“I’m confident in the wisdom of the American people on that front”, he continued.
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The striking drought in California is widely regarded by researchers as one of the effects of climate change.
He was responding to a reporter’s question as to whether he’s confident that a Republican successor would follow through on a potential climate-change agreement.
Most of the Republican presidential campaigns have criticized many of Obama’s climate change and environmental moves, saying they will hurt USA economic growth.
“But even if somebody from a different party succeeded me, one of the things you find is when you’re in this job, you think about it differently than if you’re just running for the job”, he said.
“If you just look over the past five or six years since Copenhagen, there’s been a shift”, said David Waskow, director of the International Climate Initiative at the World Resources Institute, referring to the largely inconclusive global summit meeting that took place in Denmark in 2009. “But you are now in fact at the center of what happens around the world”.
The poll found that while 63 percent of Americans believe that climate change is indeed a serious problem; 51 percent of individuals believe that disagreements among scientists over the matter are prevalent.
“I think that in the house setting itself, the contrast of how our Democratic Caucus approaches these issues compared to the Republican Majority caucus, is our approach is about an all of the above strategy, diversity in the fuel mix, accepting not only the reality of climatechange, but working to impact human inspired climate change outcomes”, said U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) in a phone interview. Furthermore, younger people seem to be more aware and more interested by these issues, but the elder population is more engaged and more vocal – this signifies another turning point in the future.
Yet should things work out differently, Obama said he believes a Republican president would look at things in a new light once he or she gets off the campaign trail and into the Oval Office.
Obama added: “So the good news is the politics inside the United States is changing as well”.
The climate is not a pivotal issue for Republicans in 2016. Fifty-two percent say climate change is a “very serious” problem, down from 57 percent. That matters because the US and China are the world’s largest polluters, and a lasting, meaningful agreement with China is one of the keys to success for Obama in Paris. More than half of Democrats see climate change as harming people now, and only a quarter of Republicans do.
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Obama predicted the inevitable ups and downs of the climate talks. “‘It’s a hoax, we’re not going to do anything'”. But he believes that the commitments will send “a signal to researchers and scientists and investors and entrepreneurs and venture funds”, to innovate. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science – and the results are what you see today.
