As the Catastrophic, Effects of Global Warming continue to come to light President Obama has announced that the US will cut its Greenhouse Gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent by the year 2025.
Obama Offers Major Blueprint on Climate Change
By CORAL DAVENPORT
WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday morning unveiled President Obama’s blueprint for cutting United States greenhouse gas pollution by nearly a third over the next decade.
Mr. Obama’s plan, part of a formal submission to the United Nations ahead of efforts to forge a climate change accord in Paris in December, detailed the United States side of an ambitious joint climate change pledge the president made in November in Beijing with the Chinese president Xi Jinping.
In an effort to spur other countries to enact their own domestic climate change plans leading to the Paris accord, the leaders of the world’s two largest greenhouse gas polluters offered the outline of a set of climate actions. Mr. Obama said the United States would cut emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025, while Mr. Xi said that China’s emissions would drop after 2030.
Environmental groups praised the plan — particularly the fact that the pollution cuts can be achieved without new action from Congress.
By midsummer, the E.P.A. expects to release the final regulation, which is chiefly aimed at reducing pollution from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest source of planet-warming carbon emissions.
Naturally the 0.01% owned Party (Republican) want none of it. So President Obama is going around the largely Koch and Big Oil owned Senate Republican Caucus.
Nearly every potential Republican presidential candidate has already criticized Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda, and the issue is expected to be important in 2016 political campaigns.
Republicans also adamantly oppose Mr. Obama’s efforts to forge the U.N. accord in Paris. To bypass the Senate — which would have to ratify United States involvement in a foreign treaty — Mr. Kerry and other State Department officials are working closely with their foreign counterparts to ensure that the Paris deal does not legally qualify as a treaty.
Obama Set to Announce His Peer-Pressure Plan for Climate Change
By Jaime Fuller
Republicans — from lawmakers to 2016 candidates — have criticized the plans and upcoming accord, so Obama will likely have to rely on his ever-popular executive powers to make these changes happen, as he has had to do for most of the climate-change initiatives he has tackled during his presidency. As Politico points out, there was an amendment to the Keystone XL bill that would have barred the U.S. from any international treaties allowing countries to promise different levels of emission cuts — which sounds a lot like what the Paris accords are shaping up to be. If the climate-change treaty happens, expect a lot of complaints that sounds exactly like the howls over the Iran talks and Obama's executive action on immigration.
Bravo Mr President!
A significant step that is long overdue. But is it enough?
Climate change treaty will include promise of 28% emissions cut from U.S.
The U.S. proposal has drawn intense interest around the world. Most nations will miss Tuesday's informal deadline to convey their contributions to the UN — only the European Union, Switzerland and Mexico unveiled their pledges before the U.S. By announcing its commitment early, the U.S. hopes to dial up the political pressure on other countries to take equally ambitious steps to cut emissions.
In the end, even if a groundbreaking, historical accord is signed, you can be sure that scientists will fret it's not enough and opponents label it as too much. Jean-Pascal Van Ypersele, the Belgian deputy vice-president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told AFP last month that he was optimistic about the chance of a treaty being signed in Paris. However, he added, "A deal in Paris will at least allow us to continue the work, but I fear time is passing and we have to make decisions by consensus. I do not think today that we have the consensus to aim higher."
We do have viable alternatives to our high carbon fueled economy.
Low-carbon economy within reach, say researchers