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FORMER IRISH PRESIDENT Mary Robinson has said the US will become a “rogue state” if it pulls out of the Paris agreement on climate change.
President Donald Trump yesterday delayed a decision to honour or walk away from the climate accord until he returns from Europe late this month, leaving global partners in limbo.
“If it does [walk away], it is a rogue state in the world. I have to say that,” Robinson, who also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the UN in New York.
It becomes a rogue state because it is totally failing in its clear responsibility as one of the largest emitters and historic emitter. And for the problems that have been caused by the disrupted climate in the very poor countries and communities around the world.
It is unconscionable if the United States pulls out and if the United States stays in but does not support the green climate fund, does not support the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], does not support the commitments that too is unconscionable.
And I think we have to be very clear in understanding the injustice of that.
Divisions within Trump’s administration have left in doubt the participation of the world’s number two carbon polluter – after China – in the landmark 2015 agreement to limit global warming.
After months of uncertainty, Trump had appeared to be edging toward a decision.
But the White House postponed a key meeting scheduled for yesterday that could have determined the fate of the 196-nation accord, and hours later said there would be no decision before the end of the month.
Trump will “not be making an announcement regarding that agreement until after he returns from the G7,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said. That meeting, in Sicily, ends on 27 May.
Despite hardline pre-election rhetoric against the deal, Trump’s inner circle has been tasked with providing the president with a range of policy options.
The group includes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, White House strategist Steve Bannon, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, as well as Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Administration officials said the crunch sit-down may now take place next week, before Trump departs for a first foreign trip that will take in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican and Brussels before ending in Sicily.
“The president wants to make sure he has an opportunity to continue to meet with his team to create the best strategy for this country going forward,” said Spicer.
Full withdrawal would upset Washington’s allies and seriously undermine global efforts to limit carbon emissions, which the vast majority of experts say are changing the climate in dangerous ways.
With reporting from © AFP 2017
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Hard to take them seriously when Saudi who have zero regard for the UN’s own Universal Declaration of Human Right can sit as chair of their Human Rights Council.
@Conor Power: so she was once in the UN so can’t have an opinion on a completely unrelated matter?
Oh no Mary Robinson and the pretentious “Elders” are threatening the US, boo hoo.
The Paris Climate agreement includes sections on “gender equality” wtf has that to do with global warming/climate change?
@Marcus Philpott: If it’s not on 4Chan it’s not true.
@DainBramage: who is 4chan?
@Marcus Philpott:
4chan is the Russian hacker who stopped Hillary from being president
@Gaucho Doyle: 4chan is the part of the internet that Jim Daly wants to fine you for letting your kids see it.
@Gaucho Doyle: he sounds more Asian than Russian.
@Marcus Philpott:
Sarcasm is a way of insulting an idiot without them realising they have been insulted.
Whether you agree or not with it waging continuous war around the world, it certainly could be classified as a rogue state already depending on the definition you accept.
“A rogue state is a controversial term applied by some international theorists to states they consider threatening to the world’s peace.” In my eyes, a country who answers to no one and can do as it pleases militarily is definitely a candidate for that label.
So, what Robinson says might not be anything new.
@Alan: but in doing so, this rogue state has didn’t more in renewable energy, and has more people employed by the state in renewable research than any other? While trump intends to increase attending on carbon fuels, the us administration have been backing green initiatives. The rest of the world had to manage the joint animals of China and the US gently, as they are the problem, but also essential to the solution. Condescending and preaching will never work.
I wish this irrelevant pretentious snob would retire from public life once and for all.
People who argue about ‘climate change’ using the current definition are both sides of the same mediocre coin as they are too narrow in their views . Not just the Earth but all planets in the solar system possess a climate so it simply means that climate is defined on common traits that do not involved distance from the Sun or planetary composition.
http://calgary.rasc.ca/images/planet_inclinations.gif
If the Earth had an inclination similar to the 3° of Jupiter there would be little change across all latitudes over the course of a year and much like the conditions at the Equator while if the Earth had the 82° inclination of Uranus there would be huge swings across most latitudes similar to conditions experienced within the Arctic/Antarctic circles .
In short, climate is determined by a spectrum between 0° (Equatorial) and 90° (Polar) so the Earth with its 23 1/2° inclination is within this spectrum as having a largely Equatorial climate with a sizable but minor Polar input. The Earth’s climate would change if inclination increased towards 90° in which case it would become more Polar and a decrease of inclination towards 0° would mean a climate change towards an Equatorial climate.
Trying to squeeze climate into long term weather patterns was always a silly thing to do even if the success of short term weather modelling provided the basis for that lamentable definition.
@Gerald Kelleher: they only use “climate change” because idiots thought “global warming” was all made up because it was cold in winter. The full title of “the impact of human industrialisation in changing the global climate beyond natural climate change” was a bit long, so “climate change” was chosen. Your point makes sense in interplanetary geography lessons, but in making a point that pumping loads of rubbish into the atmosphere will eventually make the earth an inhospitable rock, then it’s overkill.
