Watch for it – the U.S. is About to Move the Goal Posts in Combating Climate Change

August 2, 2015 – Tomorrow the United States will announce regulations to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from power utilities nationwide. A video posted on Facebook yesterday has President Obama describing climate change as “not a problem for another generation, not anymore.”

The mechanism to reduce GHG emissions from U.S. power plants by 32% from 2005 levels to 2030 is cap-and-trade. The coal and fossil fuel producing states largely under Republican leadership both locally and in the federal government will arm themselves to the teeth to oppose these targets and the penalties for non-compliance.

So on Monday expect to see the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Gina McCarthy, at the White House with the President, jointly announcing the new targets, the incentives (free carbon credits) and the consequences and costs for utilities that do not comply.

If a U.S. state doesn’t submit a carbon reduction plan to the EPA then it will receive a template for one. If it still refuses then reduction targets will be imposed.

This is top down and draconian on the part of the Executive branch of the U.S. government and much needed if the Americans are to lead in meeting their obligations under an international agreement expected to be signed in Paris at COP2015.  The United States and China are the two largest GHG emitters on the planet. Only with the two of them on board to tackle climate change will we have a realistic chance of keeping global temperatures on average from rising more than 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) degrees.

In the video the President states:

“Our climate is changing. It’s changing in ways that threaten our economy, our security and our health. This isn’t opinion. It’s fact backed up by decades of carefully collected data and overwhelming scientific consensus. It has serious implications for the way that we live now. We can see it and we can feel it. Hotter summers, rising sea levels, extreme weather events like stronger storms, deeper droughts and longer wildfire seasons. All disasters that are becoming more frequent, more expensive and more dangerous. Our own families experience it too. Over the past three decades asthma rates have more than doubled. As temperatures keep warming and smog gets worse those Americans will be at even greater risk of landing in the hospital. Climate change is not a problem for another generation. Not anymore.”