Clean-Energy is ‘Inevitable’ Says EPA Admin

Outgoing Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Mon., Nov. 21 and insisted that a transition to a low-carbon economy is “inevitable” because of the threat of global climate change.

Though McCarthy didn’t mention President-elect Donald Trump by name, she seemed confident that “the train to a global, clean-energy future has already left the station” and would not be derailed by the incoming administration.

"Science tells us that there is no bigger threat to American progress and prosperity than the threat of global climate change," McCarthy said.

Carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. electric power plants were 24 percent lower in 2015 than they had been a decade earlier, according to McCarthy. Also, CO2 emissions have already met the goal that the Clean Power Plan set for 2022 because of the substitution of less expensive natural gas for coal, she explained.

McCarthy praised Obama for backing the Paris Agreement on limiting greenhouse gases which Secretary of State John Kerry signed on behalf of the U.S. in April of this year. Kerry insisted that it did not require Congressional ratification because it is not a treaty with binding enforcement mechanisms.

Trump has threatened to scrap EPA rules set up to meet the Paris Agreement’s standards because he believes they will be harmful to U.S. jobs and slow economic growth.