@Gulliver Foyle: The only way climate can change for the Earth and all planets is through a change in the degree of inclination within a spectrum. If you understand the reasoning which defines climate for all planets then congratulations, you now know more than all the academics who traffic in a silly attempt to define climate as long term weather patterns.
https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm
The Earth has two distinct day/night cycles and the webcam above at the South pole shows that area of the planet which is now descending into polar night until polar dawn breaks on the March Equinox. In other words, if daily rotation is subtracted the entire surface of the planet would turn once to the Sun as it made an annual circuit. Where this annual surface rotation combines with the other daily rotation we get the seasons.
If you don’t comprehend that the Earth’s surface has two distinct surface rotations to the Sun you won’t have a ball’s notion about climate. Here is what you do, keep an eye on the Antarctic Continent and it turns across the fully illuminate face of the Earth in two distinct ways and you might add to your understanding this morning -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrP6QfbC2g&t=9s
Then we can talk about climate like men.
@Gerald Kelleher:
You have an extremely simplistic view of the factors that influence climate, atmospheric factors being amongst the most critical but completely overlooked by you. Whilst what you say about the effect of Earth’s obliquity on the seasons is indeed true, it has been known about by astronomers for thousands of years. Thankfully the understanding of the scientific community about what affects climate is several hundred years ahead of you.
@Avina Laaf: Coming from an unfortunate who can’t match up the temperature rising and falling with each weekday rotation I would say you certainly belong with the academics pushing the notion that climate can be squeezed into weather.
http://prairieecosystems.pbworks.com/f/1179343887/crerar%20temperature%20variation.jpg
When the Sun is in view you get the spikes, where the stars are in view you get the troughs in that graph as the Earth turns once each weekday but poor fools got themselves in trouble by trying to bypass this most basic fact and human experience -
” It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year” NASA /Harvard
We live in a golden age of imaging but a dark age in interpretation of this imaging.
@Gerald Kelleher: as usual Gerald, you are missing the main factors and simply focusing on what you believe to be some secret or hidden knowledge that holds the answers to the climate. After all your research to still be in denial is the remarkable feat, although the sources of your information I believe to be the culprit in this. Funny that you call scientists narrow in their view when they factor in a very long list of influencing factors and variables while you are the one as usual hung up on definitions and only one aspect like the obliquity of the ecliptic as the topic de jour and cause of all our problems.
@Gerald Kelleher:
http://www.climate.be/textbook/pdf/Chapter_1.pdf
Change the #, “/Chapter_#.pdf” in the link from 1-6 to cover a good start in understanding the planets climate and factors affecting it. It’s from a university in Belgium, my apologies it’s such a mainstream source for you but in the very least it will give you some idea of the modelling and various factors considered regarding understanding and predicting our future climate.
@Derek: By now I would say that some actually get the idea of a climate spectrum and that inclination determines what type of climate the Earth and all the other planets have. It is an expansive view that hasn’t made it into wider circulation because all these jackasses pointing at petrol pumps and imagining that humans can control planetary temperatures like a greenhouse thermostat.
If the Earth’s inclination increased towards 90°, both the Arctic and Antarctic circles would increase in circumference and so would the extreme variations in daylight/darkness and temperature swings across the seasons. Looking at other planets makes the comparison easy as does the nuts and bolts of why the temperature goes up and down daily for each location and up and down seasonally for each hemisphere. In other words researching climate is fun and not the anxiety ridden hype modellers made it into.
You either learn what determines climate for all planets or not at all.
@Derek: How sweet, a book meant to impress those who know no better but I trust the reader to make sense of planetary climate on a solar system scale and what determines the common traits by which comparisons and understanding can be made.
I was always endeared by a trick the old commies used in their self-absorbed world like an old rogue pulling the same stunt -
“Should anyone attempt to expose psychotherapy as a psychopolitical activity, the best defense is calling into question the sanity of the attacker. The next best defense is authority. The next best defense is a validation of psychiatric practices in terms of long and impressive figures. The next best defense is the actual removal of the attacker by giving him, or them, treatment sufficient to bring about a period of insanity for the duration of the trial. This, more than anything else, would discredit them, but it is dangerous to practice this, in the extreme.” Brainwashing doctrine
http://www.whale.to/b/soviet.htm#CHAPTER_X__
For those who want to escape the climate change bandwagon and actually look at the only thing which can change a planet’s climate then they expand their views to all planets in the solar system and not only enjoy the research journey but add to it.
@Gerald Kelleher: Forgive me for sounding simple, but are you saying that a) man’s activities on the planet have no substantive effect on the climate, and b) man’s activities on the planet have no substantive effect on the weather? Or are you only addressing the first question because the second is irrelevant?
@Gerald Kelleher: “we live in a golden age of imaging but a dark age in interpretation of this imaging.”
Oh well, your not wrong there!
You are so hung up on this solar/sidereal point which no one argues against, it’s well understood and acknowledged but has nothing to do with what “climate change” is (anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases causing a shift in the Earth’s natural climate pattern) yet you link to solar absorptivity of materials & emissivity which actually does play a considerable factor in modelling which I assume you dont grasp since it has nothing to do with your point. Or simply dismissed as it doesn’t fit your blinked view that it takes more than the Earth rotating or at an angle, & night & day impacts the daily temp. fluctuations at any specific place on Earth.
