Law Prof.: Obama’s Climate Agenda Is About Changing The Constitution

President Barack Obama’s push to unilaterally commit the United States to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions in the coming years is about changing the constitutional system that similarly hampered former President Bill Clinton’s global warming goals, according to a law professor.

In a congressional hearing Thursday, George Mason University law professor Jeremy Rabkin told lawmakers that Obama’s argument that he unilaterally commit the U.S. to a United Nations agreement without Senate ratification was “a real change in our Constitution.”

“So, now we’re going to have some body, in some entity, in some foreign country that’s going to be directing us?” Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions asked Rabkin during Thursday’s hearing on Obama’s emissions-reduction promise to the United Nations.

“We have certain background assumptions about how our government is supposed to work, that’s why we have a Constitution,” Rabkin responded.

“And what this is fundamentally about is saying, ‘ah, that’s old-fashioned, forget that, that didn’t work for [President Bill] Clinton– we’re moving forward with something different which the president gets to commit us,’” Rabkin added. “That’s a real change in our Constitution.”

Late last year, Obama committed the U.S. to cut CO2 emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025. Obama made the pledge in conjunction with China’s government, which promised to merely peak its CO2 emissions by 2030. Republicans immediately came out against Obama’s pledge, saying it was unworkable and they wouldn’t ratify it.

The threat of Senate opposition successfully scared Clinton into abandoning his plan to get lawmakers to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in the 1990s, but the Obama administration is arguing its international climate pledge doesn’t even need congressional approval.

The U.S. submitted a document to the UN last year that suggested a “bifurcated approach” to a deal on global warming. The president says it is not a treaty the Senate needs to ratify, as it requires every country to submit individual CO2-reduction promises they will use domestic policies to achieve.

Obama wants to make signing a global climate deal part of his presidential legacy, but knows such an agreement would never be ratified by a Republican-controlled Senate. Therefore, the administration is doing everything it can to argue a UN deal would not need lawmakers’ approval.

Here’s the problem, though: Any promise made by Obama to the international community on this scale would likely need to be ratified by the Senate in order to be considered a treaty, according to Rabkin.

“The word treaty is usually reserved for things that are ratified by the Senate,” he told lawmakers.

Via: Daily Caller

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Interesting Reparations for Global Warming

Apparently carbon footprint taxes and wealth redistribution are not enough, we must adopt progressive social engineering of the planet

“Give me your tired, your poor, 


Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 


The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 


Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: 


I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”  - Emma Lazarus

If you thought global warming scaremongering tactics went away with the most recent failed prediction for 2015 when we were supposed to be flooded and underwater, with little polar ice caps left, you would be mistaken.

Writing for the Washington Post, Michael B. Gerrard, a legal scholar at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, proposes that we should take in millions upon millions of refugees that will eventually be displaced by climate change. He said, “We ruined your country. Welcome to ours.” Playing on Emma Lazarus’ famous quote, he adds, “Give us your thirsty, your hot, your flooded masses.” Apparently carbon footprint taxes and wealth redistribution are not enough, we must adopt progressive social engineering of the planet.

If global warming average temperatures increase above 3.6 degrees, islands like Kiribati and the Marshalls and parts of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, and Vietnam will disappear underwater, flooded by melting glaciers in the Himalayas and the Andes. And if people don’t keep their voluntary and non-binding promises to cut CO2 (at the U.N. Climate summit in Paris in December 2015), “the thermometers could go much higher.” From Sierra Leone to Ethiopia, land will turn into desert. The heat will increase violence, ethnic and political tensions, Gerrard said.

Gerrard’s proposed solution is a pledge “to take on a share of the displaced population equal to how much each nation has historically contributed to emissions of the greenhouse gases that are causing this crisis.”

Via: Canada Free Press

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NOAA Says It’s a Record: No Major Hurricane Has Struck U.S. Mainland in 10 Years

What is that?  Climate Change is real?  What happened to the this years hurricane season?  Gone and forgotten and it passes without a peep!!!!!

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CNSNews.com) --No “major” hurricane--defined as a Category 3 or above--has made landfall on the continental United States since 2005, according to records compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division.

