Republicans Ready Sabotage of White House Plans for UN Climate Summit

The Republican Party is cementing a long-term agenda ahead of the upcoming international climate change talks in Paris with the aim of subverting President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy, according to new reporting by Politico.

The “wide-ranging offensive,” as Politico describes it, includes a plan blocking future legislation from passing in Congress and spreading skepticism among world leaders regarding the president’s domestic and international climate policies. Party leaders have reportedly been planning the strategy for months.

Under the guidance of Neil Chatterjee, the top energy aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), GOP staffers have been calling foreign embassies to tell them Obama’s climate agenda for the Paris talks—known as COP21—won’t withstand congressional opposition. And McConnell has warned world leaders to “proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal with Obama.”

Why the attempt at sabotage? Politico explains:

The White House unveiled its climate plan in March, with goals to cut U.S. carbon emissions by one-third over the next decade—an agenda which got a tepid response from environmental advocates, who referred to it as “weak” and lacking “any real willingness to address the scale of the climate crisis.”

Despite those warnings, Republicans claimed that the climate plan would lead to job losses and hurt low-income families.