Trump's Climate Cuts Could Result in Half-Billion Extra Tons of CO2 in the Air

A new analysis quantifies the 'Trump Effect' on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, finding emissions begin to flatten or increase by 2020 under his policy plans.

President Donald Trump's planned climate change policies could lead to an extra half a billion tons of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by 2025, according to a new analysis.  That is equal to the annual electricity emissions of 60 percent of U.S. homes.

Climate Advisers, a Washington consultancy, predicts that U.S. carbon emissions, which have been falling, will begin to flatten or increase by 2020 if the Trump administration succeeds in repealing the Clean Power Plan and other Obama-era regulations.

In other words, decisions made today will have a delayed effect—but a prolonged one.

"We found that the 'Trump Effect' really begins to bite into the U.S. emissions trajectory in 2025—since many of the factors influencing today's emissions trajectory can't be reversed quickly," the report said.

The analysis assumes that some regulations are more vulnerable than others to rollbacks. The Clean Power Plan to curb carbon emissions from power plants, methane rules covering the oil and gas industry and a handful of efficiency regulations are "highly vulnerable" in the consulting firm's view, either because they're high profile or because they haven't been fully implemented.  If these are the only rules the Trump administration is able to repeal, it would erase 332 million metric tons of carbon pollution cuts, Climate Advisers projected.

If, however, the Trump administration succeeds also in eliminating "moderately vulnerable" rules—those controlling landfill emissions, potent refrigeration gases such as HFCs and several energy efficiency standards—another 229 million tons of projected emissions cuts would not happen, the report finds.

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