That is the longest stretch of time the United States has gone without a Category 3 or above hurricane striking somewhere on the mainland of the country, according to NOAA hurricane records going back to 1851.

“It’s easily the record -- with all the necessary caveats,” the National Hurricane Center’s Eric Blake told CNSNews.com.

Blake, a specialist with the center, is the co-author of The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones from 1851 to 2010.

Blake said that the ability to measure hurricanes is better now than it was in the past.

Prior to the current pause in major hurricanes striking the U.S. mainland, the longest pause had been the eight years between 1860 and 1869—146 years ago. NOAA has published its calculation of the categories of all hurricanes striking the U.S. going back to 1851.

In the 164 years for which hurricane data has been collected, 72 have had at least one major hurricane. There have also been two periods of five-straight years (1915 throuhg 1919 and 1932 through 1936) where at least one major hurricane has struck they U.S. mainland each year. (See chart below.)

The U.S. Census Bureau noted the fact that it has now been ten years since the last major hurricane struck the U.S. mainland in information it published this month to mark the beginning of hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30.

The last major hurricane to strike the U.S. “was Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 over Southwest Florida,” the Census Bureau said.

In 2005, according to NOAA, a greater number of major hurricanes struck the U.S. mainland than any year on record. That year, four Category 3 storms hit the U.S.: Dennis, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.

Sometimes major hurricanes--such as Ike in 2008--are Category 3 or higher before they strike the U.S. mainland, but then they diminish to a lower category of storm before they do strike.

Via: CNS News

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Is EPA Helping Green Groups Raise Funds in Exchange for Favorable Research?

On first glance, this is a rather routine story in the environmental policy wars.

A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change said researchers had found that if rules being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce carbon emissions were enacted, it would mean 3,500 fewer premature deaths per year.

This was a necessary piece of the puzzle for the EPA as it works to implement regulations it says would, by 2030, reduce carbon emissions to 30 percent below their levels in 2005. Industry experts say these regulations would drive a final nail into the coal industry, which currently supplies almost half the nation’s electricity. So, to justify the regulations, significant health benefits must be demonstrated.

Such stories have become expected in environmental policy. The government announces an aim or policy change, and the research community gets together, using taxpayer dollars, to confirm the government’s approach is the best option. Those who support it post it to their Facebook pages; those who don’t ignore it.

Researchers from Harvard University, Syracuse University and four other institutions used climate models to predict the impact the EPA’s proposed carbon emissions reductions would have on human health. And not surprisingly, it turned out the government’s plan was not just among the options that would produce positive results but was, in fact, the best way to achieve the goals.

But there was a line in this story that sets it apart. Jonathan Buonocore, a research fellow at Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, told U.S. News the EPA did not participate in the study or interact with its authors.

But it seems the agency did participate and did interact with the authors.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. (Photo: State Department/Sipa USA/Newscom)

Emails discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request by Steve Milloy, a former editor at JunkScience.com, found a string of correspondence to set up meetings and conference calls to, in the words of one such email, “discuss methods for our next set of analyses.”

The chain of emails went back and forth as the researchers and the agency both sought to add participants to the call. The fact the research showed precisely what the government wanted it to and that the government’s own proposal, when mimicked by researchers, produced the best results further raise suspicion.

Driscoll seemed to grasp this when he told the New York Times it was “a coincidence” that one of the models so closely resembled the federal proposal.

Milloy does not buy that explanation, and he doesn’t buy that this research was not coordinated with the agency to maximize effectiveness in promoting the coal regulations.

Despite the fact the study’s authors “received or were involved in $45 million worth of research grants from the EPA,” The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Associated Press described the researchers “simply and innocuously” as researchers and scientists, Milloy lamented in a recent post at JunkScience.com. “Absent some unimagined explanation, these emails flatly contradict the claims [of independence] made in the Harvard and Syracuse media releases and in statements to media [by the researchers themselves].”

Via: Daily Signal

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Poll: Majority of Americans Don’t Believe Human Activity is Causing Earth to Warm

The Pew Research Center has released the results of a poll that examines the ideological divide over global warming in the United States.

