Slashdot Mirror
Paris Climate Change Agreement Enters Into Force (theguardian.com)
The Paris agreement on climate change enters into force on Friday, marking the first time that governments have agreed legally binding limits to global temperature rises. From a report on The Guardian: The passage of the accord -- the fruit of more than two decades of often tortuous international negotiations on combating climate change -- was hailed by nations and observers around the world. Under the agreement, all governments that have ratified the accord, which includes the US, China, India and the EU, now carry an obligation to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. That is what scientists regard as the limit of safety, beyond which climate change is likely to become catastrophic and irreversible. Countries have put forward commitments on curbing carbon emissions under the agreement, but a report on Thursday found those pledges would see temperature rises significantly overshoot the threshold, with 3C of warming. Environmental groups urged governments to do more.
This article is incorrect, if I recall correctly, the U.S. Senate needs to approve all treaties before they take effect in the United States.
Is that there is no hard target. What happens if a country emits twice as much CO2 as they pledged? Nothing.
Therefore it is worse than Kyoto, even if the US didn't ratify it.
The term "Executive Agreement" covers the Paris agreement. The Executive Agreement is an end-run around the Constitutional requirement for Senate approval for treaties. It's a violation of the Constitution that a compliant Supreme Court agreed to. A perfect example of the erosion of the Constitution over time.
The bad news is that it's the law of the land now because the Court said that it was and the Congress rolled over.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Actually it's not. As the president does not have the authority to ratify a treaty for our country.
The world is about to discover that man made laws cannot override nature.
...a report on Thursday found those pledges would see temperature rises significantly overshoot the threshold, with 3C of warming. Environmental groups urged governments to do more.
Oh, you mean like climate engineering to take positive steps to reduce the temperature and soak up excess carbon already up there and maybe prevent the damage already on track to happen? No?? That's so evil that we shouldn't even consider it?
How about nuclear energy? That doesn't fart out carbon, and then we can still use, you know, electricity rather than... "Unequivocally no" again? Oh, right, because Chernobyl happened that proves it can't work. I'm sure a similar nuclear disaster now is just as likely and would be much worse than a silly little 3 degree temperature rise.
So the solution is... wishes, everyone riding around on bikes, and moral superiority? Because it looks to me like we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock of fossil fuel interests keeping us from actually doing anything before it's a crisis, and naive environmentalists groups who rule out actual solutions on the grounds that they might not be completely perfect.
Actually, Slashdot is becoming anti-religion, much to the Church of Global Warming's ire.
And by "flushed" don't you mean "burnt at the stake," Parson?
The "hot air" we should worry about are the empty promises, as always.
From TFA ...to which I'd add: while the framework is allegedly 'binding', I can't for the life of me find any consequences for breaking the pledges, so is a "legal framework" meaningful without punishment?
"The carbon emission curbs put forward by countries under Paris are not legally-binding but the framework of the accord, which includes a mechanism for periodically cranking those pledges up, is binding. "
(Recognizing, of course, that a lack of actual enforcement mechanism is precisely why this 'agreement' exists in the first place...it's just nice words with nothing behind it.)
-Styopa
The Executive Agreement is an end-run around the Constitutional requirement for Senate approval for treaties. It's a violation of the Constitution that a compliant Supreme Court agreed to.
How do you figure? Executive agreements do not legally bind the US to anything. Basically they are figuratively handshake deals with no consequences for reneging. As long as nothing in the agreement requires an act of Congress or is legally binding to the country the president is under no obligation to consult Congress about the agreement. If Congress has an issue with the agreement they are able to pass legislation forbidding the president from performing to meet the agreement.
How about nuclear energy? That doesn't fart out carbon, and then we can still use, you know, electricity rather than... "Unequivocally no" again?
Actually, environmentalists are very split on this. Some still are anti-nuke, but a large number of enviornmentalists actually do endorse nuclear power because it doesn't emit carbon dioxide. That group notably includes James Hansen, the climate scientist that the deniers most love to hate.
Some links:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-must-make-a-comeback-for-climate-s-sake/
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/189068-climate-scientists-to-green-activists-embrace-nuke-power
https://cna.ca/news/prominent-environmentalists-embrace-nuclear/
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-and-global-warming#.WBynCeErLOQ
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change
I'm sorry, I totally believe that man is contributing to climate change but this story is so rosy eyed its downright dumb. We have NOT made progress. It's going to cost trillions and trillions of dollars to get where people want to go and not billions. The idea that major powers will voluntarily give up percentage points of GDP to reach even the low percentages of what scientists THINK will be needed is naive. Politicians that crave power and have made it are not dumb. They know this full well which is why I'm suspicious that these agreements are nothing more than power grabs to screw us all over. If it was a SERIOUS agreement that was ENFORCEABLE I'd think less so, but this one? Please! A carbon tax that effectively got what they wanted would drive up the cost of electricity in places like the UK by 50-75%. That's the sort of numbers that politics will now allow. Attempting to Modify human behavior is not going to solve this problem. Technology is the only way out.
Anyone that has the ability to do any critical thinking... Aside from her (claimed) lady-parts, her second claim to be the next president are, in no particular order:
- It's her turn
- She's not Trump
Ken
Right: It's either a treaty and not ratified or an executive agreement and has no authority.
In any case: it's meaningless toilet paper.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I read that Wikipedia page, and I think you should be careful with using the term "legally binding" as it seems to have a very specific meaning.
Yes it does have a specific meaning and I'm quite confident lawyers have been pouring carefully over that very fact. This is not some novel legal construct we are talking about here. Executive agreements have been used quite often in the past.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/david-doniger/paris-climate-agreement-explained-does-congress-need-sign
TL;DR everything in the paris agreement is already covered by a UN climate change framework that was ratified by the Senate.
Good point, why even set goals at all? We landed people on the moon because all those scientists and engineers were afraid of getting thrown in jail if we didn't, right?
Oh good. We have now stopped global warming and all it took was an executive order.
Take that science.
All the models include a CO2/Water vapor positive feedback coefficient.
By adjusting that single number you can get the model to tell you anything you want it to tell you.
CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas (in terms of what's in the atmosphere) Water vapor is by far the largest greenhouse gas. If the increase in temperature caused by CO2 results in a large increase in atmospheric water vapor CO2 induced global warming will be bad, if the increase in temperature caused by CO2 result is a large increase in cloud cover (lowering the earth's albedo) global warming is a non-issue.
Climate 'scientists' early in this process, having more enthusiasm than knowledge, selected a very high feedback coefficient. The first exhale would have led to runaway global warming and earth being venus. They defended it until the laughter got them to reconsider. We are now supposed to take their words for the newer model versions.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
And just how can any system be allowed to exist that does not take action to eliminate a threat to human lives? Global warming is not a matter of opinion. It is a blatantly obvious reality. And yes we can all expect some pain and suffering to take place in order to reverse global warming. I am 72 years old and the ruin and destruction of the environment world wide is disgusting, in my lifetime alone. The most vital step is an absolute lock of birth control. No matter what science does for us the more people was have the worse things will get. A nation with half as many people will have half as much pollution. If you want more, healthy fish in our oceans reduce the amount of fishing by 50%. If you want better air dedicate a lot more land to forestry. That means land use for habitation and agriculture must be reduced which means we can feed and house less people. One child to one female for life without exceptions will lower our population density rather quickly. And to stop over use of our crop lands make it illegal to export any food crops or crops like cotton or tobacco. Less fertilizer, less run off, less pesticides, all from simply banning the concept of exporting any food at all.