Obama urges legal force to climate deal Rich-poor divide
MANY REPUBLICANS DOUBT GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL, OR FEAR STRINGENT POLLUTION CONTROLS MAY COST JOBS
President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that parts of the global warming deal being negotiated in Paris should be legally binding on the countries that sign on, setting up a potential fight with Republicans at home.
Obama’s stand won praise at the UN climate conference from those who want a strong agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas. But it could rile conservatives in Washington, especially if he tries to put the deal into effect without seeking congressional approval.
Targets
The Obama administration has pledged during the international talks to reduce US emissions by up to 28 per cent by 2025. But inscribing the emissions target in the Paris deal would probably require the president to submit the pact to the GOP-controlled Congress, where it would be unlikely to win ratification. Many Republicans doubt global warming is real or fear that stringent pollution controls could kill jobs.
So the administration is looking to keep the targets out while including binding procedures on when and how countries should periodically review and raise their targets.
“Although the targets themselves may not have the force of treaties, the process, the procedures that ensure transparency and periodic reviews, that needs to be legally binding,” Obama said in Paris, “and that’s going to be critical.”
Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican-Oklahoma, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a fierce critic of Obama’s policies, fired back immediately.
“The US Senate will not be ignored. If the president wishes to sign the American people up to a legally binding agreement, the deal must go through the Senate,” he said in a statement. “There is no way around it.”
The White House previously said parts of the deal should be legally binding, but this is the first time Obama has said it himself and spelt out which ones.
Obama’s comments brought relief to the French hosts of the conference, who were worried about whether the US wanted a binding deal at all after Secretary of State John Kerry told The Financial Times that the agreement was “definitely not going to be a treaty” and that there was “not going to be legally binding reduction targets”.
“The fact that the United States of America could commit to a binding agreement, whilst before there was a doubt because of Congress, is really extraordinary news that comes at a good time,” French Environment Minister Segolene Royal said. Campaigners yesterday pointed a finger at the rich for dangerous warming of the planet. The rich-poor divide, which has for decades bedevilled climate talks, reemerged on the sidelines of the UN conference in Paris.
The UN talks aim to seal a deal that would slash carbon emissions — which come mainly from burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil — and deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for climate-vulnerable countries.
British charity Oxfam issued a study saying the richest 10 per cent of people produce half of Earth’s climate-harming fossil-fuel emissions, while the poorest half contribute a mere 10 per cent.
An average person among the richest one per cent emits 175 times more carbon than his or her counterpart among the bottom 10 per cent, the charity said.
“Rich, high emitters should be held accountable for their emissions, no matter where they live,” Oxfam climate policy head Tim Gore said.
“But it’s easy to forget that rapidly developing economies are also home to the majority of the world’s very poorest people and while they have to do their fair share, it is rich countries that should still lead the way,” he said in a statement.
Developing countries say the West has polluted for much longer and should shoulder a bigger obligation for cutting back.
They are also calling on rich nations to make good on a 2009 pledge to muster $100 billion (94 billion euros) a year in climate aid by 2020.
The funds would help vulnerable states shift to less-polluting renewable energy and shore up defences against climate impacts such as sea level rise, droughts and storms.
More than 150 world leaders gathered for the 12-day summit on Monday to launch the talks, seeking to build momentum for the tough negotiations ahead with lofty rhetoric about the urgency of the task.
“The future is one that we have the power to change, right here, right now,” Obama told his fellow leaders.
But negotiators at the UN talks in Paris remain deeply split over the key issues of finance for developing nations and burden-sharing, said a European negotiator who asked not to be named.