Thursday, August 28, 2014

Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty



Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty
By CORAL DAVENPORT AUG. 26, 2014
A coal-fired power plant in Kentucky. Coal-heavy states could be economic losers in any climate-change protocol that targets such plants, which are among the largest greenhouse gas emitters. Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/us/politics/obama-pursuing-climate-accord-in-lieu-of-treaty.html
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress.

In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path.


“If you want a deal that includes all the major emitters, including the U.S., you cannot realistically pursue a legally binding treaty at this time,” said Paul Bledsoe, a top climate change official in the Clinton administration who works closely with the Obama White House on international climate change policy.

Lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill say there is no chance that the currently gridlocked Senate will ratify a climate change treaty in the near future, especially in a political environment where many Republican lawmakers remain skeptical of the established science of human-caused global warming.

“There’s a strong understanding of the difficulties of the U.S. situation, and a willingness to work with the U.S. to get out of this impasse,” said Laurence Tubiana, the French ambassador for climate change to the United Nations. “There is an implicit understanding that this not require ratification by the Senate.”

American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement — a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from an existing 1992 treaty with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.

Countries would be legally required to enact domestic climate change policies — but would voluntarily pledge to specific levels of emissions cuts and to channel money to poor countries to help them adapt to climate change. Countries might then be legally obligated to report their progress toward meeting those pledges at meetings held to identify those nations that did not meet their cuts.

“There’s some legal and political magic to this,” said Jake Schmidt, an expert in global climate negotiations with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. “They’re trying to move this as far as possible without having to reach the 67-vote threshold” in the Senate.

The strategy comes as scientists warn that the earth is already experiencing the first signs of human-caused global warming — more severe drought and stronger wildfires, rising sea levels and more devastating storms — and the United Nations heads toward what many say is the body’s last chance to avert more catastrophic results in the coming century.

At the United Nations General Assembly in New York next month, delegates will gather at a sideline meeting on climate change to try to make progress toward the deal next year in Paris. A December meeting is planned in Lima, Peru, to draft the agreement.

In seeking to go around Congress to push his international climate change agenda, Mr. Obama is echoing his domestic climate strategy. In June, he bypassed Congress and used his executive authority to order a far-reaching regulation forcing American coal-fired power plants to curb their carbon emissions. That regulation, which would not be final until next year, already faces legal challenges, including a lawsuit filed on behalf of a dozen states.

But unilateral action by the world’s largest economy will not be enough to curb the rise of carbon pollution across the globe. That will be possible only if the world’s largest economies, including India and China, agree to enact similar cuts.

The Obama administration’s international climate strategy is likely to infuriate Republican lawmakers who already say the president is abusing his executive authority by pushing through major policies without congressional approval.

“Unfortunately, this would be just another of many examples of the Obama administration’s tendency to abide by laws that it likes and to disregard laws it doesn’t like — and to ignore the elected representatives of the people when they don’t agree,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, said in a statement.

A deal that would not need to be ratified by the United States or any other nation is also drawing fire from the world’s poorest countries. In African and low-lying island nations — places that scientists say are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change — officials fear that any agreement made outside the structure of a traditional United Nations treaty will not bind rich countries to spend billions of dollars to help developing nations deal with the forces of climate change.
Poor countries look to rich countries to help build dams and levees to guard against coastal flooding from rising seas levels, or to provide food aid during pervasive droughts.

“Without an international agreement that binds us, it’s impossible for us to address the threats of climate change,” said Richard Muyungi, a climate negotiator for Tanzania. “We are not as capable as the U.S. of facing this problem, and historically we don’t have as much responsibility. What we need is just one thing: Let the U.S. ratify the agreement. If they ratify the agreement, it will trigger action across the world.”
                                                                                                                      
Observers of United Nations climate negotiations, which have gone on for more than two decades without achieving a global deal to legally bind the world’s biggest polluters to carbon cuts, say that if written carefully such an agreement could be a creative and pragmatic way to at least level off the world’s rapidly rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

About a dozen countries are responsible for nearly 70 percent of the world’s carbon pollution, chiefly from cars and coal-fired power plants.

At a 2009 climate meeting in Copenhagen, world leaders tried but failed to forge a new legally binding treaty to supplant the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Instead, they agreed only to a series of voluntary pledges to cut carbon emissions through 2020.

