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The Daily Signal
John Kerry’s
Surprising Comments on International Regulations and Climate Change
Nicolas Loris
December 11, 2015
Although he probably didn’t mean to, Secretary of State John Kerry made
a compelling case for why the U.S. and other countries should not go
down the path of shutting down coal-fired plants, raising energy prices
and stunting economic growth to combat global warming.
Speaking in Paris, Kerry said:
The fact is that even if every American citizen biked to work,
carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we
each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our
domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what – that still
wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution
coming from the rest of the world.
If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions – remember
what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero
emissions – it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the
world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.
He’s exactly right. Paul Knappenberger and Patrick Michaels estimate
that the climate regulations the Obama administration are imposing on
the energy sector – costs that will be passed down to households – will
avert a meager 0.018 degree Celsius of warming by the year 2100.
In fact, the U.S. could cut 100 percent of its CO2 emissions and it
would not make a difference in global warming.
Using the same climate sensitivity modeling as the U.N.’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world would only be
0.137 degree C cooler by 2100. What’s worse is that if you included100
percent cuts from the entire industrialized world in their modeling,
then you would only avert warming by 0.278 degree C by the turn of the
century.
If Kerry got his wish, developing countries like India and China would
play ball. But they’re not going to and quite frankly, neither is the
rest of the developing world and some parts of the developed world.
According to the Climate Action Tracker, there are plans to build more
than 2,400 coal-fired power plants over the next 15 years. That
includes plants that have been announced, in the pre-permit stage,
permitted or under construction. These countries want access to cheap
and abundant energy, in order to provide their citizens with a stable
current of electricity and to keep their economy growing.
Kerry 4.39.37 PMKerry got one point very wrong, however. We’re talking
about carbon dioxide emissions, not carbon pollution. The
administration has evolved their message on this issue, from global
warming, to climate change, to carbon pollution.
Carbon dioxide is a colorless, non-toxic gas that does not have adverse
impacts on human health. Calling CO2, carbon pollution, is deceiving
the public. But at least Kerry spoke clearly about the futility of any
unilateral or multilateral plans to address global warming.
Read this and other articles with videos and links at The Daily Signal
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