The Barack Obama administration had adopted a plan to produce pollution-free electricity. However, his successor Donald Trump has decided to scrap the Obama-era climate change rule that would have accelerated the shift away from coal-fired power. His decision surprised nobody, as the international community knows that President Trump is not at all worried about global warming. The American president is not interested in generating power from solar energy, air or water and also in reducing the use of coal, oil or other fossil fuels. Perhaps, he has no idea that the cancellation of ‘Clean Power Plan’ will be a disaster.
It is quite surprising that the president of the world’s ‘most powerful’ nation is completely unaware of the impact of pollution on the environment. So, he signed an executive order on October 10, calling on every federal agency to loosen the regulatory reins on fossil fuel industries. It’s the most significant declaration of the US administration’s intent to retreat from action on climate change.

Global warming triggers sudden seasonal changes, excessive rainfalls, hurricanes, typhoons and other disasters. The US has been badly hit by two deadly hurricanes – Harvey and Irma – this year. In the last week of September, devastating wildfires claimed many lives in North Carolina. Usually, wildfires are caused by a mixture of factors, such as high temperatures, drought conditions following a period of vegetation growth, and a trigger that can be natural, like lightning, or human influenced, such as arson. Experts are of the opinion that recent wildfires in North Carolina were triggered by long drought and high temperatures.
The Trump administration is not ready to accept experts’ opinion. Rather, the concerned American authority, which is responsible to protect the environment, has declared that the war against coal has ended. In other words, the US government will favour the free use of fossil fuels, like coal and oil, to generate power.
It’s not just an internal problem of the US, but a global crisis. All the countries will have to prepare a common plan to tackle the global warming and climate change, apart from making long-term investments and enforcing restrictions on industries that pollute the environment.

Previously, it was decided that the developed nations would lead the world. As far as pollution prevention is concerned, former President Obama wanted the US to lead the international community. During his tenure, the US administration decided to implement reform programmes in order to modernise the power sector and to reduce the usage of pollutant gases in this sector by 32% by the end of 2030.
President Trump has chosen the opposite route. Trump, who has been consistently critical of Paris climate deal, recently said that the deal would “undermine our economy and hamstring our workers”. He argued that the deal disadvantaged businesses and would impoverish America. But, the fact is that a huge amount of money has already been invested in sectors, such as solar power and wind power, in the US. Americans have also started using new technology to build energy-saving and pollution-free vehicles, apartments etc.
The initiative has been taken not only for the sake of environment, but also for serving business interests. Safer and energy-saving technology can only make businesses more profitable. In fact, 14 of the 50 states in America have said that they will follow the terms of the Paris treaty irrespective of the Trump administration’s decision. Other developed nations, too, are not ready to renegotiate the Paris treaty, despite Trump’s demands. It means they are not interested in making false promise of creating more job opportunities.
A new war begins – a war in the name of climate.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das