1) Stock Markets Hit Record High After Trump Pulls Out Of Paris Deal
Daily Express,
2 June 2017
2) Trump & The Markets: Why Are Investors Not Betting On Climate Change?
Scott Adams blog, 2 June 2017
3) Inside The ‘Resistance’ To The Paris Climate Accord And How They Held Trump To His Promise
Daily Caller, 2 June 2017
4) Nigel Lawson: Unilateral Decarbonisation Is A Miserable Fantasy
The Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2017
5) Rupert Darwall: Why Trump Is Right To Ditch The Paris Agreement
The Spectator, 2 June 2017
6) Paris Climate Withdrawal Re-Triggers Global Warming Doomsday Cult
The Federalist, 2 June 2017
President Donald Trump announced he would fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change, eviscerating a signature achievement of the Obama administration. Trump’s decision came after weeks of intense lobbying from both sides of the Paris accord debate. Corporations, environmentalists and Democrats urged Trump to stick with the deal, while Republicans and conservative groups pushed for withdrawal. While the decision was ultimately Trump’s to make, there were many people working behind the scenes and in public to make sure the president kept his campaign promise to “cancel” the climate accord. Conservative groups, White House officials and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes and in the media as part of the “resistance” movement to the Paris accord, which the Obama administration joined in 2016. --Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, 2 June 2017
Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement has dealt a hammer blow to an elite consensus which has built up around the issue of climate change. That consensus has placed cutting carbon dioxide emissions above people’s jobs and protecting the environment. With US industry already enjoying a substantial competitive advantage over European firms, this decision will make European climate policies all the more unsustainable. If Britain is to keep up with the rest of the world, it is essential that the next government rethinks energy policy to prioritise competitiveness and affordability. --Nigel Lawson, The Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2017
President Trump has a surer grasp of the economic realities than the Europeans. The United States is now the world’s hydrocarbon superpower. Thanks to fracking, it has surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s top energy producer. This abundance of hydrocarbon energy made the US the biggest loser from the Paris Agreement. Quitting Paris turns the US into the biggest winner from Paris – its access to cheap energy giving it a colossal competitive advantage in world markets as other nations increasingly burden themselves with high cost, unreliable wind and solar capacity. --Rupert Darwall, The Spectator, 2 June 2017
So what are the consequences of Donald Trump pulling America out of the Paris Agreement on climate change? Bad news: the planet is going to die. No, really. That’s what the Left is actually claiming. Scientific American tweeted out a photo of the Earth made into a barren wasteland as a result of this one decision. A Vice editor warns that “your kids are gonna die from climate change.” Christoper Mims at the Wall Street Journal declares that we have flunked as a species and that “we still have to de-carbonize our civilization or risk actual extinction.” Extinction. But that seems mild by comparison to others. Trita Parsi says, “Trump just declared war on the very idea of life on earth.” The hysterical overreaction is instructive, because somehow the backers of the global warming cause can’t manage to remember the scientific substance of their own claims — or much of anything else about the science and history of the climate. If they did, they might know that there is absolutely no reason to think the very viability of life on Earth is at stake. --Robert Tracinski, The Federalist, 2 June 2017
1) Stock Markets Hit Record High After Trump Pulls Out Of Paris Deal
Daily Express, 2 June 2017
Lana Clements
GETTY
Stocks hit new highs as Donald Trump dropped the Paris climate deal.
The president faced a backlash after confirming that he would reverse his Barack Obama's decision to join the pact to cut emissions.
But stock markets appeared to brush off the news.
The S&P yesterday hit a fresh record highs, while the Dow Jones surged by 0.65 per cent.
Today Britain's FTSE 100 followed the lead to reach to new top levels of 7,598.
US stock markets were helped by a fresh round of positive economic data, with the latest jobs numbers coming in far higher than expected.
Full story
2) Trump & The Markets: Why Are Investors Not Betting On Climate Change?
Scott Adams blog, 2 June 2017
Did you notice the stock market rising sharply after President Trump announced he would pull out of the Paris Climate Accord and – according to CNN – destroy the entire planet? Markets are irrational, but still, it’s hard to reconcile a decision to destroy civilization with a rise in investor confidence.
What should I make of the fact so many citizens say global warming is an existential danger while the people who have money are (apparently) betting against it? How does that make sense?
One way it makes sense is that markets move for lots of different reasons. But in my experience, a sharp move in the markets timed to a political action is like an instant vote of thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the decision. Apparently, leaving the Paris Accord was a thumbs-up for investors.
