Barack Obama launches push for a global climate accord in Paris

Barack Obama launches a months-long push he hopes will culminates in a global ­climate accord in Paris.

US President Barack Obama’s announcement yesterday of an aggressive plan to cut carbon emissions from US power plants launched what will be a months-long push that the administration hopes culminates in a global ­climate accord later this year.

While the first-ever limits on carbon emissions are a crucial part of Mr Obama’s domestic agenda, the regulations are integral to his efforts to position the US as a leader on the world stage.

Nearly 200 countries are working towards completing a deal in Paris in December. The issue also is expected to be high on the agenda when Mr Obama meets with the Pope next month, on the heels of an encyclical calling for a cultural revolution to combat climate change.

US power plants account for just 5 per cent of global carbon emissions, but administration ­officials say that if the US leads on this issue, other nations will follow, and the plan allows Mr Obama to show progress at home.

“If we don’t do it, nobody will. The only reason that China is now looking at getting serious about its emissions is because they saw that we were going to do it, too,” Mr Obama said at the White House. “When the world faces its toughest challenges, America leads the way forward.”

The limits on carbon emissions are a central component of the US’s pledge to its international partners to cut greenhouse gases by a range of 26 per cent to 28 per cent by 2025, from 2005 levels. The final Environmental Protection Agency rule requires a 32 per cent cut in power-plant emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels, a more ambitious target than the draft rules proposed last year.

In the absence of a plan to cut emissions in the US, the President would have a “difficult row to hoe” as he seeks co-operation of other world leaders, said Heather Zichal, a former Obama adviser on energy and climate change.

“You’ve now got Obama going to Paris with a plan that has ­aggressive emissions reductions. Without that, I don’t see how the US would be credible.”

Republicans, though, have criticised both the emissions regulations and the President’s push for an international pact. When the administration struck a climate agreement with China in November, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of the coal state of Kentucky and other ­Republicans said the deal made China do nothing until at least 2030 and that US regulations would hurt America’s economy much sooner.

Senator McConnell said yesterday the administration’s rules wouldn’t meaningfully affect the global climate, adding that “they could actually end up harming the environment by outsourcing energy production to countries with poor environmental records like India and China”.

Mr Obama has been pointing towards Paris for months, framing the negotiations as a historic ­opportunity to complete a pact with nearly 200 nations and ­reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. He has put the issue front and centre in his talks with world leaders, announcing the climate deal with China, building consensus on climate action at the Group of Seven summit in June and securing new commitments from Brazil earlier this summer.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said China was pursuing climate initiatives on its own and praised its relationship with the US on this issue. China has vowed that its emissions would peak around 2030.

Whether Mr Obama will win enough political support for his plan at home — as well as rulings upholding the EPA rule — ­remains a question. Even if he prevails on the domestic front, that doesn’t guarantee success internationally. A group of 15 state attorneys-general said minutes after Mr Obama’s announcement that they intended to file a lawsuit challenging the rule.

Mr Obama hit back at critics, casting them as cynical as he ­argued that addressing climate change was a moral obligation, a public health issue and a matter of national security.

“There is such a thing as being too late when it comes to climate change,” he said.

The Wall Street Journal