The US and China: wishin’ and hopin’
The US and China have signed an emissions agreement that, as far as I can tell, is a lot of hot air.
It’s about what each would really like to do—actually, what they’d like their successors to do:
Today, the Presidents of the United States and China announced their respective post-2020 actions on climate change, recognizing that these actions are part of the longer range effort to transition to low-carbon economies, mindful of the global temperature goal of 2℃. The United States intends to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its emissions by 26%-28% below its 2005 level in 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28%. China intends to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and to make best efforts to peak early and intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20% by 2030. Both sides intend to continue to work to increase ambition over time.
…The United States and China hope that by announcing these targets now, they can inject momentum into the global climate negotiations and inspire other countries to join in coming forward with ambitious actions as soon as possible, preferably by the first quarter of 2015. The two Presidents resolved to work closely together over the next year to address major impediments to reaching a successful global climate agreement in Paris.
What would they like to do? Obama wants to cut US emissions, China wants to keep going till 2030. And this just might be my favorite phrase: “Both sides intend to continue to work to increase ambition over time.”
Well, some people are very impressed:
“This is, in my view, the most important bilateral climate announcement ever,” said David Sandalow, formerly a top environmental official at the White House and the Energy Department. “It sends the signal the two largest emitters in the world are working together to address this problem.”
It certainly sends a signal that they’re willing to pay lip service to it. Still not sure exactly what China is even paying lip service to here, but maybe that’s just because I’m a “stupid American,” as Jonathan Gruber would say.
But I’m not so stupid that I don’t know that Obama already wanted to do this in the US, and that he has long planned to do it through—you guessed it!—executive action:
The coming rollout includes a Dec. 1 proposal by EPA to tighten limits on smog-causing ozone, which business groups say could be the costliest federal regulation of all time; a final rule Dec. 19 for clamping down on disposal of power plants’ toxic coal ash; the Jan. 1 start date for a long-debated rule prohibiting states from polluting the air of their downwind neighbors; and a Jan. 8 deadline for issuing a final rule restricting greenhouse gas emissions from future power plants. That last rule is a centerpiece of Obama’s most ambitious environmental effort, the big plan for combating climate change that he announced at Georgetown University in June 2013.
…And on top of all that, the administration is expected in the coming weeks to pledge millions of dollars ”” and possibly billions ”” to help poor countries deal with the effects of climate change…
The kicker for Republicans eager to stomp* all over the president’s agenda: Congress has little immediate recourse..
The word from the Hill “is that McConnell really is interested in trying to show that Republicans can get things done, so I think they’re going to try to come up with some narrow bills where the President could sign,” Holmstead said.
Among other possibilities, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) hopes to bring up legislation that would shift authority away from EPA on regulating coal ash ponds. Given the agency’s previous reluctance to deal with coal ash at all, the White House might not fight him too hard…
Former Sen. Tim Wirth, a Democrat who served as the Clinton administration’s top international climate negotiator, thinks Obama will push through his main agenda regardless of what Republicans come up with.
“He’ll just do what he’s going to do anyway,” Wirth said.
Indeed.
Most of these regulations were carefully postponed till after the 2012 and 2014 elections, for obvious reasons.
[ * NOTE: The use of the word “stomp” there is rather typical of the way the MSM writes these days about Republicans. It expresses the idea of stopping or destroying something, of course, but it also conjures up the vision of a child having a temper tantrum, or an angry person out-of-control in a fit of rage. It also makes it personal: they are “eager” to “stomp all over” the President’s agenda. They’re not just against these policies and also outraged at the president’s by-passing Congress; no, that wouldn’t convey enough vindictive petulance.]
Obama probably can’t even screw in a light bulb. I can’t wait till he jumps on the EU bandwagon to get rid of 2-slice toasters. The only thing he gets done is turning out protesters, and that’s what he wants now–more screaming idiots to distract the public from what’s really happening in the country. We really need a campaign to remind people that the Energiewende cost a fortune, hasn’t worked well, and increased sales of Chinese-made solar panels.
