Of course, what the President did was illegal and non-binding. There’s this little thing called the Constitution.
[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur…
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution
I hope that the US Senate will make it clear to the world that the President’s signature is non-binding and illegal. He’s not king, you know.
Setting aside their cyber and maritime disputes, President Barack Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping on Saturday sealed their nations’ participation in last year’s Paris climate change agreement. They hailed their new era of climate cooperation as the best chance for saving the planet.
At a ceremony on the sidelines of a global economic summit, Obama and Xi, representing the world’s two biggest carbon emitters, delivered a series of documents to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The papers certified the U.S. and China have taken the necessary steps to join the Paris accord that set nation-by-nation targets for cutting carbon emissions.
“This is not a fight that any one country, no matter how powerful, can take alone,” Obama said of the pact. “Some day we may see this as the moment that we finally decided to save our planet.”
Xi, speaking through a translator, said he hoped other countries would follow suit and advance new technologies to help them meet their targets. “When the old path no longer takes us far, we should turn to innovation,” he said.
The formal U.S.-Chinese announcement means the accord could enter force by the end of the year, faster than anticipated. Fifty-five nations must join for the agreement to take effect. The nations that have joined must also produce at least 55 percent of global emissions.
The U.S. and China together produce 38 percent of the world’s man-made carbon dioxide emissions.