The Trump administration's rollback on coal rules erases a politicized agenda, supporters said, though critics said it was a critical error in climate judgment.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he plans to hit the campaign trail to support state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey who is running from a U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia, a major coal-producing state.

His visit coincides with an expected decision from the Environmental Protection Agency to undue limits on greenhouse gas emissions unveiled by former President Barack Obama in his Clean Power Plan.

Obama's measure mandated cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants and was a key part of former U.S. commitment to the global Paris climate agreement. The Clean Power Plan, though never enforced, aimed for a 32 percent reduction in the carbon emissions of the nation's power sector.

Trump has been a vocal supporter of the fossil fuels industry. In his inaugural State of the Union address, the president declared an end to the "war on clean coal." Coal accounts for about 30 percent of total energy used globally and about 40 percent of total electricity generation

The Department of Energy in May called on stakeholders to submit information that could support the design and operation of small-scale coal "plants of the future."

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that the nation's power sector consumed 661 million short tons of coal last year, the lowest level since 1983.

Hal Quinn, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said ahead of the EPA proposal that Obama acted illegally by imposing his political agenda on the nation's power sector.

"The replacement rule respects the infrastructure and economic realities that are unique to each state, allowing for state-driven solutions, as intended by the Clean Air Act, rather than top down mandates. It also embraces American innovation, by encouraging plant upgrades," he said in a statement.

But the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace said the Trump administration's move against Obama-era proposals was made out of spite and political in its own right.

"It is a poorly veiled attempt to secure a few votes with a backward-looking policy that could end up costing lives," Janet Redman, a climate campaign director for the group, said in emailed comments. "Trump's allegiance is clear - he's willing to pollute our air and undermine families' health to play the hero for a few coal industry executives."

From a pollution perspective, Robert Howarth, an ecology professor at Cornell University, said letting each state choose its own rules, as the Trump roll back would do, would have complicated problems across state borders. A state like Pennsylvania, with a strong industrial background, would have harmful impacts on New York, which has a greener track record.

"Beyond that, we are in a critical period with regard to addressing climate change," he said in an emailed statement. "We simply must greatly lower emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from energy producers, and do so soon."

A federal report found total U.S. emissions increased 2.4 percent between 1990 and 2016, but declined 1.9 percent between 2015 and 2016. The government attributed the decline in large part to the decrease in emissions of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, which came from substituting coal for natural gas or other non-fossil forms of energy at the nation's power plants.

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German insurer Munich Re to curb coal activities
Frankfurt Am Main (AFP) Aug 6, 2018
German re-insurance giant Munich Re said Monday it would scale back investments in coal-related businesses and stop insuring new plants and mines extracting the fuel, to help the battle against climate change. Chief executive Joachim Wenning, writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, said Munich Re will no longer invest in shares or bonds issued by companies that generate "more than 30 percent" of their turnover from coal. Munich Re will also in principle stop insuring "new coal-fired pla ... read more