The Obama administration’s climate change negotiators are desperate to avoid repeating the failure of Kyoto, the United Nations’ first effort at a legally binding global climate change treaty. Nations around the world signed on to the deal, which would have required the world’s richest economies to cut their carbon emissions, but the Senate refused to ratify the treaty, ensuring that the world’s largest historic carbon polluter was not bound by the agreement.

Seventeen years later, the Senate obstacle remains. Even though Democrats currently control the chamber, the Senate has been unable to reach agreement to ratify relatively noncontroversial United Nations treaties. In 2012, for example, Republican senators blocked ratification of a United Nations treaty on equal rights for the disabled, even though the treaty was modeled after an American law and had been negotiated by a Republican president, George W. Bush.

This fall, Senate Republicans are poised to pick up more seats, and possibly to retake control of the chamber. Mr. McConnell, who has been one of the fiercest opponents of Mr. Obama’s climate change policy, comes from a coal-heavy state that could be an economic loser in any climate-change protocol that targets coal-fired power plants, the world’s largest source of carbon pollution.

Natural Resources Defense Council
Leonardo DiCaprio is a trustee at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and was a board member for Global Green USA.

Note: Leo DiCaprio Declares War on Western Industrial Civilization (PAST RESEARCH)
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sundance Institute, Roosevelt Institute, the International Rescue Committee, Brookings Institution (think tank), the ClimateWorks Foundation, and the Committee for Economic Development.
George Soros was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and married in 2013.
Christine Lagarde attended George Soros’s 2013 wedding reception, and was the finance minister for France.
Robert Redford is a trustee at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the founder & president of the Sundance Institute, and an honorary board member for Green Cross International. 
Robert Redford        
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Robert_Redford
Robert Redford is an honorary board member for Green Cross International.
Mikhail Gorbachev is the founder of Green Cross International, an advisory board member for the Wheelchair Foundation, was the general secretary for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Global Green USA is a US affiliate of Green Cross International.
Valery Giscard d'Estaing is an advisory board member for the Wheelchair Foundation, and was the president of France.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt is an advisory board member for the Wheelchair Foundation, and the chair for the Roosevelt Institute.
Janet A. Howard is a governor for the Roosevelt Institute, and a director at the French.American Foundation.
Gillian Martin Sorensen is a trustee at the Roosevelt Institute, a director at the  
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Nicolas S. Rohatyn is Felix G. Rohatyn’s son, and the founder of the Rohatyn Group.
Pedro-Pablo Kuczynski is a senior adviser for the Rohatyn Group, and was the finance minister for Peru.
Elie Wiesel is an overseer at the International Rescue Committee, and a messenger of peace for the United Nations.
William J. vanden Heuvel is an overseer at the International Rescue Committee, and was a U.S. representative for the United Nations.
Samantha Power was a director at the International Rescue Committee, is the U.S. ambassador for the United Nations, and married to Cass R. Sunstein.
Cass R. Sunstein is married to Samantha Power, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Susan E. Rice was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank), the United Nations U.S. ambassador for the Barack Obama administration, and is the White House national security adviser for the Barack Obama administration.
Donald F. McHenry is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), a governor for the Roosevelt Institute, and was a U.S. ambassador for the United Nations.
Richard L. Kauffman was a trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and a director at the French-American Foundation.
Walter J.P. Curley is an honorary chairman for the French-American Foundation, and was a U.S. ambassador for France.
Howard H. Leach was a director at the French-American Foundation, a U.S. ambassador for France, a board member for the Haas School of Business, and a regent at the University of California.
Richard C. Blum a board member for the Haas School of Business, a regent at the University of California, married to Senator Dianne Feinstein, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Joan E. Spero was an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), a U.S ambassador for economic & social affairs for the United Nations, and the president of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation was a funder for the ClimateWorks Foundation.
Bertrand P. Collomb was a director at the ClimateWorks Foundation, and a director at the French-American Foundation.
Elizabeth Frawley Bagley was a director at the French-American Foundation, and an alternate U.S. representative for the United Nations.
Charles E.M. Kolb is a director at the French-American Foundation, and the president of the Committee for Economic Development.
Donna S. Morea was a trustee at the Committee for Economic Development, and the EVP for the CGI Group Inc.
CGI Group Inc. was the Obamacare contractor that developed Healthcare.gov web site.
Obamacare is Barack Obama’s signature policy initiative.
Douglas M. Price is a trustee at the Committee for Economic Development, and a director at French-American Foundation.
Raymond G. Chambers was a trustee at the Committee for Economic Development, and is a special envoy for malaria for the United Nations.
G. Richard Thoman is a trustee at the Committee for Economic Development, and a director at the French-American Foundation.
