Trump's Officials Suggest Re-Negotiating The Paris Climate Accord (msn.com)

Remember NAFTA! by cdreimer · 2017-09-17 05:42 · Score: 2, Funny

How's that NAFTA renegotiation?

Re:Remember NAFTA! by ShanghaiBill · 2017-09-17 05:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

NAFTA and the Paris Climate Change Accord are not really comparable. NAFTA is a legally binding treaty with enforceable obligations on all parties. PCCA is symbolic, and countries can set their own goals, with no consequences for failure to abide by them. So "pulling out" of PCCA just means that America will no longer need to make up fake goals. I can't even imagine what there could possibly be to "renegotiate" since there is (almost) nothing there.
Re:Remember NAFTA! by Lisandro · 2017-09-17 06:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

it is a huge fuck you to the world though. The Paris Accord is the first time in history when all countries in the planet acknowledged climate change as real and proposed measurable goals to fight it. Until the US dropped out there were exactly two countries outside the accord - Syria, undergoing civil war, and Nicaragua, who claims the accord doesn't do enough to fight climate change.
But still - the line about "renegotiating" the accord was uttered by Trump himself when he announced the decision: "I don't want anything to get in our way. The US will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. (...) We're getting out, but we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair," Trump said. "If we can, that's great. And if we can't, that's fine."
Re:Remember NAFTA! by gtall · 2017-09-17 06:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.
Re:Remember NAFTA! by AmiMoJo · 2017-09-17 06:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's kind of appalling that the US is only willing to do anything if it is forced to with punishments for failure beyond just naming and shaming.
I think people misunderstand what Paris was about, what it managed to do. The idea was to build political capital for governments to implement climate change reduction. Responsible countries have done that, setting goals and often exceeding them. China and many EU countries are leading the way, and profiting from it too. There is a massive boom in renewable, clean energy at a time when the US is trying to build up coal again.
By not joining the PCCA the US has screwed itself. Screwed itself out of an opportunity to create jobs and technology, screwed itself out of trade that will instead go to countries which are helping each other meet their environmental commitments. If a company can buy a part from the US or from Germany, but the German one has a smaller CO2 footprint and this the final product will too, which has various benefits like tax breaks and lower environmental levies, which one are they going to pick?
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.

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Re:Remember NAFTA! by alvinrod · 2017-09-17 06:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

What's the point of having measurable goals if there's obligation to meet any of them. I can intend to solve world hunger by next Thursday and ask you to contribute money to help me do so, but I can't see how you would trust me with any money if I were also to say that all of my proposed goals or targets are non-binding and I'm not technically obligated to spend any of the money on solving world hunger in the first place.

Nicaragua is probably the only country who is on the money in all of this. The Paris Accord won't actually accomplish anything beyond being some feel-good self-masturbatory act that serves as a good photo op. It's just Kony 2012 on a worldwide stage. Get a group of countries to agree to some binding resolutions that might make a difference. They don't even need to be difficult ones either. Something as simple as a binding promise to stop all government subsidies or tax breaks to oil companies would help make alternative energy sources more economical even if the government does nothing to fund them.

I mean I'm sure that letting the universe know that we as a planet stand united against global warming or some shit like that is sure going to stop climate change in its tracks. Probably get it just shaking in its boots to the point that the temperatures recede a good half degree or so.
Re:Remember NAFTA! by fahrbot-bot · 2017-09-17 06:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

So "pulling out" of PCCA just means that America will no longer need to make up fake goals.
Then what will Trump and the Republicans do? Fake goals are, apparently, all they're good at.
You can't, honestly, expect them to actually govern? </politically-biased-rant>

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It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Re:Remember NAFTA! by alvinrod · 2017-09-17 07:35 · Score: 2

There are already a lot of people who do though and there are plenty of individuals and companies in the U.S. that are already taking more action of their own accord than anything the Paris Accord would do. The Paris Accord does absolutely nothing to move towards a solution.

