Trump's EPA unveils weaker alternative to Obama power plant rule

22.08.18

News

Trump’s EPA unveils weaker alternative to Obama power plant rule

There is continued coverage of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plans to replace Obama-era rules to reduce emissions from coal-fired power stations with an arrangement that would allow individual states to set their own standards. Under the new proposals, the EPA would require states to submit plans for improving efficiency of coal-fired power plants. The federal government would set carbon emission guidelines, but states would have the leeway to set less-stringent standards, taking into account a facility’s age and the cost of upgrades. The “Affordable Clean Energy” (ACE) rule, which replaces the Clean Power Plan, was signed by EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Monday, says the Hill. In a statement, Wheeler said the new rules “would restore the rule of law and empower states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide modern, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans”. The change in rules could prevent around 300 US coal-fired plants from closing, says the Daily Telegraph. California governor Jerry Brown called the new rules “a declaration of war against America and all of humanity”, reports CNBC. In a statement, Brown said that “truth and common sense will triumph over Trump’s insanity” and reaffirmed that California has no plans to roll back its greenhouse gas emissions targets and will instead “exceed the targets” in the Clean Power Plan. The EPA forecasts that the new rules would trigger an increase in US coal production for the power sector by 4.5-5.8% by 2025, leading to a slight drop in retail electricity prices, reports BusinessGreen. However, this will only slow the decline in coal-fired power generation over the next two years, says the Financial Times, rather than stop it altogether. The EPA’s proposals “remove the emissions requirements that made it difficult, if not impossible, to build new coal plants or upgrade existing ones”, reports E&E News, but ” it does little to alter utilities’ financial outlook or ease the threat of future carbon regulation”. In addition, the EPA’s own analysis of the impact of the change in rules suggest it would lead to new carbon-related health issues and as many as 1,400 premature deaths per year, says another article in the Hill. Among hundreds of pages of “Regulatory Impact Analysis” is the finding that “implementing the proposed rule is expected to increase emissions of CO2 and the level of emissions of certain pollutants in the atmosphere that adversely affect human health”, reports the New York Times. Vox, Think Progress and InsideClimate News all take a closer look at the potential impacts on health. The Associated Press and Mail Online also have the story, while USA Today has five “key takeaways” from the new rules.

Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record

The Guardian

The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer, scientists say. The phenomenon, which has never been recorded before, has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere. “Almost all of the ice to the north of Greenland is quite shattered and broken up and therefore more mobile,” said Ruth Mottram of the Danish Meteorological Institute. “Open water off the north coast of Greenland is unusual. This area has often been called ‘the last ice area’ as it has been suggested that the last perennial sea ice in the Arctic will occur here. The events of the last week suggest that, actually, the last ice area may be further west.” This breakup of the thickest ice could affect polar bears and seals, reports the Independent. The region is a “denning area” for polar bears, explains Prof Peter Wadhams from Cambridge University: “They dig holes in the snow and come out in the spring and go hunting. But if the pack ice has moved offshore they come out hibernation and are left without an area to hunt.” The Hill, Daily Telegraph, and Mail Online also pick up on the story. The Indy also reports that Maersk Line, the world’s largest container shipping company, is about to launch the first ever container ship on an Arctic route along Russia’s north coast. The Venta Maersk, a new ice-class 42,000 ton vessel which can carry 3,600 containers, will leave Vladivostok on Russia’s east coast later this week and then follow the Northern Sea Route to St Petersburg.

