France’s President Macron appeals to Americans to ‘make our planet great again’
Category Archives: climate change
Following Donald Trump’s failure in leadership on climate change, Jerry Brown steps on world stage
Politico reports: For the past two years, California Gov. Jerry Brown has been aggressively recruiting other state and local governments to sign onto their own, sub-national climate pact.
But that campaign has taken new urgency under President Donald Trump, who announced Thursday that he’ll withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. It’s a reflection of the roiling conflict between the president and the nation’s most populous state, but also the ambition of a governor who, after a lifetime in politics, is seizing an unexpected opening on an international stage.
“I’m on the side of the angels,” the former Jesuit seminarian said in an interview before flying on Friday to China, where he will rally support for his climate policies next week. “I’m going to do everything I can, and people are going to join with me.”
Brown, now 79 and in his final term, has long championed environmental causes, promoting conservation and smog-related policies when he was governor before, from 1975 to 1983, and overseeing a dramatic expansion of California’s greenhouse gas reduction standards since returning to office in 2011. Roughly 170 jurisdictions, including Canada and Mexico, have endorsed Brown’s non-binding agreement embracing efforts to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold beyond which many scientists predict catastrophic consequences.
But world leaders, not governors, sign international agreements with the force of law, and for years Brown was relegated to a supporting role. Only after the election of Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, did Brown’s climate diplomacy find new prominence as a counterweight to a Republican-held White House.
“If Obama was still in office, this phenomenon would not be occurring,” said former California Gov. Gray Davis, Brown’s one-time chief of staff. “But Jerry keeps pushing … People, when they think of climate change, see Jerry Brown as a legitimate alternative [to Washington]. It’s not make believe. It’s real.” [Continue reading…]
These titans of industry just broke with Trump’s idiotic decision to exit the Paris accords
The Washington Post reports: Thirty states and scores of companies said Thursday that they would press ahead with their climate policies and pursue lower greenhouse gas emissions, breaking sharply with President Trump’s decision to exit the historic Paris climate accord.
In a pointed rebuttal to Trump’s announcement in the rose garden of the White House, New York’s governor Andrew M. Cuomo unveiled a plan to invest $1.65 billion in renewable energy and energy efficiency on Thursday, the largest ever procurement of renewable energy by an American state.
Meanwhile, more than two dozen big companies — including Apple, Morgan Stanley, and Royal Dutch Shell — urged Trump not to exit the Paris agreement on Thursday.
President Trump framed his renunciation of the Paris climate accord as an historic moment in defense of American workers and the economy. But the actions of state capitols and corporate board rooms offer a counterpoint to the rationale behind Trump’s move.
Across the nation and the economy, renewable energy technologies have taken root and have gathered momentum of their own while creating thousands of new jobs, state and corporate officials said. And the pressure on executives of companies to address the issue have grown greater as major financial firms for the first time press the issue. [Continue reading…]
Tesla CEO Elon Musk:
Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein:
Today's decision is a setback for the environment and for the U.S.'s leadership position in the world. #ParisAgreement
— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) June 1, 2017
General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt:
Disappointed with today’s decision on the Paris Agreement. Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend on government.
— Jeff Immelt (@JeffImmelt) June 1, 2017
Google CEO Sundar Pichai:
Disappointed with today’s decision. Google will keep working hard for a cleaner, more prosperous future for all.
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) June 1, 2017
As Trump shirks responsibility for tackling climate change, Germany and China step up as global leaders
Reuters reports: Germany and China vowed on Thursday to expand their partnership, pledging to continue to fight climate change hours before U.S. President Donald Trump announces whether Washington will quit a global climate deal.
Germany is the first stop for Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on a European tour that comes amid growing concern in Germany over some of Trump’s policies, especially on climate change and protectionism.
“China has become a more important and strategic partner,” Merkel said at a joint news conference with Li, pointing to political, economic, social and cultural ties.
“We are living in times of global uncertainty and see that we have a responsibility to expand our partnership in all the different areas and to push for a world order based on law,” she said.
The two leaders held wide-ranging talks that covered issues including trade, a European Union-China investment deal, civil rights, the North Korea crisis and climate change. They also signed a multitude of business deals.
“We are both ready to contribute to stability in the world,” the Chinese premier said. [Continue reading…]
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else, as Churchill might have said.
