Why Bother? John Kerry Admits American CO2 Cuts Would Be Pointless

by Steve Milloy

It’s 40 seconds that should turn the global warming world upside down.

Secretary of State John Kerry made an astounding confession today at the COP-21 climate conference in Paris: Emissions cuts by the U.S. and other industrialized nations will make no difference to global climate, he said.

Here are Kerry’s exact words:

… The fact is that even if every American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what – that still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world.

If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions –- remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions -– it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65% of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.

This is the first time such a senior government official has admitted the utter futility of American carbon dioxide emissions cuts. That’s a consequential admission even if you believe the claims of climate alarmists about the danger of emissions.

Several years ago, Sen. James Inhofe had coaxed former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson into admitting that U.S. emissions cuts would make little difference to global climate. Current EPA administrator Gina McCarthy has admitted that the point of EPA’s new carbon dioxide rules aimed at power plants is really to show global leadership on the issue. But Kerry’s clear, frank and even emphasized admission is simply astounding.

The admission should have legal as well as political consequences. In the 2007 Supreme Court decision giving EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases, the Supreme Court was careful to note that, although EPA couldn’t solve the global warming problem all at once or by itself, it was allowed to make incremental progress on the problem. Kerry’s admission shows that the U.S. government knows that such progress is simply not possible.

This admission should find its way into the ongoing litigation of EPA power plant rules and it should blow them up.

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com (Twitter: JunkScience).

20 Responses to Why Bother? John Kerry Admits American CO2 Cuts Would Be Pointless

  1. qb December 11, 2015 at 6:30 am #

    That’s the beauty of this entire charade, the magnitude of the solution required is drastically reduced by the extreme exaggeration of the problem to begin with. It’s genius. Solving nonexistent problems by ineffective means with billions of dollars. Brilliant

  2. shucky December 12, 2015 at 10:24 pm #

    The problem that climate alarmism solves is that the super rich aren’t rich enough, so they have to convince the gullible to give them lots of money to “save the planet”.

  3. Contrapunctus December 13, 2015 at 2:32 pm #

    What a joke American policy on Climate Change.. Read this if you haven’t already
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/04/the-pentagons-carbon-boot-print/

  4. Sam Tonin December 16, 2015 at 10:01 am #

    So, how is that relevant to this “hoax”?

    • Elmer Beauregard December 16, 2015 at 5:07 pm #

      I posted this because Kerry admits its all for not if China and India don’t join which they never will. I would go one step further and say it’s all for not, period.

      • Sam Tonin December 16, 2015 at 9:08 pm #

        Ahh ok, fair enough.

  5. barely_free December 25, 2015 at 3:18 pm #

    I am shocked Kerry actually spoke some truth to the GW fantasy stories he spins. This has always been the Achilles heel of GW, even if you accept their preposterous dire predictions they admit they have no identified solution to stop it.

    It’s all about govt control of the people – i.e. world-wide communism.

  6. nhn December 26, 2015 at 1:49 am #

    To me it is simple. Put a carbon tax on imports based on
    a rating system. If you create super cheap
    goods manufactured in super dirty ways you will find your goods cannot compete with slightly more expensive goods produced cleanly.

    Quit trying to organize a cluster *uck of
    nations and then listen to the excuses when they fail.

    Take control, be accountable. Capitalism works. It will work here as well.

    If they
    lose access to markets because of their dirty processes their goods are dead in the water. When they are bumped out of
    participation in the largest consumer
    markets in the world they will soon start paying attention. There may be
    a few less products at Walmart next year but that shelf space will be picked up
    on by newer cleaner
    products.

    We cannot control others but we can control ourselves. This is something
    we can do now

  7. yo neighbor December 29, 2015 at 8:07 pm #

    So the climate alarmists should mobilize their forces & with military force, bring the whole world back to the 7th century. The world saved, we can all live in tee-pees like the honorable stone age-americans… what a wonderful life it could be.

    • ColoradoRon January 15, 2016 at 6:11 pm #

      You obviously haven’t read the full plans under Agenda 21 to invoke the “ultimate solution”. Under Agenda 21, ratified by almost every country at the 1992 Rio summit, Gaia, mother goddess earth, can only sustain 500M people, so essentially they want to cull 95% of the earth’s population. Then they want to herd us all into pre-assigned “living areas” and have us live in apartments smaller than soviet era apartments. We would be restricted from ownership, free movement (not allowed to go to or live in most of the land on earth; and this is so it can regenerate “herself”.)
      Climate change is in essence is a false religion that is the spearhead for rationalizing huge upheaval and changes in the way we are allowed to live – that is if you are one of the lucky 5%,
      Don’t believe me? Spend 20 minutes Googling “Agenda 21”, it will turn your stomach.

      • yo neighbor January 15, 2016 at 6:25 pm #

        I know all about agenda 2030,

        • ColoradoRon January 15, 2016 at 6:28 pm #

          Didn’t mean to imply you were uninformed, just used my first sentence to amplify the fact that Global Warming is just the tip of the iceberg (pun intended)…never heard it called Agenda 2030, where did you see that?

          • yo neighbor January 15, 2016 at 8:40 pm #

            I don’t mean to imply your reply to my sarcastic remark wasn’t informative, I just don’t like to read article’s not provided by this magazines scrutiny. Google agenda 2030.

  8. GeoffPreece January 13, 2016 at 1:48 pm #

    It’s amazing how the words “it wouldn’t be enough” from John Kerry have been turned in to “utter futility” by Steve Milloy. Ridiculous interpretation.

  9. st8kout1 . February 12, 2016 at 9:57 pm #

    Even though this was 2 months ago, the Supreme Court still had to step in this week and stop power mad Mr O because he was exceeding his authority with the EPA, by bypassing Congress.

  10. Ronnie Solbakken April 24, 2016 at 5:12 pm #

    What Kerry doesn’t understand is USA’s impact on the rest of the world. Nobody wants to be “worse than the US”.

  11. Ron Lentjes June 19, 2016 at 1:56 pm #

    Just stop farting. Dam it.

  12. Debs Margolin October 14, 2016 at 6:36 am #

    This is ridiculous. Positive efforts to cut down on waste of resources could never be “all for naught”. Another country not living out its duty to care for the health of our habitat does not excuse yours from duty. What a horrible article, you’ve basically just coddled the lazy into becoming lazier, comforted the sinner, essentially.

  13. Opa Opa May 1, 2018 at 2:10 am #

    the perfect scam should be universal,impossible to verify and lucrative.claiming that a gas essential to the respiration-photosynthesis cycle and one that is inefficient at “trapping” infrared energy seems a poor choice of villians

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