EPA's Proposed Clean Power Plan: Protecting Climate and Public Health by Reducing Carbon Pollution from the U.S. Power Sector
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YALE LAW & POLICY REVIEW
EPA's Proposed Clean Power Plan:
Protecting Climate and Public Health by Reducing
Carbon Pollution From the U.S. Power Sector
Tomds Carbonell
INTRODUCTION
It has been nearly a quarter century since President George H.W. Bush
signed, and Congress ratified, the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC)-the first major accord in which the United States
and other countries acknowledged the growing threat of climate change and
committed to prevent[ing] dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system.' In the years since, evidence has continued to mount that ris-
ing concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases
pose serious threats to public health, infrastructure, and the natural systems our
society depends on.2 Moreover, there is a growing recognition within the Unit-
ed States government that the deteriorating stability of Earth's climate is already
having immediate and costly impacts. As the government's most recent Nation-
al Climate Assessment concludes, Climate change, once considered an issue for
a distant future, has moved firmly into the present.... The observed warming
and other climatic changes are triggering wide-ranging impacts in every region
of our country and throughout our economy.3 The assessment documents
numerous ways in which climate change has already adversely affected the lives
of Americans in recent years, including more frequent and intense heat waves,
Senior Attorney at Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, DC.
1. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, art. II, opened for
signature, May 9, 1992, S. TREATY Doc. No. 102-38 (1992).
2. See, e.g., Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers,
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE 2 (2014), http://www.ipcc.ch/
pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINALSPM.pdf (Warming of the cli-
mate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are
unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have
warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.).
3. Climate Change Impacts in the United States, U.S. GLOBAL CHANGE RES. PROGRAM
(2014), http://s3.amazonaws.com/nca2ol4/low/NCA3-Climate-Change Impacts
_in theUnited%2oStatesLowRes.pdfdownload=i.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/yalpr33&div=16&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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EPA's Proposed Clean Power Plan: Protecting Climate and Public Health by Reducing Carbon Pollution from the U.S. Power Sector
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