SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email

On Monday, the Obama administration will release a plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from U.S. power plants by almost a third over the next 15 years.

And on its own, the rule won’t be nearly enough to save the world from global warming.

The U.S. is responsible for about a seventh of the world’s emissions, Bloomberg calculations based on World Resources Institute data show. And of that fraction, carbon-spewing power plants account for less than half. Developing countries such as China and India are expected to produce most of the growth in emissions for the rest of the century.

Think of Obama’s Clean Power Plan more as an ice-breaker. Its main accomplishment may be sending a signal to the rest of the world’s leaders as they seek to hammer out an international climate deal this December, said Paul Bledsoe, an energy expert for Washington-based research center The German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Getting the world’s largest economy on board, after decades of resisting greenhouse-gas cuts, will energize the United Nations-led talks in Paris, Bledsoe said. That’s key as the UN struggles to finish an agreement that would for the first time commit all nations to reining in global warming.

Alone, Obama’s new restrictions on coal-fired power plants are “not even close” to enough, Bledsoe said. “But it sends a very powerful signal that renewable energy and energy efficiency are more valuable than fossil fuels per kilowatt-hour and ultimately, the market is going to respond.”

Island States

U.S. policy makers are “showing that they really are ready to make some serious reductions at home” and that message will help bring about change in other countries, Kevin Kennedy, deputy director of the World Resources Institute’s U.S. climate initiative. It would be “a mistake” to focus just on the emissions reduction that any particular rule delivers and not the broader effect on the climate talks, he said.

The U.S. power-plant rules are already drawing tentative praise from one of the parties to the United Nations climate talks, the small island nations that are threatened by rising sea levels caused by warmer temperatures. In a statement July 31, the Alliance of Small Island States welcomed the regulations.

“U.S. leadership is not only essential for a successful outcome in Paris, but it is also indispensable to managing climate change over the long term,” said Thoriq Ibrahim, the group’s chairman and the minister of environment and energy in The Maldives. “We have already seen the Obama Administration step up their climate diplomacy this year and I can tell you it has been most appreciated by the international community.”