Climate change laws picking up momentum globally

PRESIDENT Barack Obama released on Monday the most comprehensive ever US action to tackle climate change with sweeping emission cuts on the power sector. Known as the American Clean Power Plan, it will set environmental rules and regulations to decrease pollution from power plants (which account for some 40 per cent of US emissions of carbon dioxide) in an attempt to reduce emissions by 32 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

The initiative - which has been backed by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton - will face significant political and legal opposition, and is especially likely to be rowed back if a Republican candidate wins the 2016 presidential election. While the plan does not require approval of the US Congress, more than a dozen state attorney-generals, alongside coal and power companies, are preparing lawsuits against the scheme, and Republican Mitch McConnell, the US Senate majority leader, has urged governors across the country not to comply with the plan.

The timing of Mr Obama's announcement reflects the fact that his presidential legacy on this issue is at stake, and also that the landmark UN summit on climate change takes place this December where a new post-Kyoto global warming agreement is intended to be agreed. The urgency of this issue for Mr Obama has also been heightened by the release in 2013 of a biennial US Government Accountability Office's (GAO) review which included climate change for the first time ever in its "high risk list". The GAO asserted that climate change presents a "significant financial risk", and said that Washington needs a "government-wide strategic approach with strong leadership" in response.