Trump’s Next Step on Climate: Reconsider EPA’s CO2 is a ‘pollutant’ finding

On Tuesday, in a series of orders, Mr. Trump instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to rework its Clean Power Plan, which would restrict carbon emissions from existing power plants, mainly coal-fired ones. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court stayed enforcement of the CPP pending judicial review.

Mr. Trump also directed the Interior Department to lift its current moratorium on federal coal leasing and loosen restrictions on oil and gas development (including methane flaring) on federal lands. And he instructed all government agencies to stop factoring climate change into the environmental-review process for federal projects. The federal government will recalculate the “social cost of carbon.”

Because they don’t attack the climate-change regulatory problem at its root, Mr. Trump’s orders will not provide enough clarity to U.S. energy companies—particularly electric utilities and coal-mining companies—for their long-term business forecasting or short-term capital investment and head-count planning.

To accomplish that, the Trump administration, led by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, needs to target the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding,” which labeled carbon dioxide as a pollutant. That foundational ruling provided the legal underpinnings for all of the EPA’s follow-on carbon regulations, including the CPP.

It also provided the rationale for the previous administration’s anti-fossil-fuel agenda and its various climate-change initiatives and programs, which spanned more than a dozen federal agencies and cost the American taxpayer roughly $20 billion to $25 billion a year during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

The endangerment finding was the product of a rush to judgment. Much of the scientific data upon which it was predicated—chiefly, the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—was already dated by the time of its publication and arguably not properly peer-reviewed as federal law requires.

Although this initially reported “pause” was subsequently eliminated through the downward manipulation of historical temperature data, this latest IPCC assessment calls into question both the predictive power and input data quality of most global climate models, and further highlights the scientific uncertainty surrounding the basic premise of anthropogenic climate change.

An updated EPA endangerment finding based on an objective review of the latest available scientific data is warranted, along with a more sober discussion of the threat posed by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the “public health and welfare of current and future generations,” in the words of the original endangerment finding.

As long as the 2009 finding remains on the books, it will …

Bjorn Lomborg: Trump gutting EPA climate regs show UN Paris treaty is ‘a paper tiger’

USA Today – By Bjorn Lomborg

According to the International Energy Agency, the U.S. promised to cut more energy-related CO2 emissions than any country in the world from 2013 to 2025, under the Paris climate treaty.

The problem is that this promise never had much ground in reality.

The primary measure America offered to achieve the promised cuts was the Clean Power Plan, which required the U.S. power sector to reduce CO2 emissions.

Yet this plan, even if fully enacted, would have achieved just a third of the U.S. promises under the Paris Agreement. If it had remained in effect for the entire century, my peer-reviewed research using United Nations climate change models found that it would have reduced temperature rises by an absolutely trivial 0.023 Fahrenheit at the end of this century.

Without the Clean Power Plan, U.S. emissions will likely increase slightly.

The treaty is nothing but a paper tiger: Its only legal underpinning is that all nations submitted promises — but those promises do not need to be kept.

In truth, Trump’s action just exposes what we have known for a while: The Paris Agreement is not the way to solve global warming.

Even if every nation fulfilled everything promised — including Obama’s undertakings — it would get us nowhere near achieving the treaty’s much-hyped, unrealistic promise to keep temperature rises under 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The U.N. itself has estimated that even if every country lived up to every single promised carbon cut between 2016 and 2030, emissions would be cut by just one-hundredth of what is needed to keep temperature rises below 2 C.

My analysis, similar to findings by scientists at MIT, shows that even if these promises were extended for 70 more years, then they’d only reduce temperature rises about 0.3 degrees F by 2100.

Moreover, many poor nations signed up to the treaty largely because of a promise of $100 billion a year of “climate aid” from rich nations, starting from 2020. Over the past five years, rich countries have managed to come up with only a 10th of one year’s promise.

It is only a matter of time before taxpayers from wealthy nations balk at the bill waiting for them. That will make many developing countries back out of the whole process.

This climate approach rehashes a failed policy that wasted decades: From …

TRUMP TO ANNOUNCE MORE BIG CLIMATE SCIENCE CUTS

  • Date: 30/03/17
  • Andrew Follett, The Daily Caller

President Donald Trump is looking to cut another $140 million in funding from government-funded global warming science programs, according to Space.com.

Trump will ask Congress to cut $90 million in funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) weather satellite programs and another $50 million from NASA global warming science programs.

The programs slashed include: NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R (GOES-R), Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), and  Earth Observing Nanosatellite-Microwave (EON-MW). These programs all study earth’s climate and measure global warming.

NOAA spends more than $100 million on global warming while NASA’s budget includes more than $2 billion for global warming and earth science. This money is generally specifically allocated to improve climate modeling, measurement of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and weather prediction. In comparison, NASA’s other functions, such as astrophysics and space technology, are only getting a mere $781.5 and $826.7 million, respectively, in the 2017 budget proposal.

Federal agencies plan to spend $27 billion on global warming-related programs next year. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates the federal government spent $77 billion from 2008 to 2013 on climate programs.

