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Obama Pushes for World Climate Pact After China Deal

by AFP
Mandel Ngan—AFP

Mandel Ngan—AFP

U.S. president announces $3 billion for Green Climate Fund, which aims to help developing nations pursue environmentally friendly infrastructure.

A Sino-U.S. breakthrough on reducing carbon emissions proves a global deal on climate change is achievable, U.S. President Barack Obama said Saturday, as campaigners hailed new momentum in long-stalled talks.

Announcing a $3 billion contribution to a U.N.-backed climate change mitigation fund, Obama said the China-U.S. deal showed the way forward. “If China and the U.S. can agree on this, then the world can agree on this—we can get this done,” he said in a speech on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brisbane.

The U.N. and environmental campaigners welcomed the funding pledge, saying it confirmed global warming is now central to the world political agenda following the surprise deal between Washington and Beijing earlier this week to curb their greenhouse emissions.

Climate experts conceded that Republican opposition meant Obama could struggle to fulfill his $3 billion commitment, but said he was fuelling momentum for change in an area where talks have faltered since the historic Kyoto Protocol of 1997. “You can sense the energy lifting in this critical conversation across the planet—the game has changed,” said Greenpeace Australia chief executive David Ritter. “A global deal has become more likely, no question. Climate is now front and center for the U.S., it’s front and center for China, that means it’s front and center for all of us. It’s now up to all governments to build on these huge steps forward.”

Obama outlined his pledge to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in a speech at the University of Queensland, telling the Australian audience he wanted his grandchildren to be able to visit the country’s famed Great Barrier Reef “50 years from now.” He said the fund would help developing nations cope with climate-related issues such as rising seas while also backing environmentally friendly infrastructure projects.

“[It will] let them leapfrog some of the dirty industries that powered our development and go straight to a clean energy economy,” he said.

Obama’s announcement stymied efforts by G20 host Tony Abbott, who questions the science of man-made climate change, to reduce the issue to the margins of the Brisbane summit. “I know there has been a healthy debate in this country about it,” the American leader said, adding “change is uncomfortable and difficult.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described climate change as “the defining issue of our times” and urged other G20 leaders to contribute to the GCF, which will hold a donors’ meeting in Berlin on Nov. 20. “The transition toward a low-carbon, climate-resilient future is accelerating,” Ban, who will host talks in Paris in December next year aimed at reaching a global agreement, said in Brisbane. “I urge other leaders and major economies, especially at the G20, to come forward with contributions that will sustain this momentum.”

The GCF is designed to help poorer countries invest in green technologies and build up their defenses against rising sea levels and increasingly extreme weather patterns. “To see the U.S. put $3 billion into the fund is further evidence that they’re determined to see a global deal done by next year,” said Tim Flannery of the Sydney-based Climate Council. “It’s a clear message to the world that the U.S. has moved on this issue and it expects the rest of the world to move.”

France and Germany have already pledged $1 billion each, with Japan reportedly set to announce a $1.5 billion donation this weekend in Brisbane. U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres has called for an initial capitalization of $10 billion by the end of the year. However, Republican James Inhofe, regarded as the chief climate change skeptic in the U.S. Congress, signaled Obama would struggle to get the funds through the legislature, particularly after his position was weakened in recent mid-term elections.

“President Obama’s pledge to give unelected bureaucrats at the U.N. $3 billion for climate change initiatives is an unfortunate decision to not listen to voters in this most recent election cycle,” Inhofe said.

Michael Levi from the U.S.-based Council of Foreign Relations said the U.S.-China deal was a step forward but warned against getting carried away, saying it amounted only to “incremental” change.

