NY Times: Steel Industry Is On The Rebound Under Trump
‘A perfect administration from the perspective of the steel industry’
Source: NY Times: Steel Industry Is On The Rebound Under Trump…
TILLERSON SAYS US WON’T BE RUSHED ON CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — Arctic nations have renewed calls for the world to address climate warming, but U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the United States will not rush to make a decision on its policies.
Tillerson spoke Thursday in Fairbanks, Alaska, at a meeting of the Arctic Council, an advisory group made up of the eight Arctic nations and indigenous groups.
The council adopted a nine-page “Fairbanks Declaration 2017,” which noted that the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of the global average. The document noted the importance of reducing soot and methane emissions and said climate change is the most serious threat to Arctic biodiversity.
Tillerson signed the document. But in opening remarks, he cautioned that the United States is reviewing several important policies, including how the Trump administration will approach the issue of climate change.
“We are appreciative that each of you has an important point of view, and you should know that we are taking the time to understand your concerns,” Tillerson told other representatives on the council. “We’re not going to rush to make a decision. We’re going to work to make the right decision for the United States.”
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FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — Arctic nations have renewed calls for the world to address climate warming, but U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the United …
A Trump climate betrayal?! US signs international declaration on climate change despite Trump’s past statements
US signs international declaration on climate change despite Trump’s past statements
President Trump has talked tough in the past about his skeptical views on climate change, his administration appears to be taking a more cautious approach to the issue on the world stage in the early days of his presidency. Rex Tillerson signed a document today calling climate change a “serious threat” to the Arctic and noting the need for action to reduce its potentially harmful effects. The document, known as the Fairbanks Declaration, concluded Tillerson’s chairing of a meeting of the Arctic Council, a board made up of indigenous groups and the eight countries bordering the Arctic, in Fairbanks, Alaska. While the council only has the power to issue advisories, the language in the statement signed by Tillerson comes in stark contrast to statements and promises made by President Trump about climate change. Trump has repeatedly called into question the science behind climate change, even calling it a “very expensive hoax.” During his 2016 campaign, Trump promised to pull out of the Paris accord and his administration has ordered cuts to funding for climate science and has slashed environmental regulations. While Tillerson endorsed the Arctic Council document, he cautioned that the U.S. would not be rushed into formulating its policy. “We’re not going to rush to make a decision. We’re going to work to make the right decision for the United States,” he said. The Trump administration has not come out with a decision on whether the U.S. will pull out of the Paris Climate accord signed under President Obama. That non-binding international agreement went into effect last year and calls for countries to set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Fairbanks proclamation says that “the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of the global average, resulting in 
Eyes on Paris climate pact as Tillerson hosts Arctic forum in shadow of Russia spat
AFP-JIJI
FAIRBANKS, ALASKA – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Alaska to play host to the eight nations of the Arctic Council on Thursday, trailed by burning questions about Russia and climate change.
The policy forum for the countries of the great white north got underway in the former gold prospecting town of Fairbanks, far away from the political frenzy gripping Washington.
But two of the questions hanging over President Donald Trump’s White House were also on envoy’s minds in Alaska.
Can Washington mend ties with Russia, represented in Fairbanks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and will Trump honor the U.S. pledges in the 2017 Paris climate change accord?
“We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow,” Tillerson warned guests at a dinner on the eve of the forum late Wednesday.
Science Unsettled: Why Trump Should Dump The UN Paris Climate Deal
…Climate Change: We keep hearing the “science is settled,” yet once again data emerge showing that there has been no appreciable warming now for 19 years. Memo to global warming advocates: People are starting to notice.
Of course, it is pretty clear from the record that temperatures have risen in the past 150 years or so. But that should hardly be surprising, given that the period lasting into the early 19th century was known as the “Little Ice Age.”
But more recently, alarms were sounded over the rise in 2015 and 2016 of global temperatures, even though the rise was a result of a temporary phenomenon — the “El Nino” effect of warming seawaters in the Pacific that create higher temperatures and weather disruptions around the world.
As Christopher Booker of the Sunday Telegraph in Britain noted this week, after being repeatedly warned about 2016 being “the hottest year on record,” we now have arrived at this: “In recent months global temperatures have plummeted by more than 0.6 degrees: just as happened 17 years ago after a similarly strong El Nino.”
By the way, those temperature readings are courtesy of satellites, which provide the most comprehensive and accurate temperature readings of all. Many of the scariest headlines come from far more limited, and localized, temperature readings, which can be deceptive.
Scare headlines about disappearing arctic ice are similarly being shown as overblown if not outright false. The Danish Meteorological Institute reports that since December Arctic temperatures have pretty much been below -20 degrees Celsius. Arctic ice and the Greenland ice cap are both expanding, not shrinking.
Al Gore Personally Pleads With Trump to Stay in the Paris Climate Agreement
By Michael Bastasch / @MikeBastasch /
Former Vice President Al Gore personally asked President Donald Trump not to withdraw the U.S. from a United Nations agreement aimed at limiting global warming, a source revealed.
Gore called Trump Tuesday morning to discuss the Paris Agreement that the Obama administration joined in 2016, the source told Axios. “Mr. Gore made the case for why the U.S. should stay in the agreement and meet our commitments,” a source close to Gore said.
