Rob Horowitz: Obama Takes Major Step Forward on Climate

Rob Horowitz: Obama Takes Major Step Forward on Climate

As long previewed and advertised, the Obama Administration announced a major step forward on climate change yesterday, unveiling a new Environmental Protection regulation to cut carbon emissions from power plants by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. The Administration is taking executive action under its authority to enforce the Clean Air Act  While the coal industry, among others, have already signaled they plan to mount a legal challenge, recent US Supreme Court decisions upholding similar regulatory actions signal that the rule, once it is final in June 2015, is likely to stand.

This new rule packs a powerful punch because power plants, particularly coal-fired power plants, are by far the nation’s number one source of greenhouse gas responsible for about 40% of total US emissions. Taken together, with other executive actions including dramatically stepping-up fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles and putting executive purchasing power behind greater energy efficiency in new buildings and appliances, this strong new rule will enable the United States to achieve the 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 it pledged to accomplish as part of the 2009 international Copenhagen agreement on climate change.

The World Was Watching

Our nation is finally building the credibility on climate essential to playing a leadership role in negotiations beginning this fall aimed at forging a new strong new global climate treaty in 2015. Yesterday’s announcement was watched as closely in Beijing and New Delhi as it was in West Virginia and other parts of American coal country.
 
Previewing the new rule in his Saturday radio address, President Obama said, “I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that’s beyond fixing. The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But a low-carbon, clean energy economy can be an engine of growth for decades to come. America will build that engine. America will build the future. A future that’s cleaner, more prosperous, and full of good jobs – a future where we can look our kids in the eye and tell them we did our part to leave them a safer, more stable world.”

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And there is solid public support for the new rule. By nearly 2-to-1 “Americans support setting strict limits on carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired plants, even if the cost of electricity to consumers and companies increases,” according to a recent poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.

Still, there is a tough fight ahead. Powerful economic interests are going to fight this rule and any other constructive and needed action on the climate front tooth and nail. Most of the top Republican candidates for President and leaders in Congress can’t even bring themselves to publicly affirm the strong scientific consensus on climate change, much less support the kind of steps needed to address the problem.

It will be critical for the all too ‘silent majority’ that understands the reality of climate change to become activated and engaged on the issue. That will take a re-energized, more strategic, and better funded environmental movement—one that reconnects with the grassroots-and recaptures the momentum of its earlier 1970’s hey-day. It is courageous and forward looking actions like this major new rule that can fuel that momentum. That is one of the reasons for those of us who view tackling climate change as our largest and most important long-term challenge, President Obama’s courageous executive action is so encouraging and consequential.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island