Left Says Pruitt is Mischaracterizing Their Paris Criticisms

(Courtesy of E&E News)

 

The scientific community has warned that the Paris Agreement would not go far enough to limit global warming. U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is now using that criticism to help justify President Trump’s decision to exit the international climate accord.

Speaking to the media Friday and over the weekend, Pruitt pointed out that there are critics of the Paris Agreement on both sides of the political aisle.

“It wasn’t just from folks in this country who wanted it to be ratified or were critical of the processes,” Pruitt told reporters in the White House briefing room Friday. “The environmental left was very critical of Paris. In fact, James Hansen is an individual who said at the time it was a fake and a fraud, and the general counsel at the Sierra Club said the same thing.”

Activists who wanted to see more from the landmark 2015 accord are now accusing Pruitt of willfully twisting their words.

“Sure, Paris could have been stronger, but something is better than nothing, and with 190 countries, you need to start somewhere,” said Bill Snape, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. But, he said, that hardly means he or others who have been fighting for governments to tackle climate change want the accord tossed out.

The core of the Paris Agreement is the voluntary pledges that nearly 200 countries made to either cut or scale back greenhouse gas emissions. The deal calls for countries to keep warming to “well below” a 2-degree-Celsius rise over preindustrial levels. But it is widely acknowledged that the combined pledges alone don’t go far enough. A 2016 Nature study found that even if every country hits its targets, the world would see a median warming of 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius by 2100. Supporters acknowledge that’s not ideal but note that it does get the world off its current dangerous emissions pathway.

Hansen, a former NASA scientist who is often credited with raising public awareness of climate change, was one of the people who had been highly critical of the targets countries proposed, saying the approach would not be the most effective at limiting warming.

“It’s a fraud really, a fake,” Hansen told The Guardian the day after the accord was gaveled through in Paris. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”

The article went on to say that instead of nations setting their own emissions targets, Hansen supported placing a price on carbon for the largest emitters.

In an email to E&E News responding to Pruitt’s remarks Friday, Hansen questioned what actions the president might take to address climate change, now that the United States will no longer be part of the Paris Agreement.

He noted that if the Trump administration were to support an “across-the-board rising carbon fee” that only distributed money to the general public and was not used for expanding government, “this president could do more for young people and the planet than all prior Presidents put together.”

“But if he means ‘well, if we can’t totally solve the problem we should just give up and say the Hell with young people’s future,’ they deserve all the scorn that the world is heaping on them today,” Hansen wrote.

The Sierra Club also denounced Pruitt’s comment. “The Sierra Club fully supports the Paris Agreement. Scott Pruitt is a liar,” the nonprofit group tweeted.

At the time the Paris Agreement was announced, the environmental group publicly characterized the climate accord as a “turning point for humanity” and an important step for the world.

Joanne Spalding, chief climate counsel at the Sierra Club, said Pruitt’s statement was “utterly false” and that she had not described the agreement in “anything remotely similar to those terms.” She also said she was sure Pat Gallagher, the group’s legal director, would not make such a statement.

“Sierra Club’s general counsel deals with business matters, not climate or environmental law, and he does not make statements as a general matter and certainly not on climate issues,” Spalding said in an email.

Yesterday, Pruitt doubled down on his comments about the “environmental left,” repeating his reference to Hansen’s critiques and elaborating on his comments about the Sierra Club’s general counsel.

“The general counsel of the Sierra Club, contemporaneous to Paris being signed, said critical things of the agreement,” Pruitt told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The reason they said those things is because China and India particularly, the largest polluters on the planet, did not have to take any steps until 2030.”

The EPA administrator added that the U.S. economy had contracted because of “front-loading” costs of reducing emissions through the development of the Clean Power Plan and other domestic rules.

Pruitt has argued that the United States would not be able to meet the target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, and speaking with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” he cited that as another reason why the Sierra Club and other environmental groups had been critical of the agreement.

In the place of the Paris Agreement, Pruitt told reporters Friday, the United States should focus on exporting clean coal technology and hydraulic fracturing to other countries.

“We are leading with action and not words,” he said, adding, “Leaving Paris doesn’t mean disengagement.”