Arthur A. Hartman is a director at the French-American Foundation, was a U.S. ambassador for France, and a U.S. ambassador for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Mikhail Gorbachev was the president for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the general secretary for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and is the founder of Green Cross International.  
Global Green USA is a US affiliate of Green Cross International.
Edward Norton is a board member for Global Green USA, and a messenger of peace for the United Nations.
Leonardo DiCaprio was a board member for Global Green USA, and is a trustee at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Ted Turner
Ted Turner is an honorary board member for Green Cross International.  
Ted Turner is an honorary board member for Green Cross International, the founder of CNN, and the co-chairman for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank).
Nafis Sadik is a director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank), and was the under secretary general for the United Nations.
Hisashi Owada is a director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank), and was the Japanese representative for the United Nations.
Jessica Tuchman Mathews is a director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank), the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), was a board member for the International Crisis Group, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with Norman Dodd in 1982
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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank) was a funder for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank).
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J. Stapleton Roy is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and was a U.S. ambassador for China.
Olara A. Otunnu was a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and the under secretary general for the United Nations.
Kofi A. Annan is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), a board member for the International Crisis Group, Gregory B. Craig was his lawyer, and the secretary general for the United Nations.
Gregory B. Craig was Kofi A. Annan’s lawyer, a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and was the White House counsel for the Barack Obama administration.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank).
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Nancy E. Soderberg was the VP for the International Crisis Group, an alternate U.S. representative for the United Nations, and was Michael R. Bloomberg’s foreign policy adviser.
Marjorie B. Tiven is Michael R. Bloomberg’s sister, and was the New York City commissioner for the United Nations.
Mark Malloch-Brown was the deputy secretary-general for the United Nations, and is a co-chair for the International Crisis Group.
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Benjamin W. Mkapa is a board member for the International Crisis Group, and was the president of Tanzania.
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was a U.S. ambassador for the United Nations, and Newton N. Minow was his assistant counsel.
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Michelle Obama was a lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP.
Barack Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin LLP.
R. Eden Martin is counsel at Sidley Austin LLP, and the president of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Rahm I. Emanuel is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Chicago (IL) mayor, Ari Emanuel’s brother, and was the White House chief of staff for the Barack Obama administration.
Ari Emanuel is Rahm I. Emanuel’s brother, and the co-CEO & director for William Morris Endeavor Entertainment.
Charlize Theron is a William Morris Endeavor Entertainment client, and a messenger of peace for the United Nations.
Edward Norton is a William Morris Endeavor Entertainment client, a messenger of peace for the United Nations, and a board member for Global Green USA.
Global Green USA is a US affiliate for Green Cross International.
Leonardo DiCaprio was a board member for Global Green USA, and is a trustee at the Natural Resources Defense Council.               
Natural Resources Defense Council is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.
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Lester Crown is Susan Crown & James S. Crown’s father, a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
James S. Crown is Lester Crown’s son, a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Aspen Institute (think tank).
George Soros was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Yo-Yo Ma is an artist in residence at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a messenger of peace for the United Nations.
Thomas R. Pickering was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a U.S. ambassador for the United Nations.
Hisashi Owada was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a Japanese representative for the United Nations.
Olara A. Otunnu is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and the under secretary general for the United Nations.
Walter Isaacson is the president & CEO for the Aspen Institute (think tank), and was the chairman & CEO for CNN.
Ted Turner is the founder of CNN, an honorary board member for Green Cross International, and the co-chairman for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank).
Ted Turner
Ted Turner is an honorary board member for Green Cross International.  
Nafis Sadik is a director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank), and was the under secretary general for the United Nations.
Hisashi Owada is a director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank), and was the Japanese representative for the United Nations.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank) was a funder for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank).
Olara A. Otunnu was a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and the under secretary general for the United Nations.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an organization for the United Nations.
Kyoto Protocol was a coordinated agreement with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

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