China loves this agreement because it will make people stop yelling at them for 15 years.
All the AGW zealots predictions were wrong. Dr. Douglas Hoyt, PhD physics, kept a score card on their predictions. Remember the prophet Al Gore predicted the Artic would be ice free by the end of this year. He lives in fantasy land.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/climate-change.htm
A true roll back in carbon dioxide partial pressure would curtail agricultural output and the regrowth of all tropical forests.
In the tropics, the rate limiting compound is carbon dioxide, water and sun are not limiting.
Likewise, in modern agriculture, fertilizers and irrigation are tuned in to produce maximum results. Again, the rate limiting compound is carbon dioxide — from the air.
This reality is acknowledged in all bio-diesel programs. Carbon dioxide gas is force fed to the algae, usually at twenty times ordinary partial pressures. Growth is, of course, explosive.
NASA studied all of this fifty-years ago. Again it was established that carbon dioxide — at our normal levels — was THE rate limiting compound for plant growth. (algae, again, was used)
The bottom line is that global harvests would actually shrink if carbon dioxide partial pressure dropped back.
There is the widespread tendency to overlook carbon dioxide as a rate limiting compound because it’s available at the same concentrations world wide. Fish don’t recognize water. We ignore air.
Outside of NASA, and the bio-diesel crowd, everyone ignores carbon dioxide.
BTW, in the ancient past the partial pressure of carbon dioxide was as much as fifty times as great as at present. That gas now holds up the white cliffs of Dover — and a lot more.
Chinese Espionage, Weapons Shift Asian Power Balance
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/110714-725617-chinese-military-advancement-shift-asian-power-balance.htm
The Chinese just played us for suckers again. Since when have communists actually cared about the environment? But by agreeing to it, they got some concessions out of Obama. The first concession we now know is that we will not even lend moral support to Tibetan independence. We can be sure that there were other concessions made by Obama that will in time emerge. And in 2030 the Chinese can simply abrogate the agreement and demand new ‘negotiations’.
Obama got what he wanted too. By getting the Chinese to formally agree, he gets the political leverage to move forward with his climate change agenda. The impact of which will be profound.
The agreement can be summarized this way:
You (the U.S.) agreed to spend money to buy a new car that get’s better gas mileage and a new furnace that doesn’t burn as much natural gas. You also agreed to send donations to poor people who MAY use them to emit less CO2.
Your neighbors (the ChiComs) agreed to (maybe) buy a more efficient car and furnace in 2030.
Whatta deal! 🙁
Since this was not an actual treaty that requires the advice and consent of the Senate but an agreement, I believe that it only lasts the life of Obama’s administration, and if a new President wants to renegotiate it or even reject it outright, he can.
Its ‘green’ theater to drag down the economy even more while posing as the noble, visionary messiah.
Aside from the fact that AGW is the biggest fraud in human history, cheap, abundant energy is the lifeblood of a modern economy. There is no way that much carbon-based energy can be replaced with wind and solar.
If implemented, the treaty will handicap the American economy relative to other nations. This is of a piece with Obama’s redistributionist philosophy.
This is about permanently lowering the living standard of the American middle class. Obama’s hatred of White Americans is palpable. He thinks we’ve had it too good for too long and need to be taken down a few pegs. We need to have our noses rubbed in the poverty that “people of color” experience.
My hatred for that man is incandescent. He is literally Satanic.
Yes, this is as much about damaging the American economy as it is about satisfying the Enviro-Nazis. Obama sees it as ‘killing two birds with one stone’.
Obama, the Marxist with a huge-arse chip on his shoulder, negotiated with his fellow communists to deliver America’s economy, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, to the ChiCom butchers.
It’s all perfectly predictable — he, like both his vile parents, hates us and is doing everything he can to cripple us. Quite deliberately. I’m with Rickl.