Pirate's Cove

Whatever those policies were, the US economy was doing great, energy prices were low, gas prices were low, freedom was on the rise. Until we hit the Chinese coronavirus. How are things working now? (NY Times article, using the Yahoo version to avoid paywall)

Trump Policies Sent U.S. Tumbling in a Climate Ranking

For four years under President Donald Trump, the United States all but stopped trying to combat climate change at the federal level. Trump is no longer in office, but his presidency left the country far behind in a race that was already difficult to win.

A new report from researchers at Yale and Columbia universities shows that the United States’ environmental performance has tumbled in relation to other countries — a reflection of the fact that, while the United States squandered nearly half a decade, many of its peers moved deliberately.

And what were those policies? Nowhere in the cult screed are they mentioned. Why? I mean, I can name a few things off the top of my head, like pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, but, that didn’t happen till early November of 2020 officially. He enabled the exploration and drilling of petroleum and natural gas. Tried to roll back CAFE standards, though, really, car manufacturers didn’t roll back their own standards, since the production was already in place. He does get blamed for rolling back Obama’s Clean Power Plan, but, really, it was killed by the courts during the Obama admin. And de-emphasized the use of ‘climate change’ in every rule like Obama did.

So why not mention any of these?

But, underscoring the profound obstacles to cutting greenhouse gas emissions rapidly enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change, even that movement was insufficient. The report’s sobering bottom line is that, while almost every country has pledged by 2050 to reach net-zero emissions (the point where their activities no longer add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere), almost none are on track to do it.

The report, called the Environmental Performance Index, or EPI, found that, based on their trajectories from 2010 through 2019, only Denmark and Britain were on a sustainable path to eliminate emissions by midcentury.

Namibia and Botswana appeared to be on track with caveats: They had stronger records than their peers in sub-Saharan Africa, but their emissions were minimal to begin with, and the researchers did not characterize their progress as sustainable because it was not clear that current policies would suffice as their economies develop.

The 176 other nations in the report were poised to fall short of net-zero goals, some by large margins. China, India, the United States and Russia were on track to account for more than half of global emissions in 2050. But even countries like Germany that have enacted more comprehensive climate policies are not doing enough.

Ah, so the majority of nations, who haven’t left the Paris agreement, aren’t close, despite having all the rules and regs and restrictions and such that the climate cult wants in place. Stuff that limits their economies. Stuff that restricts citizens freedom and life choices, and takes more money out of their pockets. The NY Times just needed to start with some Trump Derangement Syndrome, as he’s still living rent free in their heads.

“We think this report’s going to be a wake-up call to a wide range of countries, a number of whom might have imagined themselves to be doing what they needed to do and not many of whom really are,” said Daniel C. Esty, the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, which produces the EPI every two years.

Yeah, that’s what they say every year since the Kyoto Protocol, and almost every country failed on their pledges every year. And, the same is happening with Paris.

The 2022 edition of the index, provided to The New York Times before its release Wednesday, scored 180 countries on 40 indicators related to climate, environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The individual metrics were wide-ranging, including tree-cover loss, wastewater treatment, fine-particulate-matter pollution and lead exposure.

I wonder how many will have nothing to do with anthropogenic climate change? Oh, and what is the NY Times doing to reduce its own carbon footprint? They never tell us.

Read: Bummer: Unnamed Trump Policies Sent U.S. Climate Ranking Tumbling »