Trump unwinds Obama actions on climate change
Donald Trump has launched a far-reaching effort to undo Barack Obama’s environmental legacy, signing an executive order that rolls back the former president’s action against climate change and boosts fossil fuel power. Mr Trump heralded the order on Tuesday as a “new era in American energy” that would “eliminate federal over-reach” and do away with “job-killing regulations”. “This is what this is all about: bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again,” Mr Trump declared in a speech at the Environmental Protection Agency where he was flanked by coal miners. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” the president said. He added: “I made my promise and I keep my promise.” By seeking to abolish Mr Obama’s effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants — an executive order known as the Clean Power Plan — Mr Trump’s order strikes at the heart of the US commitments made in the landmark 2015 Paris climate deal. The order has limited immediate effects but it shows that Mr Trump is not backing down from the climate change scepticism of his campaign. It sets out a blueprint for dismantling a central part of Mr Obama’s legacy.
Mr Trump’s directive reverses half a dozen Obama executive orders on climate change, including lifting a moratorium on new coal mining on US federal land. The president said the order would “lift job-killing restrictions” on US oil and gas production and return power to the states for decisions on climate and energy regulation. The EPA would return to focusing on “its primary mission of protecting our air and water” — as opposed to concentrating on regulation. Mr Trump has argued that reversing Mr Obama’s actions on climate change will allow him to fulfil his campaign promise to create more jobs, particularly in the coal mining sector. Signing the executive order, the president turned to the coal miners standing next to him. “You know what it says? You know what it says, right? You’re going back to work,” he said. Many economists reject this claim, noting that the disappearance of coal mining jobs in the US has generally been linked to competition from cheap natural gas and the slowing global demand for coal as opposed to the Obama administration’s regulations. Mr Obama’s Clean Power Plan was already in jeopardy after a Supreme Court order temporarily suspended its implementation pending a legal challenge from a group of state governments that say the plan violates their rights. A senior White House official said outright withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement was still “under discussion” in the administration. Without the Clean Power Plan, which seeks to curb power sector carbon emissions, the US would be seen as less likely to meet the pledges it made in Paris, which helped bring other countries on board.
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