U.S. Joins The Battle Against Climate Change

Yes, it's true: President Obama has committed the States to cutting carbon emissions.

Up to now, Republicans have been blocking his every attempt, but he's now used his executive powers to bypass them altogether and bring in a bold package of measures.

I'm sure he would have preferred bi-partisan support for this but vested interests and political dogma have stopped him. So he's felt compelled to use his presidential powers. In a speech at Georgetown University in Washington DC, he said:

"As a president, as a father and as an American, I am here to say we need to act."

"While we may not live to see the full realisation of our ambition, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world we leave to our children will be better off for what we did."

Well put Mr. President, it's all about our children.

The measures will include: Expansion of renewable energy projects (with the aim of powering the equivalent of six million homes by 2020); emission limits on both new and existing power plants; and, crucially for me, a call for a global climate deal.

There's obviously been a storm of protest from Republicans. Senator Mitch McConnell said it was effectively "a war on coal". Well, d'uh! If you're going to get serious about climate change, the use of coal has got to be dramatically cut.

Either that, or you fit carbon capture and storage (CCS) to all coal fueled power stations. Oh, wait a minute...there's no viable CCS system available at the moment or any time soon.

Now, if only the global coal industry had read the writing on the wall and invested some of their profits in CCS years ago. Then they wouldn't have been under threat now.

Anyway, back to that speech.

Some might say the measures Obama announced don't go far enough (e.g. They will only cut emissions by 4% over 1990 levels by 2020), but they are an important start. Hopefully, the president has ability to the galvanise the American public, businesses, and universities into backing him and taking his country into a new era.

This could be a huge economic opportunity for the U.S.(See here for how) and a chance to gain a lot of respect from the rest of the world.

Don't blow it America.