Imagine for the sake of argument that we were on some other timeline (whether this one or that one is the darkest is really up to you) where Clinton had won and we aren't even having this conversation because she just goes along for the photo op and only Syria and Nicaragua are left out, or maybe they even join for the sake of argument. In four years Clinton loses reelection and the Republican president probably pulls us out just states that we're not going to do whatever non-binding things we didn't have to actually do anyways, so even if we couldn't actually withdraw, we had effectively done just that.

The Paris Accord does absolutely nothing, because joining doesn't mean that all of the countries are fully on board on that the politics can't shift. Realistically, most of them just don't do anything that they weren't going to do already regardless of what non-binding promises they made. Even if some politician gets called out for not sticking to them, they only need point at everyone else not sticking to them either and that it's unfair to impose the agreement in a non-unilateral way. It's really just a prisoner's dilemma where there's almost no penalty for defecting and very little immediate rewards for not playing greedy.

The end result is exactly what we have now where no one is under any obligation, but there are plenty of individuals and corporations doing good things regardless because they actually want to. We as consumers are then free to reward them with our business or avoid companies that we don't feel are doing enough. Beyond that this isn't much different than creating a Facebook group called the Paris Accord and having people like it. Hell, that might even be more effective since you're at least getting individuals to commit and potentially face scorn from their peer groups if they behave hypocritically.
Re:Remember NAFTA! by morethanapapercert · 2017-09-17 08:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

The problem is, ending the subsidies for the entire petroleum industry is FAR from simple or easy. Sure there is the immediate problem of having to go against the powerful Oil and Gas lobbyists which is indeed a big hurdle to try to overcome. But there are several less immediately obvious hurdles as well.
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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Re:Remember NAFTA! by AmiMoJo · 2017-09-17 08:10 · Score: 2

The point is that someone will be marking your homework and publicly shaming you in front of the class if you don't do a good job.
The Paris Agreement puts in place a framework for monitoring progress. More importantly, it says "the whole world thinks this is a problem", which strengthens politician's cases for doing things domestically. For example, it could be used to justify setting up a fund to invest in clean tech, and then you get Tesla and a nice profit out of it.

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Re:Remember NAFTA! by jader3rd · 2017-09-17 08:27 · Score: 2, Informative

What's the point of having measurable goals if there's obligation to meet any of them.
You don't improve what you don't measure. So by measuring, and being informed, provides incentive for improvement.
Re:Remember NAFTA! by TeknoHog · 2017-09-17 09:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

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Re:Remember NAFTA! by ShanghaiBill · 2017-09-17 10:34 · Score: 2

If the goals in PCCA are "fake", why bother to pull out?
Because it is great symbolism, it makes his supporters think he is "doing something", and it pisses off the greenies because they also care more about symbolism than reality. Pulling out is silly and meaningless in a practical sense, but is a smart move politically.
Re: Remember NAFTA! by Chromium_One · 2017-09-17 11:10 · Score: 2, Funny

0/10
You're not even trying to emulate a goddamned moron, hell, you're barely above emulating a Markov chain. Might wanna stop before you hurt yourself again.

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When you live in a sick society, just about everything you do is wrong.
Re:Remember NAFTA! by phantomfive · 2017-09-17 15:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

Good news! This will help the children, along with everyone else,
That's what you want me to believe. You haven't done deep economic analysis on the topic, and you probably haven't even investigated it enough to figure out what mitigations will actually hurt the children more than they'll help them.

Every mitigation has a cost: at what point is the cost more expensive than the problem it fixes? You don't know, and your comment was entirely made from ignorance. You'd be a good politician though, so keep it up.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Remember NAFTA! by Barsteward · 2017-09-17 19:32 · Score: 2

Fortunately there are plenty of sensible politicians in the US like Mayors etc that are still going to do things towards the Accord in spite of idiots like Trump.

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"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Re:Remember NAFTA! by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2017-09-18 04:43 · Score: 2

I can't find a single goal in the Paris Accord that I would consider measurable. But maybe, I'm too much of a physicist and not enough of a sociologist.

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SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.

There's Nothing to Re-Negotiate by Ironlenny · 2017-09-17 05:53 · Score: 5, Informative

The Paris Accord is completely voluntary with each nations limits, set by that nation. If we don't link the limits we set for ourselves, then we just don't have to follow them.

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There is a system for subverting the system and you should use that system!

