fb-pixelObama offers major blueprint on climate change - The Boston Globe Skip to main content

Obama offers major blueprint on climate change

President Obama, shown in March at the Energy Department, is facing harsh criticism from Republicans, who announced their intention to weaken or undo his plan.Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday introduced President Obama’s blueprint for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by nearly a third over the next decade.

Obama’s plan, part of a formal written submission to the United Nations ahead of efforts to forge a global climate change accord in Paris in December, detailed the side of the United States in an ambitious joint pledge that the president made in November in Beijing with President Xi Jinping of China.

The United States and China are the world’s two largest greenhouse gas polluters. Obama said the United States would cut its emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, while Xi said that China’s emissions would drop after 2030.

Advertisement



Obama’s new blueprint describes how the United States will meet its pledge, using the president’s executive authority. It is an acknowledgment that any proposal to pass climate change legislation would be blocked by the Republican-controlled Congress.

At the heart of the plan are ambitious but politically contentious Environmental Protection Agency regulations meant to drastically cut planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s cars and coal-fired power plants. The plan also relies on a speedy timetable, which assumes that Obama’s administration will issue and begin enacting all such regulations before he leaves office.

“We can achieve this goal using laws that are already on the books, and it will be in place by the time the president leaves office,” said Brian C. Deese, Obama’s senior adviser on climate change.

But the plan has also intensified opposition from Republican lawmakers who object to Obama’s effort to build a climate change legacy. Republicans have called the rules a “war on coal” and an abuse of executive authority. Nearly every potential Republican presidential candidate has criticized Obama’s climate change agenda. The issue is expected to be important in 2016 political campaigns, with Republican candidates vowing to undo Obama’s EPA regulations.

Advertisement



Republican leaders immediately savaged the plan and announced intent to weaken or undo it — and, by extension, to block international efforts to reach a climate accord in Paris.

“Even if the job-killing and likely illegal Clean Power Plan were fully implemented, the United States could not meet the targets laid out in this proposed new plan,” said Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the Senate majority leader, who has been a vocal critic of the president’s plan.

“Considering that two-thirds of the US federal government hasn’t even signed off on the Clean Power Plan and 13 states have already pledged to fight it,” McConnell continued, “our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal.”

Environmental groups praised the plan, particularly the president’s effort to work around Congress.

“The United States’ proposal shows that it is ready to lead by example on the climate crisis,” said Jennifer Morgan, a specialist on international climate negotiations at the World Resources Institute, a Washington research organization. The research of Morgan’s group has concluded that the United States can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions under existing federal authority.

However, environmental groups also said that far deeper cuts are necessary beyond 2025 to stave off the most devastating effects of climate change.

“In fact the US must do more than just deliver on this pledge — the 28 percent domestic target can and must be a floor, not a ceiling,” said Lou Leonard, vice president for climate change policy with the conservation group World Wildlife Fund.

Advertisement



Republicans adamantly oppose Obama’s efforts to reach the UN accord in Paris. To bypass the Senate — which would have to ratify US involvement in a foreign treaty — Secretary of State John Kerry and other diplomatic officials are working closely with foreign counterparts to ensure the Paris deal does not qualify as a treaty.

Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, has put together legislation intended to nullify Obama’s international climate change agreements. Republican leaders may try to add it as an amendment to must-pass legislation.