Before exiting, Obama team transfers $500 million to UN climate fund
Trump opposes the deal, so remaining $2 Billion will likely remain in American coffers.
When the final acts of now former President Obama are analyzed, it will be hard to determine which one was the slimiest.
There are many possible contenders for that dishonor, but the transfer of a significant amount of American taxpayer-dollars per a U.N. climate change agreement Donald Trump opposes should be high on that list.
Barack Obama has heeded calls to help secure the future of the historic Paris agreement by transferring a second $500m instalment to the Green Climate Fund, just three days before he leaves office.
The fund was a key aspect of the Paris agreement signed in 2015, which aims to keep global warming “well below” 2C and aspires to keep warming to 1.5C.
The US committed to transferring $3bn to the fund. The new instalment leaves $2bn owing, with the incoming president, Donald Trump, expected to cease any further payments.
The move followed a large campaign, with more than 100 organisations and nearly 100,000 people calling for Obama to transfer the full $2.5bn owed to the fund.
Legal Insurrection readers will recall that Obama directed $500 million for the first installment from monies slated to fight the Zika outbreak. As with the first installment, the second one occurred using some finance and accounting chicanery.
President-elect Donald Trump and a number of GOP lawmakers have complained that support for the fund wasn’t specifically approved by Congress. The administration argues the current fiscal year’s budget allows it to take the money from an unobligated portion of a total of $4.3 billion in economic support fund assistance. The previous $500 million installment was made in the same way.
I guess we should be grateful that we still have the remaining $2 billion to spend on our national concerns.
And how exactly is that international battle against global warming working out? So well that Russian ice-breakers were recently trapped…in ice.
Vessels could be marooned ‘for a week’ in East Siberian Sea after getting caught in thick ice.
Bulk carriers Sinegorsk and Johann Mahmastal made a successful midwinter cargo crossing from Arkhangelsk to Russia’s northernmost port of Pevek, Chukotka, escorted by icebreakers Kapitan Dranitsyn and Admiral Makarov.
…The ease of the sailing is seen as a sign that climate warming in the Arctic can open up shopping lanes even in midwinter. But the climate remains unpredictable as the four vessels have discovered on their return route.
Now that Obama is no longer President, I expect less hot air to be released and more American taxpayer dollars being retained.
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Comments
By doing exactly as he pleases in spite of laws to the contrary, soon to be ex-President Obama provides the answer to the question, “why did America elect Donald Trump?”
Aw, come on! $500M isn’t so much. We lost that much tax money in the Solyndra debacle, where a bunch of Obama supporters enriched their own coffers while sending the company to bankruptcy. Obama can waste $500M over coffee in the morning. After all, he’s doubled the national debt in his eight years.
That’s some hope and change we’ll have to deal with for years!
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:51129-land-summaryfigure1(1).png
Well, this is what the Climate Game has always been about, really. Getting hold of as much cash as they can.
And I don’t doubt that a significant portion of this free cash will make it back into the pockets of Barack and his political allies in one way or another. Like I said, that’s what this is really about.
Embezzlement by any other name is still embezzlement.
He forgot to pardon himself. Get the money back.
Bear in mind that after the kickbacks are distributed to Obama and his cronies, the UN will only realize maybe $300 million of that.
This malignant clown made a mockery of the oath of office.
I wonder if there’s any way to put a stop on that check. Probably not. Knowing this administration, it was delivered in small, unmarked bills at the same time a ‘guest’ was released from the basement of the UN building.
Thank God EXPOTUS Obummer is gone, hopefully never to be heard from again
Can the DoJ charge any federal bureaucrats complicit with this ‘transfer’ (though embezzlement seems a more apt term)? Even if there is no indictment taking advantage of the Democrat’s favorite weapon–process–would be deliciously appropriate.
Could Trump demand it back or threaten that he will subtract that amount from UN dues?
It pisses me off when I think of all the people I know drowning in taxes, barely able to make it to their next paycheck, and these assholes will be using that money to pad their expense account.
I think it could be deducted from whatever dues the U.S. might pay.
Then again, it’s entirely possible that Trump will decide to not pay another red cent to the UN for as long as he’s in office.
He can end payments to the UN and use our veto to hamstring them.
Perhaps the grown-ups, in the former administration (if there were any) should have said to the the Prez; Mr. president, we can build an awful lot of new schools in an awful lot of poverty areas in our own country with that large bag of money.