind the Paris atrocity in November, which left 130 people dead.
Abaaoud, who was killed in the weeks after the attacks, is feared to have been at the head of a 90-strong cell of jihadists spread across Europe.
With Belgian officials struggling to explain how they missed crucial information leading up to Tuesday’s devastating Brussels bombings, local police in the northern Belgian city of Mechelen admitted on Friday that as far back as December, they knew where the sole surviving Paris attacker might be hiding in the Belgian capital, but failed to pass the address to the country’s anti-terrorist unit—even though Europe’s biggest manhunt in years was underway.
As details mounted about the gaffes and missteps of Belgian officials that might have averted this week’s bloodshed, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the city for talks with Belgium’s government about how to dismantle ISIS’s terror networks. U.S. officials told reporters that at least two Americans were among the 31 people killed in Tuesday’s suicide bombings, two which occurred in a crowded airport terminal, and a third on an underground train in central Brussels. ISIS has claimed responsibility. “We are all of us going to help,” Kerry told the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel at a joint press conference in Brussels. “We will renew our vow to come together against a common enemy to keep our people safe.”
http://time.com/4272149/brussels-attacks-terror-investigation-mistake/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter
As details mounted about the gaffes and missteps of Belgian officials that might have averted this week’s bloodshed, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the city for talks with Belgium’s government about how to dismantle ISIS’s terror networks. U.S. officials told reporters that at least two Americans were among the 31 people killed in Tuesday’s suicide bombings, two which occurred in a crowded airport terminal, and a third on an underground train in central Brussels. ISIS has claimed responsibility. “We are all of us going to help,” Kerry told the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel at a joint press conference in Brussels. “We will renew our vow to come together against a common enemy to keep our people safe.”
http://www.infowars.com/belgian-police-knew-where-paris-attacker-was-likely-hiding-and-did-nothing/
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