Obama to Unveil Tougher Climate Plan With His Legacy in Mind
By CORAL DAVENPORT and GARDINER HARRIS

WASHINGTON — In the strongest action ever taken in the United States to combat climate change, President Obama will unveil on Monday a set of environmental regulations devised to sharply cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power plants and ultimately transform America’s electricity industry.

The rules are the final, tougher versions of proposed regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency announced in 2012 and 2014. If they withstand the expected legal challenges, the regulations will set in motion sweeping policy changes that could shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants, freeze construction of new coal plants and create a boom in the production of wind and solar power and other renewable energy sources.

As the president came to see the fight against climate change as central to his legacy, as important as the Affordable Care Act, he moved to strengthen the energy proposals, advisers said. The health law became the dominant political issue of the 2010 congressional elections and faced dozens of legislative assaults before surviving two Supreme Court challenges largely intact.

“Climate change is not a problem for another generation, not anymore,” Mr. Obama said in a video posted on Facebook at midnight Saturday. He called the new rules “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.”

The most aggressive of the regulations requires the nation’s existing power plants to cut emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, an increase from the 30 percent target proposed in the draft regulation.

That new rule also demands that power plants use more renewable sources of energy like wind and solar power. While the proposed rule would have allowed states to lower emissions by transitioning from plants fired by coal to plants fired by natural gas, which produces about half the carbon pollution of coal, the final rule is intended to push electric utilities to invest more quickly in renewable sources, raising to 28 percent from 22 percent the share of generating capacity that would come from such sources.

In its final version, the rule retains the same basic structure as the draft proposal: It assigns each state a target for reducing its carbon pollution from power plants, but allows states to create their own custom plans for doing so. States have to submit an initial version of their plans by 2016 and final versions by 2018.

But overall, the final rule is even stronger than earlier drafts and can be seen as an effort by Mr. Obama to stake out an uncompromising position on the issue during his final months in office.

The anticipated final climate change regulations have already set off what is expected to be broad legal, legislative and political backlash as dozens of states, major corporations and industry groups prepare to file lawsuits challenging them.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, has started an unusual pre-emptive campaign against the rules, asking governors to refuse to comply. Attorneys general from more than a dozen states are preparing legal challenges against the plan. Experts estimate that as many as 25 states will join in a suit against the rules and that the disputes will end up before the Supreme Court.

Leading the legal charge are states like Wyoming and West Virginia with economies that depend heavily on coal mining or cheap coal-fired electricity. Emissions from coal-fired power plants are the nation’s single largest source of carbon pollution, and lawmakers who oppose the rules have denounced them as a “war on coal.”

“Once the E.P.A. finalizes this regulation, West Virginia will go to court, and we will challenge it,” Patrick Morrisey, the attorney general of West Virginia, said in an interview with a radio station in the state on Friday. “We think this regulation is terrible for the consumers of the state of West Virginia. It’s going to lead to reduced jobs, higher electricity rates, and really will put stress on the reliability of the power grid. The worst part of this proposal is that it’s flatly illegal under the Clean Air Act and the Constitution, and we intend to challenge it vigorously.”

Although Obama administration officials have repeatedly said states will have flexibility to design their own plans, the final rules are explicitly meant to encourage the use of interstate cap-and-trade systems, in which states place a cap on carbon pollution and then create a market for buying permits or credits to pollute. The idea is that forcing companies to pay to pollute will drive them to cleaner sources of energy.

Mr. Obama tried but failed to push through a cap-and-trade bill in his first term, and since then, the term has become politically toxic: Republicans have attacked the idea as “cap and tax.”

But if the climate change regulations withstand legal challenges, many states could still end up putting cap-and-trade systems into effect. Officials familiar with the final rules said that in many cases, the easiest and cheapest way for states to comply would be by adopting cap-and-trade systems.

The rules take into account the fact that some states may refuse to submit plans, and on Monday, the administration will also unveil a template for a plan to be imposed on such states. That plan will include the option of allowing a state to join an interstate cap-and-trade system.

The rules will also offer financial benefits for states that choose to take part in cap-and-trade systems. The final rules will extend until 2022 the timeline for states and electric utilities to comply, two years later than originally proposed. But states that begin to take actions to cut carbon pollution as early as 2020 will be rewarded with carbon reduction credits — essentially, pollution permits that can be sold for cash in a cap-and-trade market.