And so I give you this hypothesis: There is social pressure to say you side with the majority of climate scientists. To do otherwise would make many people feel like ignoramuses. So they craft their personalities around a belief in climate change doom because they are people who respect science. It fits their identity preference.
Until you ask them to invest their money.
Then people bet against it.
Here I’m not talking about every person. I’m talking about a tendency for some members of a group to be frictionless-only members. As soon as you give them friction – such as a financial risk – some (not all) climate alarmists might become climate skeptics.
That’s just a hypothesis.
Another hypothesis is that markets are short-sighted. But how much short-term benefit does the entire economy get from leaving the Paris Accords? I haven’t seen the argument for it helping directly in the next quarter or two, except in terms of optimism for the long-term.
And yet another hypothesis is that the people who have extra money to invest have a different view of climate risks than people who don’t have money. And that could be because the investor class is either smarter or dumber on this topic, on average, than non-investors.
All of this makes me wonder why there isn’t a more robust betting market for climate change predictions.
Full post
3) Inside The ‘Resistance’ To The Paris Climate Accord And How They Held Trump To His Promise
Daily Caller, 2 June 2017
Michael Bastasch
President Donald Trump announced he would fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change, eviscerating a signature achievement of the Obama administration.
Trump’s decision came after weeks of intense lobbying from both sides of the Paris accord debate. Corporations, environmentalists and Democrats urged Trump to stick with the deal, while Republicans and conservative groups pushed for withdrawal.
More intense was the debate within the White House itself. Key staffers were lined on both sides of the issue, making Trump’s decision to withdraw a lengthier process than many anticipated.
While the decision was ultimately Trump’s to make, there were many people working behind the scenes and in public to make sure the president kept his campaign promise to “cancel” the climate accord.
Conservative groups, White House officials and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes and in the media as part of the “resistance” movement to the Paris accord, which the Obama administration joined in 2016.
They worked to nudge Trump in the direction of withdrawing from Paris, constantly reminding him of the legal risks to not fulfilling his promise to supporters.
A letter from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and 21 other top Republican lawmakers in late May “reinforced Trump’s instincts to withdraw” from the Paris agreement, Axios reported, but key administration personnel and conservative heavy-hitters also played a role.
When Trump officially announced his withdrawal from the Paris accord Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt walked up to the podium in the Rose Garden to speak. Many in the media saw this as his victory.
Politico reports Pruitt “used his new post as EPA administrator to orchestrate an aggressive campaign to marshal conservative opposition to the Paris agreement.” That campaign included having EPA staffers urge conservative groups to go public with their concerns about the Paris agreement.
Pruitt was the only Trump administration official to publicly bash the accord. In TV appearances in April and May, Pruitt called Paris a “bad deal” that put America “last.”
“Paris is something that we need to really look at closely. It’s something we need to exit in my opinion,” Pruitt told Fox News in April.
Pruitt’s public criticisms of the Paris agreement bolstered conservative groups and Republican officials who opposed sticking with an international deal that never got Senate approval.
But it wasn’t Pruitt’s victory alone.
Trump’s domestic energy policy adviser Mike Cantanzaro worked to nudge the president to withdraw from Paris, according to a source familiar with the efforts.
But General counsel Donald McGahn was “probably the most pivotal voice” in the White House advocating for a withdrawal from the Paris agreement, according to the source.
“We were having trouble getting traction on the argument that the agreement poses some legal risk,” the source said. “Until he joined the conversation.”
During two closed-door meetings in late April and early May, McGahn raised concerns with Trump about the legal risks of staying party to the Paris agreement, Politico reported. McGahn warned the U.S. may not be able to adjust its pledge to cut emissions and that environmentalists could use the Paris agreement to undermine Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
McGahn’s interjection “shocked” Department of State lawyers who largely made the case for staying in the Paris agreement, according to Politico. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson publicly came out in favor of the Paris agreement during his confirmation hearing in January.
Cantanzaro, McGahn and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon led the administration faction opposed to the Paris agreement. They ended up butting heads with pro-Paris advisers Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Energy Secretary Rick Perry also favored staying in the Paris accord.
In early May, the heads of 44 free market groups sent a letter to Trump, urging him to withdraw from the agreement. The coalition was led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
CEI was “the energy” and “enabled the issue to stay high profile in the White House for months,” an administration source told Axios.
In May, CEI launched an online petition and ad campaign to remind Trump of his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris accord, and AEA circulated another petition calling for Trump to withdraw from the agreement.
