The Obama administration is going back to work this week promoting the Paris climate change deal that President Obama signed onto in December, with Environmental Protection Agency and senior White House officials fanning out to speak at top think tanks.
The renewed push on climate change tees up the Jan. 12 State of the Union address by the president, which coincidentally marks the one-month anniversary of the United Nations’ climate change agreement being reached.
The lobbying push hints at the likelihood of climate change being a key topic in Obama’s final address to Congress.
Many scientists blame the burning of fossil fuels for increasing greenhouse gas emissions that they say are changing the Earth’s climate. The Paris deal seeks to reverse that trend by curbing greenhouse gases.
The United Nations deal is an agreement by 196 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stop the Earth’s climate from warming 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The agreement is non-binding, however, making it immune from the Republican-controlled Congress having to ratify it, which wouldn’t happen.
Beginning Thursday, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will address the domestic and international implications of the climate deal at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, the EPA announced Wednesday.
Ahead of the McCarthy speech, two senior White House officials will headline an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies to lay out the next steps after Paris. The officials with include Paul Bodnar, White House National Security Council director for energy and climate, and Richard Duke, the deputy director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change.
The think tank says Bodnar “will discuss what the agreement entails and what actions the U.S. government and the international community are likely to focus on in the coming years.” Duke will discuss the impact of the agreement on “domestic energy and climate policy.”
