US Congress blocks Obama’s climate change plan

President Barack Obama says parts of the global climate agreement being hammered out in Paris should be legally binding. As we face increasingly more chaotic times, we must continue to expand our capacity to respond in a resilient manner across all sections of humanity so that we will together be able to engender hope-filled action and compassion instead of fear and violence.

With encouragement from 150 world leaders ringing in their ears, government negotiators in Paris were left to turn the rhetoric into reality and agree a draft text of a global deal to slow climate change.

The encounters highlighted another big debate in the effort to reach an worldwide accord to fight global warming: how much aid rich countries should give poor ones to help them adapt to climate change and reduce their emissions.

It was heartening to see last week’s Autumn Statement and Spending Review announcement by the Chancellor of the planned construction of 400 000 new homes that would lead to thousands of new jobs and apprenticeships being created in the sector. Personal income will be devastated.

“As the president urges action to fulfill his personal climate legacy in Paris, the American people and their representatives in Congress have strongly voiced opposition to any deal that is reached and will not tolerate American tax dollars being used for an economically disastrous policy”, Inhofe said. The rule is the first mandate in history for carbon limits on power plants.

Obama’s stand won praise at the United Nations climate conference from those who want a strong agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

The World Bank President and the President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, said Africa had every reason to complain, stressing the continent had been short-changed by climate change. The United States is promising to cut emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent of 2005 levels by 2025, with the Environmental Protection Agency already drawing the road map. Each state has a customized target and is responsible for drawing up an effective plan to meet its goal. More business leaders consider carbon regulation into their long-range plans. Several utilities, the National Mining Association and the nation’s largest privately owned coal company also are suing the EPA. Obama will veto the measure, but the timing is no accident – the GOP is reminding the world the President is in this alone and things could change next November. Their efforts are shortsighted and foolhardy, and represent a unsafe denial of the looming threats of climate change.

As negotiations over a new global climate agreement entered its second full day in Paris on Wednesday, developed countries showed their reluctance to scale up finance support to developing countries after 2020 from a base level which they promised years ago.

Also jetting in to attend the conference are former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which has greatly increased energy costs, and current Gov. Jerry Brown, who, before leaving California, blasted Republican governors and members of Congress for denying climate change. But House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, disputed on Tuesday that congressional Republicans were out of step with the American public.