Climate Change Weekly #137
President Barack Obama is reportedly attempting to forge an international climate change deal without gaining U.S. Senate approval for a treaty as required by the Constitution.
It is virtually certain the Senate will not ratify any new international climate change agreement, especially if it includes legally binding U.S. greenhouse gas emission reductions. Therefore, the Obama administration is shaping what it hopes will be a “politically binding” agreement. The administration will attempt to tack on to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), a treaty President George H.W. Bush signed and the Senate ratified in 1992.
Obama hopes to have his addendum to the 1992 treaty ready to present for signatures at the next United Nations climate meeting in Paris in 2015.
Obama’s plan is a hybrid agreement, combining legally binding conditions of the 1992 UNFCC with voluntary commitments by countries to enact climate change policies for reducing emissions by specific amounts and sending money to poor countries. Rather than an enforcement mechanism, the agreement would, in the words of negotiators, “name and shame” countries into cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Since there are no legally binding targets or specific punishments tied to the commitments, Obama administration surrogates say the new agreement would not require Senate ratification.
Congressional reaction has been sharply critical of Obama’s plan.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) issued a statement saying, “Once again, the president is trying to go around Congress and ignore Americans who cannot afford more expensive, extreme energy regulations.”
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) said in a statement, “This is yet another example of a president who is willing to ignore the rule of law to get what he wants.”
“We will continue to fight the president’s economy-crushing domestic greenhouse gas regulations,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in a statement.
“U.S. economic competitiveness is hanging in the balance, and additional U.S. restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions will only hurt the United States as other nations like Australia either scrap or water down their unsuccessful green dream policies,” Inhofe added.
SOURCE: Fox News
IN THIS ISSUE
IPCC doubles down on alarmism despite warming pause … EPA backtracks on ocean acidification claims … MIT scientists confirm Antarctica cooling, adding ice … Judith Curry: Flawed detection of human-caused warming
IPCC DOUBLES DOWN ON ALARMISM DESPITE WARMING PAUSE
Climate alarmists with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) continue to issue even more dire predictions about Earth’s climate despite the fact global warming has been on hold for nearly the past 20 years. IPCC’s stepped-up alarmism continues even as new research indicates this “pause” in warming could last another couple of decades.
SOURCE: The Daily Caller
EPA BACKTRACKS ON OCEAN ACIDIFICATION CLAIMS
In response to a lawsuit claiming the Environmental Protection Agency is not doing enough to protect ocean wildlife imperiled by anthropogenic climate change, EPA is arguing there is insufficient evidence to warrant action. This contradicts an earlier EPA finding that ocean acidification has killed billions of oyster larvae in the Pacific Northwest. The Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit is attempting to force EPA to impose stricter Clean Water Act protections upon the Pacific Coast.
SOURCE: Whats Up With That?
MIT SCIENTISTS CONFIRM ANTARCTICA COOLING, ADDING ICE
MIT scientists have confirmed Antarctica has substantially cooled in recent years, primarily in the summer. Antarctic cooling has led to an increase in sea ice. Both of these findings contradict the projections of the majority of the climate models used by the IPCC to offer dire predictions and gin up government action to reduce energy use.
SOURCE: Nature World News
JUDITH CURRY: FLAWED DETECTION OF HUMAN-CAUSED WARMING
The IPCC has failed to convincingly detect or tease out human contributions to warming from natural contributions, climate scientist Judith Curry reports. Historical records are too short and paleo reconstructions too unreliable to separate one cause from another. Thus, the IPCC uses climate models to “detect” warming. However, accurately discerning the causes of warming over a short period, e.g. since 1980, requires models explicitly considering the timing and intensity of multidecadal natural climactic phenomena, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The models currently do not account for such phenomena.
SOURCE: Climate etc.
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