Re:There's Nothing to Re-Negotiate by rholtzjr · 2017-09-17 06:12 · Score: 2, Informative

The WSJ story has already been debunked. Stop the madness already.

Re:Coal by cdreimer · 2017-09-17 05:58 · Score: 2

The Chinese are promising to create gold mining jobs for 92 million Americans, if they can pass a drug test and play World of Warcraft 24/7.

It's a trick. Get an axe. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-17 05:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

You don't negotiate with Trump, unless he's outright giving ground just to spite his own side. Not because he's a 'genius negotiator' - but because his future decisions have almost no relationship with his previous promises.

Sure, you might make an agreement with him and get lucky, but it's all a roll of the dice - and there's no benefit to playing. The only reliable result would be uncertainty injected between you and the other folks involved in any agreement you're letting Trump into.

If he wants to make outright concessions on his own, cool - but no negotiating down any terms or disrupting any of what you're doing in the name of cooperating with him.

Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by Alain+Williams · 2017-09-17 06:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

The only way to do that is to cut emissions ... and even then there is a large time lag ... it will take years to reverse what we have done.

Re:Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by Kohath · 2017-09-17 06:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

US Hurricanes stoped on their own from 2006 until 2017, with the lone exception of Sandy which was just barely a Category 1. Does climate change cause hurricanes? Where was it the last 10 years then?
Does climate change only cause bad weather and never good weather? How does it know which is which? Were there more hurricanes before climate change or fewer?
Please tell us how many hurricanes will happen at each level of emissions. Because you are stating a specific cause and effect linkage between emissions and hurricanes. Please quantify it and explain the cause and effect relationship.
Re: Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-17 06:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

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."
Re:Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by Gravis+Zero · 2017-09-17 06:57 · Score: 2, Informative

Hurricanes aren't new and they'll always be around. However, climate change is making them stronger and more destructive. Don't pretend like it's something it's not because it's just as bad as pretending climate change is a hoax.

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Re:Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by Kohath · 2017-09-17 07:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

How much more destructive? What was the trend in storm intensity before and after climate change? How does the cause and effect relationship work exactly?
What specific, quantifiable cause and effect relationship are we acknowledging? And what clear evidence of this specific effect should we be sure not to ignore?
Re:Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-17 07:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

What? "Stopped on their own"? Hurricanes don't stop because major ones didn't happen to hit the US. There are other parts of the world, you know. Example: hurricane Igor in 2010 did enough damage in Newfoundland, by that point "only" a tropical storm, that the name was retired. As you can see by checking almost any source, even boring old wikipedia, there were plenty of other hurricanes that year, in the middle of the period you mention, but most did not strike the US and most that did were comparatively weak. As seems to be a common theme with people who are overly skeptical of climate change, the year before the period you cite, 2005, was a very busy, record-breaking hurricane season in a number of ways. They ran out of the 26 alphabetical names and had to start naming storms "alpha", "beta", and so on. The 2005 season didn't end until the year rolled over into 2006, so of course subsequent years tend to look like a relative "lull" in hurricane activity by comparison, something highlighted by skeptics by conveniently ignoring the crazy high year.
Here's a list for the 2000s. When did they "stop"? Same question for the 2010s. Here's a nice chart. The lowest number in the period you cite appears to be 2013, which had only 2 hurricanes in the Atlantic, not zero. So far this year we've had 6 and counting, which would be about average if there weren't any more, but they get more attention than usual because 2 of them that were notably strong hit the US.
Most of what I've seen written about hurricanes and climate change suggests there might not be any more hurricanes in number than usual, but that they might become more intense and have more rainfall when they do form, so numbers might not be the best way to judge changes.
As for cause and effect to account for that, hurricanes feed off warm water in the tropics. Do the math.
Re:Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by Gravis+Zero · 2017-09-17 09:40 · Score: 2

How much more destructive? What was the trend in storm intensity before and after climate change? How does the cause and effect relationship work exactly?
What specific, quantifiable cause and effect relationship are we acknowledging? And what clear evidence of this specific effect should we be sure not to ignore?
They actually study this stuff: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/glob...

