In the United States, electric power plants emit about 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year, or roughly 40 percent of the nation's total emissions. The EPA has taken important first steps by setting standards that will cut the carbon pollution from automobiles and trucks nearly in half by 2025 and by proposing standards to limit the carbon pollution from new power plants. Now the EPA is working on tackling the CO2 pollution from hundreds of existing fossil-fueled power plants in the United States.
The EPA has both the authority and responsibility to reduce pollution from these plants under the Clean Air Act, the nation's bedrock air pollution law adopted in 1970. NRDC has crafted an effective and flexible approach to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants that:
• uses the legal authority under the Clean Air Act.
• recognizes differences in the starting points among states.
• charts a path to affordable and effective emissions reductions by tapping into the ingenuity of the states.
• provides multiple compliance options, including cleaning up existing power plants, shifting power generation to plants with lower emissions or none at all, expanding renewables, and improving the efficiency of electricity use.
Using the same sophisticated integrated planning model used by the industry and the EPA, NRDC calculated the pollution reductions that would result from the proposed approach -- and the costs and benefits of achieving those reductions.
The updated analysis shows NRDC's approach would cut CO2 pollution from America's power plants by 21 to 31 percent from 2012 levels by 2020, and 25 to 36 percent by 2025. It would deliver benefits in saved lives and damages avoided from climate change that would surpass the cost by as much as $21 billion to $53 billion by 2020. For Americans' health and welfare, for the nation's economy, and for the health of the planet, we can't afford not to curb the carbon pollution from existing power plants.
In the United States, electric power plants emit about 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year, or roughly 40 percent of the nation's total emissions. The EPA has taken important first steps by setting standards that will cut the carbon pollution from automobiles and trucks nearly in half by 2025 and by proposing standards to limit the carbon pollution from new power plants. Now the EPA is working on tackling the CO2 pollution from hundreds of existing fossil-fueled power plants in the United States.
The EPA has both the authority and responsibility to reduce pollution from these plants under the Clean Air Act, the nation's bedrock air pollution law adopted in 1970. NRDC has crafted an effective and flexible approach to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants that:
• uses the legal authority under the Clean Air Act.
• recognizes differences in the starting points among states.
• charts a path to affordable and effective emissions reductions by tapping into the ingenuity of the states.
• provides multiple compliance options, including cleaning up existing power plants, shifting power generation to plants with lower emissions or none at all, expanding renewables, and improving the efficiency of electricity use.
Using the same sophisticated integrated planning model used by the industry and the EPA, NRDC calculated the pollution reductions that would result from the proposed approach -- and the costs and benefits of achieving those reductions.
The updated analysis shows NRDC's approach would cut CO2 pollution from America's power plants by 21 to 31 percent from 2012 levels by 2020, and 25 to 36 percent by 2025. It would deliver benefits in saved lives and damages avoided from climate change that would surpass the cost by as much as $21 billion to $53 billion by 2020. For Americans' health and welfare, for the nation's economy, and for the health of the planet, we can't afford not to curb the carbon pollution from existing power plants.
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