Trying To End-Run Little Lord Shitstain's Climate "Policy" - Movement, But Not Nearly Enough
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Some activists are increasingly optimistic that they can wait this administration out. They are diligently crunching numbers and preparing reports to unveil at the global climate summit Brown is hosting in California in September. That’s when new benchmarks will be proposed for getting the nation back on track for meeting its Paris commitments. And in many ways, Trump has proved far less competent at dismantling climate action than initially feared, they say.
“Teddy Roosevelt talked about speaking softly and carrying a big stick,” said Nigel Purvis, a climate negotiator during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and chief executive of the firm Climate Advisers. “Donald Trump is tweeting loudly and carrying fiddlesticks. The level of damage is not as much as one might have thought given all the tweeting and speeches.”
Coal plants have continued shutting down at a brisk pace since Trump took office. The costs of renewable energy continue to fall, even after Trump slapped tariffs on foreign-made solar panels crucial to the industry’s growth. Led by California, states representing 40% of the U.S. population are pushing ahead with innovative strategies to drive their emissions down, and are on track to meet their states’ benchmarks under the Paris agreement.
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It’s all encouraging, said Marc Hafstead, an economist at the Washington think tank Resources for the Future, but it falls far short of getting the country where it needs to be. “If we are going to take this target seriously, we need federal action,” he said. “There is still time. We can still do something in 2020 or 2021 or after.” The more time that goes by, the bigger that something must be. Hafstead anticipates a national policy of pricing carbon will be essential.
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http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-paris-climate-201800601-story.html