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Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Re:Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by Kohath · 2017-09-17 11:48 · Score: 3, Informative

You should read it. The thing you said:

Climate change is making [hurricanes] stronger
Is contradicted by their first sentence in their first summary conclusion:

It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.
Re:Negotiation won't stop hurricanes by rhazz · 2017-09-18 02:23 · Score: 2

You are a complete ass. Did you stop reading after that first bullet? Let's provide the whole quote mmk? There are four bullets, and you quoted only the first.

It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity. That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate).
Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause tropical cyclones globally to be more intense on average (by 2 to 11% according to model projections for an IPCC A1B scenario). This change would imply an even larger percentage increase in the destructive potential per storm, assuming no reduction in storm size.
There are better than even odds that anthropogenic warming over the next century will lead to an increase in the occurrence of very intense tropical cyclone in some basins–an increase that would be substantially larger in percentage terms than the 2-11% increase in the average storm intensity. This increase in intense storm occurrence is projected despite a likely decrease (or little change) in the global numbers of all tropical cyclones.
Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause tropical cyclones to have substantially higher rainfall rates than present-day ones, with a model-projected increase of about 10-15% for rainfall rates averaged within about 100 km of the storm center.

Re:Good by Sique · 2017-09-17 06:01 · Score: 4, Informative

There should be a "Not informative" moderation.

The Paris Agreement was a self-commitment of all signing countries to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius until the year 2100. Not more, nothing less. If Climate Change was non existant, or a naturally occuring phenomenom, the U.S. could simply keep the agreement because either the global climate doesn't change at all, or the climate change is so slow (previous climate changes took ten thousands of years to happen), that there is no reason to fear anything within the next 100 years.

At no point in the agreement there was any mentioning of wealth or the redistribution of it.

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.sig: Sique *sigh*

"Paris Climate Accord" is the problem... by vux984 · 2017-09-17 06:05 · Score: 3, Funny

"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."

What exactly would be more favorable than: "a voluntary non-binding commitment, where you set your own terms that you can then ignore"?

Clearly the problem is the name? If we renamed it the 'Trump Climate Accord' that would solve only real issue the current White House has.

Re:Good by Alwin+Henseler · 2017-09-17 06:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

At the core this was nothing but a redistribution of wealth out of the US with no real guarantees the cash would be used to actually preserve the environment.

The US is near the top in countries that:
a) Have the biggest impact on our environment (both climate-related & otherwise), and
b) Have the resources to do something about it.

So it's only reasonable that countries like the US, China & European countries should take the lead to reduce mankind's influence on climate.

Paris was negotiated among a large number of countries. Pulling out after the fact just shows the US as an untrustworthy partner. Especially since Paris was more about setting goals than binding agreements.

Re: Good by guruevi · 2017-09-17 06:23 · Score: 2

27 pages is an awful lot of document to just state that. The agreement does include unspecified "contributions" of which China and the US will bear nearly half of the world's. Signed agreements are binding even if it's just a 'shame' thing, media pressure and future reinterpretation based on personal beliefs rather than science are a real risk, you complain about Trump for doing it but imagine someone like our current VP or anyone in the Republican party for that matter reinterpret the needs of the world based on their faith and associated bloodlust - nuking all non-Christian countries would definitely help climate in the long run.

Agreements with shoddy wording and no enforceability nor accountability is bad. You see what Trump can do with it, pray nobody that actually interprets the rhetoric like gospel comes in power.

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Re:Good by elrous0 · 2017-09-17 06:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

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Re:Good by Sique · 2017-09-17 06:24 · Score: 2

There is no global carbon market.

Some countries have an internal carbon market, some trade zones (e.g. the E.U.) have them. That's fine, but the Paris Agreement does not demand having carbon markets.

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.sig: Sique *sigh*

Hell no! by Plumpaquatsch · 2017-09-17 06:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

The treaty has already been watered down just to get the US on board - and now Trump wants a better deal? Fuck you! Time for an embargo on US goods.

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Re:Good by SlaveToTheGrind · 2017-09-17 06:54 · Score: 5, Informative

The Paris Agreement was a self-commitment of all signing countries to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius until the year 2100. Not more, nothing less. . . .

