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Title: Obama’s Legacy at Stake in Paris Talks on Climate Accord
Source:
NYTimes
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/u ... ntentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=artic
Published: Nov 29, 2015
Author: CORAL DAVENPORT
Post Date: 2015-11-29 11:41:45 by buckeroo
Keywords: None
Views: 2806
Comments: 21
WASHINGTON — At a joint news conference here Tuesday with President François Hollande of France, President Obama veered from his focus on the terrorist attacks in Paris to bring up the huge international gathering beginning in the French capital on Monday to hammer out a global response to climate change. “What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children,” Mr. Obama said of the climate conference. The segue brought mockery, even castigation, from the political right, but it was a reminder of the importance Mr. Obama places on climate change in shaping his legacy. During his 2012 re-election campaign, he barely mentioned global warming, but the issue has become a hallmark of his second term. And on Sunday night he arrives in Paris, hoping to make climate policy the signature environmental achievement of his, and perhaps any, presidency. “He comes to Paris with a moral authority that no other president has had on the issue of climate change,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University who noted that Mr. Obama’s domestic climate efforts already stand alone in American history. “No other president has had a climate change policy. It makes him unique.” The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. We get it. This is your cheat sheet. In Paris, Mr. Obama will join more than 120 world leaders to kick off two weeks of negotiations aimed at forging a new climate change accord that would, for the first time, commit almost every country on Earth to lowering its greenhouse gas pollution. All year, Mr. Obama’s negotiators have worked behind the scenes to fashion a Paris deal. Crucial to Mr. Obama’s leverage has been the release of his domestic climate change regulations, which he then pushed other countries to emulate. So far, at least 170 countries have put forth emission reduction plans. But even as Mr. Obama presses for a deal in Paris, it faces steep obstacles, not least the legal and legislative assault on his own regulations at home. During the course of the Paris talks, Republicans in Congress are planning a series of votes to fight Mr. Obama’s climate agenda. More than half the states are suing the administration on the legality of his climate plan. And all the Republican presidential candidates have said that they would undo the regulations if elected. On Nov. 19, Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, chairman of the environment committee and the Senate’s most vocal skeptic on climate change science, and Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming sent a letter to Mr. Obama, signed by 35 other senators, promising to block the funding for any climate deal unless the Paris pact is sent to Congress for ratification. A vote on the deal would fail in the Republican-controlled Congress. “Our constituents are worried that the pledges you are committing the United States to will strengthen foreign economies at the expense of American workers,” the senators wrote. “They are also skeptical about sending billions of their hard-earned dollars to government officials from developing nations.” Nonetheless, Mr. Obama is pushing forward. He unveiled the rules on curbing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions with a tight timeline, ensuring that they would be finalized before he leaves office. He has raised the issue of climate change in dozens of speeches and with every recent visiting foreign leader. In Washington, a team of environmental lawyers is preparing to defend the rules in court, while at the State Department, climate envoys are in constant contact with their counterparts around the world. If his domestic regulations and a Paris accord withstand efforts to gut them, “climate change will become the heart and soul of his presidency,” Mr. Brinkley said. Mr. Obama is an improbable environmental champion. Unlike former Vice President Al Gore, fighting climate change was never the driving force of Mr. Obama’s political career. As a senator and a presidential candidate in 2008, Mr. Obama checked off the standard slate of progressive environmental policies, including a cap-and-trade program to combat carbon emissions and expanded subsidies for renewable energy. He promoted the creation of green jobs. And on the final Democratic primary night of 2008, he predicted that future generations might see that “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” But in his first term, Mr. Obama invested most of his political capital in his signature health care law. He also prioritized the economic stimulus law and a Wall Street regulatory package — issues that resonated with voters during the recession. While Mr. Obama supported a bill pushed by congressional Democrats to cap greenhouse gas emissions and force industries to pay for permits to pollute, its failure in 2010 appeared to make little impression on him. Environmentalists complained that Mr. Obama had done little to promote the measure as it languished in the Senate. Yet during the 2012 campaign, advisers urged him not to talk about climate change. “It didn’t poll well,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief strategist in 2008 and 2012. The candidate cared about the issue, Mr. Axelrod said, but voters cared more about the economy. “He felt bridled in his ability to talk about it,” Mr. Axelrod said. “It was no secret to anyone that this was an issue of continuing and big concern to him. But the reality is that you can’t do anything about climate change if you lose an election.” In his second inaugural address, Mr. Obama surprised many on his staff when he made new climate policy one of the most prominent promises of the speech. That set off an aggressive campaign to use his executive powers to sidestep congressional opposition. “That inaugural address was the turning point,” said Heather Zichal, Mr. Obama’s former top climate change adviser. “That was his expectation, and we had to deliver.” In part, the focus on climate change in his second term was strategic. Mr. Obama wanted to move a big policy agenda, but knew Congress would block him on most issues. On climate change, he could use the authority of the Clean Air Act of 1970 to introduce regulations on emissions from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gases, without new action from Congress. Other events helped elevate the climate issue. The economy was gradually improving, while oil prices were falling. Polls showed that a growing number of Americans, including many Republicans, would support climate policies. And Mr. Obama, free from running for office again, wanted to build a legacy. “He spends a lot of time thinking about his daughters, and he does not want to be the guy who was in a position of doing something about a major global threat and did not do enough,” Ms. Zichal said. The president surrounded himself with advisers and cabinet members who see climate change as the most urgent issue of our time. He named John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, as his senior counselor. Mr. Podesta, who has pushed his bosses to act on climate change, mapped a domestic strategy for rolling out regulations through the Environmental Protection Agency. He also found ways to push the issue through other agencies and rule making. A White House that had rarely mentioned climate change began organizing climate-themed events, bringing in mayors, meteorologists and others to help sell Mr. Obama’s message. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been involved in the international climate change process since 1992, prioritized a deal in Paris, and helped secure a climate agreement between Mr. Obama and President Xi Jinping of China. Negotiators say that deal could help pave the way for a broader pact in Paris. The fate of Mr. Obama’s climate legacy will rest in the hands of his successor and the courts. Even if a deal unfolds in Paris, the next president could opt not to follow its provisions. And another body entirely will rule on the fate of his new regulations: They are expected to end up before the Supreme Court by 2017. The article title s/b: the Kenyan comes to Paris to tell America to fuck off: his "legacy" comes first. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 11.
