US President Trump signs order to roll back Obama’s climate policies

China, meanwhile, is the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, followed by the US – many climate scientists argue causes climate change. And environmental policymakers from around the world took the Clean Power Plan as a sign that the US was committed to meeting its pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than 25% from 2005 levels by 2025.

Earlier this week, President Trump pledged to end the “war on coal” by rolling back the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era federal policy that compels U.S. states to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.

But Texas Senator John Cornyn says the Obama administration’s climate policies would lead to higher energy costs.

Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are some of the 154 companies that agreed to embrace clean energy during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. They warned that health and prosperity of all Americans is at risk – as are Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay and communities along our coastlines.

The order does not entirely obliterate Obama’s climate legacy.

As with Trump’s promises for the revitalization of coal country, all of this will be more complicated than suggested.

Environmentalists say lifting the moratorium will worsen climate change and allow coal to be sold for unfairly low prices.

Chinese state media has lambasted Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back many Obama-era environmental regulations, with a state-run tabloid saying that: “No matter how hard Beijing tries, it won’t be able to take on all the responsibilities that Washington refuses to take”.

The letter also argued that the challenge to combat climate change could lead to technological advances and the US should keep policies in place that would support those advances. Climate change is an urgent economic and national security challenge that is already beginning to have disastrous effects.

“I am taking historic steps to lift restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations”, President Trump said Tuesday.

In a call with reporters, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said presidents don’t have legal authority to just do away with Environmental Protection Agency regulations with the stroke of a pen.

While the US oil and gas market has a chance to thrive under recovering prices, there’s just no bringing coal back to its former glory.

The Democrat leader promised to cut Carbon dioxide emissions by 26 per cent before 2025, in keeping with the Paris climate deal, but critics urged him to speed up.