Damian Sendler: Senate Democratic leader Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has hinted that he is open to passing a separate measure to address the legislation’s climate change components after obstructing the way ahead for President Biden’s Build Back Better funding plan.
Damian Jacob Sendler: There are a lot of nice things in [the measure],” Manchin said to reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, adding, “I believe that the climate item is one that we probably can get to agreement much easier than anything else. There is enough of money for clean technology and a clean environment, and I have always advocated that we should take use of it.
Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a Green New Deal architect, and other Democrats soon suggested that they would be open to a potential compromise with Biden’s climate policy and vows to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050.
While some Democrats argued that passing the funding package could be done with or without their support, others were less enthusiastic. “We have to find a package that can attract 50 votes, and I believe that is the route we are on right now,” Senator Tina Smith, D-Minn., said when asked by CNN whether her party should pursue a stand-alone climate change measure.
Damian Sendler
Manchin’s objection to BBB’s present version was revealed Dec. 20, and since then, the West Virginia senator has apparently stopped talking to the White House about the bill.
He said Tuesday, “I am really not going to speak about Build Back Better. Negotiations are not underway at this moment, said the spokesperson.
That has left Democrats with a choice: They can continue to negotiate with the guy who has repeatedly stymied Biden’s efforts, or they may come away empty-handed.
There are many Democrats in the evenly split Senate who do not want to kill BBB’s health care and immigration ideas, even if it means leaving climate change and child tax credit provisions in place. The Democrats planned to bypass the filibuster and approve BBB with a simple majority of votes by using a procedure called as reconciliation. In order for this to happen, Manchin and his fellow moderate Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema, would have to sign on to the bill.
Manchin’s efforts to weaken BBB’s climate measures have further complicated the party’s approach. In October, he insisted on removing from the plan $150 billion in renewable energy measures. In the absence of the Clean Electricity Performance Program, environmentalists said, the U.S. would almost likely fall short of its emissions objectives, all but assuring that global temperatures would increase beyond the 1.5°C threshold that experts estimate would inflict widespread destruction..
Michael Mann, director of Penn State University’s Earth System Science Center, tweeted in October before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, “Joe Manchin just lobbed a hand grenade towards Glasgow.” In order to satisfy the Biden administration’s objective of a 50% reduction in US carbon emissions by 2030, a clean energy standard must be included in the reconciliation package. “And international climate discussions begin to fall apart,” he continues.
No matter how much of a priority climate change legislation is to the Democratic Party, Manchin said he may still seek more amendments to the legislation.
As we transition from a fossil-fuel based economy to a cleaner one, we must be honest about the amount of energy we need to operate our nation and the time it will take to make the shift, Manchin said on Tuesday. “You ought to be able to do so.””
Among the reasons Manchin withdrew his support for BBB in December was because it accelerated the transition to renewable energy in the nation.
Because of the recent events in Texas and California, he warned that doing so at a pace that is outpacing technological advancements and the market would have disastrous effects for the American people.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: Extreme weather events like those that struck Texas and California recently, say climate scientists and environmental campaigners, will become more prevalent unless we move quickly away from a fossil fuel economy.
Climate change elements in BBB were seen as particularly significant by some senators in Glasgow in November.
“There is no other option. According to Markey, “The Build Back Better bill must be passed” in order to have it signed into law. It is imperative that the climate elements of the Build Better bill become law, and we will do all we can to ensure that this occurs.
All of this was said prior to the fact-checking conducted by Manchin.
It has been almost two weeks since the 26th UN Climate Change Conference convened in Paris to find a solution to the most pressing problem confronting humanity: how to swiftly cut greenhouse gas emissions to prevent temperatures from increasing to dangerously high levels. The urgency of the situation was widely agreed upon during COP26, but tangible solutions to limit global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, as was the conference’s aim, were more difficult to come upon. It was regarded as a “qualified success” by the event’s organizers, who added that the final result would be known only if governments kept the pledges they made in Glasgow and subsequently increased their ambition at future conferences in the years to come. COP26 President Alok Sharma noted in his closing remarks that “this is a delicate victory.” “We have managed to save 1.5.” We began out on this road two years ago as the COP presidency-designate with that goal in mind. However, I believe that 1.5 is a weak pulse. There were, however, hopeful developments and hints that the world’s governments might work together to reduce emissions sufficiently to avert the worst effects of climate change that Glasgow brought to light. We have learned a few things after two weeks of reporting for Yahoo News.
