Thursday, November 16, 2017



UN Climate Chief tries to laugh off her call for UN ‘centralized transformation’

She wants to be bigger than Hitler

By: Marc Morano

BONN, Germany — Climate Depot’s Marc Morano conducted an exclusive sidewalk interview with former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres as she was getting into a taxi during the UN climate summit in Bonn Germany on November 13, 2017.

Morano asked her about her message to President Trump and her own calls for a UN “centralized transformation” that “is going to make life of everyone on the planet very different.”

Morano to Figueres: “What about [your call for UN] “centralized transformation.” What about people who might be afraid the UN is essentially going to be a climate central power?

Figueres: (Laughs loudly)

Morano: That is your response?

Figueres: Now that is real humor. (Continues laughing as she ends interview and gets in waiting taxi.)

See: Flashback: UN climate chief Christiana Figueres seeks ‘centralized transformation’ that is ‘going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different’ –

‘The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn’t a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science. So it’s a very, very different transformation and one that is going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different’

SOURCE




President Trump is pushing America towards energy dominance

Despite what the media is spewing, President Donald Trump is continuing his push to improve the American economy. The President made not just energy independence a priority of his campaign and now administration, but energy dominance. The President knows the U.S. has been blessed with vast quantities of energy, but the previous administration spent eight years trying to kill the energy industry and the hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs that go with it. President Trump and Secretary Zinke are taking steps to correct eight years of bureaucratic war waged against the petroleum extract industry.

An independent study conducted by Rystad Energy released in 2016 estimates the U.S. now holds more recoverable oil than both Saudi Arabia and Russia. If the report is accurate, it would be worth an estimated $50 trillion. Even if the estimates are off by half, it is still $25 trillion just waiting for U.S. firms to pull out of the ground. Unfortunately, much of that is on federal lands.

On June 29, while speaking at the Department of Energy, President Trump outlined six concrete steps his Administration is immediately taking to promote strength and innovation in America’s energy sector. The President’s sixth step was crucial, stating, “Finally, in order to unlock more energy from the 94 percent of offshore land closed to development under the previous administration, we are creating a new offshore Oil and Gas Leasing program. America will be allowed to access the vast energy wealth located right off our shores.”

The administration is living up to that promise and is taking steps to ensure American energy dominance and create high paying jobs. The Department of Interior is proposing the largest oil and gas lease sale it has ever held. Next March, 76 million acres of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico of the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. It is estimated there is at least 48 billion barrels of oil and 141 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Gulf of Mexico that is recoverable with current technology.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the petroleum extraction industry almost 180,000 people in the U.S. This does not include the truck drivers that deliver the supplies. This does not include the steelworkers making the pipes and equipment needed for the industry.

These are not minimum wage jobs. Entry-level jobs in the industry “roustabouts” start between $19-21 per hour, plus significant amounts of overtime according to Rigzone. These are jobs that require no skill and can be trained onsite. Rig foreman make $150,000+, while engineers and consultants make $200,000+. People in the petroleum extract industry pay a lot of federal, state, and local taxes, increasing government revenues across the board.

Contrary to popular belief, the industry is not made up of a few large corporations. The petroleum extract industry is a small business driven industry. Because everything involved in oil and gas production is highly specialized, from personnel transportation to the gloves rig workers wear, the oil and gas sector is made up of thousands of small businesses. Exxon or Shell may lease a plot, but they hire dozens of smaller companies to test for, extract and transport the product. Those companies, in turn, hire more companies and buy products to complete their part of the operation. One offshore platform can involve dozens of companies across the U.S.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke stated, “In today’s low-price energy environment, providing the offshore industry access to the maximum amount of opportunities possible is part of our strategy to spur local and regional economic dynamism and job creation and a pillar of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy dominant.”

Elected officials up and down the gulf coast are applauding the move by the administration. They know the economic benefit these jobs will bring and the millions per year in royalties. Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant stated, “This will strengthen our state’s status as a leader in oil and gas exploration and create good jobs for hardworking Mississippians.”