UK foreign secretary backs Trump’s Nord Stream 2 criticism

Politico

UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he agrees with US President Donald Trump’s criticism of Germany for supporting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The project – to which German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed their commitment last week – would carry 55bn cubic meters of gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea when it is completed in 2019. Speaking on BBC radio’s Today programme yesterday, Hunt said “[Trump] points out that there is a contradiction between asking America to spend more as proportion of its GDP on defense and contributing to NATO and, at the same time, doing an economic deal with Russia that is going to mean Russia is richer and more able to sped money on weapons that could potentially be used in an offensive way”. “We have made it very clear that we are very concerned about the Nord Stream 2 project for precisely the reasons that President Trump says,” added Hunt. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that Merkel will visit Azerbaijan this week for talks on boosting supplies of Caspian gas to Europe. A senior official said Germany had a “big interest” in developing the so-called “southern gas corridor” linking Azerbaijan to Europe via Turkey. In an editorial, the FT says the European Union (EU) should take steps itself to halt the Nord Stream 2 project “because it is against Europe’s interests”. The pipeline “makes no economic or, from the EU’s standpoint, strategic sense”, the article stresses, “It will not transport additional gas, but merely provide an alternative to the trans-Ukraine pipeline, which is only running at 50% capacity”. “Russia’s real motive for Nord Stream 2 seems to be precisely to deprive Ukraine of its transit role,” the FT warns.

Green energy tariffs ‘no longer an expensive luxury’, study finds

The Guardian

Green tariffs now account for many of the cheapest deals on the UK energy market, reports the Guardian, despite many consumers still believing renewable energy deals are more expensive. Analysis by the comparison service and switching website uSwitch shows half of the top 10 cheapest tariffs are green ones offered by challenger suppliers taking on the “Big Six” energy companies, while last year just two of the top 10 were green. However, polling carried out for uSwitch found that 42% of consumers still think green tariffs are more expensive than conventional ones. The Guardian also reports that “rise of publicly owned energy companies looks like it is faltering in the face of tough market conditions”.

Comment

Trump fired up to save Big Coal instead of Earth

Editorial, USA Today

“The Trump administration is committed to saving coal, when what it really needs to do is save the planet,” says an editorial in USA Today. The new EPA rules on coal-fired power are “another great leap backward” that are “supposed to control heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution but are really aimed at furthering the production and burning of coal”, the article argues. This is all “to save a fuel source already in decline”, it says: “Meanwhile, America’s fight to prevent the globe from overheating catastrophically is turning into a capitulation.” Elsewhere, Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump writes that “President Trump’s decision to roll back even measured efforts to curtail CO2 emissions and news about Arctic sea ice combine to paint a picture of a country that’s living through climate change and deciding not to do anything about it”.

A Climate Reckoning for Australia

Editorial, The New York Times

“Australia should be a global leader in battling climate change,” says a New York Times editorial. “The vast nation-continent has an abundance of potential solar and tidal power, while the bleaching of the spectacular Great Barrier Reef by warming waters and a record drought offer ample evidence of what climate change can wreak.” Yet, under pressure from rebellious conservatives, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has “abandoned his ‘National Energy Guarantee’ and its modest effort to reduce energy emissions”. Drawing on an analysis piece by the New York Times’s bureau chief in Sydney, Damien Cave, the editorial warns that Australia’s “political inability to enact sorely needed energy legislation” is a result of “acute partisanship on addressing climate change and the influence of a coal industry that accounts for more than a third of all global coal exports”. “It is especially dismaying when science-denying hacks and self-serving industries block action that is in the obvious and urgent interest of all humanity,” the editorial concludes: “That should not be happening in Australia”. Meanwhile, writing in the Conversation, academics Sophie Lewis and Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick from the University of New South Wales say that Turnbull’s decision is “the latest failure in a decade-long story of broken climate policy in Australia”. Finally, Climate Home News reports that Turnbull is likely to face a second leadership challenge, which could “swallow another prime ministerial career, bringing the country’s future participation in the Paris deal into question”.

Science

Carbon storage potential in degraded forests of Kalimantan, Indonesia

Environmental Research Letters

Protecting the degraded forests of Kalimantan, Indonesia, from further harm would prevent more than 1bn tonnes of carbon from being released into the atmosphere, new research suggests. The forests of Kalimantan are under severe pressure from extensive land use activities dominated by logging, palm oil plantations, and peatland fires. Using a combination of on-the-ground and satellite measurements, the researchers found that 22 mega hectares of forest remain on drylands.

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