Global Climate Pact Gains Momentum as China, U.S. and Brazil And Pope Francis Detail Plans

 

  Republicans And The US Supreme Court Continue

  To Favor Corporations/Big Business [Koch Brothers]

  Over The Health Of American Children Now And In

  The Future Generations To come

 

WASHINGTON — Five months before a United Nations summit meeting aimed at forging a historic global accord to cut climate-warming emissions, significant signs of progress toward an agreement are emerging.

 

China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, submitted a 16-page plan to the United Nations on Tuesday detailing how it plans to shift its economy to reduce fossil fuel emissions by 2030. On the same day, President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, which is among the top 10 carbon emitters, and President Obama announced in Washington that their nations had agreed to sharply expand electricity generation from renewable sources.

 

But it is increasingly evident that the policy actions by these countries and others will not be enough to stave off a rise in the atmospheric temperature of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. At that point, scientists say, the planet will be locked into a future of extreme storms, droughts, food and water shortages, and rising sea levels.

 

Under a United Nations accord reached in Peru last December, every nation is to submit a plan for cutting carbon emissions well ahead of the December summit meeting in Paris. The plans by the individual nations will form the core of the new agreement.

 

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 http://nyti.ms/1GMJFBA

 

Pope’s Views on Climate Change Add Pressure to GOP Religious Candidates; Pope Francis Holds A Master’s Degree In Chemistry

WASHINGTON — As the steamy hurricane season descends on Miami, the city’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Thomas G. Wenski, is planning a summer of sermons, homilies and press events designed to highlight the threat that a warming planet, rising sea levels and more extreme storms pose to his community’s poorest and most vulnerable.

 

His sermons and speeches are meant to amplify the message of Pope Francis’ highly anticipated, highly controversial encyclical on the environment, which the Vatican is expected to unveil on Thursday. A papal encyclical, or teaching document, is among the strongest and most authoritative statements made by the Catholic Church.

 

In a draft of the document leaked on Monday, Francis reiterated the established science that burning fossil fuels are warming the planet, said the impact threatened the world’s poor and called for government policies to cut fossil fuel use.

 

Archbishop Wenski will repeat those messages in his sermons, and he hopes that they will resonate with two members of his flock in particular: Florida’s junior senator, Marco Rubio, and former Gov. Jeb Bush, both Catholics and both Republican presidential candidates.

 

Like many Republicans, Mr. Bush and Mr. Rubio have questioned or denied the established science of human-caused climate change, and have harshly criticized policies designed to tax or regulate the burning of fossil fuels. Both of their campaigns have courted influential and deep-pocketed donors, such as the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch, who vehemently oppose such climate policies.

 

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