Teh One Who Knocks
08-27-2014, 10:46 AM
The Associated Press and Josh Gardner for MailOnline
http://i.imgur.com/i6FpWqD.jpg
Barack Obama is pursuing a sweeping international climate change agreement that would compel the U.S. and other nations to cut emissions, all without getting the okay from Congress.
While the president may not enter into legally binding treaties without backing from two-thirds of the Senate, he and climate negotiators intend to sidestep the Constitutional rule by agreeing to what they call a 'politically binding' deal.
It's a move that has already infuriated congressional Republicans in coal and gas producing states.
Meanwhile, Tuesday's New York Times report on the proposed deal comes just as a United Nations report on the imminent and irreversible damage of man-made climate change was leaked widely to the press.
'If you want a deal that includes all the major emitters, including the U.S., you cannot realistically pursue a legally binding treaty at this time,' Clinton administration climate change official Paul Bledsoe told the New York Times.
Instead, Obama's deal would blend legally binding conditions the US already agreed to in a 1992 treaty with voluntary pledges to enact carbon-cutting domestic laws.
In essence, the Times reports, the deal would be an update to the treaty 'and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.'
For Republican leaders, it was another tiresome example of Obama's willingness to use executive power to work around Congress.
'Unfortunately, this would be just another of many examples of the Obama administration's tendency to abide by laws that it likes and to disregard laws it doesn't like — and to ignore the elected representatives of the people when they don't agree,' Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told the Times.
The deal would require nations to enact new policies but only pledge to specific emissions cuts and to send funds to poorer countries in order to help them cut their own emissions.
According to an international science report, the time is now or never to curb global emissions if 'severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems' are to be avoided.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday sent governments a final draft of its synthesis report, which combines three earlier, gigantic documents by the Nobel Prize-winning group. There is little in the report that wasn't in the other more-detailed versions, but the language is more stark and the report attempts to connect the different scientific disciplines studying problems caused by the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas.
The 127-page draft, obtained by The Associated Press, paints a harsh warning of what's causing global warming and what it will do to humans and the environment. It also describes what can be done about it.
'Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,' the report says. The final report will be issued after governments and scientists go over the draft line by line in an October conference in Copenhagen.
Depending on circumstances and values, 'currently observed impacts might already be considered dangerous,' the report says. It mentions extreme weather and rising sea levels, such as heat waves, flooding and droughts. It even raises, as an earlier report did, the idea that climate change will worsen violent conflicts and refugee problems and could hinder efforts to grow more food. And ocean acidification, which comes from the added carbon absorbed by oceans, will harm marine life, it says.
Without changes in greenhouse gas emissions, 'climate change risks are likely to be high or very high by the end of the 21st century,' the report says.
In 2009, countries across the globe set a goal of limiting global warming to about another 2 degrees Fahrenheit above current levels. But the report says that it is looking more likely that the world will shoot past that point. Limiting warming to that much is possible but would require dramatic and immediate cuts in carbon dioxide pollution.
The report says if the world continues to spew greenhouse gases at its accelerating rate, it's likely that by mid-century temperatures will increase by about another 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) compared to temperatures from 1986 to 2005. And by the end of the century, that scenario will bring temperatures that are about 6.7 degrees warmer (3.7 degrees Celsius).
'The report tells us once again what we know with a greater degree of certainty: that climate change is real, it is caused by us, and it is already causing substantial damage to us and our environment,' Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann wrote in an email. 'If there is one take home point of this report it is this: We have to act now.'
John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, is in the tiny minority of scientists who are skeptical of mainstream science's claim that global warming is a major problem. He says people will do OK: 'Humans are clever. We shall adapt to whatever happens.'
While projections show that the world will warm and climate will change, there's still a level of uncertainty about how much, and that makes the problem all about how much risk we accept, said MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel.
If it's soon and only a little risk, he said, that's not too bad, but when you look at the risk curve the other end of it is 'very frightening.'
