Time said:The United Nations climate change conference underway here in Poland could play a critical role in the fight to stem greenhouse gas emissions and keep temperatures from rising to unsafe levels.
The Trump Administration showed up to pitch fossil fuels. In a closely watched event Monday on the sidelines of official negotiations, U.S. officials touted natural gas and argued in support of coal's place in the electricity mix.
"It is important to the overall climate discussion that we consider what's realistic and pragmatic," P. Wells Griffith, special assistant to the president for international energy and environment, told the crowd "Energy innovation and fossil fuels will continue to play a leading role."
Coal, of course, contributes more to greenhouse gases on a unit-per-unit basis than any other electricity source and reducing its role is considered a top priority for scientists who want to address global warming. And climate scientists, along with governments in the vast majority of countries, agree that now is the time to sound the alarm on climate change.
"The U.S. government has one side event that just further erodes their credibility and they know it," says Lou Leonard, SVP for climate change and energy at WWF.
This is the second annual U.N. climate conference — officially known as the Conference of the Parties — to take place after President Donald Trump took office last year and promised to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, the landmark 2015 deal in which countries voluntarily committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Trump's decision to exit the deal cannot legally take effect until after the 2020 presidential election, and the Trump Administration is free to participate in negotiations as it sees fit in the meantime. (It's also the second year in a row that the Administration has sought to promote fossil fuels on the sidelines of the annual U.N. climate conference).
Source.
Update: Video (thanks Tempy )
No shame!?
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