But the twisted line now coming from team Trump is that terrorism poses a greater global threat than climate change — “a beheading is worse than a sunburn,” as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee put it on Sunday.
That’s an argument that might sound persuasive to the scientifically illiterate audience that watches Fox News and yet however ignorant Trump, Huckerbee and their cohort indeed are, I doubt that their powers of reasoning are actually this impaired.
This isn’t a case of arriving at differing conclusions after sober risk assessment. It’s simply a case of outright denial.
The climate skeptics are not actually skeptical; they refuse to face evidence that points towards implications that they find unacceptable.
Their investment in the past is so deep that they refuse to look at the future.
If the reporting has been accurate, Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris accord comes in spite of appeals not to do so from his own daughter.
As loyal as she might feel towards her father, she should now understand that he has no loyalty to her.
To Ivanka and the rest of the world, Donald Trump’s message is ultimately this: I don’t give a damn about what happens to you or anyone else after I die.
Exxon and Conoco reiterate support for Paris climate deal
Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump faces some unlikely opposition to the idea of pulling the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate accord: Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips, two of the world’s biggest oil producers.
Both companies reiterated their support Wednesday for the global agreement to cut greenhouse gas pollution amid reports that Trump planned to ditch a pact he says hurts the U.S. economy. Their argument: The U.S. is better off with a seat at the table so it can influence global efforts to curb emissions that are largely produced by the fossil fuels they profit from.
Exxon Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods took it a step further during the company’s annual investor meeting in Dallas, saying that oil demand will continue to grow in the coming decades, even with the Paris agreement in place.
“Energy needs are a function of population and living standards,” Woods said in his first annual meeting since becoming chief executive officer on Jan. 1. “When it comes to policy, the goal should be to reduce emissions at the lowest cost to society.”
Woods has been a staunch advocate for keeping the U.S. in the Paris group, as was his predecessor Rex Tillerson, who is now Trump’s secretary of state. In his first blog post after becoming CEO, Woods advocated low-emission fuels, carbon capture and biofuels as tools for meeting the goals of the Paris agreement. [Continue reading…]
U.S. coal companies opposed withdrawal from Paris accord
Reuters reports: U.S. coal company shares dipped alongside renewable energy stocks on Wednesday after reports that President Donald Trump plans to pull the United States from a global accord on fighting climate change.
The market reaction reflects concerns, raised by some coal companies in recent months, that a U.S. exit from the Paris Climate Agreement could unleash a global backlash against coal interests outside the United States.
Peabody Energy, the largest publicly traded U.S. coal company dropped 2.2 percent to $24.29 a share, while Arch Coal fell 0.4 percent to $70.77.
A spokesman for Peabody said the company would support a decision by Trump to withdraw from the Paris deal because the “accord is flawed on a number of levels.”
Peabody, however, was among a handful of big coal companies that had argued that Trump should stay in the deal to help protect coal industry interests overseas, including by ensuring funding for coal-fired power plants and so-called “clean coal” technology.
Cloud Peak Energy Inc had also urged the Trump administration to stay in the Paris deal to prevent other nations from an aggressive turn against the global coal industry. Its shares were down 0.6 percent to $3.39. [Continue reading…]
Trump expected to pull U.S. from Paris climate accord
The New York Times reports: The exit of the United States, the world’s largest economy and second-largest greenhouse gas polluter would not dissolve the 195-nation pact, which was legally ratified last year, but it could set off a cascade of events that would have profound effects on the planet. Other countries that reluctantly joined the agreement could now withdraw or soften their commitments to cutting planet-warming pollution.
“The actions of the United States are bound to have a ripple effect in other emerging economies that are just getting serious about climate change, such as India, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton, and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that produces scientific reports designed to inform global policy makers.
Once the fallout settles, he added, “it is now far more likely that we will breach the danger limit of 3.6 degrees.” That is the average atmospheric temperature increase above which a future of extreme conditions is considered irrevocable.
The aim of the Paris agreement was to lower planet-warming emissions enough to avoid that threshold.
“We will see more extreme heat, damaging storms, coastal flooding and risks to food security,” Professor Oppenheimer said. “And that’s not the kind of world we want to live in.”
Foreign policy experts said the move could damage the United States’ credibility and weaken Mr. Trump’s efforts to negotiate issues far beyond climate change, like negotiating trade deals and combating terrorism.