The report used the word risk 351 times in just 127 pages.
http://i.imgur.com/i6FpWqD.jpg
Barack Obama is pursuing a sweeping international climate change agreement that would compel the U.S. and other nations to cut emissions, all without getting the okay from Congress.
While the president may not enter into legally binding treaties without backing from two-thirds of the Senate, he and climate negotiators intend to sidestep the Constitutional rule by agreeing to what they call a 'politically binding' deal.
It's a move that has already infuriated congressional Republicans in coal and gas producing states.
Meanwhile, Tuesday's New York Times report on the proposed deal comes just as a United Nations report on the imminent and irreversible damage of man-made climate change was leaked widely to the press.
'If you want a deal that includes all the major emitters, including the U.S., you cannot realistically pursue a legally binding treaty at this time,' Clinton administration climate change official Paul Bledsoe told the New York Times.
Instead, Obama's deal would blend legally binding conditions the US already agreed to in a 1992 treaty with voluntary pledges to enact carbon-cutting domestic laws.
In essence, the Times reports, the deal would be an update to the treaty 'and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.'
For Republican leaders, it was another tiresome example of Obama's willingness to use executive power to work around Congress.
'Unfortunately, this would be just another of many examples of the Obama administration's tendency to abide by laws that it likes and to disregard laws it doesn't like — and to ignore the elected representatives of the people when they don't agree,' Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told the Times.
The deal would require nations to enact new policies but only pledge to specific emissions cuts and to send funds to poorer countries in order to help them cut their own emissions.
According to an international science report, the time is now or never to curb global emissions if 'severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems' are to be avoided.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday sent governments a final draft of its synthesis report, which combines three earlier, gigantic documents by the Nobel Prize-winning group. There is little in the report that wasn't in the other more-detailed versions, but the language is more stark and the report attempts to connect the different scientific disciplines studying problems caused by the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas.
The 127-page draft, obtained by The Associated Press, paints a harsh warning of what's causing global warming and what it will do to humans and the environment. It also describes what can be done about it.
'Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,' the report says. The final report will be issued after governments and scientists go over the draft line by line in an October conference in Copenhagen.
Depending on circumstances and values, 'currently observed impacts might already be considered dangerous,' the report says. It mentions extreme weather and rising sea levels, such as heat waves, flooding and droughts. It even raises, as an earlier report did, the idea that climate change will worsen violent conflicts and refugee problems and could hinder efforts to grow more food. And ocean acidification, which comes from the added carbon absorbed by oceans, will harm marine life, it says.
Without changes in greenhouse gas emissions, 'climate change risks are likely to be high or very high by the end of the 21st century,' the report says.
In 2009, countries across the globe set a goal of limiting global warming to about another 2 degrees Fahrenheit above current levels. But the report says that it is looking more likely that the world will shoot past that point. Limiting warming to that much is possible but would require dramatic and immediate cuts in carbon dioxide pollution.
The report says if the world continues to spew greenhouse gases at its accelerating rate, it's likely that by mid-century temperatures will increase by about another 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) compared to temperatures from 1986 to 2005. And by the end of the century, that scenario will bring temperatures that are about 6.7 degrees warmer (3.7 degrees Celsius).
'The report tells us once again what we know with a greater degree of certainty: that climate change is real, it is caused by us, and it is already causing substantial damage to us and our environment,' Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann wrote in an email. 'If there is one take home point of this report it is this: We have to act now.'
John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, is in the tiny minority of scientists who are skeptical of mainstream science's claim that global warming is a major problem. He says people will do OK: 'Humans are clever. We shall adapt to whatever happens.'
While projections show that the world will warm and climate will change, there's still a level of uncertainty about how much, and that makes the problem all about how much risk we accept, said MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel.
If it's soon and only a little risk, he said, that's not too bad, but when you look at the risk curve the other end of it is 'very frightening.'
The report used the word risk 351 times in just 127 pages.