#6. To: buckeroo, cranky, tomder55 (#0)
The most important prez evah! Translation: don't worry your pretty little heads over that icky sciency stuff. That's for nerds and all those other people who aren't attractive and can't get a date. It's time to act, not to think or read or study! After all, we are the leaders we've been waiting for. What follows in the Slimes article is one delusional sycophantic sentence after the next, most of it consisting of nothing occurring in the diplomatic realm in the runup to the Paris conference. Obama will get no significant agreements in Paris. And his "climate change administration" will prove as self-deluded and self-serving as Jimmuh Carter's "human rights administration", toward which we saw similarly fawning behavior by lib media outlets like the Slimes. Here is a far more realistic assessment: By Paul Homewood The private jets will soon be flying in from all over the world for the Paris conference due to start tomorrow, bringing with them thousands of politicians, officials and green activists. But what is it all likely to achieve? Here are my personal thoughts. 1) No binding agreements will be made. Developing nations have already made it absolutely clear that they will not agree to any legally binding agreements, although they expect the west to do so. As they have banded themselves into one grouping, led by China and India, there is no way individual states will be picked off one by one with either bribes or force. It is also clear that China, in particular, will not agree to any external monitoring. The EU has already indicated that its own binding targets will be reviewed unless a globally binding agreement is reached. Obama, keen to seal his “legacy”, would love to commit the US, but knows he would never get such a treaty through Congress. Meanwhile, others in what is called the Umbrella Group, including countries like Russia and Japan, are ambivalent about the whole process and are certainly not willing to wreck their economies. 2) No renegotiation of INDC’s There will be no renegotiation of individual INDC’s. This is not even on the agenda. 3) No action on finance It was agreed at Copenhagen that a climate fund of $100bn would be set up by 2020, along with commitment to $100bn a year thereafter. Virtually nothing has been put into the fund as yet, and it is unlikely that more than a few billion will be promised at Paris. Even the small amount of $3bn promised by Obama is unlikely pass Congress. Developed countries, including the US, are adamant that the large amounts promised in 2009 cannot all come from the public purse, and that much will have to come from private funding. Look for progress towards the target to be reviewed at meetings next year, the year after, and the year after that. 4) Lots more meetings This one will run and run. There will be very little of substance agreed in Paris. China, India and the rest of the developing world will be free to carry on increasing emissions, while Obama and other western leaders will delude themselves that their sacrifices have made a difference. There will be some form of wording agreed that allows all parties to go away and claim that some progress has been made. And there will be more meetings next year and after to “build on this progress”. Meanwhile, Greenpeace will moan that we have all missed a glorious opportunity. And so, next year, we will start all over again.
Yes if this is such an important leftist agenda then Soros and Michael Moore should flip the bill.
#12. To: redleghunter (#11)
Yes if this is such an important leftist agenda then Soros and Michael Moore should flip the bill. yes ,but you know the emperor is looking for another shake down ....like his fines imposed on BP .
I don't think Moore has that much money anymore it looks like he's spent it all on food, alcohol and drugs...
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest And on Sunday night he arrives in Paris, hoping to make climate policy the signature environmental achievement of his, and perhaps any, presidency.
The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. We get it. This is your cheat sheet.
Why Nothing Will Be Achieved In Paris
#11. To: TooConservative, tomder55, CZ82 (#6)
Developed countries, including the US, are adamant that the large amounts promised in 2009 cannot all come from the public purse, and that much will have to come from private funding.
Replies to Comment # 11. Developed countries, including the US, are adamant that the large amounts promised in 2009 cannot all come from the public purse, and that much will have to come from private funding.
#16. To: redleghunter (#11)
Michael Moore should flip the bill
End Trace Mode for Comment # 11.
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