US COP21 stance stymied by opposition at home

A lot of the attention at the talks has been about the “blocking” nations. They are those who want no substantive deal, just a minimalist agreement that won’t affect the status quo.

Most of these are oil-producing countries, the leader of which is Saudi Arabia. It has blocked most of the meaningful proposals, including a strong scientific review that said that 1.5 degrees and not 2 degrees should be the maximum increase in global temperatures.

But there is another blocking constituency, and they are not present at the talks: the Republican Party in the US. While Barack Obama has made climate change a signature of his second presidential term, the Grand Old Party, which controls Congress, has tried to impede him at every turn. In the past week, two pieces of legislation were obstructed by Republicans.

It’s not helped by the fact that most of the front-runners in the Republican presidential race are climate-change sceptics. None more so than Donald Trump. A typically classy tweet from him in January 2014 read: “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bulls**t has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice.”

He tackled Obama again this week, portraying his comparison of climate change and terrorism as “the dumbest thing I’ve heard in politics”.

That’s a bit rich coming from Trump the Chump.

Quote of the Day

I intend to muster the experience of my entire life to the service of success for next Friday

COP21

president and French foreign minister Laurent Fabius commenting on the week ahead

Tweet of the day

Lots of celebrities knocking around COP21 in Paris this week, but the king of the A-listers is still Leonardo DiCaprio. Here is a fan tweet from a starry-eyed teenager called Christiana Figueres: With my #climate hero @LeoDiCaprio at #COP21. Thanks again for dropping by, and looking forward to your documentary