Posted on 09/17/2017 10:30:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The terms of the Paris Agreement are set in stone, the EU, China and Canada agreed at a summit in Montreal this weekend, while Washington was forced to deny that the US is planning to stay in the accord.
Ahead of a UN General Assembly meeting in New York this week and the COP23 climate summit in Bonn in November, EU, Chinese and Canadian officials met in Montreal on Friday and Saturday (15-16 September) to present a united front against the United States on climate action.
The US was represented at the meeting by an observer who, according to EU Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, said “[the US] will not renegotiate the Paris accord but they will try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this agreement.”
This was quickly refuted by a White House spokesperson on Saturday, who insisted that President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the international agreement still stands.
(TWEET-AT-LINK)
But there was more confusion on Sunday, when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told American television that Trump is actually open to staying in the agreement 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,” Tillerson told CBS News. He added that the terms should reflect the US economy’s needs in relation to China’s in particular.
(VIDEO-AND-TWEET-AT-LINK)
EU climate boss Cañete also told reporters that there would be a meeting with senior US officials on the sidelines of the UN Assembly “to assess what is the real US position”, adding that “it’s a message which is quite different to the one we heard from President Trump in the past.”
Despite Trump’s 1 June speech signalling his intention to leave the accord, 4 November 2020 is the earliest date the US can actually exit under the terms of the deal. Other countries are concerned that the US will, as a result, look to influence and water down the agreement from within.
At the first Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change (MMCA), Canadian Minister of Climate Change and Environment Catherine McKenna said that co-hosts Canada, China and the EU, as well as other countries in attendance, agreed the “agreement is irreversible and non-negotiable. We are also in full agreement on the full implementation [of the deal].”
Cañete, echoing European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union address, added that “with the collapse of ambition in the United States, Europe will ensure we make our planet great again. Our ambitious climate policy agenda has the most important backing of all.”
The meeting took place 30 years to the day since the signing of the Montreal Protocol on protecting the ozone layer, an agreement which has been hailed as the most successful environmental accord in history.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s Special Representative on Climate Change, called the protocol “very effective and efficient” and called on all parties to the Paris deal to decide “how we should combine climate actions with economic growth, the protection of people and job creation.”
China turned up at the meeting in the wake of making public its plan to ban the internal combustion engine, which sent shockwaves through the automobile industry.
A former senior executive of US firm Chrysler told The Economist that “if China says no more fossil-fuelled cars, global carmakers must follow”, in order to keep a slice of the largest car market in the world.
The EU is hoping to make its own impact on the same sector with an upcoming proposal on cutting transport emissions. It was the only tangible environmental measure cited by Juncker in Strasbourg last week, among a raft of migration and institutional reform proposals.
Timeline
•December 2015 Paris climate conference
•22 April 2016 Paris Agreement signed
•4 November 2016 Agreement comes into force
•1 June 2017 US President Donald Trump announces intention to withdraw from deal
•6-17 November 2017 COP 23 summit in Bonn
That is such bull shiite.
I don’t even need to read that article to know that they couldn’t be more wrong.
Sigh.
they plan to market Brawndo worldwide
Tillerson is a friggin saboteur doing his best to undermine Presdent Trump. If Trump holds his course on pulling out of the ridiculous accord, history will show he had great wisdom & foresight. The saboteur globalists don’t want that!
I call bullshit on that.
Great news, we have no reason to be in it then.
Many accords like this wind up forcing expensive compliance by Western countries while making excuses for other countries to do anything they want to environmentally.
You are right, Russian and China are both filthy.
When Obama had the Senate, they didn't ratify it. Its not going to happen under Trump.
For fun, try searching google or bing on "pollution map" and think about what turns up.
Well that’s nice.
The US constitution says otherwise
“...other countries in attendance, agreed the “agreement is irreversible and non-negotiable.”
Well bless their hearts... Their so cute when they think they have any authority. Come TRY to enforce it.
Translation: their taxes will skyrocket, while the China, Russia, and India continue to pollute on a Biblical scale.
No news here. Tillerson is repeating what has been Trump’s position all along: renegotiate and we can talk. Otherwise, no. As for the Accord being “non-negotiable”, well, that sort of answers the question, doesn’t it? This part, at least, is irreversible and non-negotiable: no Senate ratification, no treaty. Period.
Similarly, the government of the United States does not have the authority to enter into an agreement with a foreign nation in any way that cannot be undone by a future government of the United States. To think otherwise is to grant power to the government which is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.
True. But the whole thing is just a handshake agreement in the first place. Obama never submitted to the Senate to be ratified as a treaty, which would be legally binding on us.
Heck, Obama never submitted the deal with Iran to be ratified as a treaty either. I would love to know how Obama was authorized to send a planeload of cash, actual currency from various countries, over to Iran as part of the deal.
The terms of the Paris Agreement are set in stone, the EU, China and Canada agreed at a summit in Montreal this weekend,
So we are obligated to do what these countries have decided?? Really??? They decided it is set in stone??? So we have to comply??? This doesn’t make sense.........
We’ll then, bye. We’re out.
Heck, so what if it were a treaty that actually WAS ratified by the Senate? My Choctaw folks have a lot of experience with signing a treaty with people in Washington, D.C. Not usually worth the paper it was written on.
The U.S. should just ignore the whole thing. Forget what Obama said or did and tell the Paris folks that things had changed.
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