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WASHINGTON – Republicans' reaction to an alarming new UN report on impending disasters caused by global warming suggests that the United States will do little, if anything, in the near future to address the threat of climate change. rising oceans, drought and forest fires.
The sobering report by the world's first group of researchers on climate change calls on the world to take swift and sweeping action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before the effects of climate change do not become irreversible.
On Capitol Hill, a GOP lawmakers parade questioned by HuffPost on Wednesday dismissed his political recommendations as extremely impractical, using ridicule to do so.
"They could as well invite me to grow wings and fly to Canada for the summer," said Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Skeptic about climate change, about measures advocated by the report.
"It's totally unrealistic," said Senator John Kennedy (R-La.). "They had to be parachuted from another planet.
Published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the report revealed that the world was short of time to reduce its carbon emissions in order to keep global warming at a temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. According to the IPCC, if the flow of greenhouse gases continues to flow into the atmosphere at the current rate, the global average temperature is likely to reach 1.5 degrees between 2030 and 2052.
Such a rise in global average temperatures over this period would result in calamitous floods of small islands and large coastal cities such as New York, the report said. Warming beyond this level to 2 degrees or more would make these disasters much worse.
This is the problem of the United States, which has proposed these political ideas which are only "The Land
Senator John Kennedy (R-La.)
The authors of the report estimated that to stay at 1.5 degrees Celsius or less, greenhouse gas emissions would have to be reduced by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 – and achieve net emissions 2050 carbon zero – targets that many GOP lawmakers have described as impossible.
"There is not enough money in the world to pay for this," said Kennedy. "It is the problem of the United States to have proposed these political ideas which are only "La La Land". "
The colorful senator of Louisiana, a state regularly inundated with floods due to extreme weather events such as hurricanes, is derided by scientists' recommendations to reduce emissions as "fantasies" and "magical thoughts." ".
Similarly, other GOP senators representing the US coastal states most exposed to the adverse effects of climate change also criticized the report.
"How is this new? Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) Stated that his responsibility was "to strike a balance between the interests raised in this report and the broader economic and security interests of (his state).
Senator Tim Scott (CS) said he could not comment on the report because he had not read it. He would not commit to doing it.
"It was not part of my financial or banking agenda," said Scott, referring to the Senate committees he sits on and the issues he is focusing on.
The IPCC has recommended a number of measures to reverse carbon dioxide emissions, including the replacement of fossil fuel use with renewable energies such as wind and solar energy, as well as the development of more forests, which naturally recycle CO2. He also said that the use of new technologies to suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would be necessary to achieve the emissions target.
"We should do everything we can," said Natalie Mahowald, a climatologist at Cornell University and lead author of the first chapter of the report. "It's the main goal to reach (the emissions target) is how aggressively we must act in all sectors of our society."
HuffPost, a single GOP senator approached, shared his open-mindedness: Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). As chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, he said he was considering the "opportunity" to hold a hearing on this matter.
Of course, he would need to program it quickly. Corker retires at the end of the year.
The majority of the Senate GOP, which is likely to remain in effect after the November election, is dominated by skeptical lawmakers about man-made climate change, such as Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). He has already thrown a snowball at the Senate floor trying to prove that global warming is nothing more than a hoax.
Coming from a large oil-producing state, Inhofe protested for a long time against the IPCC as a leftist party organization. On Wednesday, he said the panel, recognized by others as the world's leading authority on climate change, had beentotally discredited "and rejected his latest discoveries.
"I dispute everything the IPCC does because it's always been wrong," Inhofe told reporters.
Under President Donald Trump, the United States quickly took steps to eliminate the country's carbon footprint reduction policies, even as other major carbon emitters, such as China, took action to reduce their emissions.
Last year, Trump had announced that he would withdraw the 2015 US climate deal in the United States, arguing that it was unfairly harming American businesses and workers.
When asked about the IPCC report on Tuesday, Trump expressed skepticism about its source and suggested that he had other data challenging him.
"I want to watch who drew it. You know, which group drew it. I can give you fabulous reports and reinforcements that are not so good, "Trump, who has already described climate change as a Chinese hoax, told reporters.
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