Obama has done more against AGW than ANY other president in history.
So he's not taking credit for the Oil boom then or the wealth generated on the stock markets? Must have been fake news. But considering the competition, GHW Bush, Bill Clinton, GW Bush, yeah you could say that. A pretty low bar. He also actively fought the Court case Our Children's Trust to the hilt that's how concerned he was about getting serious action happening in the US.
His permanent legacy is what exactly? Given anything he did or signed or said has been undone. Compare Obama's Climate action legacy to Johnson's Civil Rights Act which has never been repealed. Obama doesn't have a legacy. Only new over-paid speaking engagements with wealthy corporatists. He's doing nothing for climate chnage action today - nothing - not a single thing!
What is there to defend except a kind of mystical belief and aura that he actually achieved something sustainable when he didn't. He'll always be a war criminal President too. Like his "new mates" were.
The core reason why GHG emissions went down for a period during Obama's term was because of the GFC. That's it. Any other 'reduction' is marginal at best and irrelevant it's so insignificant. That's how I see it.
The way I see it, if there was a time ripe for change in the USA it was in 2009 to roll out a New Green Deal - to actually a large portion of that TARP money to develop new industries and redevelop the heartland of manufacturing that had been so devastated the prior 20 years and all but destroyed in the GFC lunacy.
But no, the New Green Deal is merely a "hope for change" held by a small minority group of elected Democrats and their visionary supporters now in 2019. A decade later. But Obama was in a prime postion in 2009 to be not only a visionary for hope and change but to actually act on that and drive economic reform across the nation.
But no, because he was ill-prepared to be a decent Democratic President like say Roosevelt, Kennedy or Johnson (not that they were necessarily the bees knees in all respects either.)
The problem was
"I am a really nice guy" and
"Let's sit down and talk about it - you'll see the logic in my ideas and will agree with me" is NOT a rational political strategy for success in the USA given the TPTB aligned against such enlightened reforms needed to truly address GHG and climate change.
So Obama et al gave Billion$ to GM say when they could have given them some, taken a partial Nationalization stake that could have been repaid by selling that "nationalized" stake on the open market 4-10 years later and instead seriously tackled the fundamental Systemic barriers to alt-renewable energy and greening of the country possibly turning places like Flint Michigan into a New Green Deal Hub.
But he was not up to the task and neither were the rest of the Democrats or the Republican power bases. My point is NOT that it's all Obama's fault, or he's a Bad bad guy --- my point is that he didn't even realize he could have tried something like this. He was very ill-prepared as President and he really didn't have a clue what he stood for and what he wanted to achieve or how to go about it.
Why praise someone for doing basically NOTHING as if he did when he didn't? How does that drive change and reform or bring in to reality a NEW GREEN DEAL today? Go look who Obama is talking to in 2018/2016 .... CORPORATE-MEDIA SHILLS and the Mega-Wealthy and charging them Million$ for it.
Is he speaking about AGW/CC urgency and strategies to address it? No, he is not! That's
the "true colours"[/i] of the man right there. Forget him and move on is what I suggest but remember enough of
the IMAGE CULT-ivation to not make the same mistake again in the Ballot Box and in the Primaries next time.
By 2012 he had lost the Democrat Majority in Congress instead of building on it by appealing to that sector of society that would end up Voting for Donald Trump in 2016. Clueless imho. Clueless and incompetent or he always was a FAKE candidate, I don't know.
Obama both Lacked Vision and basic Logic if he ever saw himself as an Agent of Positive Change for the USA and the battle against Global warming. Why people would now be looking at his time in Office as "the good old days" or a period of "great environmental successes" defies belief and the facts. imo at least.
Better than Trump? Well sure. But if that's your "yardstick" you may as well be comparing Obama to windup monkey toy clapping little cymbals and saying he did so much better. Because when it comes to long term positive actions to drive action against Climate Change the USA is the Laggard of the more enlightened global community - from Europe to India to China.
As I pointed out it took him his entire 8 years to \produce his action plan to tackle Climate Change .... Here read the date of publication and the announcement from his office AFTER Trump had won the 2016 election.
CORRECTION - Blast, now I cannot find that Report/Plan and can now also see I've a muddled memory on this because he did produce several others during his term. Anyway, there was a Climate Action Report completed in Dec 2016 by the Obama White House. Sorry I cannot find it now - I thought I had saved it, downloaded it too but can't even find on my pc either.
Here fwiw is his 2013 Climate Action PLan fwiw, all water under the bridge I suppose.
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdfand here is a summary of Obama's Admin "achievements" regarding that plan in mid-2016
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/06/28/third-anniversary-climate-action-plan and other appraisal
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23122016/obama-climate-change-legacy-trump-policiesSCOTUS impacts
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/us/politics/supreme-court-chief-justice-john-roberts-epa-coal.htmlLEGACY Issues
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/20/trump-coal-emissions-power-plants-rules-obamahttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-to-rescind-obama-era-coal-emissions-standards/