Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
8/7/2015
Following the release of a more stringent final version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon pollution standards for coal-fired power plants, the United States has been hailed a leader in efforts to combat climate change. In a meeting with President Barack Obama following the release of the final Clean Power Plan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon applauded the regulation. “I’d like to congratulate you and highly commend your visionary and forward leadership announcement of yesterday on a Clean Power Plan. This is hugely important and visionary leadership. The U.S. can and will be able to change the world in addressing a climate phenomenon,” he said.
“If we don’t do it, nobody will,” Obama said earlier this week at a White House event unveiling the new rule. “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. When the world faces its toughest challenges, America leads the way forward. That’s what this plan is about.”
While the rule has drawn praise within the U.S. and abroad, it has drawn criticism at home, including from states arguing that the reductions targets are unreachable and will result in higher electricity prices, job losses, and the outsourcing of manufacturing to countries with lighter regulations. Even in its proposed version, the rule drew legal challenges, and further litigation is expected.
The final rule, which requires states to develop action plans to meet federally set emissions reduction goals, would result in a 32 percent reduction below 2005 levels in carbon pollution from the power sector by 2030, according to the EPA. The rule as proposed would have resulted in a 30 percent reduction in this pollution.
The announcement of the final rule comes four months before the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). COP 21 is scheduled for December in Paris and is hoped to be the site of a new global climate agreement.
At this time, nations are working to submit their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), country-specific pledges toward the goal of combating climate change. In the U.S. INDC, submitted in March, the Obama administration has committed to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
“Today with America leading the way, countries representing 70 percent of the carbon pollution from the world’s energy sector have announced plans to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. In December, with America leading the way, we have a chance to put in place one of the most ambitious international climate agreements in human history,” Obama said of COP 21.
Increased Stringency May Not Be Enough to Meet INDC Goals
Since the announcement of the U.S. INDC, David Bookbinder, a partner at Element VI Consulting and former Sierra Club general counsel, determined there is a gap between the emissions reduction goal laid out in the U.S. commitment and the actual emissions reduction attainable through the measures cited the commitment.
After an initial analysis of the final EPA rule in the context of the INDC, Bookbinder believes it is not significantly more stringent than the rule as proposed and thus will not fill the gap in the INDC.
Bookbinder said the EPA rule as proposed would result in 2025 emissions reductions of 506 million metric tons from base case projected emissions of 2,231 MMT for 2025 net energy generating unit emissions of 1,725 MMT.
In the final rule, Bookbinder found 2025 emissions reductions of 240 MMT from base case projected emissions of 1,964 MMT for 2025 Net EGU emissions of 1,724 MMT.
“In other words, both the proposed and final CPP rules project virtually the exact same EGU emissions in 2025; the only difference is that in the final rule the base case is responsible for a larger share of the reductions and the CPP is responsible for a smaller share. Ergo, literally no change for the INDC,” Bookbinder told GHG Monitor by e-mail this week.
U.S. Action Notices Abroad
Regardless, countries have taken note of the new U.S. regulation. “Generally, [the] Clean Power Plan is well received in China’s mass media,” Xiaoliang Yang, China Climate and Energy Program research analyst with the World Resources Institute, told GHG Monitor this week by e-mail. “Some people consider [the] Clean Power Plan to be the US’ early move in order to take the lead in the upcoming negotiations in Paris. It might force China and other big emitters to take more bold and concrete climate actions in the climate negotiations.”
