Obama’s misguided climate change deal

Published 9:28 pm Monday, November 17, 2014

By Staff Reports

 

  1. UN weather agency: 2014 on track for hottest year
  2. Obama to order gov’t to cut its greenhouse gas emissions
  3. Eiffel Tower goes dark in symbolic move for Earth Hour
  4. Obama presents climate change as health hazard
  5. Obama sounds alarm on climate damage in Earth Day visit to Florida Everglades
  6. Global leaders meet in Paris to cut emissions at climate change talks

The New York Times calls the agreement with China on climate change “a major breakthrough.” Maybe it is. But it’s a bad deal for the United States.

“The deal jointly announced in Beijing by President Obama and China’s president, Xi Jinping, to limit greenhouse gases well beyond their earlier pledges is both a major diplomatic breakthrough and — assuming both sides can carry out their promises — an enormously positive step in the uncertain battle against climate change,” wrote the Times’ editorial board. “The climate accord represents a startling turnaround after years of futile efforts to cooperate in a meaningful way on global warming. It sends two critically important messages, one to the world and the other to the United States Congress. China and the United States together account for about 45 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Their new commitments are thus almost certain to energize other countries to set more ambitious targets of their own before negotiators meet to frame a new global agreement at the climate summit meeting in Paris in December 2015.”

Let’s talk about those two messages the agreement actually sends.

First, what message is sent to the world? Mostly, it’s that the United States is a terrible negotiator.

“According to reports, the U.S. will cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below their 2005 level by the time 2025 rolls around,” points out Investors Business Daily. “At the same time, China would reach a peak in emissions in 2030, at which point it is supposed to begin cutting back… If Obama means to cut U.S. emissions even more sharply than they are already falling, America will have to endure economic hardship while China freely spews the carbon dioxide emissions of a growing economy.”



The New York Times itself reported in 2011 that China’s emissions are going to peak in 2030 without any agreement.

“If that was going to happen anyway, what is the purpose of the Obama deal?” the Daily asks. “Is it just an exercise for Obama to look like he can get things done and for Beijing to pretend that it’s a cooperative member of the planet?”

Second, what message is being sent to the U.S.?

“In the United States, the agreement cuts the ground from under people like Mitch McConnell, the next Senate majority leader, and others who have long argued that there is no point in taking aggressive steps against greenhouse gases as long as major developing countries refused to do likewise,” the Times opines. “The climate deniers in Congress will find other reasons to oppose a strong climate strategy, and are doing so even now. But the ‘China’ argument has effectively disappeared.”

No, it hasn’t. Look again at the terms of the agreement. China isn’t agreeing to cut anything. It plans to continue increasing its emissions, unabated, for years. Even then, it only agrees to try to peak in 2030.

To meet the goals Obama agreed to, Americans will suffer real economic pain. Sadly, it won’t have a discernible effect on climate change.

You Might Like