@layman,
From another thread:
Quote:If a group of senators gets its way, any commitments President Obama makes at the Paris climate summit will be put to a congressional test. If given the opportunity, the Republican-led Senate would almost undoubtedly reject such a deal.
President Obama doesn’t plan to give it the chance. Whatever agreement emerges from Paris, he has no intention of submitting it to the Senate for ratification as a treaty. The administration argues that any agreement does not bind the United States to a course of action.
There are disadvantages to that approach: a new president could back away from the Obama climate plan. A treaty would bind all future presidents to comply with it.
“Every state controls whether that state is a party to a binding agreement, and in each case, that state’s intent controls,” said Michael Glennon, a professor of international law at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee counsel. “The key word is intent: If the U.S. doesn’t intend to enter into a binding agreement and makes that intent explicit, then there will be no binding agreement that obliges the United States to do anything as a matter of law.”
“The bottom line is it’s not going to be a treaty,” Bledsoe said. “The United States is not going to agree to anything that requires Senate confirmation. And that’s that.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/11/30/trick-or-treaty-the-legal-question-hanging-over-the-paris-climate-change-conference/
Well, it was a good "show," anyway, eh? Obama promised to "do something" about the climate, and he can at least give the superficial appearance of having kept his promise this way. If Jimmy Hansen don't like fraud, well, that's his problem, I figure.