After a surprise joint declaration with China, the US president has recently signed an executive order that provides a federal framework to work on cutting Green House Gas emissions in the coming decade.
Key takeaways from the Executive Order
- Average emission cut of 40% across industries compared to the 2008 levels over the next decade.
- Increase the renewable energy in the mix to 30% during the same period.
- Reduce energy use in federal buildings to 2.5% and obtain 25% of their electricity demand from carbon free sources.
- Increase in electric vehicles and hybrid cars in the federal fleet and increase the carbon per mile efficiency by 30% compared to 2014 levels.
- Reduce water intensity by 2% annually in federal buildings(Remember the federal govt. is the largest energy consumer in the US).
- Incidentally major suppliers to the federal govt. including GE,IBM and Honeywell have agreed to reduce their carbon footprint by 5 metric tonnes compared to 2008 levels.
The emissions cut would mean removing 26 million tonnes of GHG by 2025 equivalent to removving 5.5 million cars on American roads for a year. It is also estimated the order if successful could save 18 billion USD.
So by getting this order out is ‘America is leading by example’ as Mr. Barack Obama claims?!
Mission Shunya 