“From a foreign policy perspective, it’s a colossal mistake — an abdication of American leadership ” said R. Nicholas Burns, a retired career diplomat and the under secretary of state during the presidency of George W. Bush.
“The success of our foreign policy — in trade, military, any other kind of negotiation — depends on our credibility. I can’t think of anything more destructive to our credibility than this,” he added. [Continue reading…]
Trump to withdraw from Paris climate deal
Politico reports: President Donald Trump is planning to pull the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement, according to a White House official, in a move that is certain to infuriate America’s allies across the globe and could destabilize the 2015 accord.
The upcoming decision is a victory for hardliners such as senior White House adviser Stephen Bannon, who argued that the deal would hobble the U.S. economy and Trump’s energy agenda, and a defeat for moderates like Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who feared that withdrawing would damage U.S. relations abroad. Trump had promised during the campaign to “cancel” the nearly 200-nation agreement, the most comprehensive climate pact ever negotiated.
Administration officials cautioned that they are still sorting out the details of how exactly Trump will withdraw, and one noted that nothing is final until an announcement is made.
But reaction from the international community was swift, without mentioning Trump by name. “Climate change is undeniable,” the United Nations tweeted from its official account Wednesday morning, quoting from a speech by Secretary General António Guterres. “Climate action is unstoppable. Climate solutions provide opportunities that are unmatchable.” [Continue reading…]
Theresa May accused of being ‘Trump’s mole’ in Europe after UK tries to water down EU climate change policy
The Independent reports: Theresa May has been accused of being Donald Trump’s “mole” in Europe after leaked documents showed the UK attempted to water down EU policies designed to tackle climate change.
While other European politicians have made clear to the Republican billionaire that his denial of climate science is a problem, the Prime Minister has remained resolutely silent on the issue.
Her visit to Washington – when the two leaders were pictured holding hands – was widely regarded as an attempt to build a strong relationship with Mr Trump, despite concerns about his attitudes towards women, migrants, Islam, Vladimir Putin’s Russia and other issues.
The leaked documents, obtained by Greenpeace’s Energydesk, show the UK tried to make a policy designed to improve energy efficiency – reducing greenhouse gas emissions and making goods cheaper to run for consumers – voluntary rather than mandatory.
It also essentially argued EU member states should be allowed to make no progress at all towards a 2030 target on renewable energy until the last moment.
Barry Gardiner, the shadow International Trade Secretary, who speaks on climate change issues as a result of Ms May’s decision to scrap the dedicated climate change Cabinet post, told The Independent: “After the G7 [meeting], the word was put out that six countries were on track, pursuing the objective of the Paris Agreement. Only one country, America, was out of step.
“That simply has been proven not to be the case by this leak, which shows Donald Trump actually has a mole within the EU and that mole is the UK.
“The UK is, behind the scenes, trying to water down the commitments and make them voluntary instead of mandatory.”
He said the changes proposed by the UK were not “cosmetic” – to make targets “aspirational”, rather than legally enforceable, was “ridiculous”. [Continue reading…]
If Trump pulls out of the Paris accord he will be serving Putin and turning the U.S. into a rogue nation
Joe Romm writes: President Donald Trump has privately told “confidants” he intends to leave the Paris accord on climate change, “according to three sources with direct knowledge,” Axios reported Saturday.
After persuading voters that America isn’t great anymore, Trump apparently intends to make sure of it — by having this country lead the effort to kill humanity’s last, best hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.
Quitting a unanimous agreement by 190+ nations after a two-decade negotiating process would make us a rogue nation, a global pariah, like Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And, it could make Putin happy, as we’ll see.
While Trump tweeted out Saturday from Italy that “I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the G7 meeting, “The whole discussion about climate has been difficult, or rather very unsatisfactory.” She added, “Here we have the situation that six members, or even seven if you want to add the EU, stand against one.”
Axios notes that “Although Trump made it clear during the campaign and in multiple conversations before his overseas trip that he favored withdrawal, he has been known to abruptly change his mind.” They add, however, top political appointees at EPA “were relieved” when Trump refused to join a consensus G7 statement reaffirming “their strong commitment” to the Paris accord.
While the White House’s attack on domestic climate action already undermines the global effort to avert climate catastrophe, we shouldn’t discount the importance of a U.S. withdrawal from Paris — especially if Trump teams with Russian President Vladimir Putin to undermine the whole global negotiating process.
