- JoNova - https://joannenova.com.au -

Obama, Chinese Pres to hold hands, sign carbon chastity vows — hollow PR Victory, but has a sting

Today the Paris Agreement jumped from including 1.1% of global emissions to 39%. It’s part of the performance art, the Grand Act. Including those emissions means nothing as far as emissions go (China will keep putting out more), but it carries political leverage unless we expose the game.

Make no mistake: there is nothing at all legally binding about the Paris Agreement, but it can be politically binding — like a Chastity Vow. Right now, it’s about shame and social standing, not about megatons, but inasmuch as bluff and bluster can pull it off, the UN will eventually want the shapeshifting chastity vow to be treated as a legal force.

This soft vow has the advantage that is completely two faced —  it can be all things to all people. To the green-passionate crowd it will be a historic, landmark agreement of the world working together. That’s “momentum”. To the free world, it may look like a failure, but that’s an advantage — it disarms the protests.  Watch the Pea — (it’s really a bee). The sting is hidden. That’s ACT III.

After the Copenhagen disaster, the Global Worriers realized that they would have to sneak in a mechanism to keep the Climate Gravy Train running, despite the will of the voters, and crumbling economies, so here is how the plot goes to conjure obedience, and confuse dissenters:

ACT I was the two week PR cabaret in Paris where countries signed their Carbon Chastity Vows — vows that amounted to no actual outcome, other than coming back to ratify it all again later. The important part in Act I was to manage expectations so that the Paris agreement “looks” successful no matter what. It was easy for countries to sign. Each nation brought its own “To Do” list, and it was not legally binding anyway. Success, was a low bar, just the achievement of signatures, not any reduction of CO2 emissions, or God-forbid any actual change in the climate. What matters is that the junkets and subsidies continue.

ACT II is the “ratification” where people  “sign into force” an agreement that has no legal force. (Except potentially through tricky subclauses that tie it to legally enforceable documents in each country. See ACT III).

ACT III is the pincer move with domestic legislation. In the US that’s through things like the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP). It can also work through things like the TPP — the Trans Pacific Partnership  (where it stings Australia too). The sting is hidden in domestic legislation that creates “arbitration tribunals” and effectively commits nations to meet their international “carbon chastity vows”. (Read more about that below)

ACT IV– repeat ACT I. This play never ends.

The point is to avoid giving voters a choice

The Paris agreement is deceptive and deliberately undemocratic

Politico quotes Inhofe: “This is another attempt by the president to go around Congress in order to achieve his unpopular and widely rejected climate agenda for his legacy. The Senate does not support the Paris Agreement which is why his administration prefers to not call it a treaty.” — Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Environment Public Works Committee.

“The agreement was crafted to help the U.S. avoid Senate ratification, as is constitutionally required for treaties. Instead the structure of the agreement, which lays out goals but contains few legally binding requirements, allows the U.S. to formally join the agreement by having the president sign documents and then submit them to the U.N.

Republican presidential nominee Trump has threatened to “cancel” the climate agreement if he is elected, but putting it into force could make such an action more complicated.

Myron Ebell explains that this document has no effect until Congress votes on it

No one should be able to sign a chastity vow on your behalf, right? Even the UN themselves quietly call this a treaty, which means Obama cannot just declare it to be so:

Negotiators at COP-21 went along with the charade that it’s not really a treaty for the United States.  However, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat considers it a treaty.  The relevant UNFCCC web page is headlined: “Paris Agreement—Status of Ratification.”  The information note prepared by the UNFCCC Legal Affairs Programme on the Entry into Force of the Paris Agreement: Legal Requirements and Implications begins: “1. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties states that ‘a treaty enters into force in such manner and upon such date as it may provide or as the negotiating States may agree’.”

Moreover, every other country considers it a treaty and is going through its normal procedures for joining a treaty.  Patrick Goodenough in CNS News reported recently that even in China, which is ruled by a Communist Party dictatorship, the government has referred the treaty to the Standing Committee of Parliament for its approval.

The TPP is part of the Sting:

Article 20.4 of the TPP says: “The Parties [recognize] that multilateral environmental agreements to which they are party play an important role, globally and domestically, in protecting the environment and that their respective implementation of these agreements is critical to achieving the environmental objectives of these agreements. Accordingly, each Party affirms its commitment to implement the multilateral environmental agreements to which it is a party.

— Howard Richman, Jesse Richman and Raymond Richman

The TPP can be a vehicle to enforce the Paris vow:

“Also, chapter 27 of the TPP creates “Arbitration Tribunals.” These tribunals, according to the Richmans, “can impose multi-billion dollar fines upon the U.S. government if the U.S. violates anything that is in the pact.”

“In other words, the tribunals can force whatever Obama negotiates in Paris upon the American people, and Congress will have very little say,” argues the Richmans.”

  — Alex Swoyer

What’s the solution?

First, let the voters know that the Paris agreement is a bluff. It is not legally binding unless domestic legislation, or Congress or Parliament makes it so. As Marlo Lewis said the Paris Agreement Is a Real Tiger:  recognise that the Paris Agreement is a treaty, and it must pass the US Senate.  Marlo Lewis, explains why it is a treaty and not an executive agreement. Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation discusses it too.

Second: Even if it was a real agreement, it’s pointless. Tell the world that China and India will be producing more CO2 regardless. By 2030, Australia’s entire 25% cut in annual emissions will be undone by 2 whole days of Chinese output.

Third:  As Marlo Lewis said in the Paris Agreement Is a Real Tiger: Free nations need to legislate something like  the Byrd-Hagel Resolution which was passed in 1997 to counteract the Kyoto Treaty.

Fourth: Be ever vigilant about local legislation that mentions terms like “multilateral environmental agreements.”

It’s all bluff.  We can still stop it, but we have to tell the world what this shapeshifting vow is.

For more information see:

9.4 out of 10 based on 57 ratings