Fork 3 Dubya
BAILS MARCH 2001
MERRI OK
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2001 IPCC Third ends debate
Fork 32001 Kyoto:
Bush 43 also runs on pledge to combat greenhouse gases (his dad got beat by "Ozone Man" Gore), but API and George Marshall Institute thinktank fund a bogus studyby Baliunas and Soon. This study is presumably routed through CEQ (really aCheney shop, shadow EPA) run by Connaughton (lobbyist for coal, oil and helps chemical corporations avoid Superfund) and his #2 Phil Cooney. Cooney was API point man on climate denial, an architect of 1998 "smoking gun" action plan to reboot tobacco corporations’ sow doubt playbook. Bush sees the Baliunas and Soon study, which Cooney also inserts into an EPA report. Eventually busted for altering scientific reports, Cooney flees to Exxon. However, Bush uses the Baliunas and Soon report for political cover to bail from Kyoto (Dobriansky credits GCC, backed by API and Exxon).
Fred Smith of CEI (Exxon and Koch) heard a rumor B43 would keep campaign pledge on GHG and mobilized resistance; EPA head CT Whitman tells Congress and foreign allies we will act on climate; Barbour (revolving door lobbyist BGR, coal utilities) sends a memo to Cheney to stop action, and gets a letter from four far right GOP senators; CTW goes to Bush to argue her case, but is handed a letter against mandatory restrictions [mask mandate?] and a concern about consumer energy prices; he bails from pledge and Kyoto, which is also quashed 95-0 by Hagel-Byrd (again using affect on the economy as a rationale).
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From fork 2 exxon:
1993 Lee Raymond becomes CEO of Exxon
1995 GCC internal memo states human action on climate undeniable (but they do anyway). Raymond denies consensus on warming in 1996, and the following years states that even if warming, fossil fuels play no role; however, at the end of the year, the Kyoto Treaty is enacted to combat global warming. It was the first large-scale international agreement to commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. was one of only three UN members that did not ratify. Admin internal document gives GCC credit for leading President George W. Bush to reject the landmark treaty in 2001 (as we’ll see in Fork 3). In 1988 ExxonMobil-funded think tank, the George C. Marshall Institute, co-publishes the Oregon Petition which urges rejection. April 1998 Smoking Gun Climate Action Plan (API five million dollars, Exxon and Chevron participated: recruit scientists to be shills and a number of other efforts. “Doubt is our product”—the API memo states: “Victory will be achieved when: average citizens ‘understand’ (recognize) uncertainties in climate science.”
In the same year, Exxon board rejects a shareholder proposal for outside committee to review climate liabilities. In 200 Exxon ad and Raymond touts temperature decrease in Sargasso Sea, author objects to misconstrual. In January with 100K$ from Exxon Bush 43 inaugurated. Get Robert Watson, American fired as head of IPCC. GCC quits, claiming Bush Admin about to roll out new technology to fight climate change, which never happened [clean coal and CCS?]
API is bridge from 2 to 3: Cooney
Bush 43 (though a former oil man, like his dad and his VP Cheney) had run against Gore (whom his father called Ozone Man, but lost to him) pledging to act on climate;
Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.
A briefing note prepared for Paula Dobriansky,[neo-con, Cheney? ; sister?] Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs, ahead of her meeting with Glenn Kelly of the Exxon-bankrolled Global Climate Coalition, states: “POTUS [President of the United States] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you… Interested in hearing from you, what type of international alternatives to Kyoto would you support?” (cf Brendan Montague).
Doubles down in June on the eve of his first European trip/summit, pledges R&D, science, market based solutions //B41 at Rio. Germans pissed, but CoS/CoC Andy Card says machiavellian ploy to use East Germany to lessen action.
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API doh mofo, evil pending 820, poster boy 9/20 on 1968 SRI, 1998 smoking gun , soon and baliunas paper jrnl 2003 --> 3rd fork B2 180
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2001 IPCC Third ends debate. Luntz memo, US bails on Kyoto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Third_Assessment_Report
Statements of the IPCC or information from the TAR are often used as a reference showing a scientific consensus on the subject of global warming, although a small minority of scientists take issue with the UN assessments (see also Global warming controversy and Politics of global warming). models strong, much of variability in projection/prediction has to do with what scenario we choose.
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note 34 API partially funded
willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. “Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years” (PDF), Climate Research, Vol. 23 (January 21, 2003), P. 89-110. Archived August 11, 2015.
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BGR BARBOUR: CTW WIND SOCK DUMMY; CHENEY LETTER AMBUSH
https://theecologist.org/**2018/oct/**08/why-did-george-w-bush-pull-out-kyoto-protocol
Despite the huge amount of fossil fuel funding upon which George W. Bush was elected president in 2001, insiders in the monopoly-dominated oil industry remained unsure that he would fight for them - and against climate scientists.
Bush had suggested during his candidacy that CO2 should be treated as a pollutant and, therefore, subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act - even if the international Kyoto Agreement was not economically favourable for America.
Bush’s fence-sitting was strategic: swing states such as Florida were environmentally conscious and speaking out would likely give Democrat presidential candidate Al Gore the advantage.
But, optimistic environmentalists remained hopeful while wary oil-men were worried that it demonstrated a willingness to agree to the broad principles of the treaty.
A Rumoured Speech
Shortly after his inauguration, a rumour circulated that Bush planned to include a line reinforcing his earlier pledge in a forthcoming speech.
