Nature
PUBLISHED
On Monday, September 14, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to scrap the rules limiting pollution from coal and gas power plants. The limits were originally put in place to protect the health of people living in the US and keep the pollutants entering the air from power planets to a minimum.
Energy production using fossil fuels (gas, oil, and coal) accounts for more than three-quarters of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions around the world. Nevertheless, the EPA announcement claimed: “Models continue to show that GHG emissions from power plants have no material impact on global climate change.”
In a recent report from the United Nation Environment Programme, it was made clear that due to inaction over the last decade in meeting the Paris Agreement targets, the average global temperature will go beyond 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial averages.
That report, called “Limiting Overshoot”, stresses that while we are entering an uncertain and dangerous phase, there are approaches that could lead to a decline in temperatures, and the report urges action.
The EPA announcement, by contrast, makes the statement that “if all carbon dioxides were eliminated tomorrow, there would be no meaningful climate impact,” which is contradicted by all available scientific evidence on the matter.
A report from the Department of Energy itself, published in 2025, shows that the risk of blackouts could increase by 100 times by 2030, especially driven by heatwaves stressing the electrical system. Heatwaves, evidence shows, that are exacerbated by the unfolding climate crisis.
The report assures that the Trump administration supports all forms of energy that are affordable, reliable, and secure.
Solar power is the cheapest source of power by far and does not produce GHGs or other air pollutants.
The residential cost of electricity in the US has grown to the highest on record during the current Trump administration, driven in large part by the construction of AI data centers.
“At a moment when electricity demand is growing more rapidly than it has in a half-century, and businesses, utilities, and consumers need greater certainty, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken a giant step backward,” Nat Keohane, President, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said in a statement.
“In repealing carbon pollution standards for power plants, EPA has ignored sound science and economics and abdicated its responsibility to protect public health and welfare.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration terminated the Obama-era 2009 Endangerment Finding, a scientific report that detailed how GHG emissions endanger the health and welfare of humans.
The move, called a “dark day for science and health”, goes against the 99.9 percent of the more than 88,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies showing that climate change, exacerbated by the use of fossil fuels, is caused by humans and the wealth of evidence that it is a danger to public health.
