As the Obama administration makes headway at home in the fight against global warming, it has helped stoke record exports of fossil fuels that are contributing to rising levels of pollution elsewhere, The Associated Press reports.
U.S. exports of diesel and gasoline have doubled since President Barack Obama took office, and the carbon embedded in them has met political goals by moving off of America’s pollution balance sheet. But that does not necessarily help the planet.
The U.S. is sending more fuel than ever to other parts of the world, where efforts to address resulting pollution are just getting underway, if advancing at all.
Under Obama, the U.S. has reduced carbon pollution from energy more than any other nation, by about 475 million tons between 2008 and 2013, according to U.S. Energy Department data. Less than one-fifth of that amount came from burning less gasoline and diesel.
Despite these efforts, pollution linked to global warming is rising worldwide. U.S. exports of gasoline and diesel more than made up for the savings at home in pollution abroad, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. Those exports released roughly 1 billion tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere elsewhere during the same period.
The fossil fuel trade has soared under Obama as he has overseen a domestic boom in oil and natural gas production and ordered the biggest increases in fuel economy in history. The boom has helped the U.S. reduce oil imports, create jobs, boost exports and shrink the trade deficit. But for global warming, fuel exports mean that, at the very least, the administration is making a smaller dent than it claims. Read the full story.
