What a got damn shitshow. [warning politics]

[Tom]

You say bullshit, I say vanilla pudding, pretty much the same thing. This agreement is designed to get everyone to agree on something/anything, how ever ineffective and weak, which it is. That's why I call it symbolic. It would be great if the top 20 carbon sources commit to action, it would be great if 3 or 4 did, but that is not the Paris Accords. Trump's refusal is just a childish maneuver  to stand out from the crowd. The accord is a publicity stunt, but not sighing it  puts the US in a weak position and makes polluters like China take center stage.

[PonoBill]

No argument there. Trump is playing to his base and ignoring the larger picture--and he doesn't need to, he's just being a Dick. But the idea that response to Climate Change has to be vanilla pudding is specious. CFC's are banned--worldwide. Read the wikipedia entry on the Montreal Protocol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol 

There was LESS scientific evidence the CFCs were the cause of ozone depletion in 1987 than there was that climate change is a threat in 1992. But the parties to the agreement were too busy trying to sabotage the west to build a useful and effective agreement. The 1992 UNFCC remains as the underpinnings of climate change negotiation. And as long as it does there will be no forward motion. Now it's just a tool to assert moral superiority without action.

[yugi]

No one really needs hairspray but the world still relies heavily on fossil fuels. So it’s obviously going to be a wind-down process.

Oooops, I mean nobody needs hairspray except a notable dick. Who BTW isn’t just being a dick about Paris accords. Speaking of what the top 20 countries can and should do. If they were smart...

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608032/paris-isnt-the-only-clean-energy-pact-the-us-is-fleeing/

[edit to add]
PS
Pretty cool how the hole in the ozone layer is "healing".

reminds me of Gary Larson's BOZONE layer. Too bad he's retired I'd love to see what he'd come up with hairspray dick head.

[Bean]

This quote sums it up nicely. 

"For some observers, the location and timing of the meetings only reinforce the growing international perception that China has seized the climate leadership role abandoned by the United States."

In other words it's just an opinion piece...who are these observers?

[PonoBill]

Hairspray? We're talking about all CFCs. Refrigeration, fire retardants, inefficient and costly replacements, closing huge manufacturing facilities, asymmetric benefit. All the same elements of carbon reduction. I assume you're being specious, but that's really dumb.

[PonoBill]

I shouldn't have said dumb. It bugged me all through my OC6 paddle this morning. But the position Tom and Yugi are taking is one that I hear frequently, and it has little to do with actually solving issues. Calling Paris a step in the right direction is absolutely wrong in my opinion. It's one more step in the wrong direction, and there are reams of scholarly analysis that say so. Kofi Annan says so.  From Wikipedia:  Kofi Annan quoted as saying that "perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol". In comparison, effective burden sharing and solution proposals mitigating regional conflicts of interest have been among the success factors for the ozone depletion challenge, where global regulation based on the Kyoto Protocol has failed to do so.

In many of the articles and papers written about UNFCC and Kyoto the major criticism is that there was a successful template for international cooperation in resolving global environmental issues in the CFC ban. The elements that made that so successful is that developed countries were not "punished" for having successful economies, and developing countries were supported in dealing with the economic ramifications. UNFCC tossed that all out, with a moralistic approach that blamed developed countries for causing the problem and sought to stifle their growth while ignoring rapid growth in developing countries that could and would exacerbate climate change. It's as simple as that. The Paris Accord continues to support that failed model, and turns it into mush that anyone can accept, and no one will follow.