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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 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.
There is a system for subverting the system and you should use that system!
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
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.
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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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.
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.
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.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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.
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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