Chart: Emily Barone. Source: EIA. Retreived from https://time.com/6192800/supreme-court-epa-emissions-ruling/
On June 30, 2022, the Supreme Court delivered a ruling that had long been awaited by climate advocates, policymakers, and industry. The Court voted 6-3 in favor of West Virginia in the case West Virginia v. EPA, effectively ending the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants through the Clean Air Act.
The ruling significantly impedes the Biden Administration’s goal of reducing carbon emissions by approximately 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050. Meanwhile, the effects of climate change are increasingly evident: storms are becoming stronger and more intense, droughts are exacerbated by climate-driven weather pattern changes, and scorching heatwaves are becoming more common even in summer months.
Following the COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020, national greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise (see graph above) after years of trending downward, and the Supreme Court’s ruling poses yet another hurdle to reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The confluence of increasingly frequent climate change-driven weather events, increasing carbon emissions, and the reduced ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants will disproportionately impact underserved and under-resourced communities. A 2021 EPA report found that predominantly Black communities are at the highest risk of experiencing the most negative health and environmental threats posed by climate change, and it also found that predominantly Hispanic and Latinx communities are more likely to be exposed to increasingly frequent extreme temperatures and coastal flooding. The window of opportunity to mitigate the worst effects of climate change is rapidly closing, and there is not a minute to waste.