Climate scientists warn that rising greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly moving the planet toward a global atmospheric temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the point past which the world will be locked into a future of rising sea levels, more devastating storms and droughts, and shortages of food and water. Mr. Obama’s new rules alone will not be enough to stave off that future. But experts say that if the rules are combined with similar action from the world’s other major economies, as well as additional action by the next American president, emissions could level off enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

Mr. Obama intends to use the new rules to push other countries to commit to deep reductions in their own carbon emissions before a United Nations summit meeting in Paris in December, when a global accord to fight climate change is expected to be signed.

Mr. Obama’s pledge that the United States would enact the climate change rules was at the heart of a pact that he made last year with President Xi Jinping of China, committing their nations, the world’s two largest carbon polluters, to substantially cut emissions.

“It’s the linchpin of the administration’s domestic effort and international effort on climate change,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, a research organization. “It raises the diplomatic stakes in the run-up to Paris. He can take it on the road and use it as leverage with other big economies — China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia.”

While opponents of the rules have estimated that compliance will cost billions of dollars, raise residential electricity rates and slow the American economy, the administration argues that the rules will save the average American family $85 annually in electricity costs and bring additional health benefits by reducing emissions of pollutants that cause asthma and lung disease.

The rules will be announced at a White House ceremony on Monday and signed by Gina McCarthy, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator. While the ceremony is scheduled to take place on the White House’s South Lawn, officials said it might be moved indoors to the East Room after forecasters predicted that the weather would be too hot.

美史最嚴抗暖化計畫 歐巴馬拚了

美國總統歐巴馬預定三日宣布美國對抗全球暖化的「乾淨電力計畫」最終版，也是最嚴格的版本，將首度限制電廠的碳排放。紐約時報指出，此計畫若能抵擋反對勢力的法律挑戰，將迫使美國數百家燃煤電廠關閉，並為風力、太陽能等再生能源創造榮景。

歐巴馬原定在白宮南苑草坪宣布，但白宮官員說，氣象預報3日天氣太熱（最高溫攝氏35℃），將移至室內舉行。白宮似有意以華府炎熱的天氣來強化歐巴馬對抗暖化的說服力。

歐巴馬在二日凌晨發布的影片中說：「氣候變遷不再是另一世代的問題，此計畫是我們對抗氣候變遷有史以來最大規模、最重要的一步。為了我們的孩子，為了所有美國人的健康與安全，該改變了。」

由環保局制定的「乾淨電力計畫」要求，在2030年之前，現有電廠的碳排放量將比2005年的水準減少32%，這比去年環保局宣布的30%目標更高。

歐巴馬把對抗氣候變遷視為他的重要政績，他希望藉由美國的新法規，在今年12月的巴黎聯合國氣候變遷會議之前，要求其他國家承諾更高的減排目標，這次會議可望簽署協議。

美國的二氧化碳排放，電廠就占了四成，而且燃煤電廠的發電量占美國總發電量的37%，高於天然氣或核能發電。

「乾淨電力計畫」規定各州電廠必須減少的碳排放目標，但允許各州自訂計畫，各州必須在2016年提出計畫的初版，2018年提出最終版。

歐巴馬政府雖強調各州自行訂定計畫，但新法規明顯鼓勵各州利用州與州之間的「總量管制與交易」（cap-and-trade）制度，亦即創造碳交易市場。

歐巴馬在第一任內即推動「總量管制與交易」法案，但未成功。不過他的「乾淨電力計畫」若能實行，許多州達成減排目標最簡單和便宜的方法，就是進行碳交易。

降低碳排放是美國政治敏感議題，許多共和黨政治人物不接受氣候暖化的理論，也有人不認為暖化是人為因素造成，新法規將引起廣泛的法律、立法和政治反彈，許多州、大企業和工商團體準備提出告訴。

參院多數黨領袖麥康諾已要求各州長拒絕遵守新法規。十幾州的檢察總長已準備提出告訴，專家估計將有25州提告，最終將由最高法院裁決。

經濟依賴煤礦和便宜的燃煤發電的州，例如懷俄明州和西維吉尼亞州將帶頭提告。

反對陣營說，新法規將提高家庭電費、導致美國經濟走緩，歐巴馬政府則指出，新法規將使美國一般家庭每年電費支出減少85美元、降低會造成氣喘、肺病的空氣汙染、帶動再生能源產業和創造就業機會。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/obama-to-unveil-tougher-climate-plan-with-his-legacy-in-mind.html

2015-08-03．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯田思怡