Paris Agreement is Fundamentally Flawed
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Gosar, and I appreciate his leading the Western Caucus Special Order hour of the day and all that he does, and the members of the Western Caucus, on these issues.
President Obama attempted to implement the Paris Agreement domestically through an executive order he issued in September 2016, but the Paris Agreement was never ratified by the United States Senate as is constitutionally required for a treaty to exist and, therefore, is not a legally binding treaty.
In June 2017, President Trump announced that the U.S. would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which is fully in its power to decide because, again, U.S. involvement is not legally binding. I applauded that decision then; I continue to applaud it now, and this is one of the reasons why.
This Paris accord has little efficacy. It will not save the world. Even if we take at face value the assumption that climate change poses an existential threat to the planet, U.S. compliance with the Paris Agreement, or even a full embrace of a far more expansive Green New Deal, would do little to avert that result.
The U.S. is no longer the primary source of global CO
Meanwhile, during roughly the same period, China increased its emissions by 4 billion tons and India by 1.3 billion tons. It is extremely unlikely that either China or India are going to fulfill their requirements within the Paris Agreement.
But even if they and every other country in the world, including the U.S., were to comply, we would still only succeed in reducing global temperatures by less than one-half of 1 degree Celsius by the year 2100. That is according to the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Like the Green New Deal, H.R. 9 is nothing more than cynical partisan messaging. I urge everyone in this Chamber to vote ``no.''
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source