Full post

Pope Francis urges Trump to reconsider ‘global warming’ position

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – The Vatican urged U.S. President Donald Trump to listen to “dissenting voices” and reconsider his position on climate change on Thursday, saying the United States risked being supplanted by China as leader in environmental protection.

Pope Francis has made defense of the environment a key plank of his papacy, strongly backing scientific opinion that global warming is caused mostly by human activity.

“This is a challenge for us,” said Cardinal Peter Turkson, the pope’s point man for the environmental, immigration and development, when asked about Trump’s executive order dismantling Obama-era climate change regulations and his immigration policies.

“Fortunately, in the United States, there are dissenting voices, people who are against Trump’s positions,” said Turkson, who is from Ghana and was one of the driving forces behind the pope’s 2015 encyclical letter on environmental protection.

“This, for us, is a sign that little by little, other positions and political voices will emerge and so we hope that Trump himself will reconsider some of his decisions,” Turkson told reporters at a breakfast meeting.

The pope and the Vatican, which has diplomatic relations with more than 180 countries and a permanent observer status at the United Nations, have strongly backed the international Paris Agreement in 2015 to curb world temperatures.

“We as a Church, are full of hope that (Trump’s positions) will change,” Turkson said.…

Russia President Putin: Climate skeptics may not be so ‘silly’

Opponents of climate change may not be at all silly: Putin
Opponents of climate change may not be at all silly: Putin  

Russia President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that climate change doubters “may not be at all silly.”

In an interview by CNBC at the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk, Russia, Putin was asked about the rollback of environmental regulations from U.S. President Donald Trump‘s administration.

“Those people who are not in agreement with opponents (of climate change) may not be at all silly,” Putin replied via an interpreter.

Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to reverse regulations imposed by the Obama administration that had been designed to curb the devastating impact of climate change.

Trump’s Energy Independence Executive Order effectively suspends over six measures ratified by his predecessor, and though businesses have welcomed the move, environmental campaigners and many world leaders have condemned the action.

Mikhail Metzel | TASS | Getty Images

While Putin reaffirmed Russia’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement, he also agreed with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö’s comments regarding the inevitability of global warming. It would “continue anyway and anyhow,” Putin said of climate change.

As a compromise to Washington’s environmental position, Moscow would attempt to meet the U.S. halfway to find a solution.

PANIC: NYT Melts Down Over Trump ‘Denialists’ ‘Risking the Planet’

By Scott Whitlock | March 29, 2017 | 1:50 PM EDT

The New York Times on Wednesday offered a collective freak out, devoting no less than four articles to how the “denialists” in the Trump administration are “risking the planet” by rolling back Barack Obama’s climate regulation. That amounted to almost 4000 words. Jettisoning any pretense of objectivity, the liberal paper included this biased headline: “Climate Change Denialists in Charge.” Writer Coral Davenport warned, “Climate denial starts at the top.”

Calling skeptics “deniers” is the type of loaded term that the New York Times would never throw around when it comes to liberal causes. Are pro-abortion liberals life- deniers? In an op-ed, the paper warned of coming doom: “Only 10 weeks into his presidency, and at great risk to future generations, Donald Trump has ordered the demolition of most of President Barack Obama’s policies to combat climate change by reducing emissions from fossil fuels.”

The paper described it as an “assault” and then shifted to Trump’s “ignorance”:

Perhaps most important, Mr. Trump’s ignorance has stripped America of its hard-won role as a global leader on climate issues.

<<< Please support MRC’s NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>>

The unsigned editorial moved to “madness”:

Are there ways to avert this madness? Yes. Mr. Trump’s orders will not take effect right away. The E.P.A. will need a year or longer to develop a replacement for the Clean Power Plan.

“Demolition, “assault,” “ignorance,” “madness.” The Times on Wednesday reads like an angry e-mail that someone accidentally sent to the whole office.

But that wasn’t enough, the front page article by Mrs. Davenport and writer Alissa J. Rubin sounded apocalyptic:

President Trump, flanked by company executives and miners, signed a long-promised executive order on Tuesday to nullify President Barack Obama’s climate change efforts and revive the coal industry, effectively ceding American leadership in the international campaign to curb the dangerous heating of the planet.

Tom Friedman was no less worried. The headline for his op-ed sneered, “Trump Is a Chinese agent.” The liberal columnist raged:

Trump took his Make China Great campaign to a new level on Tuesday by rejecting the science on climate change and tossing out all Obama-era plans to shrink our dependence on coal-fired power. Trump also wants to weaken existing mileage requirements for U.S.-made vehicles. Stupid.

The Hits Keep Coming! Trump EPA climate move risks unraveling UN Paris commitments

BY DEVIN HENRY – 03/29/17 06:00 AM EDT

President Trump’s climate change order has thrown a wrench into the Paris climate deal.

Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order undoing most of the major climate work Barack Obama pursued as president.

The order didn’t touch the Paris agreement, an international pact on greenhouse gas emissions that Obama pursued aggressively during his second term. But it begins the process of ending the electricity-sector pollution regulation Obama said would help fulfill U.S. commitments, a decision that underlines Trump’s dismissal of the agreement.

