Do you all remember the story about Chicken Little? Something hit her on the head that had fallen out of a tree and she started screaming that the sky was falling. She was wrong of course, but that did not stop others from believing her. Chicken Little has just resurfaced in the reaction to President Trump pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Change Accord.
Let’s review some of the reactions.
25 Million people are going to die.
This is an assault on communities of color.
This is a traitorous act of war against the American people.
How about some facts?
There is very little in the Paris Accord that is binding on the parties. President Obama signed the Accord without taking it to the Senate for ratification because he knew it would never pass the Senate. The Constitution is clear. No treaty is binding on the United States government unless ratified by the Senate. That is why in 1997 the Kyoto Protocol which was an anti-warming treaty was rejected by the Senate 95-0. This is the reason that President Obama shaped the “agreement” the way he did so that it would not go to the Senate.
Nonetheless, President Obama did sign the Accord. Once, a President signs or communicates agreement to an agreement, the United States is bound to the agreement. Even though the Senate has not ratified an agreement, a subsequent President must take an affirmative action and withdraw the previous President’s agreement.
The Paris Accord was constructed so that the United States would have had to close all of its coal plants. Coal still generates one third of United States electricity. Conversely, China would not have to take any actions towards cutting global warming for another 13 years. China could build hundreds more coal plants in that time which they are presently building.
In Paris in 2017, developed countries reaffirmed the commitment to mobilize $100 Billion a year in climate finance by 2020 and agreed to continue mobilizing finance at the level of $100 billion a year 2025. The commitment refers to the pre-existing plan to provide US$100 Billion a year until 2025.
The G7 countries also announced that they would provide US $420 million for Climate Risk Insurance and the launching of a Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative.
In March 2016, the Obama administration gave a $500 million grant to the Green Climate Fund as the first chunk of a $3 Billion commitment made at the Paris talks. So far the Green Climate Fund has received over $10 Billion in pledges from a variety of countries. However, the United States alone has actually contributed to the Fund ($1 Billion so far).
It is useful to remember that Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg states that the Accord would cost $1 Trillion a year to shave 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit off global temperatures by the year 2100.
The Paris Accord set a long-term goal of limiting the Earth’s temperature to below 2 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial (1850s) levels. The signing nations agreed to do that by establishing their own carbon emission rates aimed at cooling the earth to reach those levels. However, there is no enforcement mechanism. Any national can set a goal and then change it at will.
Many people are sincerely convinced that the earth is warming at a high rate and we must all do everything possible including changing our way of life drastically to save the earth.
This has been Al Gore’s mantra since the late 80’s. It is the cry of many in industry and Silicon Valley. What is very interesting is that the group pushing the global warming story is also the group that has made incredible amounts of money from the whole carbon credit racket.
The climate game is worth trillions of dollars. This system involves trading carbon credits and pollution credits. It involves brokers and people who have the funds to trade credits. Most voters have no idea of how much and who has benefited from trading carbon credits.
What most people in the United States do not know is that the Paris Accord is basically a redistribution scheme. It was designed to slow United States competitiveness and hide that aim by bloviating about saving mankind.
Here are the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Ednhofer. “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole. Ednhofer co-chaired the U. N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.
When asked what is the goal of environmental policy Edenhofer replied: “We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.” About five years ago he also said that “the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.”
In 2016, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, made this statement: This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years since the Industrial Revolution. She stated this in anticipation of the 2016 Paris climate summit.
President Donald Trump is a true American. He loves this country and wants success for Americans. Taking the United States out of the Paris Accord is a protection for the American taxpayer whose taxes under this Accord would have gone to countries all over the world while severely limiting the energy options for our economy. It is time to drop this “feel good” approach to our country and our economy. These are serious times and “do gooder” talk is not what is needed.