The United States had for decades been a central figure in the failure of international climate talks. | AP Photo Fallout from climate ruling lands quickly The Obama administration tried to reassure other countries that U.S. efforts to cut carbon pollution will continue. But several states have halted work on complying.

The Supreme Court’s decision to slam the brakes on President Barack Obama’s most important climate regulation had an immediate impact at home and abroad Wednesday, prompting several states to halt their carbon-cutting efforts while sowing doubts internationally about the United States’ ability to meet its promises.

Just two months after cinching a historic climate deal in Paris, the Obama administration is in damage-control mode thanks to the justices’ surprise 5-4 action Tuesday. The White House tried to downplay the effect of the ruling — but even some big supporters of Obama’s climate efforts said its impact could be devastating.


“This arbitrary roadblock does incalculable damage and undermines America's climate leadership,” California Gov. Jerry Brown said in a statement.

Brown, whose state previously implemented a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, has already vowed to keep up California’s climate efforts. But leaders of other states said Wednesday that they are halting work on complying with the EPA’s climate regulation for power plants until the Supreme Court makes a final ruling, which almost certainly won’t happen until after Obama leaves the White House.

“We’re not moving forward with anything until this case is resolved,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told reporters. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a leader of the anti-EPA litigation, called on states' regulators and legislatures to avoid engaging with the agency on the issue.

Climate supporters said they expect the United States to continue its long-term shift away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal and toward clean sources like wind and solar, regardless of what the court does. But for people involved in international climate efforts, Tuesday’s action revives bad memories of the years of mistrust that reigned after the late 1990s, when the United States refused to ratify the climate treaty that nations had negotiated in Kyoto, Japan.

It’s taken Obama years to rebuild the United States' reputation on climate change, making the Paris agreement possible.

"It would be outrageous to say the least if history repeats itself and the whole world takes on international obligations but the U.S.," said Meena Raman, a legal adviser at the Third World Network, a Malaysia-based group that advocates for poorer countries. She said it would be “tragic” if the U.S. couldn’t meet the Paris agreement’s climate targets, which many developing nations already regard as much too weak.

"There's no question this undermines U.S. leadership on climate change in the international arena," said Jody Freeman, a former Obama administration climate adviser who is now a professor at Harvard. "The court's extraordinary decision here will legitimately raise questions from other countries about the ability of the country to deliver on the administration's pledge in Paris and the depth of the U.S. commitment to deal with this problem in a meaningful way."

The court late Tuesday ordered a stay on the EPA regulation while a lower court considers legal challenges from coal-burning utilities, mining companies and 27 states. The case will probably head back to the Supreme Court for an eventual decision on its merits, but that’s unlikely to happen before 2017 at the earliest.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz insisted Wednesday that the ruling won’t interfere with the Paris deal, saying the U.S. can meet its short-term commitments thanks to an extension of tax credits for wind and solar power that Congress approved in its December spending deal.

“Our international partners are well aware the policy-making process in the United States is a complicated process, there's often litigation,” Schultz told reporters on Air Force One. When asked whether any foreign leaders had called Obama to express concern about the ruling, Schultz said: “I don't have private conversations to read out to you.”

Before Paris, the United States had for decades played a central role in the failures of international climate talks. Poor countries resented that the U.S., one of the world's top greenhouse gas polluters, wasn't doing more to slash its emissions — which, in turn, frustrated U.S. efforts to bring major carbon polluters such as China and India to the table.

Those frustrations played out dramatically at the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, which nearly collapsed amid fights between rich and poor nations. The 2010 implosion of cap-and-trade legislation in Congress, which Obama had pitched in Copenhagen as the key plank of his plan to cut emissions, further cemented international fears that U.S. pledges can't be trusted.

By the time the Paris talks rolled around, the once-feuding nations largely set aside their differences, securing a deal in which every nation on the planet agreed to limit its emissions. The U.S. pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas pollution 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 — but if the court kills the EPA’s power plant rule, it will be difficult to meet that target.

Some players with the most to lose if climate efforts fail offered a cautious response to the court’s action, saying they hope the U.S. and other countries will keep pushing ahead.

"When it comes to the issue of U.S. perception abroad, in China and elsewhere, it is damaging. There’s no question," said Kenneth Lieberthal, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as an adviser on Asia during the Clinton administration. But Lieberthal, an expert on Chinese affairs, said China will probably continue with its climate change plans because it sees economic and political advantages in moving toward low-carbon energy, regardless of what the United States does .

The U.S. should continue as well, one diplomat from a small island nation said by email.

"Of course there will be a temptation amongst some to trump up what this means in the context of the Paris agreement," said the diplomat, who was not authorized to speak publicly. "But the U.S. was a key player in securing an ambitious Paris agreement, and we expect them to continue playing a leadership role."

Miguel Arias Cañete, the European Union’s commissioner for climate action and energy, said in a statement that the EU has "confidence in all countries to deliver on what they promised." He said he will discuss the implications of the Supreme Court stay with U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern during a meeting next week in Brussels. A State Department official said the "post-Paris engagement visit" was planned before Tuesday's Supreme Court decision.

Alden Meyer, a veteran of international climate talks and the director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the international community has long had a sophisticated understanding of the challenges facing the climate rules in the U.S.

"I think people understand that this is a work in progress and it’s going to have its ups and downs," he said.

Administration officials were trying their best to reassure other countries that the U.S. isn’t giving up. "All the parties to the Paris agreement should continue doing everything possible to meet their targets, which is precisely what the United States will continue to do,” Tom Reynolds, a top White House climate adviser, said in an email.

Complicating that message, though, is the quick decision by several states to stop working on the compliance plans that they had been scheduled to submit to EPA by 2018. Even Montana’s Democratic governor, Steve Bullock, called a halt Tuesday evening to the work of the council he had created to develop his state's plan.

Bullock said Montana still needs to address climate change, and that he is “committed to ensuring we do so on our own terms.”

The United States’ largest oil industry group was sending a similar message Wednesday, saying the court’s action doesn’t necessarily spell doom and gloom for efforts to reduce carbon — though it argued that the key is to keep producing ample amounts of natural gas, which emits about half the greenhouse gases of coal.

“If you didn’t have the rule at all, business as usual, we see reductions almost as high as what EPA is shooting towards,” Marty Durbin, director of market development at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a briefing Wednesday.

Still, the Supreme Court’s action could cast a shadow on an April 22 ceremony at the United Nations in which world leaders are expected to sign the Paris deal. The White House has declined to say whether Obama will attend, despite mounting speculation that the Earth Day event would be a prime opportunity for the president to show his support for the agreement.

During a conference call with reporters Tuesday night, a senior administration official said the Supreme Court decision won't "have an impact one way or another on April 22."

Sara Stefanini, Elana Schor and Sarah Wheaton contributed to this report.