Only 45 percent of all Americans—regardless of their political leanings—believe that the Earth is warming and that the warming is caused mainly by human activity. This is a decline from 50 percent in 2006.

The remaining 55 percent either don’t know whether or not the Earth is warming or what is causing the warming, don’t believe the Earth is warming, or believe natural changes are the dominant determinants of any changes in the global climate.

Just 22 percent of Republicans—and only 15 percent of conservative leaning GOP members—believe human activity is causing the Earth to warm, compared to 46 percent of Independents and 64 percent of Democrats.

Among Catholics, 47 percent believe that any warming is caused by human activity, down from 53 percent in 2006. A sharp difference exists between Catholic Republicans (24 percent) and Catholic Democrats (62 percent) on this issue.

By age group, 36 percent of the 65+ cohort believe global warming is caused by humans, increasing slightly to 43 percent for the 50 to 64 age group, 47 percent for the 30 to 49 year olds, and a slim majority (54 percent) for those in the 18 to 29 year old bracket.

Whites (41 percent) and Blacks (44 percent) both have a minority of their total populations believing in anthropogenic forces driving the Earth’s climate, whereas Hispanics have a solid majority (62 percent).

None of the major Protestant divisions surveyed had a majority believing that global warming is caused by humans: all Protestants, 37 percent; white evangelicals, 25 percent; white mainline members, 42 percent, and Black Protestants, 43 percent.

Via: Canada Free Press

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[VIDEO] Biden: Most Important Thing Obama Can Do Is Get a Handle on Climate Change

(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that climate change is the “single most important thing” that he and President Barack Obama will address during their eight years in office.

“This is the single most important thing that Barack Obama and Joe Biden can do in eight years of a presidency and vice presidency is to actually get a handle – get a handle -- on climate change,” Biden said at the White House’s clean energy summit.

As CNSNews.com previously reported, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 20, 2015, Obama said, “No challenge--no challenge--poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change," President Obama declared in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday night.

At the summit, staged to announce $4 billion in private sector investment in clean energy research and development and detail executive actions taken by Obama to increase the federal government’s role in investing and developing clean energy, Biden touted that role and importance of fighting climate change.

“What you’re doing really, really matters, and I want to tell you you’ve got a partner in us,” Biden said to a crowd of alternative energy advocates and activists. “We’ll do everything that’s reasonably possible, and there’s no pride of authorship here. We’re doing things that aren’t working.

“We could do more to make it work better for you, all to make it more attractive to invest and be engaged. Let us know, because this is the single most important thing that Barack Obama and Joe Biden can do in eight years of a presidency and vice presidency is to actually get a handle climate change,” he said.

Via: CNS News

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Obama Prepares More ‘Executive Actions’ On Global Warming

President Barack Obama is preparing to unleash a series of “executive actions” aimed at boosting the green energy industry as part of the president’s global warming agenda.

Obama is launching a “Clean Energy Impact Investment Center” at the Energy Department to “make information about energy and climate programs … accessible and more understandable to the public, including to mission-driven investors.”

The White House is also ordering the IRS to come out with guidance and rules to get nonprofits to invest in green energy technologies, along with creating more government financing options for small businesses looking to go green.

“Today’s announcements will help ensure that even more American-made clean energy technologies can make the leap from an idea, to the laboratory, to the global marketplace,” the White House said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to unleash the power and potential of innovations that serve both our economy and our environment, and to the as-yet-unimagined breakthroughs still to come.”

The White House also took time to announce it had doubled the amount of green energy investment promises from the private sector, including $3.5 billion in commitments from environmental nonprofits and institutional investors.

President Obama has made tackling global warming a top priority during his second term in office, and it’s clear he wants to make signing a global climate treaty part of his presidential legacy. Administration officials have been working tirelessly to get other countries to sign onto a major carbon dioxide emissions reductions agreement later this year.

But the administration has seen mixed success on the diplomatic front, so it’s continuing to announce new regulations and executive orders aimed at reducing U.S. emissions. White House officials have continually argued that if other countries see the U.S. lead on emissions reductions they will follow suit.

