Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence
Market forces, investor sentiment and existing policies have driven the decline of the U.S. coal fleet in recent years and will likely continue to prompt closures, but the last of the power plants may remain online well past the next decade without policy interventions.
Many utilities have pledged to hit net-zero emissions targets at some point, but details are lacking in the public sphere. U.S. President Joe Biden aims to decarbonize the power sector by 2035 and will likely need to deploy restrictions and incentives for power generators to achieve the goal. Coal will probably continue to be an easy target for elimination, as companies look at options ranging from battery storage to carbon capture to lower emissions.
The Status of Global Climate Change Legal Action: a New Report by Jennifer Danis and Romany Webb |January 27, 2021
Countries around the world are increasingly setting national emissions reductions targets and articulating policy objectives to address climate change impacts. As they do, a broad set of actors are turning to courts to seek enforcement of existing climate laws, to articulate clearer definitions of climate rights, to ask for compensation for a variety of climate harms and, on the other side of things, to demand relief from policies seen as overly ambitious. Today, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with support from Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, has published a survey of global climate change litigation that provides an overview of existing cases and a discussion of their key legal issues: Global Climate Litigation Report: 2020 Status Review.
Biden Signs Sweeping Orders to Tackle Climate Change and Rollback Trump’s Anti-Environment Legacy
The new president moved immediately to review more than 100 Trump administration actions and restore the protection of federal lands and the regulation of greenhouse gases.
January 21, 2021
President Joe Biden takes the oath of office during the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Credit: Andrew Harnik/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
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In the early hours on Wednesday, as the sun was setting on one presidency and rising on another but long before it would actually peek over the horizon two men did two very different things.
Published: Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Ameren Missouri s Sioux coal-fired power plant. Photo credit: Paul Sableman/Flickr
Trump EPA foes have hailed the rebirth of Clean Air Act climate protections after a federal appeals court struck down the agency s Affordable Clean Energy rule, which would have relaxed regulations on power plants greenhouse gas emissions. Ameren Missouri s Sioux coal-fired power plant is shown. Paul Sableman/Flickr
Opponents of President Trump s climate rule rollbacks rejoiced yesterday after a federal appeals court gave the Biden administration a clean slate to craft a new rule to control greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed out the Trump EPA s Affordable Clean Energy rule and sent it back to the agency. The court found EPA had too narrowly interpreted its authority to regulate emissions.