CEI senior fellows Chris Horner and Marlo Lewis published a report detailing the legal risks of remaining in the accord. CEI’s Myron Ebell, who headed Trump’s EPA transition team, was also public about his opposition to the Paris agreement.
The source told Axios that CEI also “helped generate” the letter from Senate Republicans that reportedly gave Trump the final nudge he needed to announce a withdrawal from Paris. The letter reminded Trump why he opposed Paris in the first place — it didn’t put America first.
Full story
4) Nigel Lawson: Unilateral Decarbonisation Is A Miserable Fantasy
The Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2017
Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement has dealt a hammer blow to an elite consensus which has built up around the issue of climate change. That consensus has placed cutting carbon dioxide emissions above people’s jobs and protecting the environment.
With US industry already enjoying a substantial competitive advantage over European firms, this decision will make European climate policies all the more unsustainable. If Britain is to keep up with the rest of the world, it is essential that the next government rethinks energy policy to prioritise competitiveness and affordability.
The 2017 Conservative manifesto has promised to do just that, and sets a target for Britain to have the lowest energy prices in Europe. This is a striking change of tone compared with previous manifestos, but this objective will only be achieved through extensive reforms to existing policies, alongside the political will to fight powerful vested interests
The next government will first need to acknowledge what has gone wrong. Britain’s obsession with unilateral decarbonisation has taken precedence over relieving fuel poverty and keeping prices competitive. It is inconceivable how political parties can reconcilbeing on the side of working people while at the same time driving up their cost of living. The Climate Change Act is set to cost the UK economy approximately £320 billion by 2030 – equivalent to funding the NHS in England for three years.
Existing energy policies that claim to be “environmental” are nothing of the sort. Bjorn Lomborg, the head of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, has estimated that even if every nation meets its pledges under the Paris climate change agreement, the total reduction in the planet’s temperature will only be 0.17C by 2100. With America’s exit, even this paltry figure may not be achieved.
By contrast, the bad environmental consequences of energy policies have been tangible and significant. Commitments to bioenergy are damaging biodiversity and have distorted international food markets. The rare earth metals used in wind turbines come from poorly regulated mines in China which leak toxic and radioactive waste into nearby lakes on an industrial scale, perfectly illustrating the vacuity of the “out of sight, out of mind” attitude of virtue-signalling “clean” energy advocates.
But the harmful consequences of low-carbon policies are harder to ignore when they are right on your doorstep, or even inside your home. Britain’s air pollution crisis is the result of misguided low-carbon policies that incentivised diesel cars. People have died because politicians couldn’t resist the desire to “save the planet”.
Recent research also suggests that biomass power stations may not have lower CO2 emissions than coal and gas. What will it take for politicians to question the wisdom of spending hundreds of billions on failing policies instead of putting the needs of ordinary families first? [….]
Britain’s decision to leave the EU has illustrated a deep disconnect between the political elite and many people in the rest of the country who feel ignored and left behind. By leaving the Paris Agreement, Trump has delivered on his pledge to the left-behind in America.
We too must now look beyond a narrow obsession with renewables to a fairer alternative that prioritises cheap and reliable energy. This will help mend broken public trust, boost the economy and put Britain on a secure footing as we look outward to trade with the rest of the world.
Full post
5) Rupert Darwall: Why Trump Is Right To Ditch The Paris Agreement
The Spectator, 2 June 2017
The announcement by Donald Trump that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is truly historic.
The Paris accord was the closest the Europeans had come to getting the US to accepting timetabled emissions cuts in the now quarter century saga of UN climate change talks. The first was in the 1992 UN climate change convention itself, rebuffed by George H.W. Bush; the second was in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, signed by the Clinton Administration, effectively vetoed by the Senate and repudiated by George W. Bush. Now, Donald Trump has dashed their hopes for a third and possibly final time. It’s understandable that the European reaction is one of fury and outrage.
In fact, Trump offered the Europeans an olive branch in renegotiating Paris or negotiating a new agreement. But within minutes of the president’s announcement, the leaders of Germany, France and Italy slammed the door shut on that, stating their belief that the agreement ‘cannot be renegotiated’. Brief though the rejection was, it is replete with the pigs-might-fly economics that characterises climate policy: imposing costs on the present creates opportunities for growth and prosperity, then pledging to compensate developing countries for slowing down their emissions. If cutting emissions creates wealth, why the need for hundreds of billions of dollars of climate finance?
