Killing the Paris Agreement is Not Enough

If President Donald Trump merely pulls the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, it will be like cutting the head off a dandelion. It will look good for a while until equally bad agreements quickly grow back when a Democrat occupies the White House again. Trump needs to dig up the roots of Paris — the 1992 U.N. climate treaty — if he is to keep his campaign promise to “stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.”

Trump can — and should — get the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, of course. Besides the scientifically unfounded objective of “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels,” as if we had a global thermostat, the agreement lets so-called developing countries almost entirely off the hook despite the fact that non-OECD countries are now the greatest source of energy related emissions. Consider the agreement’s emission targets for the U.S. versus China, currently the world’s largest emitter, for example:

The Obama administration agreed to an economy-wide target of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas (82% of which is carbon dioxide (CO2)) emissions by 26%-28% below its 2005 level in 2025.
China agreed “to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030” and to other measures such as those designed to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption. Taking into consideration expected economic growth in China and other factors, their target translates into about a 70% increase above its 2005 level in 2025.

Yet writing in the Chicago Tribune, Paul Bodnar, a Special Assistant to former-President Obama and a key architect of the 2014 U.S.-China deal (which has the same emission targets as Paris), echoes the position of many opinion leaders when he asserted, “The Paris Agreement… puts China, India, and other emerging markets on equal footing with the United States.”

Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth. It will not even be necessary for developing nations to meet their weak Paris emission targets anyway. They have an out-clause, one not applicable to developed countries.

The Paris Agreement starts:

“The Parties to this Agreement, being Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [FCCC], hereinafter referred to as ‘the Convention’…”.

Trump shadow hangs over UN climate talks opening in Bonn

By Matt McGrath

Climate negotiators meeting in Bonn have begun their work amid on-going concern about future US participation in the Paris Agreement.

These latest talks are aimed at developing the rules for implementing the accord signed in the French capital in 2015.

But there is a growing worry that President Trump might soon pull out of the historic deal.

Some delegates say such a move would be a body blow for the landmark deal.

The May meeting of the UN climate talks body is normally a pretty low-key affair but this is the first gathering of delegates since Donald Trump was inaugurated. Many are worried that it could also be the time the new president decides to pull the plug on US participation in the Paris deal.

“This was supposed to be a highly technical and uneventful meeting to flesh out some of the details in the Paris Agreement. But, obviously, the speculation coming out of Washington is now at the top of our minds,” said Thoriq Ibrahim, minister of environment and energy for the Maldives and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States.…

Mr. President, Tear up this (UN climate) treaty

“Our government rushed to join international agreements where the United States pays the cost and bears the burdens, while other countries get the benefits and pay nothing,” the President said. “This includes deals like the one-sided Paris climate accord, where the United States pays billions of dollars, while China, Russia and India have contributed and will contribute nothing.

“On top of all of that, it’s estimated that full compliance with the agreement could ultimately shrink America’s GDP by $2.5 trillion dollars over a ten-year period. That means factories and plants closing all over our country. Not with me folks! I’ll be making a big decision on the Paris accord over the next two weeks, and we will see what happens.”

After months of White House and Administration discussions and battles over what to do about this anti-fossil fuel, anti-people, anti-US, wealth-redistributionist agreement, there is hope that President Trump will do what Candidate Trump had promised: Bring the United States back from the brink of disaster.

Colleagues and I have previously suggested two options that would quickly nullify what President Obama unilaterally tried to do during his final months in office, as well as any international justification for EPA and other regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan and social cost of carbon charade.

(1) Send the proposed Paris treaty to the US Senate, as required by the Constitution for any international agreement that significantly affects the United States and its citizens. This accord arguably affects us more than the vast majority of agreements that have indeed been treated as treaties and presented to the Senate under its advice and consent duties.

(2) Withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the grandfather of the Paris treaty. We are well beyond the period during which withdrawal was not permitted, and pulling out of the UNFCCC would terminate any US obligations under the convention, the Obama Paris treaty and all other climate-related agreements.

Here’s why we should do that – and why President Trump should stick to his newly rediscovered guns.

It is increasingly obvious from what has been happening in the USA, Europe, Canada, Australia and elsewhere that climate and renewable energy policies kill millions of jobs and

Ivanka Trump to review climate change as US mulls UN Paris pullout

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ivanka Trump will head a review of US climate change policy even as President Donald Trump considers pulling the US out of a global emissions-cutting deal.

The United States says it it will continue attending United Nations climate change meetings next week in Bonn, Germany next week, but Trump’s advisers will meet Tuesday to discuss what to do about the global pact known as the Paris agreement, officials said.

The conflicting signals suggested the administration was trying to keep its options open while Trump decides whether to withdraw, a move the international community would strongly oppose.