Gore praised the Paris Agreement when it was first announced in 2015, calling it “a bold and historic agreement.”
The agreement requires countries to voluntarily submit plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and those plans are supposed to be ratcheted up every five years. White House officials are split on whether or not the U.S. should remain in the agreement. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner favor staying, while chief strategist Steve Bannon favors keeping the president’s pledge to withdraw.
Ivanka Trump and Kushner have been backed by State Department career staff and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Multinational corporations from Starbucks to Exxon Mobil Corp. favor staying in Paris as well. Some Republicans have argued the U.S. can stay in the Paris Agreement with a weakened pledge to cut emissions. That argument has been supported by former Obama administration climate diplomats who have an interest in not seeing their work thrown out.…
Trump Delays Decision on Paris Climate Accord Until After G7 Meeting
President to first meet with G-7 leaders in Italy before rendering final verdict President Donald Trump won’t make a decision on whether to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change until after he meets with G-7 leaders later this month, the White House’s top spokesman said Tuesday.
Source: Trump Delays Decision on Paris Climate Accord Until After G7 Meeting…
Trump administration’s delegation to UN climate meeting totals 7; France sends 42
By Chris Mooney
Washington Post
The United States government has sent just seven registered participants to a key United Nations meeting on the Paris climate agreement — a smaller delegation than Zimbabwe — underscoring the Trump administration’s deep ambivalence about the historic agreement.
White House officials are expected to huddle on Tuesday to discuss the fate of the agreement — with business leaders and the international community pressing the U.S. to stay in the agreement, and Trump’s conservative allies urging an exit.
The meeting in Bonn, Germany, represents the first of two gatherings this week where international partners will pressure the increasingly recalcitrant U.S. to affirm its role in the agreement of more than 190 nations.
Other industrialized nations such as China, France, and Germany each sent dozens of officials — the French delegation alone had 42 official participants. The U.S. sent 44 official participants just last year.…
Time for Trump to Fulfill Promise and Withdraw From Paris UN Climate Agreement
By Nicolas Loris & Brett Schaefer
President Donald Trump has promised to make a “big decision” in the next two weeks on the Paris climate accord after promising to “cancel” the agreement during the campaign last year.
Fundamentally, the Paris Agreement is a costly and ineffective approach to addressing global warming. There are compelling economic, environmental, and legal reasons for Trump to make good on his campaign promise, and the commonly heard arguments for remaining in the agreement do not pass muster.
The Paris Agreement, signed by more than 170 countries, aims to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The means of accomplishing this goal largely center on reducing carbon dioxide emissions by transitioning the global energy economy away from affordable, dependable conventional sources of energy.
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Countries involved in the agreement each submitted nationally determined contributions, setting their respective obligations for keeping temperatures in check.
As a member nation, the U.S. also submitted its goals under the Obama administration. The domestic regulations listed by the Obama administration aimed to reduce greenhouse gas levels across the entire economy by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2025.
The U.S. regulations alone would increase energy costs for U.S. families and businesses, causing an overall average shortfall of nearly 400,000 jobs and total income loss of more than $20,000 for a family of four by the year 2035.
Compliance with the Paris Agreement will cost the global economy trillions of dollars over the next 80 years. Yet the results will be almost zero reduction in projected warming, even if every country met their respective carbon dioxide reduction targets as promised under the agreement.…
WHITE HOUSE CLIMATE CHANGE MEETING POSTPONED
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has postponed a Tuesday meeting to discuss whether the United States should withdraw from the landmark international climate deal struck in Paris under the Obama administration.
The White House said late Monday that the meeting would be rescheduled. This is the second time a meeting of top aides on the issue has been delayed. Donald Trump pledged during the presidential campaign to renegotiate the accord, but he has wavered on the issue since winning the presidency. His top officials have appeared divided about what to do about the deal, under which the United States pledged to significantly reduce planet-warming carbon emissions in the coming decade. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former chief executive of the oil company Exxon, said at his Senate confirmation hearing in January that he supports staying in the deal. But Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has said the Paris pact “is a bad deal for America” that will cost jobs. Ivanka Trump, who serves as an adviser to her father, was supposed to meet separately Tuesday with Pruitt and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. That meeting is still expected to take place, according to a White House official who requested anonymity to discuss private talks. The Paris accord, signed by nearly 200 nations in 2015, was never ratified by the Senate due to the staunch oppositions of Republicans. It therefore does not have the force of a binding treaty, and the United States could potentially withdraw from the deal without legal penalty. A senior administration official said the president’s inclination has been to leave the pact, but Ivanka Trump set up a review process to make sure he received information from experts in the public and private sector before a making a decision. The official requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. As speculation continues about how Trump will handle the agreement, Tillerson is set to travel to Alaska for an Arctic Summit council this week amid concerns from other nations that the Trump administration will undermine global efforts to address climate change in the Arctic, where rising temperatures are having a disproportionate effect. David Balton, a top U.S. diplomat who works on environmental issues, said there would be “no change” in U.S. participation even if Trump ultimately decides to pull out of the Paris pact. “The U.S. will remain engaged in |