In this respect, President Trump has a surer grasp of the economic realities than the Europeans. The United States is now the world’s hydrocarbon superpower. Thanks to fracking, it has surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s top energy producer.
This abundance of hydrocarbon energy made the US the biggest loser from the Paris Agreement. Quitting Paris turns the US into the biggest winner from Paris – its access to cheap energy giving it a colossal competitive advantage in world markets as other nations increasingly burden themselves with high cost, unreliable wind and solar capacity.
Sanctimonious Europeans parading their moral superiority overlook Germany’s dirty carbon secret. The fall in German power stations’ emissions has stalled even as wind and solar capacity has increased. When Germany’s Energiewende first started, the Green energy minister promised it would cost the equivalent of a scoop of ice cream on monthly energy bills. A decade later, his Christian Democrat successor reckoned the cost at up to one trillion euros by the end of the 2030s. Indeed, the big falls in carbon dioxide happened in the wake of German reunification (cost: €1.3 trillion), another reason why Angela Merkel should be sending a large cheque to NATO.
If Europeans were truly motivated by concern about global warming, they would be extending the lives of their nuclear power stations and not bringing forward their closure, as Merkel is doing and President Macron looks likely to do with his appointment of the green activist and filmmaker Nicolas Hulot as energy minister.
Talk of America being cast into irrelevance by leaving the Paris Agreement ignores what happened after it rejected the Kyoto Protocol. By 2013 and the beginning of its second commitment period, the Kyoto Protocol had become an almost empty vehicle occupied mostly by Europeans and a handful of others.
Post-Paris, America’s empty seat will become the most powerful seat as the US shows the rest of the world what energy freedom looks like, emboldening others to challenge climate policy orthodoxy. Prime among these is India, the other big loser from the Paris Agreement. With one fifth of the per capita electricity consumption of China, India’s electrification has a long way to go. As the world’s most populous country, India needs more coal-fired generating capacity, but reliance on solar and its destructive grid economics could set back Indian electrification for a generation.
Full post
6) Paris Climate Withdrawal Re-Triggers Global Warming Doomsday Cult
The Federalist, 2 June 2017
Robert Tracinski
So what are the consequences of Donald Trump pulling America out of the Paris Agreement on climate change? Bad news: the planet is going to die.
No, really. That’s what the Left is actually claiming. Scientific American tweeted out a photo of the Earth made into a barren wasteland as a result of this one decision.
My favorite reply: “You claim to be scientific but imply that increased C02 will kill trees?”
A few others stuck to the formula of the old joke: world to end, women and minorities hardest hit.
A Vice editor warns that “your kids are gonna die from climate change.” Christoper Mims at the Wall Street Journal declares that we have flunked as a species and that “we still have to de-carbonize our civilization or risk actual extinction.” Extinction.
But that seems mild by comparison to others. Trita Parsi says, “Trump just declared war on the very idea of life on earth.” One leftist website claims that “With each passing day, the long-term prospects for life on Earth grow increasingly dim,” and quotes John Kerry: “What’s the worst that happens if they’re wrong? The planet dies.” Both CNN and The Huffington Post summed up the message of the day as “Trump to Planet: Drop Dead.”
Way to keep things in perspective, everybody.
All of this is presumably calculated to impress us with the gravity and urgency of the situation, yet it actually has the opposite effect. It makes claims of catastrophic global warming look hysterically alarmist—and totally detached from any scientific basis.
This is certainly out of proportion to President Trump’s actual announcement. Pulling out of the Paris Agreement was the right thing because no one has actually proven that human emissions of carbon dioxide are warming the globe or that this is driving us toward a global catastrophe. But that’s not why Trump did it. He drew us out because he thinks the agreement is “unfair” to America, imposing too great a burden on us rather than other countries, and he specifically left open the idea that he might work with the international community to come up with a better deal. So he’s okay with an international climate agreement, he just thinks—as usual—that he could do a better job of negotiating it.
But the hysterical overreaction is instructive, because somehow the backers of the global warming cause can’t manage to remember the scientific substance of their own claims—or much of anything else about the science and history of the climate. If they did, they might know that there is absolutely no reason to think the very viability of life on Earth is at stake.
Full post
The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
2) Trump & The Markets: Why Are Investors Not Betting On Climate Change?
