Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Obama's climate strategy falls short: experts

Terra Daily via AFP: Environmental groups said Tuesday that US President Barack Obama's plan to combat climate change is long overdue but not enough to reverse a global problem that is outpacing the solutions.

Some experts warned it will be an uphill battle to implement the policies Obama announced, using his executive powers since US lawmakers are unable to come to agreement on how to preserve the economy while cutting pollution.

A key obstacle will be to finalize standards on power plants before Obama leaves office in three years, and the missing link is a carbon tax to punish polluters and reward greener power endeavors, some experts said.

The Center for Biological Diversity described Obama's plan as "modest" and warned it falls short by failing to set a nationwide pollution cap for carbon dioxide at no greater than 350 parts per million.

"We're happy to see the president finally addressing climate change but the plain truth is that what he's proposing isn't big enough, and doesn't move fast enough, to match the terrifying magnitude of the climate crisis," said senior counsel Bill Snape....

Unstable building, shot by Nevit Dilmen, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

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