“If I can encourage and gain commitments from the Chinese to put forward a serious plan to start curbing their greenhouse gases, and that then allows us to leverage the entire world for the conference that will be taking place later this year in Paris,” Obama told VICE News in an interview.

Via: Daily Caller

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[VIDEO] Sen. James Inhofe: Pope Francis Ought to Stay Out of Climate Change Debate

Attendees at the annual Heartland conference agreed that Pope Francis ought to spend more time on how to lift the poor from poverty rather than on green politics that hurt the poor.

Via: The Gateway Pundit

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IS CLIMATE CHANGE HYSTERIA THE NEW ‘POPULATION BOMB’?

A recent article in the New York Times revisits the generalized pandemonium in the 1970s over fears of a global population explosion, due in large part to Paul R. Ehrlich’s 1968 doomsday bestseller: The Population Bomb. The article inadvertently ties Ehrlich’s apocalyptic thesis—and the widespread willingness to believe it—to the current climate change hysteria that has swept a large part of the planet.

Ehrlich sold the world the idea that mankind stood on the brink of Armageddon because there was simply no way to feed the exponentially increasing world population. The opening line set the tone for the whole book: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.”

Being a well-credentialed scientist—as a biologist lecturing at Stanford University—Ehrlich’s trumpet call of the end times struck many as the plausible theory of an “expert.”

In the book, Ehrlich laid out the devastating future of the planet. He predicted that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s (and that 65 million of them would be Americans), that already-overpopulated India was doomed, and that odds were fair that “England will not exist in the year 2000.”

Ehrlich concludes that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come,” meaning “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.”

It is fascinating to compare Ehrlich’s hyperbolic forecasts with those of the recent climate workshop sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Science.

Via: Breitbart

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Why The Left Needs Climate Change

Try this out as a thought experiment: what would happen if, tomorrow morning, we had definitive proof that catastrophic climate change was impossible, wasn’t happening, and would never happen. Would Al Gore breathe a big sigh of relief and say—“Well good; now we can go back to worrying about smoking, or bad inner city schools, or other persistent, immediate problems.”

Of course not. The general reaction from environmentalists and the left would be a combination of outrage and despair. The need to believe in oneself as part of the agency of human salvation runs deep for leftists and environmentalists who have made their obsessions a secular religion. And humanity doesn’t need salvation if there is no sin in the first place. Hence human must be sinners—somehow—in need of redemption from the left.

I got to thinking about this when reading a short passage from an old book by Canadian philosopher George Grant,Philosophy in the Mass Age:

“During the excitement over Sputnik, it was suggested that the Americans were deeply depressed by Russian success. I thought this was a wrong interpretation. Rather, there was a great sigh of relief from the American elites, for now there was an immediate practical objective to be achieved, a new frontier to be conquered—outer space.”

This tracks closely with Kenneth Minogue’s diagnosis of liberalism in his classic The Liberal Mind.  Minogue compared liberals to medieval dragon hunters, who sought after dragons to slay even after it was clear they didn’t exist. The liberal, like the dragon hunter, “needed his dragons. He could only live by fighting for causes—the people, the poor, the exploited, the colonially oppressed, the underprivileged and the underdeveloped. As an ageing warrior, he grew breathless in pursuit of smaller and smaller dragons—for the big dragons were now harder to come by.”

Via: Forbes

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Climate Change: Where is the Science?

Is it twice as likely that the Earth is cooling than that it is warming? That humans and fossil fuels have nothing, or everything to do with it, or somewhere in between? Or is it over 99% certain that anthropogenic carbon burning-induced warming is sweeping us to the apocalypse, with all other possibilities combined being less than one percent probable?

The only way to find out is through the most rigorous and critical application of the scientific method, from laboratory practice to public discourse. Anything less than that increases the risk that the 'solution' could be more catastrophic to humans than the results of climate change itself.

Let us examine what the climate change alarm community has done and how they have done it, and see if it qualifies as the rigorous and unimpeachable science that its proponents claim it is. We'll walk it back from results to first principles.

First, results. Nothing defines science so well in the popular mind than the predictive power of scientific theory. "If the conditions, materials and/or forces A, B, C, and D come together in such-and-such a way, then the outcome WILL BE 6.7294874X. If variables P, Q, and R are substituted for A, C, and D, then the outcome will be 2.1 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol in combustion." Awesome.