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey stated, “As he has done time and again, President Trump has proven to the people of Alabama that he is a man of his word, and we are grateful to him and to Secretary Ryan Zinke for their determination to open a vast tract of American waters to oil and gas exploration. This decision is not only in the best interest of all Americans, it allows Gulf Coast states, like Alabama, to utilize our natural resources not only to provide energy for our nation, but increased economic opportunities for our people.”

President Trump is continuing to push for American energy dominance. The President is getting the government out of the way of the free market, so it can put people to work in good-paying jobs. Thanks to this administration the U.S. could very well be on its way to a Golden Era of American Energy.

SOURCE





Globalists Want Solar Tariffs When They Bailout Obama’s Foreign Cronies

If you heard that a Chinese company, controlled by a hedge fund, based in an offshore tax haven, had teamed up with a German company funded by a Qatari wealth fund, the same people behind Al-Jeezera, the Islamic propaganda wing, in order to file a petition at the International Trade Commission (ITC), would you believe their motivation is to help the American factory worker?

That is exactly what SolarWorld and Suniva are doing as these two foreign owned entities have joined together to petition the ITC to impose tariff protections for their products on the rest of the world.

The tariffs requested by these two failed companies and their global capital backers would double the price of solar panels. More than 1000 American companies in the Solar Energy Industries Association are opposed. The two foreign solar companies survived for years only because they received subsidies and protection from Obama and now they want tariffs in order to pay off German cronies of Angela Merkel and their Islamic financiers.

Consider who’s in favor of these tariffs:

Solar World is a German company run by Jurgen Stein and owned by Frank Asbeck, a crony and frequent travel companion of German chancellor Angela Merkel.  Their most prominent investor is the Qatar Foundation, an entity of the Qatari royal family which remains funded by the government of Qatar and would ultimately receive a payout should Solar World win this case before the ITC.  The Qatari government also funds the Islamic propaganda broadcaster Al-Jazeera.

Suniva is the other company asking for tariffs.  They are Chinese-owned but controlled by a hedge fund domiciled in offshore tax haven Guernsey.  They paid a lobbyist married to Hillary Clinton’s former chief of staff to get them $48 million in federal taxpayer subsidies under Obama, all while using prison labor in their factory.  Then, when they went bankrupt anyway, their New York operative, Jeremiah Silkowski, wrote a letter to the Chinese offering to liquidate the Suniva plant, lay off their workers, and drop the trade case in exchange for a $55 million payoff.

These two companies are the quintessential example of how global financial interests manipulate the DC swamp to fleece the taxpayer and sell out the American factory worker.

In this case, it is the American factories that are opposed to tariffs.  Solar manufacturing jobs have grown 58 percent in the last five years and those are largely concentrated in factories in the Midwest and Deep South that make steel racking and other metal equipment using American steel.  From Youngstown, Ohio to Huntington, West Virginia and down to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, there are over 50 factories producing steel equipment for the solar industry, and none of them received federal subsidies or protection.  They’ve been succeeding all on their own.

But the globalists’ trade principles are clear: when tariffs hurt foreign companies, they’re bad; when tariffs give cash to the foreign friends of Obama, Hillary, and Merkel, all of a sudden they’re just fine.  The globalists just don’t care if the American factory worker in the Midwest loses his job, so long as the foreigners don’t lose anything.

President Trump made a strong commitment to defend American companies but, in this case, the global financial interests behind two failed foreign companies are trying to get a bailout on their bad investment by manipulating U.S. trade laws for their benefit and hurting many successful American companies in the process.  President Trump shouldn’t be fooled by this three-card monte of foreign financial capital – the Germans, and Qataris, and offshore hedge funds are trying to pull one over on him.   President Trump needs to back the factory workers of Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, North Carolina and Alabama, and say no to tariff bailouts for foreign owned solar speculators.

SOURCE





American business big at Bonn conference

They see it as good PR to be there, hoping that  the Greenies will leave them alone in future

On the fringes of the ongoing global climate summit in Bonn, US leaders will once again demonstrate their commitment to the issue, with a packed agenda of film screenings, panel discussions and cocktail parties where they will highlight the country’s carbon dioxide cuts.

Unlike past years, however, the leaders are from corporate America — not the White House.

