Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order through which the plans outlined by his predecessor Barack Obama on Global warming would undergo a sea change. The executive order is expected to provide a boost to produce the energy needed for domestic consumption through fossil fuels.
Fox News reports that President Trump believes that global warming is nothing but a "hoax" invented by the Chinese. In his opinion, this strategy is designed to incite fear and bring harm to the struggling U.S. coal industry.
Clean Power Plan
Trump intends to carry out a review of the Clean Power Plan under which restrictions had been imposed on the emission of greenhouse gas in power plants that use coal.
That was Obama’s plan and, it faced legal challenges from Republican-led states apart from those who stand to gain financially from burning oil, coal and gas.
The concerns about the possible impacts of global warming in the form of a rise in sea levels and the more extreme weather appear to have been ignored.
As a part of its Clean Power Plan, the administration is expected to withdraw a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands. This was introduced in January 2016 when the previous administration imposed a three-year moratorium on new federal coal leases. However, this did not go down well with Donald Trump who perceived it to be a sort of threat to the coal industry and coal miners.
Incidentally, the loss of coal jobs is because of increased automation and, also, competition from cheaper natural gas, apart from growing popularity of alternate sources of energy like solar panels and wind turbines.
Other aspects of the executive order
Scott Pruitt is Trump's Environmental Protection Agency chief and, he has gone on record as saying carbon dioxide does not contribute to global warming.
This has sent alarm signals to environmentalists and scientists because it is at a total variance to what the world believes in. Several studies by climate scientists have revealed that the warming of the planet cannot be wished away and the reasons are attributed to human-made sources that include carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons, and nitrogen oxide.
However, President Donald Trump has his interpretation and does not believe in the concept of human-made climate change.
Business groups have praised the plans of the Trump administration, but environmental groups have condemned it. Some of them see it as a travel back in time and feel it will have an adverse impact on the image of the United States.