Though Trump’s inclination has been to leave the agreement, he’s allowed his daughter, White House adviser Ivanka Trump, to set up an extensive review process, a senior administration official said. The goal is to ensure Trump receives information from both government experts and the private sector before a making a decision.

To that end, Ivanka Trump will hold a separate meeting Tuesday with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, the official said. Pruitt is a chief proponent of leaving the deal and has questioned the science that says humans are contributing to global warming.

President Donald Trump, accompanied by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, third from left, and Vice President Mike Pence, right, signs an Energy Independence Executive Order, March 28, 2017, at EPA headquarters in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Donald Trump, accompanied by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, third from left, and Vice President Mike Pence, right, signs an Energy Independence Executive Order, March 28, 2017, at EPA headquarters in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

And the decision to participate in next week’s UN climate talks shouldn’t be construed as a sign that Trump has decided to stay in the Paris pact, a State Department official added. To the contrary, the US will be sending a “much smaller” delegation than it has in years past, the official said.…

Conservatives Urge Trump To Keep His Promise, Ditch The Paris Climate Agreement

Conservatives Urge Trump To Keep His Promise, Ditch The Paris Climate Agreement

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/07/conservatives-urge-trump-to-keep-his-promise-ditch-the-paris-climate-agreement/

Dozens of conservative and free market groups will send a letter Monday to President Donald Trump urging him to keep his campaign promise to withdraw the U.S. from an international agreement to fight global warming signed by the Obama administration. Representatives from 40 right-leaning groups told Trump a withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement “is […]

— gReader Pro…

CEI press release: The Legal and Economic Case Against the Paris Climate Treaty

 
Washington, May 3, 2017 – Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute released “The Legal and Economic Case Against the Paris Climate Treaty,” a new report outlining why President Donald Trump should withdraw the United States from the agreement.
According to the report’s authors, CEI’s Chris Horner and Marlo Lewis, the Paris Climate Agreement is a costly and ineffectual solution to the alleged climate crisis, and quite plainly, a treaty. Worse, the Agreement’s mid-century emission reduction target can’t be met without putting energy-poor countries on an energy diet. 
“Failure to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty would entrench a constitutionally damaging precedent, set President Trump’s domestic and foreign policies in conflict, and ensure many years of diplomatic blowback, imperiling America’s capacity for self-government,” said CEI senior fellow Marlo Lewis. “The agreement makes our country beholden to the demands of foreign leaders, U.N. bureaucrats, and international pressure groups, disallowing American consumers from determining our own energy needs and wants—including at what price.”
According to the report, in addition to being detrimental to America’s political and economic interests, the Paris Climate Treaty pursues an anti-energy agenda throughout the developing world that is both unjust and dangerous. The agreement, producing no detectable climate benefits, diverts trillions of dollars from productive investments that would enhance global welfare to feeding political ambitions.
New arguments from the U.S. State Department to remain in the Paris Climate Treaty are misguided, contrary to the language in the Paris Climate Agreement, and ignore serious legal consequences, says author CEI Senior Fellow Chris Horner. Horner responds to these arguments:
“The argument that we can simply renegotiate the Paris Climate Treaty is false; that’s not an option under the deal. The agreement’s language in Article 4 is clear and deliberate. According to this treaty, any revision must be more stringent—we cannot revise downward, and we are required to make it worse, every five years, forever. This is a truly terrible deal for U.S. consumers and the economy.
 
The Paris treaty is “politically binding,” like prior climate treaties, but carries huge potential legal consequences, and the State Department is misleading the White House by ignoring these risks. If President Trump stays in this treaty and follows through in his energy agenda, every climate-activist state attorney general, environmental group, and the entire climate industry will surely litigate on the basis of

Cheers! Momentum in Trump Admin has turned against UN Paris climate agreement

Foes of the Paris climate agreement have gained the upper hand in the ongoing White House debate over whether the U.S. should pull out of the historic pact, according to participants in the discussions and those briefed on the deliberations, although President Trump has yet to make a final decision.

Senior administration officials have met twice since Thursday to discuss whether the United States should abandon the U.N. accord struck in December 2015, under which the United States pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

The president’s aides remain divided over the international and domestic legal implications of remaining party to the agreement, which has provided a critical political opening for those pushing for an exit.

On Thursday several Cabinet members — including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, who’s called for exiting the accord, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who wants it renegotiated, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who advocates remaining a party to it — met with top White House advisers, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Both Ivanka Trump and Kushner advocate remaining part of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, even though the president has repeatedly criticized the global warming deal.

During that meeting, according to several people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, White House counsel Don McGahn informed participants that the United States could not remain in the agreement and lower the level of carbon cuts it would make by 2025.

The administration is working to unravel many Obama-era policies underpinning that pledge, and the economic consulting firm Rhodium Group has estimated that the elimination of those policies would mean the United States would cut its emissions by 14 percent by 2025 compared with 21 percent if they remained in place.…