(VOVworld) - US President Donald Trump on March 28th signed an “Energy Independence Executive Order” that rolls back Obama’s main environmental protection laws to realize his campaign’s promise to support the coal industry. The order poses new challenges to the Paris Agreement on preventing global warming adopted by UN members in 2015.
Last week US President Donald Trump signed an “Energy Independence Executive Order” at the Environmental Protection Agency. Leaders of leading American coal companies witnessed the signing.
Trump’s Executive order demands a review of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which restricts emissions from coal-fired power plants. The new executive order encourages the production of energy including kerosene, natural gas, and coal and dismantles a number of restrictions concerning fossil fuel energy production which run counter to global support for clean energy use. The Clean Power Plan asks federal states to reduce carbon emissions to the level of the US’s commitment in the Paris Agreement 2015.
The Executive Order is Trump’s toughest step to ease regulations on environment to support the coal and oil drilling sectors as he promised during his campaign last year.
Trump’s Executive Order has been criticized by 23 federal states, local administrations, and environmental protection groups. They call the executive order a threat to the public health.
Scientists have proved that the use of oil and coal as fuel is the main reason for climate change, rising sea level, drought, and whirlwinds. However, Trump and a number of US officials are skeptical about climate change. Trump’s executive order has reversed Obama’s and the world’s efforts to respond to climate change and global warming. It raises a question about US’s commitment in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change because the US is the biggest GHS emitting country. Under the Paris agreement, governments are required to move away from fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change, and towards an economy powered by renewable energy. Now that President Trump’s executive order puts the Paris Agreement to new challenges.