Did you see that the Environmental Protection Agency announced big news this past Monday: new rules for power plants to reduce emissions from power plants by 30% (below 2005 levels) by 2030? This makes a lot of sense because power plants are responsible for 40% of US carbon dioxide emissions. Power plants are also still coal intensive and coal is the largest source of CO2 emissions around the world.
The rules allow states flexibility for how to meet the emission reductions targets though promoting energy efficiency, switching fuels, making existing plants more efficient, or even trading emissions like the Northeastern States Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative already does. States have until June 2016 to come up with their plans, or the EPA will make a plan for them. You can read more of the details in an easy summary here.
The new EPA rules have of course met resistance with conservatives already planning to sue the Federal government so that they can't be implemented or at least run out the clock until they hope to get a Republican President elected in 2016. The Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups are crying foul saying that the rules will be economic disaster. Gina McCarthy, administrator of the EPA assures us that they won't be. Electric rates shouldn't go up any more than what it costs to buy a gallon of milk per month, so really minimal increases in price as power plants try to figure out how to operate in a new, more climate-conscientious world. Environmentalists aren't totally happy because the rule, while a step in the right direction, doesn't do nearly enough to truly address the climate crisis. They are right, but this is an important step.
As President Obama announced the rules, the US Ambassador to Canada, Bruce Heyman, called on Canada to do the same, including emissions from Canada's fastest growing source of emissions: oil sands. Prime Minister Harper brushed off the request, but this could be the start of increasing pressure. (On a related note, did you hear that a major oil sands project in Alberta, Canada was just canceled indefinitely due to a lack of pipelines? Watch out tar sands, our tactics are working!)
THEN, what's really interesting is that the day after President Obama announced the EPA rules, China stepped into the ring:
Reuters reported that at a Beijing conference today, the chairman of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change, He Jiankun, revealed targets that will be included in their next five-year plan. These included controls on CO2 emissions “by intensity” as well as an “absolute cap.”
An absolute cap is a pretty impressive sign that they're not messing around; set to come into play from 2016, it’s the first time China will have had one. In an updated article, Michael Grubb, a climate professor at the University College London, said the announcement “marks potentially the most important turning point in the global scene on climate change for a decade.”
There’s no word on what level of emissions this cap will be placed on—and coal emissions will still grow in China until 2030, according to He—but it’s a promisingly decisive step by the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. It’s likely no coincidence that they announced this so soon after Obama’s plans, and Adam Vaughan at the Guardian commented that the timing “appears deliberately chosen to show China will also take a leadership role on climate change.”AWAKE SLEEPING GIANTS. The US and China are starting to stir and #ActOnClimate, and just may wake up Canada in the process. There's still a lot of work to be done, but this week indicated some positive steps in the right direction.
One last note, the other emissions giant, Australia, has failed to repeal its price on carbon, which means that its emission reduction targets automatically tripled! Very good news! http://m.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australias-emissions-cut-target-triples-overnight-thanks-to-failure-to-repeal-carbon-tax-20140602-39esv.html?skin=dumb-phone
No comments:
Post a Comment