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5 comments

tsuhtt1 November 16, 2014 - 6:52 am

“We live in a world where one in six deaths are caused by easily curable infectious diseases; one in eight deaths stem from air pollution, mostly from cooking indoors with dung and twigs; and billions of people live in abject poverty, with no electricity and little food. We ought never to have entertained the notion that the world’s greatest challenge could be to reduce temperature rises in our generation by a fraction of a degree.”http://po.st/r1wSz7 Bjørn Lomborg

The elephant in the room that Climate Alarmists like President Obama are to blind to is that despite the rise in CO2 there is no correlation with Global Natural Disasters which in 2013 were at their lowest point in 10 years. http://bit.ly/1oJpJMz Plus, there has been no Global Warming for over 18 years. http://bit.ly/1xpAPb4. This changes everything when it comes to Climate and Energy policy. The bottom line is the lack of warming for 18 years and the low natural disaters for 10 years are the exact opposite of what the Climate Models predicted. The disasters that did occur were mitigated by technology made possible from cheap and reliable energy from coal and other forms of fossil fuel. Denying people the right to low price reliable energy from fossil fuel is a threat to national security, dooms poor to inescapable poverty and leaves the world less prepared to deal with natural disasters.

Another elephant in the room Climate Alarmists fail to see is that Wind and Solar do not generate enough energy to replace fossil fuel as a minimum EROI of 14 is required to sustain modern society http://bit.ly/1zxiLOL The only realistic way to replace fossil fuel is hydro and nuclear power which the green elites are also against. The reality is anti fossil fuel policies that force the use of high price unreliable renewables are anti poor policies by nature that doom millions of poor to death by fuel poverty. http://bit.ly/1rpeAuI Blowing Billions on Useless Wind/Solar That Can’t Sustain Modern Civilization is NUTS! http://bit.ly/1zxiLO

EROI Levels Of Below Sources Of Energy
Solar PV = 1.6
Biomass = 3.5
Wind = 3.9
Solar CSP (desert) = 9
Gas (CCGT) = 28
Coal = 30
Hydro = 35
Nuclear = 75 Source: http://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.

Climate Activists preferred alternatives to fossil fuel (wind and solar) are high cost, unreliable and require the use of fossil fuel from cradle to grave so it is a lie to say they are carbon free. Plus again, Wind and Solar do not produce enough power to sustain modern society http://bit.ly/1zxiLOL In point of fact solar and wind require the use of toxic rare earth elements that are in limited supply and are toxic to the environment. So another lie is that wind and solar are renewable sources of energy.

The fact is the anti poor and anti industrial Alarmist Climate Ideology is not based on sound science but rather a political phenomenon. The 18 year halt in global temperatures and 10 year low in natural disasters demands that Climate Alarmist assumptions are re-examined with use of the proper application of the scientific method. Reality trumps erroneous Climate Models and a rejection of Climate Alarmists doomsday ideology as there is no clear linkage between CO2 and global temperatures and CO2 and Natural Disasters. In summary the 18 year halt in global warming and 10 year low in natural disasters are two more nails in the coffin of the Alarmist Climate Change Theory http://on.wsj.com/1vWSZQQ Not too mention the fact there has been record snow and ice http://wp.me/ps8ST-5UD

P.S. The President Obama’s premise that dumping billions into “saving the earth” from “evil” CO2 emmisions from fossil fuel do not work out that well in reality where crooks end up with the bulk of the money not the poor. http://youtu.be/hvmKbYT43nk

Reply
Mervyn November 16, 2014 - 8:16 am

Anyone listening to Obama preaching his sermon at Queensland University might also like to read what so-called expert climatologists preached back in the 1980s about what the weather would be like in the year 2000:

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/24/movies/earth-s-climatic-crisis-examined-by-nova.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As

The following paragraph from the article says it all:

“The conclusion, conveyed with great authority by several big-league climatologists from government and private research organizations, is terrible: by the year 2000, the atmosphere and weather will grow warmer by several degrees and life – animal, plant, human – will be threatened. The experts say that melting ice caps, flooded cities, droughts in the corn belt and famine in the third world could result if the earth’s mean temperature rises by a mere two or three degrees.”

Does it not sound familiar?????????

Of course, the 1980s prediction turned out to be bull … very much in line with the bull being promoted today, driven by a political environmental green agenda.

Reply
Bob Young November 16, 2014 - 8:17 am

obama is clearly the biggest buffoon of our time.

Reply
Harbinger November 16, 2014 - 2:59 pm

This money goes to the global financiers who operate the carbon trading schemes and prevents developing countries from having affordable electricity. The global warming myth has run its course and should be consigned to the dustbin of flawed theories.

Reply
JeffT November 17, 2014 - 3:18 am

It’s all Globaloney, with a capital “S” for scam.

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