US President Donald Trump sent a bare-bones negotiating team to the two-week long climate gathering that began Monday in Germany, after pledging to withdraw from the Paris climate accord earlier in 2016. Instead of holding an array of events highlighting naturally clean energy, it scheduled a lone panel discussion on how fossil fuels fit into a low-carbon future.

But the official US presence is buttressed by an army of company executives, governors, mayors and activists who will deliver a different message. Coca-Cola, Mars and HP are planning to tout US progress in cutting emissions. A Citigroup vice-president is set to elaborate on how finance can help the world reach the Paris goals. A Berkshire Hathaway executive is scheduled to discuss how markets can drive carbon reductions.

"We’re all playing a role in moving this forward," said Nate Hurst, HP’s chief sustainability officer. "Our customers, some of which are right here alongside us on these panels, and the investment community are expecting this."

The next two weeks may reveal whether the unofficial delegation will be enough to convince leaders in Beijing, New Delhi and Brussels to continue to fight climate change — or if the scepticism in Washington spurs them to back off as well.

Business leaders from Coca-Cola, Citigroup, HP, Mars and Microsoft are set to join those from Ingersoll-Rand, Target Corporation, Johnson Controls and other companies to emphasise their climate commitments.
"When the US government is engaged in a serious way and puts some of its political capital behind this, it makes a difference," said Lisa Jacobson, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, which represents dozens of renewable power, natural gas and other companies. "Without that, there is a possibility of backsliding and postponing the needed action."

Many of the events are being held at a "US Climate Action Centre" — a city-block-sized pavilion next to the formal negotiation site. Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Hewlett Foundation and NextGen America, founded by hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, are the top funders of the pavilion. Michael Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.

The US government has said it will continue participating in climate negotiations until the country’s expected withdrawal from the Paris agreement in 2020. But there’s no sign of the enthusiasm that previous administrations brought to the issue, much less the kind of personal involvement that former president Barack Obama brought in the run-up to the 2015 Paris agreement.

The Trump administration is taking a different approach.

At the sprawling summit site, the US government is sponsoring a panel discussion on "the clean and efficient use of fossil fuels and nuclear power", as it works to persuade other countries they can meet their climate objectives without abandoning coal and natural gas. Expected participants include representatives from Tellurian, a liquefied natural gas company, and coal-producer Peabody Energy.

Only official government representatives have a formal role in the summit’s planned negotiations over how to validate countries’ carbon-cutting claims and take stock of progress in a few years.

"The bad news is obvious, which is this administration is a bunch of climate deniers, and we will look pathetic," said Carol Browner, who was Obama’s top climate adviser.
Under secretary of state for political affairs Tom Shannon is leading the US delegation, which includes members of the state department’s climate office. State department spokesman Yoon Nam declined to provide more specifics about the size and members of the US delegation, but it’s likely to be far smaller than the contingent of 93 US government participants who were registered for last year’s summit in Marrakech, Morocco.

While the US government presence will be decidedly low-key, the unofficial representatives of the US hope to make a splash. Representatives of the "We Are Still In" coalition representing nine states, 1,780 businesses and investors, 252 cities and counties and 339 colleges will use more than a dozen events at the US pavilion to showcase their action.

Business leaders from Coca-Cola, Citigroup, HP, Mars and Microsoft are set to join those from Ingersoll-Rand, Target Corporation, Johnson Controls and other companies to emphasise their climate commitments. The US chamber of commerce is hosting an event on the role businesses play facilitating dialogue on climate. The Business Council for Sustainable Energy plans to describe how clean-energy technology can be deployed globally to help satisfy carbon-cutting goals.

For companies, it’s good PR to make climate commitments and be present in Bonn. It’s also a matter of managing risks that they recognise as real, even as the science of climate change is still debated in Washington.

"Real things are happening in the real world, and that’s where our supply chains operate, that’s where our factories operate and that’s where our customers live," said Kevin Rabinovitch, global sustainability director with Mars. "It’s critically important to us to tackle some of these issues, to manage risks to our supply chain and to capture some of the opportunities that exist in this space."

Local political leaders are also trying to emphasize their role.