Scott Adams blog, 2 June 2017
3) Inside The ‘Resistance’ To The Paris Climate Accord And How They Held Trump To His Promise
Daily Caller, 2 June 2017
4) Nigel Lawson: Unilateral Decarbonisation Is A Miserable Fantasy
The Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2017
5) Rupert Darwall: Why Trump Is Right To Ditch The Paris Agreement
The Spectator, 2 June 2017
6) Paris Climate Withdrawal Re-Triggers Global Warming Doomsday Cult
The Federalist, 2 June 2017
President Donald Trump announced he would fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change, eviscerating a signature achievement of the Obama administration. Trump’s decision came after weeks of intense lobbying from both sides of the Paris accord debate. Corporations, environmentalists and Democrats urged Trump to stick with the deal, while Republicans and conservative groups pushed for withdrawal. While the decision was ultimately Trump’s to make, there were many people working behind the scenes and in public to make sure the president kept his campaign promise to “cancel” the climate accord. Conservative groups, White House officials and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes and in the media as part of the “resistance” movement to the Paris accord, which the Obama administration joined in 2016. --Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, 2 June 2017
Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement has dealt a hammer blow to an elite consensus which has built up around the issue of climate change. That consensus has placed cutting carbon dioxide emissions above people’s jobs and protecting the environment. With US industry already enjoying a substantial competitive advantage over European firms, this decision will make European climate policies all the more unsustainable. If Britain is to keep up with the rest of the world, it is essential that the next government rethinks energy policy to prioritise competitiveness and affordability. --Nigel Lawson, The Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2017
President Trump has a surer grasp of the economic realities than the Europeans. The United States is now the world’s hydrocarbon superpower. Thanks to fracking, it has surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s top energy producer. This abundance of hydrocarbon energy made the US the biggest loser from the Paris Agreement. Quitting Paris turns the US into the biggest winner from Paris – its access to cheap energy giving it a colossal competitive advantage in world markets as other nations increasingly burden themselves with high cost, unreliable wind and solar capacity. --Rupert Darwall, The Spectator, 2 June 2017
So what are the consequences of Donald Trump pulling America out of the Paris Agreement on climate change? Bad news: the planet is going to die. No, really. That’s what the Left is actually claiming. Scientific American tweeted out a photo of the Earth made into a barren wasteland as a result of this one decision. A Vice editor warns that “your kids are gonna die from climate change.” Christoper Mims at the Wall Street Journal declares that we have flunked as a species and that “we still have to de-carbonize our civilization or risk actual extinction.” Extinction. But that seems mild by comparison to others. Trita Parsi says, “Trump just declared war on the very idea of life on earth.” The hysterical overreaction is instructive, because somehow the backers of the global warming cause can’t manage to remember the scientific substance of their own claims — or much of anything else about the science and history of the climate. If they did, they might know that there is absolutely no reason to think the very viability of life on Earth is at stake. --Robert Tracinski, The Federalist, 2 June 2017
1) Stock Markets Hit Record High After Trump Pulls Out Of Paris Deal
Daily Express, 2 June 2017
Lana Clements
GETTY
Stocks hit new highs as Donald Trump dropped the Paris climate deal.
The president faced a backlash after confirming that he would reverse his Barack Obama's decision to join the pact to cut emissions.
But stock markets appeared to brush off the news.
The S&P yesterday hit a fresh record highs, while the Dow Jones surged by 0.65 per cent.
Today Britain's FTSE 100 followed the lead to reach to new top levels of 7,598.
US stock markets were helped by a fresh round of positive economic data, with the latest jobs numbers coming in far higher than expected.
Full story
2) Trump & The Markets: Why Are Investors Not Betting On Climate Change?
Scott Adams blog, 2 June 2017
Did you notice the stock market rising sharply after President Trump announced he would pull out of the Paris Climate Accord and – according to CNN – destroy the entire planet? Markets are irrational, but still, it’s hard to reconcile a decision to destroy civilization with a rise in investor confidence.
What should I make of the fact so many citizens say global warming is an existential danger while the people who have money are (apparently) betting against it? How does that make sense?
One way it makes sense is that markets move for lots of different reasons. But in my experience, a sharp move in the markets timed to a political action is like an instant vote of thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the decision. Apparently, leaving the Paris Accord was a thumbs-up for investors.
And so I give you this hypothesis: There is social pressure to say you side with the majority of climate scientists. To do otherwise would make many people feel like ignoramuses. So they craft their personalities around a belief in climate change doom because they are people who respect science. It fits their identity preference.
Until you ask them to invest their money.
Then people bet against it.
Here I’m not talking about every person. I’m talking about a tendency for some members of a group to be frictionless-only members. As soon as you give them friction – such as a financial risk – some (not all) climate alarmists might become climate skeptics.
