White House Calls Agreement With China, India and South Africa a ‘First Step’
By Alessandro Torello and Stephen Power
The White House said Friday that U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Jacob Zuma reached a “meaningful agreement” for combating climate change. The deal was described by an administration official as “not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change but it’s an important first step.”
The White House official said developed and developing countries have agreed to listing their national actions and commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There will be a mechanism to funnel money to help developing nations pay for technology and projects to cope with the affects of climate change, such as rising sea levels.
The agreement sets a target of two degrees Celsius for the increase in global temperatures. Countries are supposed to provide information on the implementation of actions to cut carbon dioxide emissions through national communications, with provisions for international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines, the official said.
Details of the language on verification of steps to curb greenhouse gases – which could be critical to political acceptance of the agreement in Congress – weren’t immediately available. The so-called transparency issue was a critical stumbling block in discussions between the U.S. and China.
The administration official said “no country is entirely satisfied with each element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress.”
Earlier Friday, Mr. Obama met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the two leaders indicated they are close to agreement on a new arms-reduction treaty.
But on the climate issue, disagreements over fundamental issues continued into the evening Friday, despite efforts by the Danes and others to broker compromises.
“It is now clear there won’t be a comprehensive accord,” Italy’s Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said. “There will be a text that refers to next year for a comprehensive agreement,” she said.
Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.
A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to combat global warming.
The incident involved an e-mail server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, East England. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents dealing with the global-warming issue made over the course of 13 years.
Controversy arose after various allegations were made including that climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific evidence and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.
Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.
The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.
The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.
On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.
IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.
The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.
Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.
Highlights social injustice of proposed climate change policies
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) announced today that they have joined the No Cap and Trade Coalition in the fight against cap-and-trade legislation and the proposed Copenhagen climate treaty. The coalition is comprised of over 30 state and federal public policy groups and think tanks and maintains a website at www.NoCapAndTrade.com.
Niger Innis, national spokesperson for CORE, will become a spokesperson for the No Cap-and Trade Coalition, helping to spread the message that this dangerous public policy will impede social justice, transfer wealth from the United States to foreign countries and potentially strip the United States of its sovereignty.
“CORE is committed to the coalition’s efforts to stop cap-and-trade as well as the Copenhagen treaty,” said Niger Innis. “This endeavor is a continuation of an almost three year effort that CORE has made in its national energy campaign – CORE believes that access to affordable energy is a civil and human right and will work with the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition to spread this message.”
“The No Cap-and-Trade Coalition is very excited about working with CORE and having Niger Innis as a spokesperson,” said Jeff Davis of Minnesota Majority, the coalition’s organizer. “We believe his message that cap-and-trade schemes will be devastating to all Americans, but with a disproportionate impact on the poor in this country, will resonate with all people, regardless of politics.”
On December 7, 2009, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will begin a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark where President Obama intends to consent to an operational agreement with immediate effect if the proposed treaty can’t be agreed upon. The treaty, or any similar executive agreements, could result in a massive transfer of wealth from the United States to third world countries, tax hikes, price inflation, job losses and more damage to the faltering American economy. A draft of the treaty includes establishing a new world government along with a world energy tax. Were such a treaty ratified, it could be a threat to the sovereignty of the United States.
If domestic cap-and-trade legislation were passed, it could result in a loss of 1.9 million American jobs in 2012 and 2.5 million American jobs by 2025. From 2012-2019, the CBO estimates direct government spending at $822 billion with revenue at $845 billion from taxes on energy producers.
The No Cap-and-Trade Coalition has launched a petition on its website at www.NoCapAndTrade.com and through it, has transmitted over 150,000 citizen messages to the president and Congress in opposition to cap and trade schemes. Member organizations have been independently working in the fight against cap-and-trade and the Copenhagen treaty and some are running advertisements to educate the public.
CORE plans to help the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition work with lawmakers to understand that only through the free-market development of technology and the refinement of conservation endeavors, can the United States achieve a sustainable energy policy for this generation and generations to come.
Obama’s plans for Copenhagen accord may violate US Constitution
President Obama’s plan for an international cap-and-trade agreement negotiated at the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference to go into “immediate effect” may violate the United States Constitution, claim representatives of the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition (see www.NoCapAndTrade.com).
Quoted in a Reuters news story today, Obama said, “Our aim is not a partial accord or a political declaration but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations and one that has immediate operational effect.”
“Today President Obama exhibited the arrogance commonly associated with dictators and tyrants,” said Jeff Davis, executive director of NoCapAndTrade.com. “It’s hard to believe that a former constitutional law professor could forget that treaties require Senate ratification.”
President Obama made the remarks amid heavy criticism from Europe about the lack of progress in the U.S. toward cap-and-trade legislation and the expected failure of the imminent Copenhagen negotiations.
But such “immediate operational effect” is impossible, said Davis.
“Article II of the Constitution requires that treaties are approved by two-thirds of the Senate, so President Obama can’t just sign-up the U.S. and then start enforcing treaty provisions,” observed Davis. “Additionally, the cap-and-trade bill now in the Senate isn’t anywhere close to having the 60 votes necessary to avoid filibuster ─ trying to get 67 votes for a climate treaty looks pretty unlikely right now,” Davis added.
