Trump rolls back Obama’s green plans

Washington, March 29

US President Donald Trump today signed another controversial executive order to radically change his predecessor Barack Obama’s climate policies, dealing a body blow to the international efforts to combat global warming.

Trump signed the order at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), keeping his campaign promise to support the coal industry.

Trump said the order will “eliminate federal overreach” and “start a new era of production and job creation”.

“My action today is the latest in the series of steps to create American jobs and to grow American wealth. We’re ending the theft of American prosperity and rebuilding our beloved country,” Trump said.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump strongly believed that protecting environment and “promoting our economy are not mutually exclusive goals”.

“This executive order will help to ensure that we have clean air and clean water without sacrificing economic growth and job creation,” he said. The order directs all agencies to conduct a review of all regulations, rules, policies and guidance documents that put up roadblocks to domestic energy production.

The order did not mention the new administration’s stance on the 2015 Paris climate deal, but experts believe that it has implications for the agreement.

The order represents a clear difference between how Trump and former President Obama view the role the US plays in combating climate change, and dramatically alters the government’s approach to rising sea levels and temperatures — two impacts of climate change, the CNN said. During the campaign, Trump had vowed to pull the US out of the Paris climate deal. The US is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China. Among the initiatives now rescinded is the Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions to meet US commitments under the Paris accord.

Without the previous rules in place, the US is set to fall far short of its 2015 Paris agreement pledge to lower emissions by at least 26 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025, The New York Times said.

The order directs the EPA to take several actions to reflect the President’s environmental and economic goals, including a review of the new performance standards for coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants that amount to a de facto ban on new coal plant production in the US.

In his address, Trump said his measures would start a new energy revolution.

“We are going to start a new energy revolution, one that celebrates American production on American soil. We want to make our goods here, instead of shipping them in from other countries. All over the world, they ship in, ship in, take the Americans’ money, take the money, go home, take our jobs, take our companies, no longer folks, no longer,” he said.

“We will unlock job producing natural gas, oil and shale energy. We will produce American coal to power American industry. We will transport American energy through American pipelines made with American steel. Can you believe somebody would actually say that?” he said.

The Opposition Democratic Party and environmental groups, however, slammed Trump for his latest move.

“We risk throwing away decades of hard work growing the clean energy economy and connecting our nation’s workers to the jobs of the future with this partisan and misguided action,” said Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera, who is a Ranking Member of the Space Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. — PTI