At no point in the agreement there was any mentioning of wealth or the redistribution of it.

You mean this Paris Agreement? The one that says in Article 9, Paragraph 1, " Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention"?

There should be a "Not informative" moderation.

Indeed.

Re:Good by AmiMoJo · 2017-09-17 06:59 · Score: 3, Informative

There should be a "Not informative" moderation.
The Paris Agreement was a self-commitment of all signing countries to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius until the year 2100. Not more, nothing less.

Your post may be in need of that tag...

The Paris Agreement also committed signatories to setting ever increasing goals, which would then be monitored and those failing to set adequate goals or to meet them would be named and shamed. That's actually really important, because it gives politicians political capital to get things done.

It also laid the groundwork to get the various mitigation trading schemes linked up, so that things are not double counted. That's now happening, and will both prevent the systems being abused and make them more effective.

Paris also establishes standards for measuring progress, which must be scientifically rigorous and will be independently monitored.

You might not think much of this, but the practical effects are undeniable. China is pushing really hard and exceeding its quite ambitious goals. The EU is pushing quite hard too, and using it as a catalyst for change. Don't make excuses for the US not doing its bit.

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Re: Good by fahrbot-bot · 2017-09-17 07:03 · Score: 4, Funny

27 pages is an awful lot of document to just state that.

If it's that short, can't we just add the Paris Climate Accord agreement to the iTunes EULA. That way, we can get everyone to agree to it without noticing.

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It must have been something you assimilated. . . .

Keep shooting that foot.... by XSportSeeker · 2017-09-17 07:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

There was absolutely no reason to withdraw from it, and some republicans are only now starting to realize this.

Paris Climate Agreement needs no renegotiation because it's non-binding, it's been criticized for asking too little too late, it was a political and diplomatic move without any negative consequences - other than being a symbolic gesture that doesn't really change much.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion...
https://www.newscientist.com/a...
http://www.npr.org/sections/13...

Even worse, a smart politician could use it in their favor right now. Even if the objective isn't met, it's far into the future, so he/she could just say that his/her political party did everything they could during their term to get there, but other administrations endded up not following it properly. It's the perfect excuse for a political party to return to power when things gets more dire in the future.

What happened there was the usual Trump blindness when trying to undo everything Obama did that got some attention under his administration on the premisse that everything he did was bad in some way, stupid campaign promisses filled with misinformation and vilification, plus Trump being an idiot that only listens to cospiracy theory alt-right channels.

Worst of all: if Trump just kept quiet and didn't step back from the agreement, the US would probably hit it's target anyways. Governments are not leading the way on this - the global economy is.
The economy is moving independent of governmental interference towards renewables, generating less garbage, developing electric cars, closing down fossil fuel power plants, and a bunch of other stuff. We're moving away from fossil fuels because it became economically feasible and attractive to do so, from an international standpoint.

Stepping down from the accord just painted the US as a country to be sidestepped for doing all sorts of businesses that will be moving tech towards cleaner goals - which is why so many US corporations were quick to announce they'd keep following the accord regardless of what the government is talking. It's not because those corporations are "good" or environmentaly friendly or some bullshit. It's because the global economy right now is aligned with those goals.

Notice how many news we hear these days about China's progressive moves towards clean energy. That's because China is trying to get the worldwide leadership on that particular topic. Trump just made it this much easier for another country to assume the position of global leader in a topic that lots of people are paying close attention to.

But now the damage has already been done. With or without renegotiation, it doesn't matter. Republicans can either be outright denied a renegotiation, which will continue looking bad for US in general, or they can get the agreement renegotiated which will keep them on a list of countries that are still in denial of a problem that needs firm stances, not because it's some charity or plead for help from another country, but because of their own interests.

Re:Keep shooting that foot.... by JustNiz · 2017-09-17 10:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

>> 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.

Re:Hell no! by rholtzjr · 2017-09-17 08:00 · Score: 2

Well, considering we have been in a trade deficit for the past 10 years to about the tune of $43B a month (hint: that usually tells most that you already ARE restricting US goods from entering your market)....... Okay, I raise your embargo with a 100% tariff on all foreign produced products. And I call.