President Obama might have been thinking of using the EPA to regulate carbon when he made his statement. The EPA has proposed to designate carbon dioxide as a hazard to the public welfare and to regulate it under the Clean Air Act.
“If President Obama signed an agreement in Copenhagen and then tried to implement it through the EPA and Clean Air Act,” observed JunkScience.com’s Steve Milloy, the President would immediately be at war with Congress, including almost a two dozen Democratic Senators who are concerned about the harm cap-and-trade would do to the economy.”
The German magazine Der Spiegel criticized President Obama this week, asserting he’d been “lying to” and “betraying” Europe in failing to advance cap-and-trade in the U.S.
“President Obama is Europe’s last hope for ensnaring and crippling the U.S. with cap-and-trade,” said Milloy. “His desperate statement today indicates he’s feeling that pressure.”
U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday next month’s climate talks in Copenhagen should cut a deal with “immediate operational effect”, even if its original aim of a legally binding pact is not achievable.
Obama was speaking after talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao in which he said the world’s top two greenhouse gas emitters had agreed to take “significant” action to mitigate their output of carbon dioxide.
“Our aim (in Copenhagen) … is not a partial accord or a political declaration but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations and one that has immediate operational effect,” Obama said.
Denmark, host of the Dec. 7-18 climate talks, welcomed Obama’s comments and said it expected the United States and all developed nations to promise firm emissions cuts and new cash to help the poor cope with global warming, even if no treaty text could be agreed.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen won backing on Sunday from Obama and other leaders at an Asia-Pacific summit for his scaled-down plan for a politically binding deal, with a legally binding one delayed until 2010.
“The American president endorsed our approach, implying that all developed countries will need to bring strong reduction targets to the negotiating table in Copenhagen,” he told about 40 environment ministers meeting in the Danish capital.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also keen that the momentum for a deal should be maintained.
“We will make very clear that we continue to support ambitious goals for Copenhagen,” she told reporters before a cabinet meeting.
“We must do everything to ensure that we move quickly to get a binding agreement. Even if this can’t be reached in Copenhagen, it can’t be pushed back forever.”
In a major blow to the campaign against the presumed threat of global warming, world leaders acknowledge that a legally binding global treaty won’t be approved at next month’s 192-nation climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The concession Sunday significantly delays U.N. efforts to orchestrate a treaty to limit greenhouse gases to replace the Kyoto treaty, which expires in 2012. Nations like the United States and poorer nations share the blame for the missed deadline. Their concerns are similar to our own.
Developed nations are reluctant to limit domestic greenhouse gas emissions for fear of harming their already slumping economies. They also resist subsidizing poorer nations’ efforts. Meanwhile, developing nations, like China and India, refuse to adopt restrictions unless wealthier nations like the U.S. compensate them for the cost.
This could be a long-term standoff. It’s an understandably worldwide reluctance to commit what increasingly looked like economic suicide.
The proposed 20-percent greenhouse-gas reduction by 2020 would mean the U.S. returning to 1977 emission levels. That would “radically change both the U.S. economy and our personal lives,” according to the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonprofit organization of energy and environmental policy experts and scientists.
“Car and truck miles traveled would have to be reduced by one-third (or fuel efficiency improved by one-third, difficult to achieve in 10 years), which would seriously reduce travel and transportation, and likely force changes in automobile design that consumers would not like,” the NCPA says. The amount of coal burned to create electricity would have to be cut in half without feasible alternatives to pick up the slack.
Such concerns so far block congressional efforts. Senators from industrial, carbon-emitting states are reluctant to impose regulations that will put their constituencies at an economic disadvantage.
“If we passed a bill that the rest of the world didn’t follow,” observed Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, “then Uncle Sam could soon become Uncle Sucker and export all of our jobs to China.”
Yesterday British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issue dire warnings about global catastrophes that are to come if world leaders fail to come to an agreement and sign the Climate Treaty in Copenhagen this December. His hyperbole sounds a lot like that of Al Gore in his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” It is interesting to note that a British judge ruled that Gore’s movie contained 9 significant errors that had to be corrected before it could be shown in British schools. We are wondering if the judge might not want to issue a ruling on Gordon Brown’s speech as well.
On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change skeptic, gave a presentation in St. Paul, MN. In this 4-minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty, scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Lord Monckton served as a policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He has repeatedly challenged Al Gore to a debate to which Gore has refused. Monckton sued to stop Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” from being shown in British schools due to its inaccuracies. The judge found in-favor of Monckton, ordering 9 serious errors in the film to be corrected. Lord Monckton travels internationally in an attempt to educating the public about the myth of global warming.
There has been considerable debate raised about Monckton’s conclusion that the Copenhagen Treaty would cede US sovereignty. His comments appear to be based upon his interpretation of the The Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution (Article VI, paragraph 2). This clause establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. TREATIES as the supreme law of the land. Concerns have been raised in the past that a particularly ambitious treaty may supersede the US Constitution. In the 1950s, a constitutional amendment, known as the Bricker Amendment, was proposed in response to such fears, but it failed to pass. You can read more about the Bricker Amendment in a 1953 Time Magazine article.
White House Calls Agreement With China, India and South Africa a ‘First Step’
President Obama’s plan for an international cap-and-trade agreement negotiated at the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference to go into “immediate effect” may violate the United States Constitution, claim representatives of the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition (see www.NoCapAndTrade.com).
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