A report by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University in New York City, reviews litigation procedures that environmental groups can use against governments and corporations that are “not doing enough to fight global warming".
UN REPORT:
The Status of Climate Change Litigation: A Global Review By Staff Writers, United Nations Environment Programme and Columbia Law School, May 2017 https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/20767/climate-change- litigation.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
QUOTE from report:
“National and international policymakers have succeeded in creating some legal frameworks for climate action.
Many nations have laws or policies addressing aspects of the climate problem, and the Paris Agreement provided for a catalogue of national commitments toward the goal of averting average global warming in excess of 1.5°C and 2°C.
Litigants have begun to make use of these codifications in arguments about the adequacy or inadequacy of efforts by national governments to protect individual rights vis-à-vis climate change and its impacts.”
There was a legal risk from staying in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Democrat state attorneys general, and politicians who tried to censor anyone who objects to the lack of evidence that CO2 is the control knob of climate, were looking at how to apply the 2015 Paris Agreement for their purposes.
Many politicians acted as if the 2015 Paris Agreement was binding to the US as a treaty, even though it had no Senate approval as required by the Constitution for a binding treaty.
It's impossible to cut human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions sufficiently to slow or stop climate change.
The good news is even if you blame CO2 for all the climate change since 1850, the actual climate change has been slow, mainly warming at night, and harmless -- in fact more CO2 in the air greening our planet (while greenhouse owners spend money for CO2 enrichment -- farmers are getting more CO2 for free).
The Paris Agreement became effective on November 4, 2016 when 55 countries, emitting 55% of world-wide human CO2 emissions, ratified it.
Mr. Obama did not bother to submit it to the Senate for approval, but his Administration transferred hundreds of millions to a fund under the agreement, the Green Climate Fund, to be administrated by the UN.
A goal of the agreement is to have the Green Climate (slush) Fund grow into a $100 billion per year transfer from wealthy nations to all the other nations.
I would be shocked if the rich nations contributed sums that added up to anywhere near $100 billion.
The Paris Agreement called for the US to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.
But that would require unforeseen huge technological breakthroughs!
Based on 2014 data, the US and EU28 (28 countries of the European Union) emitted less than 25% of total world CO2, while China and India emitted more than 36%, mostly for electricity.
The agreement calls for the US and EU28 cutting emissions by 80% by 2050, with a world-wide cut of 50% (including China and India).
But emissions from China and India can continue to grow unchecked until 2030.
World-wide emissions cuts of 50% would not be achieved even if the US, Europe, Russia, and Japan totally stopped all CO2 emissions!
Solar and wind energy require full fossil fuel back-up when they fail, which is often (at night and when there's little or no wind).
It is a total waste of money for governments to subsidize the solar and wind energy industries.