Posted by Tina
Former President Barack Obama affixed his signature to the international Climate Accord agreement, a symbolic but somewhat binding act since our Senate refused to ratify it. (At least that’s what we thought.)
While in attendance at the G7 meeting in Brussels, President Trump wisely chose to hold back when asked to sign the Climate Accord. He said he needed to further consider what his signature would mean for America. The man made a wise decision. I’d urge him to “just say no” to what is a dark and terrible scam, no to a confidence game, no to a trick that undermines the values we Americans hold dear. It is an assault on real efforts to be responsible conservationists.
I direct your attention to “Don’t Stop With Paris”, by Andrew McCarthy at PJ Media:
The Paris climate agreement is a treaty. We are not talking here about a bob-and-weave farce like the Iran nuclear deal. That arrangement, the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” was shrewdly packaged as an “unsigned understanding” — concurrently spun, depending on its apologists’ need of the moment, as a non-treaty (in order to evade the Constitution’s requirements), or as a binding international commitment (in order to intimidate the new American administration into retaining it).
The climate agreement, to the contrary, is a formal international agreement. Indeed, backers claim this “Convention” entered into force — i.e., became internationally binding — upon the adoption of “instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession” by a mere 55 of the 197 parties.
For all these global governance pretensions, though, why should we care? Why should the Paris agreement affect Americans?
Yes, President Obama gave his assent to the agreement in his characteristically cagey manner: He waited until late 2016 to “adopt” the convention — when there would be no practical opportunity to seek Senate approval before he left office. But Senate consent is still required, by a two-thirds’ supermajority, before a treaty is binding on the United States.
At least that’s what the Constitution says.
But it is not what post-American, transnational progressives say.
They note that in 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed a monstrosity known as the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Think of it as “the treaty on treaties” — even though you probably thought we already had an American law of treaties.
Under Article 18 of the treaty on treaties, once a nation signs a treaty — or merely does something that could be interpreted as “express[ing] its consent to be bound by the treaty” — that nation is “obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of the treaty.”
In other words, the Constitution notwithstanding, once a presidential administration signs or otherwise signals assent to the terms of an international agreement, the United States must consider itself bound – even though the Senate has not approved it, even though it has not been ratified.
If a subsequent president wants to get the United States out from under this counter-constitutional strait-jacket, it is not enough merely to refrain from submitting the treaty to the Senate. The later president must take an affirmative action that withdraws the prior president’s assent. That is why Trump cannot not just ignore the Paris agreement; he needs to openly and notoriously pull out of it.
Want to know how far gone we are? The treaty on treaties has never been ratified by the United States.
So why do we care about it? Because Nixon signed it. Could the reasoning here be more circular? The Constitution requires a signed treaty to be ratified before it becomes binding, yet we consider ourselves bound by signed but unratified treaties because a signed but unratified treaty says so.
How does that square with the Constitution? Wrong question. The right one, apparently, is: Who needs the Constitution when you have the State Department? That bastion of transnational progressives advises that, despite the lack of ratification under our Constitution, “many” of the treaty on treaties’ provisions are binding as — what else? — “customary international law.”
As McCarthy further notes the “treaty on treaties” removes the responsibility of our representatives to be accountable to the people! It is a cowards pact.
There is nothing to be gained by agreeing to the Climate Accord; there is much to be lost. This agreement is a ruse. It is about money and greater control of it by cadre of global elitists. It is an agreement to surrender our nations sovereignty and a surrender of individual freedoms, responsibilities, and rights.
The elitists behind the Climate Accord are the robber barons of the age. Their aim is the acquisition of wealth delivered to them through tricks. It represents a huge wealth transfer that will further devastate the economy of the middle class and destroy opportunity to work and acquire assets. It is a pathway to the past when the wealthy royals ruled over the grubby serfs with utter contempt.
The United States of America has already done the work to significantly reduce toxic emissions. We have, with few exceptions, the most reliable clean water and sewage systems in the world. We have the capacity to innovate new and exciting technologies to improve water, soil, and air quality. America is not derelict in it’s commitments to the earth. We have, as they say, already “ponied up.” In fact, we stand as a shining example to a world that seems more committed to shirking responsibilities than taking them on. Pick an issue, any issue, whether poverty, health, economic health, or defense the entire world has relied on America to do the work and foot the bill! Enough!
Mr. President, I know the pressure on you to sign this agreement is great. I urge you to listen instead to the instincts that brought you to the Oval Office and the voices that placed you there. America does not need to surrender power to others to “do our part” with respect to the environment. We have already demonstrated our faithful commitment to clean air, clean water, and preservation of the planet. Freedom made that possible. Our values of hard work, innovation, responsible living, and respect for the rights of others made that possible.