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Trump signs order undoing Obama climate change policies
Topic Started: 28 Mar 2017, 11:33 PM (80 Views)
skibboy
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Trump signs order undoing Obama climate change policies

1 hour ago

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at curbing climate change.

The president said this would put an end to the "war on coal" and "job-killing regulations".

The Energy Independence Executive Order suspends more than half a dozen measures enacted by his predecessor, and boosts fossil fuels.

Business groups have praised the Trump administration's move but environmental campaigners have condemned it.

Flanked by coal miners as he signed the order, the president said: "My administration is putting an end to the war on coal.

"With today's executive action I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations."

During the campaign, he vowed to pull the US out of the Paris climate deal agreed in December 2015.

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What is Mr Trump's order changing?

President Trump takes a very different approach to the environment from Mr Obama. The former president argued that climate change was "real and cannot be ignored".

Among the initiatives now rescinded is the Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions, to meet US commitments under the Paris accord.

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Mr Trump says that the US will no longer wage war on coal

The regulation has been unpopular in Republican-run states, where it has been subject to legal challenges - especially from businesses that rely on burning oil, coal and gas.

Last year the Supreme Court temporarily halted the plan, while the challenges are heard.

The Trump administration says that scrapping the plan will put people to work and reduce America's reliance on imported fuel.

It says the president will be "moving forward on energy production in the US".

"The previous administration devalued workers with their policies. We can protect the environment while providing people with work."

During the president's maiden visit to the Environmental Protection Agency, he signed the Energy Independence Executive Order, which cuts EPA regulations in order to support Mr Trump's plan of cutting the agency's budget by a third.

He recently appointed climate change sceptic Scott Pruitt as its new head.

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What will the impact be?

Matt McGrath, BBC environment correspondent

This order signed by President Trump is both a practical and a philosophical attempt to change the US narrative on climate change.

His supporters say it will create thousands of jobs in the liberated oil and gas industries.

His opponents agree the new order will be a job creator - but they'll be jobs for lawyers, not in the coal fields.

Front and centre is practical action on the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the Obama project to cut fossil fuels from energy production.

Although it has long been tied up in the courts, the new administration will leave it to fester there while they come up with a much weaker replacement.

There will also be new, less restrictive rules on methane emissions from the oil and industry and more freedom to sell coal leases from federal lands.

President Trump is signalling a significant change in the widely held philosophy that CO2 is the enemy, the main driver of climate change.

US environmentalists are aghast but also enraged. They will be queuing up to go to court. But in many ways that's playing into the hands of President Trump and the fossil fuel lobby.

"Delay is what they want," one green source told me, "delay is winning."

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Will the US honour its commitments under the Paris climate deal?

While campaigning for the presidency, Mr Trump argued that the agreement was unfair to the US.

The landmark agreement commits governments to moving their economies away from fossil fuels and reducing carbon emissions to try to contain global temperature rise.

Mr Trump has in the past said climate change had been "created by and for the Chinese".

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Reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants was a key part of America's commitment in the Paris climate deal

But at the end of last year, he acknowledged that there was "some connectivity" between human activity and climate change.

It is now unclear where exactly the US stands in relation to the deal.

Whatever the US chooses, the EU, India and China say they will stick to their pledges made in Paris.

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What has been the reaction?

The president's order will be resisted by environmentalists, who have promised to challenge it in the courts.

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Campaigning groups are scathing of the president's environment policies

"These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American," billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer was quoted by Reuters as saying.

"I think it is a climate destruction plan in place of a climate action plan," the Natural Resources Defense Council's David Doniger told the BBC, adding that they will fight the president in court.

Another green group, Earthjustice, said it would challenge the measure in and out of court.

"This order ignores the law and scientific reality," its President Trip Van Noppen said.

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Does Trump believe in climate change?

Tara McKelvey, BBC White House reporter

Yes - at least according to a senior aide.

When asked whether the president believes in man-made climate change, the aide said "sure", adopting a matter-of-fact tone.

This marks a shift.

In 2015 the president said that climate change was a "hoax".

By November 2016, the president had softened his position on the matter, saying he saw "some connectivity" between man and climate change.

Now the president has gone further - at least, according to his aide.

The president, a one-time climate-change denier, now believes, that climate change is real - and that humans are behind it.

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skibboy
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29 March 2017

Exxon Mobil urges Trump to stay in Paris climate accord

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© Getty Images North America/Getty Images/AFP/File | The Trump administration is linked to Exxon Mobil through Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who served as the energy giant's chief executive before becoming America's top diplomat

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Energy giant Exxon Mobil has asked the Trump administration not to scrap US participation in the landmark Paris climate agreement, running counter to White House moves on carbon emissions.

