Following a ruling by the Supreme Court on Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency will have less power to cut off carbon dioxide from power plants, a major source of pollution in this country that is dangerously warming the planet. It’s one of a series of setbacks for Mr Biden, who took power with the most ambitious climate agenda from any president, pledging to the rest of the world that the United States, the world’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, would they reduced it. pollution in half by the end of the decade. Some experts say that following the Supreme Court ruling in the case of West Virginia v EPA, it will soon be mathematically impossible to achieve this goal. “At this point I do not see any way to hit the targets,” said David G. Victor, a climate policy specialist at the University of California, San Diego. The consequences can be serious. Scientists say the United States must meet Biden’s goal if it is to do its job to reduce global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to pre-temperatures. from the Industrial Revolution. This is the limit beyond which the likelihood of catastrophic consequences such as deadly heat waves, droughts, fires and storms increases significantly. The planet has already warmed by an average of about 1.1 degrees Celsius. But Mr Biden has faced obstacles following his push for climate action, ranging from internal party conflicts to a global energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine to well-funded legal challenges from Republicans and industry. fossil fuels. Patrick Morrissey, the Republican attorney general in West Virginia and the plaintiff in the case, described the decision as a “great victory for West Virginia and its people,” adding: “We are delighted that this case has given us the power to decide. the most important. environmental issues of the time in the right place to decide: the US Congress, which is made up of those who are elected by the people to serve the people. “ The problem for Biden is that Congress has so far failed to act on climate change. A key element of the president’s climate plan, legislation to replace coal-fired and solar-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy, was deleted from a major domestic policy bill last autumn following objections from Senator Joe Manchin II. , Democratic of West Virginia. Mr Manchin, who has personal financial ties to the coal industry, was able to set the boundaries of Mr Biden’s legislative ambitions on his own as the key vote in an evenly divided Senate. The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday to limit the EPA’s power to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants. Credit … TJ Kirkpatrick for the New York Times The Capitol vacuum domestic policy bill continues to include a historic increase in tax appropriations to stimulate the wind and solar industries. It is unclear, however, whether Mr Manchin will support the plan and the legislation could die if Republicans, who have shown little interest in climate action, win one or both houses again in the by-elections. Mr Biden has focused on the country’s top source of greenhouse gas pollution – transportation – leading the EPA to set new strict emission limits to speed up the adoption of electric vehicles. But those rules are already being challenged in lower courts by many of the same plaintiffs who won this week’s Supreme Court case. As a candidate, Biden has promised to end drilling on public land – extracting oil, gas and coal from federal lands and water produces 25 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. But when he tried to stop the new drilling, he was overturned by a legal challenge from Republican attorney generals from fossil fuel states. The administration made its first land lease sale this week in seven western states. “The judiciary and the legislature are seriously hampering Joe Biden’s ability to do his job for the climate,” said Richard Lazarus, a Harvard environmental law professor who served on Biden’s transition team for the EPA. “A lot of the optimism that everyone had a year ago is being replaced by pessimism. “Their choices are running out right now.” The Biden government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the White House argues that it is possible for the United States to achieve its climate goals by combining a mix of executive actions. The EPA still plans to issue stricter regulations to control methane, a powerful greenhouse gas leaking from oil and gas wells. And it sets stricter limits for other types of pollution generated by power plants, such as mercury, smog and soot. The idea is that suppressing these pollutants could force utilities to clean up or shut down the dirtiest facilities, such as coal-fired power plants, which produce more carbon dioxide than gas stations. “These air pollution rules will have side effects – as they are imposed, they will reduce some CO2 pollution,” said Leah Stokes, an environmental policy professor at the University of Santa Barbara, California, who has advised Democrats in the U.S. Congress. climate legislation. “It would not be the same amount. “Every time we take a tool off the table, we are in a worse position.” West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who has personal financial ties to the coal industry, was able to limit Mr. Biden’s legislative ambitions on his own as the key vote in a divided Senate. The New York Times Meanwhile, the private sector has already moved away from fossil fuels and renewable energy sources. Electric vehicle sales doubled last year, accounting for about 5 percent of new vehicle sales in the United States in the first quarter of 2022, compared with about 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2021. General Motors is committed to stopping gasoline production – motor vehicles by 2035, with other carmakers setting similar targets. Ford Motor is producing an electric version of the F-150, the country’s best-selling vehicle, and has made customer reservations for more than 200,000 of them. With solar and wind energy costs falling below the price of coal and gas in many parts of the United States, renewables are now 20 percent of the nation’s energy mix, up from 15 percent before a decade. But the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, combined with the war in Ukraine and a ban on Russian oil, has shrunk global energy reserves and prompted President Biden to leverage Strategic Oil Reserves and urge more oil producers to at least soon. term. Clean energy producers in the United States also face significant obstacles from an outdated electricity transmission system. And the private sector is not moving fast enough to reduce emissions to the level that scientists say is needed to avert climate change. Mr Biden wants half of all new cars sold in the United States to be electric by 2030 and all electricity from wind, solar and other zero-carbon sources by 2035. “We are seeing a strong trend in the private sector, both from consumers demanding cleaner options, leading to a change in our energy mix and into electric vehicles, but this rate of change is not really sufficient to meet the long-term said Sasha Mackler, an energy analyst at Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank. “For that, you still need politics. The administration does not have the right tools to get us all there. “Success in the time we need it, according to the scientific community – that’s what Congress requires.” Congress in the coming weeks could even approve a reduced version of the spending bill that has stalled in the Capitol for months. A bill passed by Parliament last year included $ 300 billion in clean energy tax incentives for producers and buyers of clean electricity and electric vehicles. A solar park near El Centro, California. The state has demanded that 100 percent of electricity be generated from zero carbon by 2045, and many other states are adopting similar standards of clean electricity. Credit … Bing Guan / Reuters But his current situation is uncertain: Mr Manchin blocked the biggest spending bill including tax cuts last December, although he recently resumed talks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, on the prospects for a less ambitious version. According to Senate rules, this bill must be passed by September 30. The Senate is on a break until the second week of July and will be suspended again for August, leaving Democrats with limited time to reach an agreement on a package that has not reached a consensus on last year. Democrats say the Supreme Court ruling is urgent in pushing for the bill. Mr Sumer said the decision “would endanger the lives of Americans, making it even more imperative that Democrats soon pass substantive legislation to address the climate crisis”. Deadlock at the federal level brings to the fore dozens of states that go ahead with their own climate plans. “If government action is put on steroids as the federal government realizes its incompetence, the consequences will be significant,” Victor said. Less than half of the states have already adopted significant climate policies. Their leader is California, which in the coming weeks is expected to finalize a primary regulation that requires all new cars sold in the state to be electric or zero-emission by 2035. Seventeen other states are preparing to adopt the same rule when passing in Sacramento. .
