Wednesday 29 March 2017

Donald Trump signs executive order sweeping away Obama-era climate change policies

    Extract from ABC News

    Posted 59 minutes ago


    US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order undoing a slew of Obama-era climate change regulations that his administration says are hobbling oil drillers and coal miners, a move environmental groups have vowed to take to court.

    Key points:

    • Trump says the Energy Independence order will "cancel job-killing regulations"
    • Obama's Clean Power Plan required states to cut carbon emissions by 32 per cent by 2030
    • Environmental groups slam the order for "ignoring the law and scientific reality"
    The decree's main target is former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants — a critical element in helping the United States meet its commitments to a global climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015.
    The so-called Energy Independence order also reverses a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undoes rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reduces the weight of climate change and carbon emissions in policy and infrastructure-permitting decisions.
    "I am taking historic steps to lift restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion, and to cancel job-killing regulations," Mr Trump said at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters, speaking on a stage lined with coal miners.
    The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Mr Trump's broader push to cut environmental regulation to revive the drilling and mining industries, a promise he made repeatedly during the presidential campaign.


    If there was any doubt that big oil was back in charge under the Trump administration, today’s executive order lays that to rest.
    But energy analysts and executives have questioned whether the moves will have a big effect on their industries, and environmentalists have called them reckless.
    "I cannot tell you how many jobs the executive order is going to create but I can tell you that it provides confidence in this administration's commitment to the coal industry," Kentucky Coal Association president Tyler White told reporters.
    But while Mr Trump's administration has said reducing environmental regulation will create jobs, some green groups have countered that rules supporting clean energy have done the same.
    The number of jobs in the US wind power industry rose 32 per cent last year while solar power jobs rose by 25 per cent, according to a Department of Energy study.

    'Order ignores the law and scientific reality'



    Environmental groups hurled scorn at Mr Trump's order, arguing it is dangerous and goes against the broader global trend toward cleaner energy technologies.
    "These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American," said billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, the head of activist group NextGen Climate.
    Green group Earthjustice was one of many organisations that said it would fight the order both in and out of court.
    "This order ignores the law and scientific reality," said Earthjustice president Trip Van Noppen.
    Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, who helped broker the Paris accord, lamented Mr Trump's order.
    "Trying to make fossil fuels remain competitive in the face of a booming clean renewable power sector, with the clean air and plentiful jobs it continues to generate, is going against the flow of economics," she said.
    The order will direct the EPA to start a formal "review" process to undo the Clean Power Plan, which was introduced by Obama in 2014 but was never implemented in part because of legal challenges brought by Republican-controlled states.
    The Clean Power Plan required states to collectively cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
    Reuters/AP

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