Via: American Thinker

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Global Warming: The Theory that Predicts Nothing and Explains Everything

A lot of us having been pointing out one of the big problems with the global warming theory: a long plateau in global temperatures since about 1998. Most significantly, this leveling off was not predicted by the theory, and observed temperatures have been below the lowest end of the range predicted by all of the computerized climate models.

So what to do if your theory doesn’t fit the data? Why, change the data, of course!

Hence a blockbuster new report: a new analysis of temperature data since 1998 “adjusts” the numbers and magically finds that there was no plateau after all. The warming just continued.

Starting in at least early 2013, a number of scientific and public commentators have suggested that the rate of recent global warming has slowed or even stopped. The phenomena has been variably termed a “pause,” a “slowdown,” and a “hiatus.”…

 But as a team of federal scientists report today in the prestigious journal Science, there may not have been any “pause” at all. The researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) adjusted their data on land and ocean temperatures to address “residual data biases” that affect a variety of measurements, such as those taken by ships over the oceans. And they found that “newly corrected and updated global surface temperature data from NOAA’s NCEI do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus.’”
How convenient.

It’s so convenient that they’re signaling for everyone else to get on board.

One question raised by the research is whether other global temperature datasets will see similar adjustments. One, kept by the Hadley Center of the UK Met Office, appears to support the global warming “hiatus” narrative—but then, so did NOAA’s dataset up until now. “Before this update, we were the slowest rate of warming,” said Karl. “And with the update now, we’re the leaders of the pack. So as other people make updates, they may end up adjusting upwards as well.”

This is going to be the new party line. “Hiatus”? What hiatus? Who are you going to believe, our adjustments or your lying thermometers?

The new adjustments are suspiciously convenient, of course. Anyone who is touting a theory that isn’t being borne out by the evidence and suddenly tells you he’s analyzed the data and by golly, what do you know, suddenly it does support his theory—well, he should be met with more than a little skepticism.

Via: The Federalist

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National Security Problems Aren’t Caused by Climate

Earlier this month, the Obama administration released its latest blast on climate change: A cut-and-paste job from its own reports proclaiming that climate change has serious national security implications. This is embarrassingly shoddy stuff. But it’s shoddy for a reason.

Now, nothing says credibility like a pile of old federal reports. But these reports do seem like scary stuff: rising sea levels, wildfires, refugees, and a lot more. It reminds me of the scene in “Ghostbusters,” when Bill Murray tells the mayor that, if he doesn’t let the team go, dogs and cats will be living together.

But get serious. Just for the sake of it, I’m going to assume that climate change is really happening, and that it’s really caused by people. Even if that’s true, climate change still isn’t a national security issue.

Here’s why: National security problems aren’t caused by climate, changing or not. They’re caused by what people do. And people don’t do things because it’s getting hotter, or colder. They do things because of what they believe. The problem is never weather: It’s always ideology.

The White House’s report argues that climate change is “contributing”—note the weasel word—to “conflicts over basic resources like food and water.” There’s no evidence of this. But fundamentally, wars aren’t caused by natural resources like food, water, or even oil.

Did Japan decide to attack Pearl Harbor because it was running out of oil? No. It waged war because it believed that war was the way to get what it wanted. What drove Japan wasn’t a shortage of oil. It was a surplus of fanaticism.

Saying natural resources cause conflicts isn’t merely shallow. It’s wrong. It deprives people of their moral agency. It attributes the decisions they make to outside forces beyond their control. Like crime, wars are caused by people. Banks don’t cause bank robberies: Bank robbers cause bank robberies.

Via: Daily Signal

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OBAMA: CLIMATE CHANGE LIKELY MAKING CALIFORNIA DROUGHT WORSE

During an interview with a local California news network, President Obama said climate change was probably making the state’s devastating drought worse.

“Neither a governor nor even a president can control weather,” he explained, but pointed out that his administration was putting more emphasis on “man made contributors” to climate change.