Re:Good by Powercntrl · 2017-09-17 08:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm still somewhat skeptical of man-made climate change myself

All fossil fuels started out as prehistoric biomass. Epcot used to have a mildly entertaining attraction which explained this. The ecosystem we're living in today has adapted over millions of years to a cooler climate, thanks to all that carbon being sequestered underground.

It is simply denying reality to assume reversing the process of carbon sequestration is going to have no effect on the climate. Now yeah, if you believe God just put all that oil and coal down there for his devout followers to reap, yeah - can't argue logic and reason against religious beliefs.

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. In short, put up or shut up.

That dimwitted blonde deplorable making the rounds on social media made the same argument. The flaw in that logic, however, is that it's tantamount to dismissing a warning of "smoking is unhealthy", because it was given to you by a smoker. The hypocritical behavior of the messenger does not invalidate the factuality of the message.

The take away is that yes, they should be practicing what they preach. Not that their hypocritical behavior is an acceptable justification for you to start rollin' coal.

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Re:It's a trick. Get an axe. by WheezyJoe · 2017-09-17 08:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

You don't negotiate with Trump, unless he's outright giving ground just to spite his own side. Not because he's a 'genius negotiator' - but because his future decisions have almost no relationship with his previous promises.

This, except Trump doesn't have a "side" to spite, except his own. The only thing he cares about, tweets about, speeches about, or discusses with people is how popular he perceives himself. Now that the ride on the Right and the GOP is losing steam, Ryan and that little turtle-head McConnell refusing his calls (Mitch? Mitch? Are you there, Mitch? It's ME! President Trump! The President, you little turd! Goddammit, I can hear you breathing into the phone, you no-neck amphibian!), so maybe it's time to give the Left a try. I mean, shee-itt! He threw the white supremacists a bone for Charlottesville, and what did it get him? Nothing but headaches, damn ingrates, and Bannon being a total two-faced asshole. Even Fox News turning sour, you'd think they'd see the fair-and-balance of it. How can you get a good round of golf in with all that going on?
So, why not go 180 on the Paris Accords? Why not go 180 on the debt ceiling? Why not go 180 on the illegal.. uh.. Dream Kids? Shit, if it goes well, and the mean old liberal fake-news start throwing rose petals at him and call him a hero, maybe he'll "re-negotiate" some other stuff, too.

Take a lesson, liberals. With Trump, everything's for sale, for the right price. A front-page Sunday New York Times "Best President Ever", and it'll be "Wall? What Wall? I'd never build a Wall with Mexico, that would fuck up NAFTA!"

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Here's the thing by rsilvergun · 2017-09-17 09:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

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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Re:Here's the thing by bjdevil66 · 2017-09-17 15:02 · Score: 2

This was the most brilliant post I've read in a long time... right up until "Bernie & Co."
If the Dems kicked their liberal social policies about forcing fringe groups and minorities to the forefront of policy out, and started REALLY helping the middle class with balanced versions of what Bernie Sanders is talking about and enforcing existing regulations (what the hell happened to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act??), they'd win every election for the next 1000 years.
Re:Here's the thing by DNS-and-BIND · 2017-09-17 21:14 · Score: 3, Informative

Yes, but it's so emotionally satisfying to look down at poor people and insult them for being racist. It makes us look good by contrast: us tolerant people on one side, and the deplorable morons on the other. It turns out that punching down on powerless people feels awesome. No wonder it was banned.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re:Good by SlaveToTheGrind · 2017-09-17 11:01 · Score: 2

China is pushing really hard and exceeding its quite ambitious goals.

I take it you haven't actually visited China lately, or you'd know firsthand what baloney that is. China may say all sorts of high-minded things in political contexts, but at the end of the day its economic growth comes first and the environmental implications of that growth come second.

Re: What is US trying to renegotiate? by presidenteloco · 2017-09-17 11:48 · Score: 3, Funny

I have no idea, but the US shouldn't be let back in without paying a special "stupid" tax - for all the toxic disinformation they spew on this topic.

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Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?

I think you're underestimating by rsilvergun · 2017-09-17 12:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

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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Trump's Officials Suggest Re-Negotiating The Paris Climate Accord (msn.com)

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