“Will Trump repay Putin by ending Russian sanctions and killing the Paris climate deal?” was a question I posed back in January, examining the growing evidence Russia helped elect Trump and questioning what kind of quid pro quo there could be. Politically, Trump can’t end the sanctions now given the explosive news of recent weeks on the FBI investigation into collusion between his campaign in Russia.
But Trump can pull out of Paris, an agreement Putin has never liked, because it means a large fraction of Russia’s fossil fuel reserves would remain in the ground, unable to provide vast revenue for him and the Kremlin. [Continue reading…]
To hell with the world: Trump reported to have decided to withdraw from Paris climate accord
Axios reports: President Trump has privately told multiple people, including EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, that he plans to leave the Paris agreement on climate change, according to three sources with direct knowledge. [Continue reading…]
I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2017
Trump’s tweet implies he hasn’t already made this decision and yet the idea that he might be both undecided and also set an arbitrary deadline for making his mind up, would be to trivialize the issue — not withstanding his incapacity to think deeply about anything.
There seems little reason to doubt that what Trump’s tweet actually means even if this is not literally what he says, is that he will announce his decision next week — that decision most likely became even more firm while he was in Europe where he was received with thinly veiled contempt and derision.
The logic (for Trump) in his delayed announcement is probably that this is how he delivers his counterpunch — as though by tearing up the accord, he gets the last laugh.
That’ll show them, the self-preening orange man thinks, as he engineers another assault on humanity and the planet.
Trump delays decision on Paris climate accords
The New York Times reports: President Trump declined to endorse the Paris climate accords on Saturday, saying he would decide in the coming days whether the United States would pull out of the 195-nation agreement.
Mr. Trump’s lack of a decision after three days of contentious private debate and intense lobbying by other leaders came even as the six other Group of 7 nations reaffirmed their commitment to cutting planet-warming emissions in a joint statement issued on Saturday afternoon.
The lobbying essentially ended in a stalemate, with Mr. Trump remaining opaque about his intentions regarding the 2015 pact as he prepared to return home after a nine-day overseas trip. The impasse underscored the continuing division between the United States and its allies about the global environmental pact.
The joint communiqué made clear that all the G-7 nations except the United States remained determined to carry out the Paris agreement. It said: “Expressing understanding for this process, the heads of state and of government of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, and the presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission reaffirm their strong commitment to swiftly implement the Paris Agreement.”
In a message on Twitter posted before the joint statement was officially released, Mr. Trump said: “I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!”
The reaction was swift and critical. Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said: “President Trump’s continued waffling on whether to stay in or withdraw from the Paris Agreement made it impossible to reach consensus at the Taormina summit on the need for ambitious climate action. But he stands in stark isolation.” [Continue reading…]
Pope lends weight to G-7 push to bind Trump to climate deal
Bloomberg reports: Pope Francis joined an international chorus urging Donald Trump to meet U.S. commitments on climate change in talks at the Vatican Wednesday.
Francis gave the U.S. president a copy of his 2015 encyclical calling for urgent, drastic cuts in fossil-fuel emissions after a half-hour meeting in his private study.
Francis’s choice of gift suggests he is adding his voice to those pressing Trump not to renege on the Paris accord, which is the cornerstone of global efforts to limit climate change. The Vatican said in a statement that the talks focused on international affairs and the promotion of peace, with particular emphasis on health care, education and immigration.
“Thank you, thank you,” Trump told Francis as they shook hands after the meeting. “I won’t forget what you said.” Trump has said climate change might be a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.
For his part, Trump gave Francis a special edition of the works of U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King. [Continue reading…]
Three reasons to believe in China’s renewable energy boom
Beth Gardiner writes: The squares of silicon are hardly thicker than sheets of paper, each about six inches by six, with narrow stripes of silver. They come into the factory by the thousands, stacked in cardboard boxes, and within hours, they’ll be ready to leave again.
The squares are solar cells, and in this plant two hours’ drive from Shanghai, workers in bright blue uniforms and white lab coats run the machines that assemble them, row by row, into more familiar-looking panels, ready to be installed on rooftops or in large arrays and begin turning sunlight into electricity.