That’s just a hypothesis.
Another hypothesis is that markets are short-sighted. But how much short-term benefit does the entire economy get from leaving the Paris Accords? I haven’t seen the argument for it helping directly in the next quarter or two, except in terms of optimism for the long-term.
And yet another hypothesis is that the people who have extra money to invest have a different view of climate risks than people who don’t have money. And that could be because the investor class is either smarter or dumber on this topic, on average, than non-investors.
All of this makes me wonder why there isn’t a more robust betting market for climate change predictions.
Full post
3) Inside The ‘Resistance’ To The Paris Climate Accord And How They Held Trump To His Promise
Daily Caller, 2 June 2017
Michael Bastasch
President Donald Trump announced he would fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change, eviscerating a signature achievement of the Obama administration.
Trump’s decision came after weeks of intense lobbying from both sides of the Paris accord debate. Corporations, environmentalists and Democrats urged Trump to stick with the deal, while Republicans and conservative groups pushed for withdrawal.
More intense was the debate within the White House itself. Key staffers were lined on both sides of the issue, making Trump’s decision to withdraw a lengthier process than many anticipated.
While the decision was ultimately Trump’s to make, there were many people working behind the scenes and in public to make sure the president kept his campaign promise to “cancel” the climate accord.
Conservative groups, White House officials and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes and in the media as part of the “resistance” movement to the Paris accord, which the Obama administration joined in 2016.
They worked to nudge Trump in the direction of withdrawing from Paris, constantly reminding him of the legal risks to not fulfilling his promise to supporters.
A letter from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and 21 other top Republican lawmakers in late May “reinforced Trump’s instincts to withdraw” from the Paris agreement, Axios reported, but key administration personnel and conservative heavy-hitters also played a role.
When Trump officially announced his withdrawal from the Paris accord Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt walked up to the podium in the Rose Garden to speak. Many in the media saw this as his victory.
Politico reports Pruitt “used his new post as EPA administrator to orchestrate an aggressive campaign to marshal conservative opposition to the Paris agreement.” That campaign included having EPA staffers urge conservative groups to go public with their concerns about the Paris agreement.
Pruitt was the only Trump administration official to publicly bash the accord. In TV appearances in April and May, Pruitt called Paris a “bad deal” that put America “last.”
“Paris is something that we need to really look at closely. It’s something we need to exit in my opinion,” Pruitt told Fox News in April.
Pruitt’s public criticisms of the Paris agreement bolstered conservative groups and Republican officials who opposed sticking with an international deal that never got Senate approval.
But it wasn’t Pruitt’s victory alone.
Trump’s domestic energy policy adviser Mike Cantanzaro worked to nudge the president to withdraw from Paris, according to a source familiar with the efforts.
But General counsel Donald McGahn was “probably the most pivotal voice” in the White House advocating for a withdrawal from the Paris agreement, according to the source.
“We were having trouble getting traction on the argument that the agreement poses some legal risk,” the source said. “Until he joined the conversation.”
During two closed-door meetings in late April and early May, McGahn raised concerns with Trump about the legal risks of staying party to the Paris agreement, Politico reported. McGahn warned the U.S. may not be able to adjust its pledge to cut emissions and that environmentalists could use the Paris agreement to undermine Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
McGahn’s interjection “shocked” Department of State lawyers who largely made the case for staying in the Paris agreement, according to Politico. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson publicly came out in favor of the Paris agreement during his confirmation hearing in January.
Cantanzaro, McGahn and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon led the administration faction opposed to the Paris agreement. They ended up butting heads with pro-Paris advisers Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Energy Secretary Rick Perry also favored staying in the Paris accord.
In early May, the heads of 44 free market groups sent a letter to Trump, urging him to withdraw from the agreement. The coalition was led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
CEI was “the energy” and “enabled the issue to stay high profile in the White House for months,” an administration source told Axios.
In May, CEI launched an online petition and ad campaign to remind Trump of his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris accord, and AEA circulated another petition calling for Trump to withdraw from the agreement.
CEI senior fellows Chris Horner and Marlo Lewis published a report detailing the legal risks of remaining in the accord. CEI’s Myron Ebell, who headed Trump’s EPA transition team, was also public about his opposition to the Paris agreement.
The source told Axios that CEI also “helped generate” the letter from Senate Republicans that reportedly gave Trump the final nudge he needed to announce a withdrawal from Paris. The letter reminded Trump why he opposed Paris in the first place — it didn’t put America first.
