Environmental groups vowing to fight Trump climate actions

President Trump’s directive also does away with Obama’s smaller executive orders and memorandums on combating climate change, including eliminating requirements that federal agencies consider what the climate impact would be when considering future environmental permits.

Three storm chasers were killed when their vehicles collided at a rural crossroads during severe West Texas storms on Tuesday.

“The actions taken by the administration will have nearly no financial benefit for the coal industry, and an unlimited disregard for environmental concerns”, said Sanzillo.

“Coal jobs are dying because of mining mechanization and a flood of affordable, abundant natural gas”, he says.

Some economists question whether Trump’s push to shore up the coal industry will result in more jobs.

Their ability to achieve the promise of the Paris Agreement does not rest on the actions of one government alone, he said.

“These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American”, said billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, the head of activist group NextGen Climate. The order also requires the EPA and Dept. of Interior to review new methane emission regulations enforced on oil and gas drilling operations.

China “will honour its obligations 100 per cent” regardless of whether other countries change their policies and “will not change its determination, its goals, and its measures regarding climate change”, said Lu.

That was when some of the nation’s most recognizable brands signed a letter to the National Governors Association backing their commitment to the reductions, arguing that better regulation would drive innovation and create jobs, rather than stifle them, as Trump went on to repeatedly suggest during the 2016 campaign. The latest executive orders indeed constitute a “watershed moment”, as BCC Professor of Environmental Science Tom Tyning described it (Eagle, March 29).

The Clean Power Plan was introduced by President Barack Obama and the EPA in August 2015 in an effort to cut US CO2 emissions by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030.

The rule, opposed by the Kentucky Chamber, could cause premature closure of existing coal-fired power plants and higher electricity costs.

“It’s really symbolic”, said Dr Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

Environmental groups heaped scorn on Trump’s order, arguing it was unsafe and went against the broader global trend toward cleaner energy technologies. And a group of 23 states and cities, including California, Washington D.C. and Boulder, Colorado, were quick to release a statement opposing Trump’s new order, saying it ignores the importance of confronting the real threat of climate change.

The order removed the moratorium on federal coal leasing as well as any requirement federal officials had to ensure sustainable development criteria be met for new projects. It has promised to cap coal use and rein in growth of carbon dioxide emissions. The administration still is deciding whether to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

“Despite all the current geopolitical uncertainties, the world can count on Europe to maintain global leadership in the fight against climate change”.