Heartland Institute Comments on Obama’s Climate Change Deal with China

Published November 12, 2014

President Obama today announced “an historic agreement” with China to cut CO2 emissions in the coming 15 years. The United States, says Obama, will double the current pace of its carbon emission cuts. China will “peak” in 2030, when 20 percent of its energy will be from non-fossil fuel sources.

The following statements from environment and energy experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at [email protected] and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.


“President Obama demonstrated once again how over his head he is when dealing with foreign leaders. It is not fair for the American people to suffer the economic consequences of major restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions while at the same time giving China a blank check to rapidly increase emissions. Fortunately, President Obama cannot unilaterally bind the United States to international treaties, and Congress can respond to global warming concerns in a more rational, reasonable manner.

“Under President Obama’s proposal, China’s emissions ‒ which already are substantially higher than any other nation in the world ‒ will more than double between now and 2030. In exchange for China agreeing to eventually plateau its emissions at more than double their current levels, Obama believes America should immediately restrict emissions, hike energy prices, and drive businesses and jobs overseas. Worse, when businesses relocate overseas in response to such oppressive conditions, Obama and his political allies will blame the businesses themselves for the consequences and call them un-American. Americans can, should, and will choose a better course of action than President Obama’s ill-advised proposal.”

James M. Taylor
Senior fellow for Environmental Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
727/215-3192


“The atmosphere of Earth weighs 11,700,000,000,000,000,000 pounds. Reducing our annual emissions of so-called greenhouse gasses by a few tens of thousands of pounds will hardly make a measurable difference. So what the president has committed to do makes no sense. Paying for the federal government’s climate change programs is already costing each average American family $1,200 a year. The president’s actions can potentially triple that. Those are dollars our families need for food, health care, and education.”

John Coleman
Meteorologist
Founder, The Weather Channel
Policy Advisor, Environment
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


“This is such a mind-blowingly ridiculous announcement that it’s hard to identify the aspect that is the most bizarre. Is it the pretense of trusting a nation that violates intellectual property rights on a routine basis and spends about as much time and energy hacking into U.S. computers as it does suppressing dissidents?

“Is it the arrogance of doubling-down on attacking the U.S. energy sector when, by any sober analysis, a booming energy sector is the one part of the economy that has kept the administration’s economic policies from crossing the line from ‘dumb’ to ‘disaster?’

“Or, can it be the simple fact one of the few nations that has actually been making massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (no matter how pointless people like me believe those reductions to be) commits to making even more, while the nation that pays lip service to doing so while ramping up its use of fossil fuels to levels the world has never imagined does nothing but make soothing noises?

“For those people who sincerely believe that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are causing or will cause catastrophic climate change, this ‘deal’ does absolutely nothing to mitigate those emissions in any meaningful way. For those people like me who believe that our planet is not hyper-sensitive to greenhouse gases, this is just another example of the Obama administration’s unique ability to combine naiveté and American self-loathing in a way that we haven’t seen since a certain peanut farmer occupied the Oval Office.”

Richard J. Trzupek
Policy Advisor, Environment
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


“I am confident that Mr. Obama will have little impact on greenhouse gas emissions a decade or more into the future. I am also confident that our new Congress will rein in EPA, which the president is using to avoid congressional approval. It is clear to me that this arrangement with China is a very smart move for a president soundly defeated in the midterm elections, in order to reclaim some semblance of leadership in the world. It will, however, have no long-term negative impact on our nation’s now overwhelming superiority in energy resources. In fact, even a facade of cooperation between the United States and China has a nice settling effect on a world so terribly wrought with problems of economics and religious strife.”

Jay Lehr
Science Director
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


“President Obama no longer has the power to make good on this supposed agreement, and no one in China has any intention of doing anything harmful to its economy, like this agreement would require. Through this announcement, President Obama is repudiating the American people and any semblance of respect for America’s representative republic. If there was any honesty left in Washington DC, the Democrat Party that he heads would be changing its name.”

Peter Ferrara
Senior Fellow for Entitlement and Budget Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
703/582-8466 Mr. Ferrara is the author of America’s Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb (2011)


“The announced agreement between the U.S. and China may be an historic agreement, but it’s also a foolish agreement. Because the greenhouse effect and climate change are dominated by natural factors, rather than human-caused factors, there is no action that the U.S. or China can take that will halt global warming. Thousands of climate laws across hundreds of nations, all summed together, will not have a measurable impact on global temperatures.”

Steve Goreham
Executive Director
Climate Science Coalition of America
Policy Advisor, Environment and Energy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312-377-4000


“President Obama’s announcement today of an agreement with China to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is as phony as the science claiming increased carbon dioxide is causing catastrophic global warming. The announcement is full of the words ‘intend’ and ‘intentions,’ which are not words that guarantee any level of performance.

“China has said it ‘intends’ to have its peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, which is 15 years in the future. During this period, China most likely will increase its carbon dioxide emissions to at least 15 billion tons per year in comparison to the current level of 10 billion tons per year. United States carbon dioxide emissions are about 5 billion tons per year.

“China is determined to bring all of its citizens out of poverty; that can only be done by use of abundant, cheap fossil fuels like coal. He has chosen the most reckless course of action to impoverish the United States by depriving the nation of its vast amount of inexpensive, geographically distributed fossil fuels of coal, oil, and natural gas. This letter of intent with China, which will not be approved by the Senate, is a sham designed to manufacture approval from the American public during one of Obama’s most unpopular moments in his presidency.”

James H. Rust
Professor of nuclear engineering (Ret.), Georgia Tech
Policy Advisor,
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


“Today’s ‘historic agreement’ is more about history and less about ‘agreement.’ Following the ‘historic’ losses the Democrats faced on November 4, President Obama is desperate to move back into the spotlight, which is what this carbon dioxide reduction deal does. It shifts the news back to him as he claims a victory for his left-wing base. Those of us who’ve watched China’s behavior through previous climate negotiations know they agree to just enough to give the West a photo-op and allow the fawning media some footage. China then, as if the meeting never took place, goes on doing whatever it intended to do in the first place. Meanwhile, the U.S. saddles itself with more economy-killing policies that reduce what little competitive advantage we have left in the global economic war. Once again, China wins and we lose.”

Marita Noon
Executive Director
Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy
[email protected]
505/239-8998


“The China-U.S. deal to cut carbon dioxide emissions is as bogus as the claim that a climate crisis exists because of CO2. The only climate-related crisis is the global warming hoax, particularly since Earth stopped warming around 19 years ago when it entered a natural cooling cycle based entirely on the Sun whose levels of radiation (heat) were reduced. When that happens, Earth gets colder.

“Reducing CO2 levels requires reducing the generation of electrical power in the U.S., a current part of President Obama’s ‘war on coal.’ Blaming automobile emissions is just as bogus. Fossil fuels are needed for the production of nearly all of the energy on which the economy and our lives depend. While they contribute to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, so do a variety of natural causes, including the CO2 humans and other animals exhale and Earth’s many active volcanoes, to name just two.

“CO2 is vital to all life on Earth as the ‘food’ on which all vegetation exists. More CO2 means healthier forests and higher crop yields. “The China-U.S. agreement guarantees higher utility rates and fewer jobs. Americans voted to improve the economy in the midterm elections ‒ not for the exact opposite.”

Alan Caruba
Founder, The National Anxiety Center
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


The Heartland Institute is a 30-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.