Donald Trump to sign executive order rolling back Obama's climate change measures

New Delhi: US President Donald Trump is expected to roll back a slew of environmental protections enacted by his predecessor Barack Obama on Tuesday, a move aimed at bolstering domestic energy production and keeping American jobs above addressing climate change.

In a maiden trip to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Trump will sign an 'Energy Independence Executive Order' a White House official said.

The order represents a clear difference between how Trump and Obama view the role the US plays in combating climate change, and dramatically alters the government's approach to rising sea levels and temperatures - two impacts of climate change, CNN reported.

 

A White House official said that Trump administration believes the government can both "serve the environment and increase energy independence at the same time" by urging the EPA for focus on what the administration believes is its core mission: Clean air and clean water.

The official said that protecting American job is. more important than regulating climate change.

"It is an issue that deserves attention," CNN quoted the official as saying.

Tuesday's order will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plant initiative, rescind the moratorium on coal mining on US federal lands and urge federal agencies to "identify all regulations, all rules, all policies that serve as obstacles and impediments to American energy independence," he added.

The order will rescind at least six Obama-era executive orders aimed at curbing climate change and regulating carbon emissions, including the former President's November 2013 executive order instructing the federal government to prepare for the impact of climate change and the September 2016 presidential memorandum that outlined the "growing threat to national security" that climate change poses.

"The previous administration devalued workers by their policies," the official said.

"We are saying we can do both we can protect the environment and provide people with work" he added.

The White House official added that the best way to protect the environment is to have a strong economy, noting that countries like India and China do less to protect the environment.

The executive order also represents the greatest fears environmentalists had when Trump was elected in November 2016.

Trump had earlier called climate change a 'Chinese hoax', stating that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”

(With IANS inputs)