Add Category
Updated
The new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has said he does not agree CO2 is a primary contributor to global warming.
It's a clear sentiment that puts Mr Pruitt at odds with his own agency — and even some fossil fuel executives.
The New York Times spoke to Wael Sawan, an executive vice-president at Shell Energy Resources, who said he was "absolutely convinced CO2 can cause serious damage to not only this generation but future generations".
Mr Pruitt will have a lot of power to change the EPA's direction — whether that's rewriting some of the toughened Obama-era rules on cutting emissions from power plants (the Clean Power Plan) or weakening fuel-economy standards.
Those decisions could have a significant impact on environmental regulation in the United States.
He also wants to take more cues from US states on how to regulate air and water emissions, which could lead to wildly varying positions across the country.
California, for example, announced new measures to tackle climate change — it says coincidentally — just minutes after President Trump was sworn in.
But if you infer from the positions most Republican governors hold towards the Clean Power Plan (27 states signed on to litigation challenging it) then it's not hard to see there's a big split.
Sentiment not shared at home
Despite the recent, fervent political debate around energy (renewable or otherwise) scientists in Australia are not overly concerned the sentiments will spread to local regulators.
They point to recent statements warning that climate change could threaten the stability of the entire financial system.
That's not from a green group, that's from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) — the financial services regulator.
"While climate risks have been broadly recognised, they have often been seen as a future problem or a non-financial problem," APRA executive board member Geoff Summerhayes told an Insurance Council conference in Sydney earlier this year.
"Many of these risks are foreseeable, material and actionable now.
"Climate risks also have potential system-wide implications that APRA and other regulators here and abroad are paying much closer attention to."
Professor Andy Pitman, director of the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence, says the finance sector is the one that matters most.
"As soon as the banks or insurance companies say 'we won't invest in A or B or insure A or B because of vulnerability to climate change', there will be major changes in behaviour," he said.
"It's changed from a bunch of arguments about the science and the politics to 'hang on, the Bank of England and APRA says [this is important]'."
Topics: climate-change, environment, world-politics, government-and-politics, united-states
First posted