The news came as President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled a new executive order that could roll back some of the previous Democratic administration's policies aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

In a March 22 letter to Trump energy advisor G David Banks, Exxon's head of environmental policy and planning, Peter Trelenberg, praised the 2015 Paris Agreement as the first to tackle emissions by both the developed world and developing countries such as China and India.

China is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter and India could overtake the United States as the world's second-largest by mid-century, Trelenberg said in the letter.

The US is poised to compete in energy markets while abiding by the agreement's calls for emissions reductions in part due to its increasing reliance on natural gas, which produces energy with fewer emissions, Trelenberg said.

"It is prudent that the United States remain a party to Paris Agreement to ensure a level playing field so that global energy markets remain as free and competitive as possible," wrote the executive from Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly-traded energy firm.

Fighting climate change will require technological advances, the letter said, and the United States should advance policies that promote this.

The Trump administration has not said whether it will pull out of the Paris agreement but on Tuesday unveiled policies that could move the US away from meeting internationally agreed emissions targets.

The Republican president said the US was ending a "war on coal," claiming that lifting regulations on the industry would lead to new jobs.

He ordered a review of emissions limits on coal-fired power plants and restrictions on federal leasing for coal production.

The Trump administration is linked to Exxon Mobil through Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who served as the energy giant's chief executive before becoming America's top diplomat.

Several states have sued the energy company for allegedly deceiving the public about the role of fossil fuels in global warming.

But Tillerson himself is credited with steering ExxonMobil towards public acceptance of the science of climate change.

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skibboy
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Trump climate: Challenges loom after Obama policies scrapped

29 March 2017

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California has vowed to stick by its strict emissions laws

Opponents of President Donald Trump's decision to scrap his predecessor's climate change policies say they will organise a public campaign and pursue legal avenues to challenge it.

California and New York issued a joint statement saying they would continue the fight against climate change.

Environmental groups have hired a host of lawyers to challenge Mr Trump's move that boosts fossil fuel production.

Mr Trump said he wanted to end "job-killing regulations".

His supporters believe that ending the climate change rules brought in by Barack Obama will create thousands of jobs in the gas, coal and oil industries.

The governors of New York and California summed up opponents' views by saying Mr Trump's stance was "profoundly misguided and shockingly ignores basic science".

In a joint statement, Governors Jerry Brown of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York, both Democrats, said: "With or without Washington, we will work with our partners throughout the world to aggressively fight climate change and protect our future."

The two states have set even stricter targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions than required by Mr Obama's rules and have far-reaching plans for converting to renewable energy sources for producing electricity.

Governor Brown said: "Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump's mind, but nowhere else."

A host of legal issues could be in the pipeline.

California has a special waiver allowing it to enforce tougher measures on vehicle emissions.

Mr Trump could rescind that - but this would lead to a fierce challenge.

He could also ask Congress to revoke the Clean Air Act.

Back in 2007, the US Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide gas was a pollutant under the Act.

Some experts believe that the ultimate goal of Mr Trump's executive order is to overturn that ruling.

'High hurdle'

Already tied up in the courts is Mr Obama's Clean Power Plan (CPP), which seeks to cut fossil fuels from electricity production.

The BBC's environment correspondent, Matt McGrath, says Mr Trump will let the CPP fester there while coming up with a much weaker replacement.

David Goldston, of the Natural Resources Defence Council, said activists were gearing up for legal challenges.

He said: "The president doesn't get to simply rewrite safeguards; they have to... prove the changes are in line with the law and science. I think that's going to be a high hurdle for them."

Any legal challenges would dovetail with action to win over public opinion.

Jeremy Symons, of the Environmental Defence Fund, told Associated Press: "In terms of the big picture, our strategy is simple: shine a spotlight on what is going on and mobilise the public against these rollbacks."

But Mr Trump's move does have supporters.

US Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donohue said: "These executive actions are a welcome departure from the previous administration's strategy of making energy more expensive through costly, job-killing regulations that choked our economy."

Mr Trump's Energy Independence Executive Order suspends more than half a dozen measures enacted by his predecessor.

Although during his election campaign he also vowed to pull the US out of the Paris climate deal agreed in December 2015, he has not spelled out the US intentions.

Whatever the US chooses, the EU, India and China say they will stick to their pledges made in Paris.

On Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said: "No matter how other countries' policies change, as a responsible large developing country, China's resolve, aims and policy moves in dealing with climate change will not."

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