Via Politico. Voters need to be prepared to fight back against Republican obstruction or retribution:
President Barack Obama is quietly but steadily working behind the scenes on what could become one of his signature achievements: A global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
What he’s seeking out of the December U.N. climate talks in Paris would create the broadest, farthest-reaching deal in history, reworking environmental regulations for governments and corporations around the world and creating a framework for global green policy for decades.
Republicans in Congress, sensing what he’s up to, are already saying no. And Obama’s already preparing to sign on without them.
Which is why, even though reaching a climate change pact has become a top priority for the West Wing and part of nearly every conversation Obama has recently had with a foreign leader, Obama and his aides aren’t advertising it.
All the same, a global climate accord is what last November’s greenhouse gas agreement with China was leading up to. That’s what a big focus of his talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in New Delhi in January. And that’s why aides have been traveling to Lima, Bonn and Geneva, setting the terms for a deal that’s far bigger than the one Obama unenthusiastically committed to in 2009 in Copenhagen.
Since the Paris agreement would be voluntary and not a formal treaty, it’s seen as much more likely to get support around the world. And it can happen without the Senate taking any kind of vote on it.
