Hello and welcome back to our weekly climate newsletter.
The day many climate scientists have feared is here: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has moved to overturn a landmark Obama-era finding that tied greenhouse gases to climate change.
The 2009 ruling has helped to reduce pollution and protect the health of millions of Americans over the last 15 years, setting limits on car emissions and placing limits on power plants.
But, President Trump claimed to reporters that the determination had "no basis in law."
"Bad things happened, and yet this radical rule became the legal foundation for the green new scam, one of the greatest scams in history," he claimed – without providing any evidence.
The former secretary of state John Kerry called the new rule "un-American".
"Repealing the Endangerment Finding takes Orwellian governance to new heights and invites enormous damage to people and property around the world," added Mr Kerry, who also served as Joe Biden's climate envoy. "Ignoring warning signs will not stop the storm. It puts more Americans directly in its path."
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin – a former New York congressman with no background in science – claimed that the finding was the result of an "ideological crusade within the Obama administration."
"The 2009 Obama EPA endangerment finding led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry," he said, speaking alongside Trump.
Environmental groups and experts have said that the cost of reversing the decision could be much greater than the $1.3 trillion the EPA has said American taxpayers would save.
It could also result in as much as three times the annual emissions between now and 2055. The U.S. is already one of the world's top polluters.
Click here to read more
0 comentários:
Postar um comentário