Is Obama Shipping Away His Commitment to Climate Change?

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While President Obama has emerged as a strong leader on climate change, serious questions have been raised about his government’s rush to ship coalย overseas.ย 

Late last year, President Obama stood with Chinese President Xi Jinping to reiterate their shared goal of aggressively tackling the issue of climate change. The official joint announcement in Novemberย offered strong and impressive-soundingย language:

โ€œThe United States of America and the Peopleโ€™s Republic of China have a critical role to play in combating global climate change, one of the greatest threats facing humanity. The seriousness of the challenge calls upon the two sides to work constructively together for the commonย good.โ€

All this cooperation is of course very good, with the United States the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases and China with the largest overall volume of greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that these two countries in particular play a leadership role on tackling the issue of climateย change.

But there’s aย wrinkle.

In fact, it is a really big wrinkle in the form of a black burnable rock that just so happens to be the single largest source of greenhouse gas in theย world.ย 

While President Obama is saying and doing many good things on climate, his administration is at the same time allowing very large amounts of coal to be mined and shipped overseas to countries like China and India where it will be burned, pumping an astounding amount of planet-heating greenhouse gases into our collectiveย atmosphere.ย 

In fact, according to analysis by Dr. Brian Moench and the Physicians for Social Responsibility, the greenhouse gas reductions that will result from President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, will be wiped out if his administration allows planned new coal leases to go ahead in the Powder River Basin mining region ofย Montana.ย 

Right now, the Obama administration’s Bureau of Land Management is planning to give out 16 new leases to coal companies to extract a whopping 10.2 billion more tons of coal from the Powder Riverย Basin.ย 

If these leases go ahead and all of that coal is mined and burned, it would result in 16.2 billion more tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide being pumped into ourย atmosphere.ย 

That is an absolutely astonishing amount of pollution. To put it into perspective, the total carbon emissions globally from fossil fuels in 2013 was 9.9ย billion.

But here’s the thing: if the coal is mined in the United States, but not burned in the United States, and is instead shipped overseas, the Obama administration does not have to take any responsibility for the resulting greenhouse gasย emissions.ย 

The president, technically at least, could stand by his country’s commitment to climate change, but it is hard to believe that he could do it without crossing his fingers behind hisย back.

With all the smart people Obama has surrounded himself with, there is no way he cannot know this.

And it almost goes without saying, that President Obama knows we all share a borderless atmosphere which does not discern between coal burned in the US, China or anywhere else. All that greenhouse gas has the same impact on our atmosphere regardless of who burns it.ย ย 

At the moment, the President remains a leader on climate issues. But if this coal deal goes ahead on his watch, that leadership will turn from a bright green ray of hope to a brown cloud of smogย overnight.

Photo credit: U.S. Embassy Theย Hague

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmog. He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a โ€œGreen Heroโ€ by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the โ€œTop 50 Tweetersโ€ on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning. Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevinโ€™s research into the โ€œclimate denial industryโ€ and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Kochโ€™s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea partyย networks. Kevin is the first person to be designated a โ€œCertified Expertโ€ on theย political and community organizing platformย NationBuilder. Prior to DeSmog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health. In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the worldโ€™s best e-Content and innovative ICTย applications. Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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