The Clean Power Plan and GHG Emissions

Climate change is, without a doubt, one of the most significant emerging issues globally. It is broader than global warming, which is basically the rise in average temperature, and only one indicator of broader changes also translating into extreme temperatures, drought, flooding, storms, rising sea levels, impacts on food production, and infectious diseases. There is, however, the consensus among climatologists that the temperature of the earth is rising at nearly twice the rate it was 50 years ago, and this is due not only by natural cycles but to the effect of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by humans.1 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that “[a]nthropogenic GHG emissions are mainly driven by population size, economic activity, lifestyle, energy use, land use patterns, technology, and climate policy.”2