President Signs Executive Order Expanding Obama Climate Policies

San Francisco, CA — President McCarthy, flanked by climatologists and representatives from environmental protection groups, signed a long-promised Executive Order on Wednesday to expand President Obama’s climate change efforts and boost the clean energy industry, making a bold move to double-down on American leadership in the international campaign to curb the dangerous heating of the planet.

President McCarthy made clear that the United States had every intention of meeting the commitments that her predecessor had made to curb planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution, and honor the 2015 Paris agreement, the landmark accord that committed nearly every country to take action to reduce planet-warming emissions. “Climate change doesn’t recognize national borders,” the President warned. “That’s why we’ll be collaborating even more closely with other nations to combat this planetary threat.”

Photo credit: Russ Levi Photography

At a ceremony, President McCarthy directed the Environmental Protection Agency to continue its vital work on the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which will close hundreds of coal-fired power plants, freeze construction of new plants and replace them with vast new wind and solar farms.

Over all, the goal of the Paris deal is to keep the planet from warming more than 3.6 degrees, the point at which scientists say the earth will be irrevocably locked into a future of severe droughts, floods, rising sea levels and food shortages.

Mr. Obama pledged that the United States would cut its emissions about 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. Carrying out the Clean Power Plan is essential to meeting that target.

“This is not the time for any country to change course on the very serious and very real threat of climate change,” said Erik Solheim, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, praising President McCarthy’s actions in the face of pressure from the Republican-majority Congress. “The science tells us that we need bolder, more ambitious commitments.”

Read the President’s full Dept. of Energy platform at firstfemalepotus.us