Full story
4) Nigel Lawson: Unilateral Decarbonisation Is A Miserable Fantasy
The Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2017
Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement has dealt a hammer blow to an elite consensus which has built up around the issue of climate change. That consensus has placed cutting carbon dioxide emissions above people’s jobs and protecting the environment.
With US industry already enjoying a substantial competitive advantage over European firms, this decision will make European climate policies all the more unsustainable. If Britain is to keep up with the rest of the world, it is essential that the next government rethinks energy policy to prioritise competitiveness and affordability.
The 2017 Conservative manifesto has promised to do just that, and sets a target for Britain to have the lowest energy prices in Europe. This is a striking change of tone compared with previous manifestos, but this objective will only be achieved through extensive reforms to existing policies, alongside the political will to fight powerful vested interests
The next government will first need to acknowledge what has gone wrong. Britain’s obsession with unilateral decarbonisation has taken precedence over relieving fuel poverty and keeping prices competitive. It is inconceivable how political parties can reconcilbeing on the side of working people while at the same time driving up their cost of living. The Climate Change Act is set to cost the UK economy approximately £320 billion by 2030 – equivalent to funding the NHS in England for three years.
Existing energy policies that claim to be “environmental” are nothing of the sort. Bjorn Lomborg, the head of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, has estimated that even if every nation meets its pledges under the Paris climate change agreement, the total reduction in the planet’s temperature will only be 0.17C by 2100. With America’s exit, even this paltry figure may not be achieved.
By contrast, the bad environmental consequences of energy policies have been tangible and significant. Commitments to bioenergy are damaging biodiversity and have distorted international food markets. The rare earth metals used in wind turbines come from poorly regulated mines in China which leak toxic and radioactive waste into nearby lakes on an industrial scale, perfectly illustrating the vacuity of the “out of sight, out of mind” attitude of virtue-signalling “clean” energy advocates.
But the harmful consequences of low-carbon policies are harder to ignore when they are right on your doorstep, or even inside your home. Britain’s air pollution crisis is the result of misguided low-carbon policies that incentivised diesel cars. People have died because politicians couldn’t resist the desire to “save the planet”.
Recent research also suggests that biomass power stations may not have lower CO2 emissions than coal and gas. What will it take for politicians to question the wisdom of spending hundreds of billions on failing policies instead of putting the needs of ordinary families first? [….]
Britain’s decision to leave the EU has illustrated a deep disconnect between the political elite and many people in the rest of the country who feel ignored and left behind. By leaving the Paris Agreement, Trump has delivered on his pledge to the left-behind in America.
We too must now look beyond a narrow obsession with renewables to a fairer alternative that prioritises cheap and reliable energy. This will help mend broken public trust, boost the economy and put Britain on a secure footing as we look outward to trade with the rest of the world.
Full post
5) Rupert Darwall: Why Trump Is Right To Ditch The Paris Agreement
The Spectator, 2 June 2017
The announcement by Donald Trump that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is truly historic.
The Paris accord was the closest the Europeans had come to getting the US to accepting timetabled emissions cuts in the now quarter century saga of UN climate change talks. The first was in the 1992 UN climate change convention itself, rebuffed by George H.W. Bush; the second was in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, signed by the Clinton Administration, effectively vetoed by the Senate and repudiated by George W. Bush. Now, Donald Trump has dashed their hopes for a third and possibly final time. It’s understandable that the European reaction is one of fury and outrage.
In fact, Trump offered the Europeans an olive branch in renegotiating Paris or negotiating a new agreement. But within minutes of the president’s announcement, the leaders of Germany, France and Italy slammed the door shut on that, stating their belief that the agreement ‘cannot be renegotiated’. Brief though the rejection was, it is replete with the pigs-might-fly economics that characterises climate policy: imposing costs on the present creates opportunities for growth and prosperity, then pledging to compensate developing countries for slowing down their emissions. If cutting emissions creates wealth, why the need for hundreds of billions of dollars of climate finance?
In this respect, President Trump has a surer grasp of the economic realities than the Europeans. The United States is now the world’s hydrocarbon superpower. Thanks to fracking, it has surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s top energy producer.
This abundance of hydrocarbon energy made the US the biggest loser from the Paris Agreement. Quitting Paris turns the US into the biggest winner from Paris – its access to cheap energy giving it a colossal competitive advantage in world markets as other nations increasingly burden themselves with high cost, unreliable wind and solar capacity.