Chinese manufacturing has changed the economics of renewable power around the world, making solar generation cost-competitive with electricity from fossil fuels like natural gas and even coal. It has brought change closer to home too, as China rolls out the world’s biggest investment in clean energy—motivated in part by a desire to ease the atrocious air pollution that kills an estimated 1.1 million of its people every year.
“The installation rates are absolutely mind-blowing,” says Lauri Myllyvirta, an energy and air pollution expert at Greenpeace in Beijing. China added 35 gigawatts of new solar generation in 2016 alone. “That’s almost equal to Germany’s total capacity, just in one year,” Myllyvirta says. [Continue reading…]
Focus on carbon removal a ‘high-stakes gamble’
Climate Central reports: The manmade emissions fueling global warming are accumulating so quickly in the atmosphere that climate change could spiral out of control before humanity can take measures drastic enough to cool the earth’s fever, many climate scientists say.
The most important way the earth’s rising temperature can be tempered is to reduce the use of fossil fuels. But scientists say another critical solution is to physically remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere — something called “negative emissions” — so that carbon dioxide and rising temperatures could peak, and then begin to decline over time.
Many of the assumptions underlying the landmark Paris Climate Agreement rely on the idea that humans will be actively removing carbon from the atmosphere late this century because reducing emissions won’t be enough to prevent global warming from exceeding levels considered dangerous.
But that assumption relies on technology that hasn’t been proven to work on a global scale. Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a scale large enough to slow global warming is untested, and the technology is in its infancy. The effect it could have on the earth is largely unknown, and some scientists warn that some of the consequences of using negative emissions technology could be catastrophic. [Continue reading…]
Will Trump’s spiraling constitutional crisis end up saving the Paris climate deal?
Joe Romm writes: Will President Donald Trump’s surprise move to fire FBI director James Comey this week change the dynamics that had appeared to be leading toward a decision by the Trump administration to exit the landmark Paris climate accord?
Some say yes. “Every president in the modern era who gets into trouble at home, looks to opportunities to engage other leaders on the world stage publicly and cooperatively to demonstrate their legitimacy,” Andrew Light, senior fellow at World Resources Institute and former U.S. State Department climate official, told me.
Exiting the Paris agreement would make it all but impossible for Trump to work with other world leaders on a global stage.
Backing up a couple of weeks, before the stunning Comey decision and constantly-shifting rationale behind it, things were looking very bad for global climate action. [Continue reading…]
In win for environmentalists, Senate keeps an Obama-era climate change rule
The New York Times reports: In a surprising victory for President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy, the Senate voted on Wednesday to uphold an Obama-era climate change regulation to control the release of methane from oil and gas wells on public land.
Senators voted 51 to 49 to block consideration of a resolution to repeal the 2016 Interior Department rule to curb emissions of methane, a powerful planet-warming greenhouse gas. Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine, all Republicans who have expressed concern about climate change and backed legislation to tackle the issue, broke with their party to join Democrats and defeat the resolution.
The vote also marked the first, and probably the only, defeat of a stream of resolutions over the last four months — pursued through the once-obscure Congressional Review Act — to unwind regulations approved late in the Obama administration.
In anticipation of Republican defections, President Trump sent Vice President Mike Pence to the Senate floor to break a tie vote. But with three members of his own party breaking away, Mr. Pence stood aside.
“We were surprised and thrilled to win on this,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of the League of Conservation Voters, which, along with other environmental groups, has been lobbying Republicans for weeks to vote against the repeal of the methane rule. “This is clearly a huge win for our health and our climate.” [Continue reading…]
Trump aides postpone meeting as clashes over Paris climate deal continue
The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s advisers have postponed another meeting on whether the US should remain in the Paris climate agreement, amid growing nervousness from businesses and other countries over a potential withdrawal.
A gathering of Trump’s top advisers was set to take place on Tuesday but has been postponed due to scheduling conflicts, as the administration ponders US involvement in the international climate deal.
The unusually public internal debate over the future of the deal has shown deep divisions within Trump’s administration as to whether to ditch the pact, which was struck in 2015 when nearly 200 countries agreed to curb their greenhouse gas emissions to avoid dangerous climate change.
Trump, who promised to “cancel” the agreement during the presidential election campaign, has said there will be a “big decision” on the accord ahead of a G7 meeting of countries later this month in Sicily. On Tuesday however, Sean Spicer, Trump’s spokesman, said a decision will now be made after the G7 meeting. [Continue reading…]