London: President Barrack Obama will on Monday unveil a set of environmental regulations devised to sharply cut down greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power plants.
The fresh rules are expected to be announced at a White House ceremony.
This decision has been taken with the motive of transforming America’s electricity industry and is perhaps the strongest action ever taken in the United States to combat climate change.
Describing the raging issue of climate change ‘not a problem for another generation, not anymore’ in a video posted on Facebook yesterday, the U.S. President called the new rules ‘the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change’.
The most aggressive of the regulations requires the nation’s existing power plants to cut emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, an increase from the 30 percent target proposed in the draft regulation, according to the New York Times.
Although officials of the Obama administration have repeatedly said that the states will have the flexibility to design their own plans, the final rules are explicitly meant to encourage the use of interstate cap-and-trade systems in which states place a cap on carbon pollution and then create a market for buying permits or credits to pollute.
The new rules also demand that power plants use more renewable sources of energy like wind and solar power.
The anticipated final climate change rules have already set off what is expected to be broad legal, legislative and political backlash as dozens of states, major corporations and industry groups prepare to file lawsuits challenging them.
President Obama intends to use the fresh rules to push other countries to commit to deep reductions in their own carbon emissions before a United Nations summit meeting in Paris in December, when a global accord to fight climate change is expected to be signed. (ANI)