Paris climate agreement isn't a treaty, so any US obligations under it ceased at noon, January 20, 2017 unless extended by the new president-Dr. Steven J. Allen, Capital Research Group, 1/18/2017

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If Paris climate agreement is not a treaty, US obligations under it ceased at noon on January 20, 2017 unless extended by the new president.

Jan. 2017 article 

Jan. 18, 2017, "We Won't Always Have Paris: Climate treaty reveals global elites' dishonesty, extremism, lack of intelligence," Dr. Steven J. Allen, Capital Research Group 

"In May 2016, Trump addressed energy issues and pledged to dump the Paris treaty. “President Obama entered the United States into the Paris climate accords unilaterally and without the permission of Congress,” said Trump. “This agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much our energy [costs] and how much we use right here in America. So foreign bureaucrats are going to be controlling what we’re using and what we’re doing on our land in our country. No way. No way.”

Said Trump: “We’re going to cancel the Paris climate agreement and stop—unbelievable!—and stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to U.N. Global Warming programs.”...

subhead, “Magic”-as in “magic trick.”...

If the Paris treaty is not a treaty, any US obligations under the agreement will cease at noon on January 20, 2017 unless extended by the new president....
 
Logic and Constitutional history lead to the conclusion that, absent a treaty approved by the Senate, a U.S. president may make an international agreement to do or not do things that are within the scope of a president’s powers, a commitment from which he or she may withdraw.  Certainly, a president cannot make a promise that extends past his or her term in office to bind future presidents....

Treaty/non-treaty

How do you solve a problem like the Constitution? 

“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,” Coral Davenport reported in the New York Times in August 2014.

"...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....

“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 the 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 [see below] 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....

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

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Added: 1992 treaty cited above: On Oct. 15, 1992, the U.S. Senate unanimously ratified the UNFCCC treaty:

Subhead "2. Background on the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC )," nyulawglobal.org

"The UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) was signed by the George H.W. Bush administration in Rio on June 12, 1992, and the U.S. Senate ratified it unanimously on Oct. 15, 1992. [5] ...Parties to the Convention agreed to consider climate change [alleged excess human caused CO2 emissions] in such matters as agriculture, industry, energy, natural resources, and activities involving sea coasts, in an attempt to slow the process of global warming....

The UNFCCC placed the greatest responsibility for reducing emissions on parties included in Annex I [such as "bad" US], who agreed to contain emission levels at 1990 rates by the year 2000. (See UNFCCC art. 4 (2) (a) & (b), 1771 U.N.T.S. at 171-72, reprinted in 31 I.L.M. at 856-57.) However, the Convention did not impose binding limits on emissions. 

Under the UNFCCC articles 4 and 12, all parties are required to “[d]evelop, periodically update, publish and make available to the Conference of the Parties, in accordance with Article 12, a national inventory of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol.” [Art. 4 (1) (a)] [6] The initial “progress reports” were to be communicated by Annex I Parties within six months of the entry into force of the Convention for that Party; within three years for non-Annex I parties; and at the discretion of the least developed countries....These national communications shall also include detailed descriptions of the policies and measures that each party has adopted to implement its commitment under the Convention.

"The U.S.’s Climate Action Reports are our national communications required by the UNFCCC . The United States submitted the first U.S. Climate Action Report (USCAR) to the UNFCCC Secretariat in 1994, the second in 1997, and the third in 2002; they are available from depository libraries. The Fourth U.S. Climate Action Report-2006 is available electronically from the State Department; the Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report 2010 was available in early 2010."...

 

Annex 1 Parties are also required to submit to the secretariat annual inventories of anthropogenic GHG emissions not already controlled by the Montreal Protocol. The IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories were first accepted in 1994, published in 1995, and revised in 1996. The Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines were reaffirmed by COP-3 in Kyoto which stated that they “should be used as ‘methodologies for estimating anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks [7] of greenhouse gases in calculation of legally-binding targets during the first commitment period.” They were published in three volumes which are available on the Web : Volume 1 gives Reporting Instructions on how to prepare and transmit national inventory data consistently; volume 2 is the Workbook , with instructions to assist experts to start developing inventories if they do not have them already; and volume 3 is the Reference Manual , with methods to estimate emissions for a wider range of GHG and lists of source types for each. 

"The nearly-500-page, 15 ^th annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2008 (April 2010, U.S. EPA #430-R-10-006) is available from the EPA, which also has a web archive of earlier editions. It shows a drop in overall emissions of 2.9% from 2007 to 2008; however, emissions are still 13.5% higher than they were in 1990. 

