Trump to undo legal basis for US climate rules

President Donald Trump is poised to revoke a landmark scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health by driving climate change — a determination that underpins US regulations aimed at curbing planet-warming pollution.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt billed it as a 'largest deregulatory action in American history,' with Trump to appear alongside Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin for the announcement.
The 2009 'endangerment finding' was a determination under then-president Barack Obama that six greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare by fuelling climate change.
It came about as a result of prolonged legal battle ending in a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which ruled that greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act and directed the EPA to determine whether they pose a danger to public health and welfare.
While it initially applied only to vehicle emissions, it later became the legal foundation for a broader suite of climate regulations.
Thursday's repeal will thus be accompanied by scrapping federal greenhouse gas standards for automobiles.
But the consequences could ripple further, placing a host of climate rules in jeopardy — including limits on carbon dioxide from power plants and methane from oil and gas operations.
The administration's draft proposal, which elicited more than half a million public comments, asserts that greenhouse gases should not be treated as pollutants in the traditional sense because their effects on human health are indirect and global rather than local.
Regulating them within US borders, it contends, cannot meaningfully resolve a worldwide problem.
The proposal also sought to downplay the scale and impacts of human-caused climate change, citing a study commissioned by an Energy Department working group comprised of sceptics to produce a report challenging the scientific consensus.
Meanwhile, the UN's climate chief on Thursday urged countries to unite against an 'unprecedented threat' to international cooperation from pro-fossil fuel forces — issuing the appeal as US President Donald Trump rattles the global order.
Simon Stiell, the head of the United Nations climate body, spoke in Istanbul as Turkey prepares to host the COP31 climate summit on its Mediterranean coast later this year, with Australia leading the negotiations.
'COP31 in Antalya will take place in extraordinary times. We find ourselves in a new world disorder,' Stiell said in an address alongside the Turkish president-designate of COP31, environment minister Murat Kurum. — AFP