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Trump's Officials Suggest Re-Negotiating The Paris Climate Accord (msn.com)
Slashdot reader whh3 brings surprising news from the Wall Street Journal. "Trump administration officials said Saturday the U.S. wouldn't pull out of the Paris Agreement, offering to re-engage in the international deal to fight climate change, according to multiple officials at a global warming summit." Today an anonymous reader writes:
Even an official White House statement in response to the article insisted only that the U.S. would withdraw "unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favorable to our country." On Sunday White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster "said President Donald Trump could decide to keep the U.S. in the Paris Climate Accord if there is a better agreement that benefits the American people," according to ABC News, while CNBC reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also "said the United States could remain in the Paris climate accord under the right conditions. 'The president said he is open to finding those conditions where we can remain engaged with others on what we all agree is still a challenging issue.'"
The treaty where the US agrees to pay billions on Chinese solar panels? Where China and India pay nothing at all, and are exempt from most of the climate regulations.
Also known as "lets send our money over to China, pollute there, stimulate their economy, to vaguely help another poor country X"
It's a garbage treaty based around spreading socialism ideals with the belief the US has near infinite money to spend on other people.
Purely symbolic agreements like these are a symptom of the larger problem: No one wants to make the REAL sacrifices to address the problem.
I'm still somewhat skeptical of man-made climate change myself, but if you're going to accept the idea, then you also have to accept the idea that fixing it is going to require real sacrifices. Symbolic gestures, talk, commitments to make sacrifices far in the future (long after the politicians who made said promises are safely out of office), etc. aren't going to cut it.
Right now everyone wants to talk a big game, but they want someone else to make any actual sacrifices. Al Gore lectures me on energy efficiency, then gets into a SUV and drives home to a mansion that uses 10x more electricity every month than my family does. Politicians promise that some other politicians in the future will make sacrifices, but not them of course. Business CEOs promise that some other CEOs will cut emissions by 2035, but not them and not now of course.
If you believe that this is a problem, then step up to the plate and tell your citizens and businesses that they're going to have to sacrifice NOW. Because vague promises for the future isn't going to cut it. In short, put up or shut up.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Last I heard on NAFTA, the U.S. representative floated the idea of having the pact reaffirmed every 5 years. The Canada and Mexico officials, once they stopped laughing, very kindly and carefully, as though explaining to a 5 year old, told the Americans that an economic pact that was only guaranteed to last 5 years would cause businesses to assume there was no pact they could count upon and it was an idea with no legs.
So there you have it, the U.S. position is silly. The others countries are starting to move their agricultural agreements to other countries. Mexico has already started replacing American corn, wheat, and soybeans with the grains from other Latin American countries, primarily Brazil, which thinks the American position is absolutely fabulous and wishes the Administration to please do more to make America Great Again...or was it White Again, the Administration appears confused on this point.
That is only a fortuitous coincidence that natural gas prices undercut coal. If coal became cheaper, economics, if unaccountable for externalities, would drive things in the wrong way. Markets didn't pick natural gas because it is a better solution for reducing emissions, but simply because it was cheaper.
You sound like a pilot saying, "See, I don't have to steer because the wind changed directions and is now pushing us in the right direction."
1) For such a thing to work, every major oil producing nation would have to end subsidies by the same relative amount and at the same time. To do otherwise would be to allow petroleum producers in one country to maintain a significant competitive advantage. If (for example) Canada stops subsidies and tax breaks etc on its petroleum industry but Russian doesn't, everyone will be buying the much cheaper Russian oil, leaving little market for Canada. Canada would likely still sell lots to the US of course, the logistics of shipping gives Canada a small advantage there. But since the US, by law, doesn't sell the majority of its petroleum output on the common market, instead consuming it at home and re-selling Canadian oil, the US would be also adversely affected by the Canadian policy change.
2) Ending subsidies would mean that many alternative sources (such as oil sands and shale) would simply go out of business. That reduces the worldwide output, in turn driving up the cost per barrel. Research and development of extraction from such sources would likely languish compared to the pace it now has.
3) Petroleum products are sold on international commodity markets and one of the subtle effects of most commodity markets is that they are more influenced by the perception of changes in supply and demand than the actual numbers justify. If ending subsidies on say Western Canada Intermediate means an increase in cost of X/barrel, speculation is likely to drive that still higher by some unknown own amount.)