EPA began seeking public comment on the annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2009 draft report in Feb. 2011. The final report (U.S. EPA #430-R-11-005) was issued in April 2011 and showed a 6.1% decrease in emissions during 2009, although total emissions grew by more than 7.3% from 1990 to 2009, attributed to a decrease in fuel and electricity usage across all economic sectors; 2009 emissions represent the lowest total U.S. annual GHG emissions since 1995. (Leora Falk, Monitoring: U.S. Emissions Dropped 6.1 Percent in 2009 But Remain Above 1990 Levels, EPA Says , 42 BNA Environment Reporter 853 (April 22, 2011))."... 

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Please note: US population increase (1990-2014) vs CO2 emissions:

"While the United States saw a relatively high annual population increase 26% since 1990, its CO2 emissions increased by 6% in this period--EU Commission Report Dec. 2014, global CO2 emissions trends: 

Dec. 2014, "Trends in global CO2 emissions 2014 Report," PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, EU Commission Joint Research Centre

US population since 1990: +26%
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US CO2 since 1990: +6%
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p. 17, "United States 2.2.2 

"When comparing long term trends, we note that while the United States saw a relatively high annual population increase 26% since 1990, its CO2 emissions increased by 6% in this period (for more details see Section 2.3)"]

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Comment: To bleed the US dry, the US political class and its profiteers have insisted the US is bad for the global environment and must pay. These same people have deliberately increased US population (see above, 1990-2014) by government actions encouraging open borders, refugees, etc., which increase the load on our environment. Insisting they're the "moral" ones, this group collects billions if not trillions off the backs of Americans by constantly demonizing and punishing them. Defenseless Americans are effectively forced to participate in their own genocide.
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Added: China emitted almost a third of total global CO2 in 2013, 10.3 billion tons in 2013: 

 

 

 

 Dec. 2014, "Trends in global CO2 emissions 2014 Report," PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, EU Commission Joint Research Centre
  
 p. 4, paragraph 3: "China (10.3 billion tonnes CO2 or 29%), the United States (5.3 billion tonnes CO2 or 15%) and the European Union (EU28) (3.7 billion tonnes CO2 or 11%). China increased its CO2 emissions by 4.2% in 2013."...

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1/27/2014, "China’s Growing Coal Use Is World’s Growing Problem," ClimateCentral.org, Eric Larson

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NASA satellites show China dust crossing the Pacific and landing in US:

 
Above, NASA global dust map, April 2001

Map caption: "While much of the dust cloud remains over the Pacific Ocean, the leading edge has reached as far east as the American Midwest by April 13. Images such as this one are a principal tool for scientists who study aerosols."

5/17/2001, "The Pacific Dust Express," science.nasa.gov. 

"Scientists recently used NASA satellites to track a cloud of dust up to 2,000 km long as it left Asia, drifted across the Pacific Ocean, and traversed North America from Alaska to Florida, raining dust and possibly pollutants over the continent."...

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Added: 

March 13, 2017, "The Paris Treaty: A Bad Deal Based on Flawed Logic," Dr. Steven J. Allen, Capital Research Group

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"Dr. Steven J. Allen (J.D., Ph.D.) is vice president and chief investigative officer of the Capital Research Center. He previously served as press secretary to U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton, as vice president of the technology think tank The Progress and Freedom Foundation, as editor of Tea Party Review magazine, and as senior researcher for Newt Gingrich for President 2012. He has a master’s degree in political science from Jacksonville State University, a J.D. (law degree) from Cumberland Law School, and a Ph.D. in Biodefense from the College of Science at George Mason University."

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Comment: Selling out the American people is a global pastime popularized by the US political class which flaunts its scorn of Americans at every opportunity.

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Added: 

March 13, 2017, "The Paris Treaty: A Bad Deal Based on Flawed Logic," Dr. Steven J. Allen, Capital Research Group

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"Dr. Steven J. Allen (J.D., Ph.D.) is vice president and chief investigative officer of the Capital Research Center. He previously served as press secretary to U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton, as vice president of the technology think tank The Progress and Freedom Foundation, as editor of Tea Party Review magazine, and as senior researcher for Newt Gingrich for President 2012. He has a master’s degree in political science from Jacksonville State University, a J.D. (law degree) from Cumberland Law School, and a Ph.D. in Biodefense from the College of Science at George Mason University."



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