Trump repeals Obama’s carbon emissions cap
WASHINGTON: MANY AMERICAN STATES ARE SHIFTING AWAY FROM COAL POWER FOR ECONOMIC REASONS, BUT EXPERTS SAY SCRAPPING THE RULE COULD SLOW THE TRANSITION.
The Trump administration has confirmed plans to scrap a Barack Obama-era rule to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the cap on carbon emissions from power plants set to go now. The new rule is expected on Tuesday.
“The war on coal is over,” Scott Pruitt, head of the environment protection agency, said at an event in Kentucky on Monday. “Tomorrow in Washington, I will be signing a proposed rule to roll back the Clean Power Plan. No better place to make that announcement than Hazard, Ky (Kentucky).”
The move is linked directly to President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to coal miners rendered jobless by a mix of green rules and market forces. Some parts of Obama’s Clean Power Plan restrictions on mining have already been removed.
In August the Trump administration notified the UN that it intended to withdraw from the Paris climate accord forged by Obama. Trump had accused India and China, the two countries instrumental for the accord’s conclusion, of ‘getting a free ride’.
Power plant emissions are among the most significant contributors to greenhouse gases at the heart of global warming and Obama’s 2015 Clean Power Plan had the promise of restricting them to a level that could have helped American meet its mitigation targets.
Trump, who has said he believes global warming is a “hoax” by the Chinese to hobble US manufacturing, had promised to remove restrictions on coal mines and withdraw the country from the Paris accord. He has moved quickly to deliver on them, unhindered by mixed signals he may have given after winning the presidency — in his first interview after the polls, he had said he had an open mind on the issue and that he was in favour of clean air and water.