"The world needs to know that Donald Trump cannot stop us," said Washington state governor Jay Inslee. The rest of the world needs to realise "they’ve got good partners here and their efforts will not be in vain".

Trump is rolling back Obama-era environmental regulations seen as helping satisfy the US Paris agreement pledge to pare greenhouse gas emissions to between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. But he doesn’t have the authority to stop state-level policies, such as Washington state’s cap on carbon pollution or its initiatives supporting clean energy research and development, Inslee said.

Federal policy and regulations are important to ensure action by all states — even those with political leaders who are sceptical of climate science and eager to support coal.

Even as it rescinds regulations, Trump’s team has a positive story to tell. US emissions are declining, driven by state mandates for renewable electricity, cities and companies committing to 100% green power, and utilities switching from coal to cheaper, cleaner-burning natural gas. The US is already halfway to the 26% goal Obama set out.

"The bad news is obvious, which is this administration is a bunch of climate deniers, and we will look pathetic," said Carol Browner, who was Obama’s top climate adviser. "The good news is a lot of the countries that are providing leadership on this issue know that all of these things are going on, and they see that there is another America."

SOURCE




The COP Ritual: Frustration Shows Up As Bonn Climate Summit Is Deadlocked Again

Developing countries are demanding money in addition to the $100 billion developed nations have promised to provide every year from 2020.

With more than half the schedule of climate change conference already over, frustration was beginning to show at the lack of progress on any of the key issues under discussion, including the issues of finance, loss and damage, and ‘pre-2020 actions’. Developing country negotiators lamented the fact that the United States, which has decided to pull out the Paris Agreement, was continuing to block any meaningful breakthrough on these issues and that other developed countries were not helping matters either.

“Other developed countries are hiding behind the United States on loss and damage and finance issues. And, I think they need to be called out on this. They need to be asked whether they would side with (US President) Donald Trump or with the vulnerable countries of the world and meet their responsibilities,” Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said, echoing what many country negotiators were saying off the record.

A demand from the developing countries, asking for inclusion of ‘pre-2020 actions’ — a reference mainly to the obligations of the developed countries under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that has still three years to run — in the official agenda of the negotiations has still not been decided on, despite the expiry of two deadlines. The matter was to be decided on Saturday and then on Monday, but till evening on Monday consultations with various country groups was still continuing.

“Informal meetings (on ‘pre-2020 actions’) have been happening throughout the day. I am not sure whether there will be an outcome in the form of any decision by the end of the day today. Things are moving slowly, and there is hardly any significant progress on any important issue till now. But this is not the first time this is happening. We have seen such things at previous conferences as well. There are still four days to go and a lot happens on the last days,” an Indian negotiator said.

One major disappointment has been over the lack of any headway on issues related to finance, particularly that meant for loss and damages. Developing countries, especially the smaller island nations which also happen to be the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, have been demanding the setting up of mechanisms through which then can access financial help in the event of destruction caused by extreme weather events. This financial help needs to be in addition to the US$ 100 billion that the developed countries are obligated to provide every year from 2020 to help developing countries deal with climate change.

One of the options being discussed is to raise money through taxes on fossil fuel industry. “Countries are looking for money that is additional to the US$ 100 billion, because loss and damage is additional to the mitigation and adaptation needs. The US$ 100 billion was agreed upon long before the issue of loss and damages became part of discussions at these negotiations. The kind of money we are looking at … has to come by levying taxes on fossil fuel industry that has caused climate change in the first place,” Mohamed Adow, International Climate Lead at Christian Aid, said.

But the developed countries, mainly the US, have not been quite agreed to look at this, suggesting instead that insurance might be a good way to deal with the problem. “On loss and damage and finance, they (the US) have been taking a pretty hard line and that has started to cause some real anger,” Meyers said.

Even on the US$ 100 billion commitment, the demand that developed countries spell out the roadmap and enhance the proportion of public finance in their contributions, has largely been stonewalled. “Developed countries have not come prepared to put any new money on the table or make new pledges. So we are not expecting any strong outcome on this. The best we can hope for, we think, is to get some assurance that next year they will demonstrate stronger commitment,” Tracy Carty of Oxfam said.

SOURCE

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