There is internal debate in the Trump administration about the importance of staying in the Paris deal. But Tuesday’s order — and other measures Trump has advanced during his presidency — indicates he’s ready to leave it behind, formally or not.

“This is like a runner on a track,” David Waskow, the international climate director at the World Resources Institute, said of the order’s impact on U.S. climate work.

“The runner is going to keep moving forward, but someone is on the edge of the track throwing all sorts of objects in the way.”

Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the Clean Power Plan in 2015. It aims to cut pollution from the electricity sector as a way to help achieve Obama’s ambitious goal in the Paris agreement: a 26 percent to 28 percent reduction in total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025

Trump’s Tuesday order only mandates a review of the Clean Power Plan. But he and his administration aggressively oppose it, indicating it’s likely to come off the books after the review.

Undoing the regulation would undermine federal efforts to meet Obama’s Paris goal, unraveling the U.S. commitments under the pact.

“Without the Clean Power Plan, it will be impossible to achieve the U.S. [pledge] under the Paris agreement,” Robert Stavins, the director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, said in an email. “It would have been difficult even with the Clean Power Plan.”

Trump’s climate order emboldened critics of the Paris deal.

“I think the U.S. ought to withdraw from the climate agreement in Paris,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on Tuesday.

“I think it was a mistake by President Obama, and since he chose not to bring it to the Senate for confirmation, it’s clearly not a treaty, so I’m for withdrawing from it completely.”

Trump’s industry allies, while praising the details of the order …

Liberals Claim Trump ‘Signed Death Warrant for Planet Earth,’ Began ‘Extinction of Human Life’

By Craig Bannister | March 28, 2017 | 4:46 PM EDT
Pres. Donald Trump signs executive order.

As soon as President Donald Trump signed an executive order to eliminate climate-related environmental regulations burdening the U.S. energy industry, liberals pounced on the chance to declare the end of life as we know it.

“The extinction of human life on Earth” has begun, liberal filmmaker Michael Moore Tweeted, claiming that historians will soon look back on this day and blame Trump’s executive orders for their demise:

Moore was widely mocked on Twitter for saying humans will be extinct, but human historians would still be alive to blame their extinction on Trump.

Former environmental advisor to President Barack Obama, Van Jones, used Twitter to declare that Trump had just signed the planet’s “death warrant.”

And, Rep. Darren Soto (D-Florida) took to Twitter to claim that his entire state – including Trump’s Mar-a-lago club – will soon be submerged:

Trump Orders Overturn Of Climate Policies — Environmentalists Freak

Tue, March 28, 2017 6:17pm EDT by Samantha Wilson

Environmentalists are terrified after President Trump shockingly signed executive orders to overturn climate change policies put into place by Barack Obama. The order means the government won’t be dedicated to combating global warming, and people have a problem. Read their tweets!

President Donald Trump, 70, signed a sweeping executive order on March 28 at the Environmental Protection Agency that aims to limit the federal government’s involvement in fighting climate change. Instead, the Trump administration said that they’re putting creating American jobs first. Trump’s order directly overturns six climate change policies put into place by Former President Barack Obama, specifically a November 2013 executive order instructing the federal government to prepare the country for the impact of climate change, as well as a September 2016 memorandum that speaks to the “growing threat to national security” climate change poses.

Trump’s order calls for a review of the Clean Power Plan, allows coal mining on US federal lands and lets federal agencies “identify all regulations, all rules, all policies … that serve as obstacles and impediments to American energy independence.” Signing the order brings fears to the forefront about the Trump administration’s attitude toward climate change.

Donald Trump’s Weirdest Handshakes — See Pics

Trump has said multiple times that he doesn’t believe in climate change; in 2012 he tweeted “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”No, he really tweeted that! Environmentalists feared that his presidency would lead to destruction, and after the March 28 order, they expressed their concerns, and disbelief, on Twitter:

How can anyone refuse to accept that climate change is real? These people are motivated by GREED.

@AndreaChalupa Since climate change is a global issue, I think other nations should sue Trump for his steps towards destroying the planet.

Seems like a good time to remind everyone that human-made climate change is real and likely to be catastrophic.

Michael Moore: Human ‘Extinction’ Begins With Trump Reversing EPA Climate Regs

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/james-powers/2017/03/28/michael-moore-human-extinction-begins-trump-reversing-clean

By James Powers | March 28, 2017 | 4:25 PM EDT

Michael Moore is known for spewing outlandish, liberal drivel, but he turned apocalyptic as a reaction to the overthrow of former President Obama’s energy plan. (See tweet here.)

Moore: ‘Historians in the near future will mark today, March 28, 2017, as the day the extinction of human life on earth began, thanks 2 Donald Trump’

President Donald Trump signed an executive order into law March 28, to begin rolling back Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The plan included many regulations affecting domestic energy production.

The propagandist filmmaker immediately lashed out on Twitter condemning Trump’s actions.

According to the Associated Press, the executive order “will suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.”

In the past, Moore attacked Trump and his followers and has said any person who votes for Donald Trump is a “legal terrorist.” In a rally near the White House on Jan. 19, Moore also told the crowd that the “terrorists are about three blocks away.”…