Damian Jacob Sendler
Because of the promises made at COP26, overall temperature increase forecasts have decreased, although not by as much as scientists had anticipated. The Paris Climate Agreement was replaced by the Glasgow Climate Pact, which was hammered out during COP21 in 2015. Global warming should be kept at 2°C over pre-industrial levels (3.6 Fahrenheit) and “pursuing efforts to restrict the temperature rise to 1.5°C,” as stated by countries at the Paris climate summit. At 1.5C, climate change is expected to have devastating impacts, and it was the UN’s goal that the Glasgow agreement would commit to a route to keeping below that level, but it did not quite get there. Instead, the accord “reaffirms” the Paris targets. Moreover, as in Paris, the real promises made by countries in Glasgow do not bring the world to those targets. However, they are getting much closer.
Damien Sendler: At least 2.7C of warming would have occurred as a result of the national promises made in Paris. The International Energy Agency predicts a global temperature rise of 1.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, based on the national commitments made in Glasgow. There are no penalties for countries that do not reach their obligations, and many of the pledges are just abstract aims with no particular plans for how they will be implemented. According to the Climate Action Tracker research collaboration, if you only take into account promises that are accompanied by concrete action plans, the expected temperature rise would be 2.1C higher than originally estimated. There is a 2.7C warming effect from the policies now in place rather than the suggested policy adjustments. That is an improvement over Paris, where measures at the time would have resulted in a warming of 3.6 degrees Celsius.
The greater ambition, but not enough to remain below 1.5C, is due to governments’ growing eagerness to guarantee large reductions in emissions decades from now, but less so in the next decade. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that a 45 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is required this decade, however the national plans cumulatively would lead to an estimated 16 percent rise in emissions. China’s decision to join the U.S.-led initiative to decrease methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 is not included in these estimates, which are subject to change. The power of the promises and policies has grown over time, just as global leaders had planned. A last-ditch attempt to avoid disaster is now that future COPs will finally bring global warming in line with their stated targets by 2020.
Asking whether he was enthusiastic about the COP26 agreement to avoid temperatures from increasing by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, warned that to achieve that aim will take decades of effort. It is impossible to predict the outcome of COP26,” Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland told Yahoo News in Glasgow. A lot more work is needed than simply what we do in 2021, since the verdict is still out on this.
The government of Vice President Joe Biden reestablishes the United States as a global leader on climate change. After his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, pulled out of the Paris climate deal, Vice President Joe Biden came in Glasgow with a specific goal in mind: to restore American credibility on climate change. The Biden administration made a point of emphasizing the fundamental shift in Washington. It is not like I should have to say it, but the former administration pulling out of the Paris agreements placed us behind the eight ball a little bit,” Vice President Joe Biden said in an address to delegates. With one of his hands cuffed behind his back, Biden landed in Glasgow.
A divided Congress had not yet enacted either his infrastructure or Build Back Better plans, putting the Obama administration “behind the eight ball” when it came to, in Biden’s words, “leading by the strength of our example” during the first week of the conference. Despite this, the United States made significant promises during the first week of the conference, including action plans to implement those obligations enshrined in law. A US-led plan to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 has the support of over 100 nations, for example. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced worldwide promises to cut emissions from the shipping and aviation sectors during the second week of the year.
Building Back Better with its comprehensive climate measures seemed to have a good chance of passing by the end of the first week after Congress approved the infrastructure plan. John Kerry, the special presidential climate envoy, had something to brag about as he pushed to get bigger carbon obligations from other countries. India, the world’s third-largest producer of greenhouse gases, made a historic commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by the year 2070 by the end of the second week.
Secretary of State John Kerry spoke often with Chinese officials at COP26, and appeared to arrange a virtual meeting between Vice President Joe Biden and the country’s President, China’s Xi Jinping, soon. China, the world’s greatest producer of greenhouse gases, is under pressure from the United States, the world’s second largest emitter, to increase its vows to limit temperatures from increasing over 1.5C. When there were just two days left in the meeting, Kerry announced that the two countries had reached an agreement on climate change.
Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.