@Derek: Well understood indeed !, the dismal fact is that you and the other modelling dummies try to justify more rotations than weekdays hence you lose the ability to explain what causes the sun to rise and set each 24 hours and with it the normal temperature fluctuations which respond to the appearance of the Sun at dawn and the stars after twilight once a day and every day as the planet turns once. It is a good lesson for those who believe academics will come to their senses and actually research planetary climate within a spectrum which fits all planets in the solar system as there is no chance that will happen.
The people at Met Eireann should be fired for wilful deception or downright stupidity.
@Gerald Kelleher: There’s no point in continuing this, asking you to actually explain WTF your on about is pointless when you repeatedly equate your narrow field of alternative science facts based loosely on actual long known scientific facts to things you don’t fully understand while also implying everyone else is somehow wrong or foolish in believing the most basic fundamental principles. Flat Earthers and religious fundamentalist behave just like you, with unwillingness to acknowledge or expand your understanding while firmly holding a deeply flawed believed superior position on the matter.
Bloody hell, you managed to bring up commies, MET eireann, the 24 hr clock and fluctuations of temp between day and night to justify your ramblings. It’s like playing chess with a pigeon…
@Derek: It happens that readers trust their own intelligence in this matter -
http://calgary.rasc.ca/images/planet_inclinations.gif
Jupiter has an Equatorial climate with a 3° inclination
Uranus has an almost total Polar climate with a 82° inclination.
The Earth has a largely Equatorial climate with a sizable but minor polar input. It means that an increase towards a maximum 90 ° puts the Earth towards the polar end of the spectrum where more extreme conditions across greater latitudes would prevail and a decrease is towards the equatorial or more benign seasonal conditions. It is the only way climate can change.
It is also fun to explore and as it is new anyone can do it and nothing like the anxiety ridden junk peddled by voodoo doom merchants.
@Gerald Kelleher: it’s neither fun or new while you simply ignore the planet has an atmosphere composed of gases, one being CO2, trapping more heat energy irradiating from the planets surface allowing it escape back into space. Human activities pump billions of tons of it into the atmosphere annually negatively altering the ratio of heat that would naturally escape the atmosphere. CO2 levels are at an all time high at over 400ppm not seen in millennia. This can not be ignored in any serious discussion yet you prefer to ramble on about nonsense. We can’t alter the inclination of the planet, we can alter our CO2 output and to fluff this off as anxiety ridden junk sadly says all there needs said about your ability to process relevant significant data and be taken seriously.
@Derek: So you learn that all planets possess a climate regardless of what their composition is or distance from the Sun therefore speculation and modelling is allowed by using comparisons between different inclinations that already exist . There is so much research to be pursued and already more than a few have figured out how to define a climate spectrum between 0° and 90° even with more than a few modifications needed.
If you want to remain in the academic slums pointing at petrol pumps then good for you, with a little wits and a healthy dose of courage planetary climate may return to a productive research topic instead of the droning political/social nonsense academic want it to be.
Btw, until I can find someone who has a good handle on the rotational cause of the polar day/night cycle where the Sun rises and sets once a year on the equinoxes at the North/South poles, it becomes almost impossible to discuss climate as it should. It is really only a matter of familiarity and little else.
https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/spwebcam.cfm
Polar twilight will end this week at the South pole and the long polar night will set in where only the light of the moon illuminates that latitude.
@Gerald Kelleher: do you remember the hole in the ozone caused by humans using CFL gases in refrigeration? Since banning them the ozone has slowly repaired itself. Just one simple example of humans negatively our atmosphere.
@Derek: Don’t come to me with your pathetic pleas I see day in and day out, I need people who can appreciate something as cyclical and visible as the rotational cause of the polar day/night cycle -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrP6QfbC2g
Until the inclination issue is straightened out there can be no progress in making sense of daily and annual temperature fluctuations for our planet however defining climate is fairly straightforward by using a spectrum between Equatorial and Polar.
You do realize that the Sun comes into view only once a year after an absence of 6 months at the North and South poles ?. Learn why that is so first before speculating on anything else and then come back to me but not before then.
People are worried about the poxy weather chaning.. Theres absolutely nothing you can do about it!! This earth and the universe has it’s own agenda.. If we continue to be a part of it all well and good… But to make such a mountain out of a molehill seems like a vast distraction in my eyes, “look over there”
Oh Mary! Please just stop with the left globalist propaganda please thanks!
I wonder will Trump walk out on his job for a better one in New York. At least I’d expect his to fulfill his term.
A rogue state?
Like North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, Iran and Libya.
The US, the greatest democracy in the world?
That US?
OK Mary, that makes real sense.
@Jack Cassady: You spelled Theocracy wrong.
It already is Mary
live in a large city like london then live in small village on the west of ireland ,it will tell you all you need to know about pollution and all its terrible implications for children ,adults and old folk .
have your say