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Comment by throwaway-1209 | Hacker News Reader

You guys need to pick which figure to quote. Here's a number from 2015, from NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/12/459502597/....

Quote: "To help developing countries switch from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy and adapt to the effects of climate change, the developed world will provide $100 billion a year". And further: "Developed countries won inclusion of language that would up the ante in subsequent years," Chris explains, "so that financial aid will keep ramping up over time."

Or straight from the agreement: "Agreement shall set a new collective quantified goal from a floor of USD 100 billion per year, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries"

While that's $100B/yr from the "developed world" as a whole, we all know by the example of NATO what that _really_ means.

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NATO is a great example. The US funded about 22% of the NATO budget last year, which seems about consistent with its size relative to the other members: http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pictures/stock...

That's some weird set of numbers you got there. But I got a better one: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-c....

This is a graph of what members spend on their own military, not what they contribute to NATO. It's still relevant, because we have an obligation to defend other members and how well they defend themselves affects our behavior, but it's not a zero-sum game. Greece decreasing its defense budget does not mean we need to increase ours, and Poland increasing theirs doesn't mean we can decrease ours.

NATO members absolutely should spend what they agreed to spend, but we aren't forced to spend 3.6% of our budget on defense because they don't. That's something we choose to do, and we could stop if we wanted to.

NATO mandates that members of NATO spend at least 2% of their GDP on their own militaries. The vast majority of them do not, they just count on the US stepping in for free if shit hits the fan. The point of NATO is that countries keep up their militaries to the acceptable standard so as to lend a helping hand if the need arises, not that they contribute equally to the NATO's doughnuts budget.

Who is "You guys"?

I'm certainly not going to argue about your personal opinion based on "we all know" versus what the US has actually pledged to give.

Kinda obvious, though: it's not like Obama could realistically pledge more. He entered into this agreement unilaterally as it is, with no vote of Congress (treaties do require 2/3rds majority), so pledging the "fair share" would be politically risky at the time. The strategy was to get HRC elected, and get democratic majority in the House/Senate, and then pony up the funds. None of those things quite worked out the way establishment was hoping it would.

So now the only avenue available to address the issue is re-negotiation of the agreement. Assuming the world leaders do actually want to save the climate, and not just bilk the US out of $100B/yr, they have no choice but to negotiate.

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