While we discuss here on this Labor Day, what will do if Climate Change creates a refugee crisis that will soar into the Millions
I was angered to read on another site that an aide to Mitch McConnell is reporting that the GOP is going to take the fight against Obama's Climate Change policies overseas.
A top policy aide to McConnell (R-Ky.) has had conversations with a select group of representatives from foreign embassies to make it clear that Republicans intend to fight Obama's climate agenda at every turn, sources familiar with the efforts say.
Sources say the aide, Neil Chatterjee, hasn't tried to persuade other countries to oppose a climate deal, though he is informing them about the GOP's options for undercutting it. He has had conversations with officials representing both developed and developing countries.
more...
Yes,
in Paris this Winter, once again world leaders will try to come together to make some meaningful agreements on Climate Change, like we hoped that would have done in 2009 in Copenhagen.
And even though what Obama's proposals may seem minimal in an advance in policy in spite of more and more refugee crises
even this is a bridge too far for our Republican counterparts.
In Paris, representatives of nearly 200 nations will try to hammer out an agreement for curbing the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for warming the planet and boosting sea levels. By design, the State Department is pushing for a broad political agreement that has buy-in from each country but won't carry the legal authority of a treaty — getting around the Constitution's requirement that treaties be ratified through a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
Incensed by that workaround, GOP aides are consulting with legal scholars about whether they can insist that any climate deal come before the Senate, sources said. At the very least, that argument can highlight the fact that a non-ratified agreement won't bind Obama's successors.
Even though the evidence is overwhelming, the Fossil Fuel industry is still fleecing the pockets of enough people in both of our parties, but primarily the GOP and of political leaders in other countries.
One of the great leaders, Mohammed Nasheed, former President of the soon to be engulfed Island Nation of Maldives is under arrest for 13 years on 'Trumped' up charges, for daring to speak out about the need for comprehensive Climate Change policies and for daring to demand reparations or a monetary fund to relocate his people.
From Amal Clooney:
In 2008, the island nation became a democracy after Mohamed Nasheed was sworn in as president after the country’s first-ever free and fair elections. A charismatic leader, Nasheed introduced liberalising reforms at home, while calling for global action against climate change in an attempt to combat the rising sea levels that threaten to inundate the low-lying nation. His remarkable story is chronicled in the acclaimed documentary The Island President.
Overthrowing Nasheed in a coup had not been enough to neutralise him as an opponent.
So the government concocted a phony “terrorism” charge. In less than three weeks, Nasheed was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced
This sinister turn of events has not gone unnoticed. There are daily street protests in the Maldives calling for Nasheed’s release, as well as considerable international support for him and condemnation of the egregious actions of the Maldivian government. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, voiced strong concern over Nasheed’s “hasty and apparently unfair trial”, and Amnesty International has characterised it as a “travesty of justice”.
Today we have filed the case with the UN, urging it to declare his detention arbitrary and in violation of international law. Yameen must indeed be told in unequivocal terms by the international community that he must free the man they call the Island President.
Yes, a man who rose to office specifically to oppose corruption and defy the international fossil fuel cabal, now sits in prison.
Sign the petition to free him.
Obama's plan does commit to helping developing nations with funding as Mr. Nasheed has asked, but
Republicans plan to block Obama's pledge to provide billions of dollars to help poor countries adapt to the effects of a warming planet. Obama has promised that the U.S. will contribute $3 billion to an initiative called the Green Climate Fund, including $500 million in the next fiscal year. Poor countries have warned that their support for a deal in Paris will hinge on industrialized nations making ambitious commitments to the fund, as well as other financial pledges from wealthy nations like the United States.
And to give you an idea of how long our government has stalled on this:
Republicans are also considering legislation that would respond to the Paris talks, including a possible resolution expressing their opposition to the deal. That could be similar to the symbolic 95-0 vote the Senate took in 1997 to repudiate the Kyoto climate agreement that the Clinton administration was negotiating at the time.
We couldn't move then even with the Democrats,
nearly 20 years later,
we finally have a President who is willing to negotiate in good faith in Paris,
yet the GOP is still fighting to let the World burn.
We must show support for Obama's plan perhaps by joining various citizen's groups of your choice, definitely by supporting Bernie Sander's call for a debate just about the Environment,
and by supporting international leaders like Mohammed Nasheed who are being imprisoned for speaking out about Climate Change.