Word of the speech reached the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Koch- and Exxon-funded think tank that helped donate to Bush’s presidential campaign. CEI set to work. As their founder and president, Fred Smith latertold Newsweek: “We alerted anyone we thought could have influence and get the line, if it was in the speech, out.”
Despite the think tank’s best efforts, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman testified, on 27 February 2001 at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works subcommittee, that she was in favour of regulating CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act.
A week later, she signed a joint statement at the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting [ITALY?] which said: “We commit ourselves to strive to reach agreement on outstanding political issues and to ensure in a cost-effective manner the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol.”
The President’s Position
At this, the denial machine set in motion.Haley Barbour, a lobbyist for a utility firm that stood to lose if greenhouse gases were regulated, urged Vice President Dick Cheneyin a March 1 memo to persuade Bush not to align with the “eco-extremism” of those who saw carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
A group of far-right Republican senators wrote an open letter to their new president. In light of Whitman’s testimony, they asked that Bush clarify his position on climate change, “in particular the Kyoto Protocol, and the regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.”
Aware of the rising tide against her, Whitman went to the Oval Office to fight her case on the morning of March 13. But, Bush had already composed his response, shortly to be [ACTUALLY WRITTEN BY DC?] sent via Cheney to the senators, which he read to her.
“I do not believe,” read the letter, “that the government should impose on power plantsmandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a ‘pollutant’ under the Clean Air Act.”
Information from the Department of Energy had shown that consumers’ energy bills might be affected, and that this warranted a re-evaluation of his earlier pledge, “especially… given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of and solution to global climate change.”
Polluter Pull-Out
Whitman left defeated, just as the puppeteer Cheney arrived to hand-deliver the President’s response to the senators.
By the end of the month, the world’s biggest polluter had pulled out of Kyoto.
Whitman, who later said the decision was “the equivalent to ‘flipping the bird’ frankly to the rest of the world,” was the one to deliver the news. “We have no interest in implementing that treaty,” the former New Jersey Governor told assembled journalists.
Though the terms of the treaty would be finalised in Bonn that July, they would be made all but useless, with the world’s largest polluter out of the game.
Years later, freedom of information disclosures revealed the industry’s input to this decision.
A briefing note prepared for Paula Dobrianksy, Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs, ahead of her meeting with Glenn Kelly of the Exxon-bankrolled Global Climate Coalition, states: “POTUS [President of the United States] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you… Interested in hearing from you, what type of international alternatives to Kyoto would you support?”
This Author
Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press).He tweets at @EcoMontague. This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.
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July 25, 1997
Mr. BYRD (for himself, Mr. HAGEL, Mr. HOLLINGS, Mr. CRAIG, Mr. INOUYE, Mr. WARNER, Mr. FORD, Mr. THOMAS, Mr. DORGAN, Mr. HELMS, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. ABRAHAM, Mr.MCCONNELL, Mr. ASHCROFT, Mr. BROWNBACK, Mr. KEMPTHORNE, Mr. THURMOND, Mr. BURNS, Mr. CONRAD, Mr. GLENN, Mr. ENZI, Mr. INHOFE,Mr. BOND, Mr. COVERDELL, Mr. DEWINE, Mrs. HUTCHISON, Mr. GORTON, Mr. HATCH, Mr. BREAUX, Mr. CLELAND, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. HUTCHINSON, Mr. JOHNSON, Ms. LANDRIEU, Ms. MIKULSKI, Mr. NICKLES, Mr. SANTORUM, Mr. SHELBY, Mr. SMITH of Oregon, Mr. BENNETT, Mr. FAIRCLOTH, Mr. FRIST, Mr. GRASSLEY, Mr. ALLARD, Mr. MURKOWSKI, Mr. AKAKA, Mr. COATS, Mr. COCHRAN, Mr. DOMENICI, Mr.GRAMM,Mr. GRAMS, Mr. LOTT, Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN, Mr. ROBB, Mr. ROCKEFELLER, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire, Mr. SPECTER, Mr. STEVENS, Mr. LUGAR, Mr. REID, Mr. BRYAN, Mr. THOMPSON, and Mr. CAMPBELL) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
July 21, 1997
Reported by Mr. HELMS, without amendment
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july 1997
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd%E2%80%93Hagel_Resolution
The Byrd–Hagel Resolution was a United States Senate Resolution passed unanimously with a vote of 95–0 on 25 July 1997, sponsored by Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Robert Byrd (D-WV). The resolution stated that the US should not sign a climate treaty that would 'mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless ...[it]... also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period', or would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States. This effectively prohibited the US from ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.[1]
Impact
Despite the unanimous passage of the Byrd-Hagel resolution, U.N. Ambassador Peter Burleigh signed the Kyoto Protocol on behalf of the Clinton Administration on November 12th 1998.[2] However the Clinton Administration ultimately withheld the treaty from acquiring Senate approval due to potential political backlash and disapproval.[3]
During the Bush administration, Senators Robert Byrd, Jesse Helms, Pat Roberts, and Larry Craig issued a letter to President George W. Bush to identify the President's stance on the Kyoto Protocol and climate change policy.[4] President Bush responded "I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy. The Senate's vote, 95-0, shows that there is a clear consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns."[5]
During the Obama administration, the U.S. pursued climate policies such as the Copenhagen Accord and Paris Agreement in advocating for more comprehensive environmental reform and to allow nations to self determine their own emission based commitments.[6] In a 2014 Time article, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel stated that "Congress should play an active role in the negotiations—not by blocking the deal, but by sending a new Global Climate Change Observer Group to report on the proceedings in Paris and closely evaluate other countries’ climate plans".[7]
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