4) This may be my cynicism talking, but it seems to me that, historically, the oil and gas industry has always been very quick to jump on opportunities to raise prices and slow to drop them. (absent competitive reasons to do so) Someone sneezes in the Middle East and everyone everywhere jacks up the price at the pump in anticipation of shortages. But when cheaper supply becomes available, consumers must wait until that cheaper supply actually reaches the pumps. Ending government subsidies would mean every company from the well-head to the pump would have an excuse to increase their profit margins slightly while the government gets all the blame.
5) This would make alternative energy sources more competitive sure, but it would take time for the various industries to scale up to meet that increased demand. As far as I know, Tesla is already selling cars as fast as they can make them and it takes time to increasing hiring, tooling and so on. Even GM would be hard pressed to start selling millions of electric cars per year without 2-5 years to revamp vast sections of their supply chain and tooling.
6) All of the above factors mean that I wouldn't be surprised if the effective price at the pump doubles. That would entail an enormous political cost. People are already angry about the cost to fill up at the pumps, to heat their homes in winter and so on. Lets not forget that the poor have far fewer options when it comes to energy consumption. In Canada and the US, two of the richest nations in the world, there are a lot of people driving second and even third hand cars because that's all they can afford. World wide, there are a lot of small farmers using single cylinder gas or kerosene powered equipment that flat do not have the choice to abandon that equipment and obtain new electric or propane powered stuff. Here in North America, I don't think any of the big players in the agri-equipment field are even looking at electric powered tractors, harvesters, balers and so on. So the price of food will also go up. And if you think doubling the price of fuel provokes a shit storm, that's nothing compared to the fallout from huge increases in the cost of groceries.
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Of course, in reality many US companies will be forced to adopt things like RoHS 2 regardless of what the US government does, or lose a lot of sales.
On a side note, isn't it great how a "reduction of hazardous substances" directive (or at least the part about lead-free solder) makes electronics more likely to malfunction and harder to repair? I guess it's good for sales, though.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
the folks who voted Trump don't care. They're not seeing any of that Soy, wheat & corn money. It mostly goes to big agrabusiness. They really don't give a flying rat's ass if the whole country goes to pot because right now they're pretty much at rock bottom.
Calling these folks racists while ignoring their very real economic problems is what got us Trump. Steve Bannon might be an asshole but he said something brilliant. He said if the left keeps up these pointless identity politics while the Right runs on economic populism then the Right is going to rule America for the next 1000 years. He's right.
Now, the Right isn't actually going to _do_ anything populist. They're all bought and paid by the ruling elite. But if you're giving me the choice between Hilary's "neo-liberalism" (e.g. all the same economic policies as the Right wing but Gays & Abortions are OK) and Trump at least _saying_ he's going to do something material to help the working class folks are going to pick Trump every time. And why shouldn't they? Especially when Trump at least gives lip service against violence?
If you don't like the road this country's traveling down you need to get with Bernie & Co. That means Single Payer Healthcare, ending the 7 pointless wars we're fighting, free college for everybody, $15 minimum wage, etc, etc. It means taking care of the working class even if it pisses you off to think somebody has a nice life and didn't have to work that hard to get it. Otherwise those Angry White Men are going to stay angry and they're going to go find themselves a Stalin style strong man who _isn't_ a 70 year old charlatan and when they do expect lots of nasty violence. It's not a nice thing to think about, but it's reality. It's what happens everytime we abandon a signinficant portion of the ruling class to abject poverty.
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>> Paris Climate Agreement needs no renegotiation because it's non-binding,... too little too late, it was a political and diplomatic move without any negative consequences...
Seems like exactly a good reason to renegotiate it. It needs to be both effective and binding.
Just how bad off these guys are. They barely have jobs, and only if you count crap like Uber or part time at Walmart a job. You can forget about a wife and family since no women wants a man without a steady job. They've got just enough food to survive and prevent them from turning into roving bands of bandits.
These are the people our economy abandoned when manufacturing moved overseas and light blue collar work started going to illegals. Trump is the first politician to acknowledge their suffering. Hilary & co figured the 'Blue Firewall' would keep them voting 'D' and didn't even bother campaigning at them. She was horribly wrong.
Yeah, I know Trump's awful. So do they. But Trump _might_ do something positive for them. And for us too. He _might_ kick out the illegals and end the H1-B program and get better trade deals that favor American workers. Now, I'm rational enough to know he won't actually do any of that. But I also have something to lose. I'm not sure how I'd vote if I was in the shape these Trump voters are. I think if I'd lived that poorly for that long I wouldn't be rational though.
All of this is why we need to reach out and take care of those people. It's the same problem we had in WWII. We abandoned the Germans and look what it got us: Nazis. We've abandoned the American working class and, well, what do you know, we've got Nazis again.
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