Sanctimonious Europeans parading their moral superiority overlook Germany’s dirty carbon secret. The fall in German power stations’ emissions has stalled even as wind and solar capacity has increased. When Germany’s Energiewende first started, the Green energy minister promised it would cost the equivalent of a scoop of ice cream on monthly energy bills. A decade later, his Christian Democrat successor reckoned the cost at up to one trillion euros by the end of the 2030s. Indeed, the big falls in carbon dioxide happened in the wake of German reunification (cost: €1.3 trillion), another reason why Angela Merkel should be sending a large cheque to NATO.
If Europeans were truly motivated by concern about global warming, they would be extending the lives of their nuclear power stations and not bringing forward their closure, as Merkel is doing and President Macron looks likely to do with his appointment of the green activist and filmmaker Nicolas Hulot as energy minister.
Talk of America being cast into irrelevance by leaving the Paris Agreement ignores what happened after it rejected the Kyoto Protocol. By 2013 and the beginning of its second commitment period, the Kyoto Protocol had become an almost empty vehicle occupied mostly by Europeans and a handful of others.
Post-Paris, America’s empty seat will become the most powerful seat as the US shows the rest of the world what energy freedom looks like, emboldening others to challenge climate policy orthodoxy. Prime among these is India, the other big loser from the Paris Agreement. With one fifth of the per capita electricity consumption of China, India’s electrification has a long way to go. As the world’s most populous country, India needs more coal-fired generating capacity, but reliance on solar and its destructive grid economics could set back Indian electrification for a generation.
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6) Paris Climate Withdrawal Re-Triggers Global Warming Doomsday Cult
The Federalist, 2 June 2017
Robert Tracinski
So what are the consequences of Donald Trump pulling America out of the Paris Agreement on climate change? Bad news: the planet is going to die.
No, really. That’s what the Left is actually claiming. Scientific American tweeted out a photo of the Earth made into a barren wasteland as a result of this one decision.
My favorite reply: “You claim to be scientific but imply that increased C02 will kill trees?”
A few others stuck to the formula of the old joke: world to end, women and minorities hardest hit.
A Vice editor warns that “your kids are gonna die from climate change.” Christoper Mims at the Wall Street Journal declares that we have flunked as a species and that “we still have to de-carbonize our civilization or risk actual extinction.” Extinction.
But that seems mild by comparison to others. Trita Parsi says, “Trump just declared war on the very idea of life on earth.” One leftist website claims that “With each passing day, the long-term prospects for life on Earth grow increasingly dim,” and quotes John Kerry: “What’s the worst that happens if they’re wrong? The planet dies.” Both CNN and The Huffington Post summed up the message of the day as “Trump to Planet: Drop Dead.”
Way to keep things in perspective, everybody.
All of this is presumably calculated to impress us with the gravity and urgency of the situation, yet it actually has the opposite effect. It makes claims of catastrophic global warming look hysterically alarmist—and totally detached from any scientific basis.
This is certainly out of proportion to President Trump’s actual announcement. Pulling out of the Paris Agreement was the right thing because no one has actually proven that human emissions of carbon dioxide are warming the globe or that this is driving us toward a global catastrophe. But that’s not why Trump did it. He drew us out because he thinks the agreement is “unfair” to America, imposing too great a burden on us rather than other countries, and he specifically left open the idea that he might work with the international community to come up with a better deal. So he’s okay with an international climate agreement, he just thinks—as usual—that he could do a better job of negotiating it.
But the hysterical overreaction is instructive, because somehow the backers of the global warming cause can’t manage to remember the scientific substance of their own claims—or much of anything else about the science and history of the climate. If they did, they might know that there is absolutely no reason to think the very viability of life on Earth is at stake.
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2 comments:
Isn't amazing that you never see two of the worlds worst air polluters, China and India contributing anything into the gene pool of so called climate change. America gets bashed but these other two get off Scott free .. Sorry ! It is all to one sided in my opinion and good on Donald Trump for standing up to his beliefs and promises. Climate change is a miff always was and always will be.
Climate change, always has been and always will be, how many ice ages have we been through, once the deserts were jungles and rivers. Despite years of alarming predictions spread from the left and their dumb lap dogs the media, today do we see any real major climate changes, no just small shifts in temperatures and sea levels, up and down.
The real problem is a polluted world and dwindling resources due to an out of control population explosion mainly in 3rd world countries. But do we hear any dire predictions from the UN or leftist media or leftist academics... no because we don't have the fortitude to identify the elephant in the room because its not PC.
Good on Trump, history will prove him and this decision was the right one
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