Solar, EVs and a big exit from coal: 2024’s good climate news
Solar capacity around the world was rolled out at a record pace, as bargain panel prices helped countries deploy cleaner energy.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that undoes the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan and has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review and rewrite it.
The broad-ranging executive order was one of Trump’s promises during his presidential campaign last year and it’s part of a wider effort to cut environmental regulations.
The targeted plan called on governments to reduce carbon emissions from power plants and had an overall goal of cutting missions by at least 26% by 2025. And by 32% by 2030, which would have reduced significantly the share of coal in power generation worldwide.
The “Energy Independence” executive order, Law360 reports (sub. required) also instructs the US Department of the Interior to overturn a rule regulating hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
The broad-ranging executive order was one of Trump’s promises during his presidential campaign last year and it’s part of a wider effort to cut environmental regulations and revive the US mining sector.
Environmentalists slammed the move, calling it dangerous and saying it goes against the broader global trend toward cleaner energy technologies.
“These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American,” environmental activist Tom Steyer, the head of activist group NextGen Climate said in an e-mailed statement.
Trump and several members of his administration have long expressed they don’t believe in climate change. Scott Pruitt, the head of EPA, is in fact known for frequently denying that carbon dioxide emissions may be a cause of global warming.
6 Comments
Pat Woods
CO2 is plant food, not poison. 97% of all CO2 emitted into Earth’s atmosphere annually comes from natural sources, not mankind. And water vapor is the most prolific GHG, not CO2.
Johnrolce
Would it be possible to put climate change deniers in politics on trial for terorism and sabotage?
To me this seems like a person (and a couple of friends) denying a murder next to a dead body riddled with bullets and arrows.
Steven Walker
Do you cry yourself to sleep every night?
You probably want everybody that doesn’t think like you to be executed…right?
minedoubt
Humans release 9 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year. This was material in the ground that we burn and release into the air. If you can’t admit that it’s screwing up our atmosphere, at least admit that it’s not sustainable.
mijanko
In order to truely understand what has happened here, one must disconnect what is happening with climate from what our governments are doing. If you require help to do so – follow the money. There are specific reasons families being made ill by wind turbine noise emissions continue to be ignored and rules authored to omit the most damaging emissions. Trump is no gentleman, but in this way, he is a hero to many.
Michael Nwafor
I just love this guy called Donald Trump. He is a real man. Long live coal.