Washington, D.C. — According to the most recent data from the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, energy-related carbon pollution will grow over the next 15 years unless policymakers take action to curb emissions. Today, the Center for American Progress released a column showing the critical role that the Environmental Protection Agency’s, or EPA’s, Clean Power Plan will play in bending this emissions trajectory downward.
Assuming that the United States does not implement any new policies to curb carbon pollution, including the Clean Power Plan, the EIA predicts that energy-related carbon pollution in the United States will be 1.1 percent higher in 2040 than it was in 2014.
“Without the Clean Power Plan and other smart climate policies, energy-related carbon emissions are poised to move incrementally upward instead of where they need to go—steadily downward,” said Alison Cassady, Director of Domestic Energy Policy at CAP and the author of the column. “That trend is far out of step with what the world’s leading climate scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”
Scientists have shown that greenhouse gas emissions from developed nations such as the United States need to decline 80 percent to 95 percent by 2050 compared with 1990 levels. The Clean Power Plan is key to the Obama administration’s strategy to cut carbon pollution from power plants—a significant component of the overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions footprint. The EPA estimates that by 2030, the Clean Power Plan will cut carbon pollution from the power sector to 30 percent below 2005 emissions levels, or the equivalent of 9 percent below 1990 levels. Without the Clean Power Plan, carbon pollution from the electricity sector would remain well above 1990 levels.
Click here to read the column.
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, contact Tom Caiazza at [email protected] or 202.481.7141.
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