Obama announces US Climate Action Plan

US President Barack Obama today announced a Climate Action Plan to reduce carbon pollution. According to Obama, the plan intends to give the United States - the world’s largest economy and second largest emitter - a leadership role “in a coordinated assault on a changing climate”.

Speaking at Georgetown University in Washington DC, the President reflected on the year he took office, when he pledged to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions by 17% from their 2005 levels by 2020. He outlined what the country has done so far to help achieve this: doubling wind and solar power generation; building nuclear power plants; producing its own oil; and producing its own natural gas.

“Since 2006,” he said, “no country on Earth has reduced its total carbon pollution by as much as the United States of America.”

The Climate Action Plan aims to go even further, with some of its measures including:

• Directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose new carbon pollution standards on power plants.
• Directing the Department of the Interior to greenlight enough private, renewable energy capacity on public land to power more than 6 million homes by 2020.
• Installing 3 GW of renewable energy on the bases of the Department of Defense - the biggest energy consumer in America.
• Calling for Congress to end tax breaks for oil companies and invest in clean-energy companies.
• Setting new energy standards for household appliances.
• Providing funding and support for community projects protecting against climate change.
• Providing measures to support developing countries in the transition to a low-carbon economy.
• Increasing cooperation and engagement with international partners and major emerging economies.

The plan comes with a number of targets. The federal government itself has set the goal of consuming 20% of its electricity from renewable sources within the next seven years, while the President hopes to reduce carbon pollution by at least 3 billion tonnes by 2030.

He stressed that the plan will not be detrimental to the economy, because it will create jobs - “jobs manufacturing the wind turbines that now generate enough electricity to power nearly 15 million homes; jobs installing the solar panels that now generate more than four times the power at less cost than just a few years ago”.

He added, “Our economy is 60% bigger than it was 20 years ago, while our carbon emissions are roughly back to where they were 20 years ago. So, obviously, we can figure this out.

“We’ve got to look after our children; we have to look after our future; and we have to grow the economy and create jobs. We can do all of that as long as we don’t fear the future; instead we seize it.”

He noted the importance of America’s role “as the world’s largest economy and second-largest carbon emitter, as a country with unsurpassed ability to drive innovation and scientific breakthroughs, [and] as the country that people around the world continue to look to in times of crisis”. This “unique responsibility”, he said, will be upheld as a result of the Climate Action Plan.

The plan has been welcomed in Australia, with the Minister for Climate Change, Industry and Innovation, Greg Combet, saying it will “help the US transition to clean forms of energy, promote US business innovation and create jobs”.

Greens Leader Christine Milne also supported the move but wonders how successful it will be without an emissions trading scheme, which was blocked by the Republican-controlled Congress.

Nevertheless, Milne said, “The Obama plan clamps down on emissions from coal-fired power stations, boosts investment in renewable energy and ends the tax breaks for big oil … This is a clear signal from the US that it’s moving on climate change.”

Last week, an emissions trading scheme was launched in the city of Shenzen in China - the world’s largest emitter. Professor Will Steffen, Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute, says the combination of the two developments is “good news for the world”.

“When the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases take meaningful actions to reduce emissions, there is hope that we can get global emissions trending downwards this decade,” he said.

Speaking about Obama’s plan, he said it is “further evidence that the United States is taking the climate change challenge seriously and moving quickly to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases”.

He also noted the emphasis on increasing energy efficiency throughout the economy, especially in built infrastructure, saying it is “truly a win-win approach. Increasing energy efficiency can be done relatively quickly, can have a large effect on greenhouse gas emissions, and can save money for businesses and families.”

The Climate Action Plan can be viewed here.