Fact-checking Donald Trump's statement withdrawing from Paris climate agreement
politifact.com
politifact.com
This blows my mind. The US is the most powerful country on Earth, right now. Almost everybody else agrees with the treaty, countries ranging from really rich and uniform ones such as the Netherlands down to poor and divided ones such as Somalia. Direct democracies such as Switzerland or autocracies such as Saudi Arabia. The interests involved are diverse because they basically cover everyone and everything.
How could anyone believe that the US is on the receiving end of a bad deal?!? Outside of some nutty conspiracy theory.
The problem with the Paris climate accord is that it's vague and lacks any kind of enforcement. Everybody's signing it because there really is no concrete obligation attached. While some signatories may have signed it in earnest, others likely signed it just to look good. They'll announce a plan to meet the goals of the accord and then leave implementing that plan up to their successors, or just forget about it if they happen to remain in office. Look good now, don't pay later.
Given the nature of the Paris accord, there really is no better deal for Trump to negotiate. There are no binding terms to haggle over. I suppose they could change something in the deal just so Trump can say he did it and sign a "good deal". That's probably the best outcome.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-ratchet-mechanism-...
e.g. A nation will propose an INDC it thinks it can realistically achieve. It will be informed it's INDC is inadequate and that "more ambition is needed". So, they'll be forced to adopt an INDC that is not realistic. They'll fail to implement this, but they still won't be able to create a realistic INDC for their next five year period. Even after submitting an INDC they know they have no hope of implementing the country will likely be informed, once again, that "more ambition is needed".
Here's the thing. While the INDC's will steadily climb in their ambition, everything I've read indicates that there is no enforcement mechanism to see that they are implemented. In this sense it's Kyoto all over again. However, if the goals are too far out of reach, will we even try to reach them?
If you have information to the contrary, I'd love to see it.
The targets set in the Paris accord were all completely voluntary. The US could've stayed in, done absolutely nothing and there would have been no impact to the US economy since there is no enforcement mechanism.
So clearly this is purely political. It was about (a) fulfilling a campaign promise and (b) shoring up his base i.e. the 30% who wanted to withdraw.
Under cross-examination, he spoke not only about George Soros and
overly potent marijuana, but also his taste for zebra meat and canned
exotic game hunts, and confirmed that a big bowl of hot Texas chili
caused him to forget details about his kids’ lives, which he’d referenced in his deposition.
Colbert was being a softie, I see. First time I see the expression "poop emoji" being used unironically.
If you're lying, and everyone knows that you're lying, and everyone knows that you know that they know... to then still insist, to continue lying, goes against every social norm practiced among civilised people. For people with conscience, it is torturous to watch. For others, it's high entertainment worth a few island nations and a famine here or there.
Nobody believes any of the arguments Trump and his ilk make. They are inflicting this damage on the world, their citizen, and themselves purely because they enjoy the pain it causes the people people they hate: Obama, "the left", scientists, etc.
The climate may actually come out of this as a winner: it's adding some emotion to the fight against climate change, where before only the opposition was emotionally attached.
What is lost is the idea of the US as a dependable partner for anything. There are no mechanisms of enforcement in international law, which explains why it sometimes seem to move at a snail's pace. Agreements were kept because they served mutual interests. And when some specific agreement was a losing proposition for a country, leaders and their countries felt a moral obligation to stay true to their word. It is also a never-ending repetition of the prisoner's dilemma, and fulfilling your obligations was necessary to prevent a process that could unravel the foundations of international cooperation.
The US was the unchallenged winner of the post-WW2 international order. They were and are the dominant military power, and only by actually trying to use the might of that hardware did they ever come close to losing. The true instrument of power was the creation of closely-knit web of international cooperation, from getting the +1 country code, to science, trade, or security, the US was working a winning formula of agreements that were beneficial for both them and their partners.
Now, some barely literate psychopath is trying to rule the world with his infantile worldview that life is nakedly a selfish struggle for money and dominance. He may soon realise how reliant the most-connected country in the world is on the goodwill of others. But, sometimes, something breaks and cannot be put back together.
Very much of his ethical system is predicated upon lying about good faith intent for the persistent preservation of outright disenfranchisement of the electorate. I hope that Americans will really say "I can't stand it any more" and change what they are able to. Maybe eventually decent politicians will be able and willing to prevent this obscene divergence of executive and popular opinion.
https://thinkprogress.org/after-115-years-scotland-is-coal-f...
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/what-country-wi...
But that implies that the US (and Australia and some others) would have to invest trillions of dollars in order to reach the per-capita pollution levels of other countries. But that's not on the table, because for some americans, who currently holds power, it's not acceptable to temporarily sacrifice even a little bit of economy or convenience for the planet.
One reason why it's not reasonable for China or India to cut more, is because the US and others isn't willing to match them on per-capita pollution. (Well, they are cutting, and will probably match China over time, but not at a reasonable pace).
Imagine you're some dude in a district in India, and there's some coal, and you want to start burning it to get some energy. Then the US comes over and says "no, fuck you, you can't burn that, because not only have I been shitting all over the planet for the last several decades, I want to continue shitting over it and not make too much effort of reducing it. You can't burn that in part because we have this cheap power plant over here that we don't want to spend any money replacing". Does that feel fair?
If the US actually had to sacrifice something significant, it would perhaps feel fair for people from developing countries to have to halt their economic development by a decade or so in order to skip coal and go directly to solar etc.
Trump opened his speech saying his team was tracking the terrorist attack in Manila. [That attack] came from a lone man aiming to rob gamblers.