“We’re going to have to work hard to make sure that we’re serious about the climate change issue,” he said, acknowledging that although there was no evidence showing that the drought was “caused” by climate change, it certainly didn’t make it any better.

“What we do know is, if the temperature goes up a percent or two percent or three percent, more water evaporates, it changes weather patterns, and it’s not good for California, it’s not good for the West,” he said.

Obama praised farmers for voluntarily using less water and suggested that more of them shift to drip irrigation, to save more water, calling it an example of “where we need to go.”

Via: Breitbart

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The climate warming pause goes AWOL (or not)

Science mag is publishing a blockbuster paper today, on June 4.  Oh boy!  Get ready to watch yet another big fight about climate change – this time mainly among different groups of climate alarmists.  Is there a “pause”?  Did global climate really stop warming during the last dozen years, 18 years, or even 40 years – in spite of rising levels of the greenhouse (GH) gas carbon dioxide?

The renowned National Climate Data Center (NCDC), a division of NOAA located in Asheville, NC, claims that the widely reported (and accepted) temperature hiatus (i.e., near-zero trend) is an illusion – just an artifact of data analysis – and that the global climate never really stopped warming.If true, what a blessing that would be for the UN-IPCC – and for climate alarmists generally, who have been under siege to explain the cause of the pause.

This paper is turning out to be a “big deal.”The publisher of Science has even issued a special press release, promoting the NCDC claim of continued slow but steady warming.

Of course, NCDC-NOAA and Science may end up with egg on their collective faces.It does look a little suspicious that NCDC arrived at this earth-shaking “discovery” after all these years, after “massaging” its own weather-station data, just before the big policy conference in December in Paris that is supposed to slow the rise of CO2 from the burning of energy fuels, coal, oil, and gas.

Now watch the sparks fly -- as there are two major constituencies that have a vested interest in the pause:

There are at least two rival data centers that may dispute the NCDC analysis:

the Hadley Centre in England and the NASA-Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).In fact, Hadley’s partner, the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, was the first to announce, on the BBC, the existence of a pause in global warming.

Via: American Thinker

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House Committee Drops Funding for State Department Climate-Change Programs

With Secretary of State John Kerry at the helm, the Obama administration is promoting efforts to produce a new global climate treaty at a U.N. climate conference in Paris late this year. (AP Photo, File)

(CNSNews.com) – Just months before the most important U.N. climate conference in years, Republican appropriators in the House of Representatives are taking aim at one of the Obama administration’s most cherished priorities – international climate change funding.

An appropriations bill for the State Department and foreign operations, released Tuesday, excludes funding for three major climate initiatives – the Green Climate Fund, the Clean Technology Fund, and the Strategic Climate Fund – and also removes funding for the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Also in the firing line is funding for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and debt relief.

The bill eliminates funding for these “lower-priority international programs,” the House Appropriations Committee said in a statement, in order to meet what it views as top priorities – including “funding for security activities around the world,” support for key allies, and increased funding “for embassy and diplomatic security to address new needs identified after the Benghazi terrorist attack.”

“This legislation is first and foremost a national security bill,” said Rep Kay Granger (R-Texas), chairwoman of the Appropriations subcommittee on State and foreign operations.

Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said it provides funding for “critical endeavors – bolstering the fight against terror, strengthening our allies, helping innocent lives facing conflict and strife, and protecting our democracy, our people, and our way of life.”

In doing so, the drafters decided climate change programs did not merit funding.

The Green Climate Fund, launched in 2011, is designed to help developing countries curb “greenhouse gas” emissions and cope with occurrences attributed to climate change, such as rising sea levels.

With the aim of reaching $100 billion a year from public and private sources by 2020, it is one of the most ambitious elements of the global climate campaign.

President Obama last November pledged $3 billion for the GCF, a promise touted by Secretary of State John Kerry at subsequent U.N. climate talks, even as Republican lawmakers slammed the move.

The U.S. pledge is by far the largest announced contribution to date for the fund, which now has pledges totaling some $10.2 billion, from 33 countries.

In its fiscal year 2016 budget request, the administration asked for $500 million – $350 million for the State Department and $150 million for the Treasury Department – as a first step towards meeting that $3 billion objective.

Via: CNS News

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