US House blocks carbon emission rules, Obama set to veto

Almost 200 countries have come together for the United Nations climate change conference in Paris and the fight on terror dominated the unofficial agenda. Trump’s comments on MSNBC came as Obama told the Paris summit that climate change is one of the greatest threats facing the U.S. and the world.

“What this means can’t be overstated”, he added.

He said the emerging global climate agreement must have transparency provisions and periodic reviews of carbon-cutting targets that are legally binding.

Meanwhile, the US president claimed that the increase in global temperatures should inspire scientists, investors and entrepreneurs to do more about climate change. Opponents to the new EPA regulations do not have sufficient support to override a veto.

Adams, an economist, executive director of Toronto-based Probe International, who has been working with the Chinese environmental movement since the mid-Eighties, is under absolutely no illusions about China’s real position on “climate change”.

In addition to helping its fellow developing countries tackle climate change, China also pledged to address the issue within the country.

“What is at stake with this climate conference is peace”, he said at the opening of the summit.

“Driven by ideology and by friends in the fossil fuel industry, the leaders of the Republican party have barreled along with their “just say no” climate approach despite poll after poll showing how out of step they are with public opinion”, he said in a blog post. “The reason is because this one trend, climate change, affects all trends”.

Whether the climate deal should be legally binding has been a major sticking point in the talks, in large part due to the US.

“I am an island boy”, Obama said, referring to his upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia. Obama is in France for a two-day visit as part of the COP21, the United Nations Climate Change conference.

Hollande heard from 12 African leaders who described the Sahara Desert encroaching on farmland, forests disappearing from Congo to Madagascar and rising sea levels swallowing homes in West African river deltas.

“When a young student is forced to go study under a street lamp at night, it clearly demonstrates the electricity issue”, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said.

Nicaragua’s lead negotiator Paul Oquist said Tuesday his country would not make any pledge to cut its emissions because that would let rich countries off the hook. “How the developing world develops, and the carbon intensity of their development, it’s really the whole story”, said Duffy, of the Woods Hole Research Center. Presidents, prime ministers and princes urged the delegates to build a better planet for future generations, hoping to avoid a repeat of the embarrassing failure of a similar effort in Copenhagen in 2009. That treaty required only rich countries to cut their emissions, while this time the goal is for everyone to pitch in.