Obama plan gives 'hope' for Paris deal

The UK government has welcomed President Obama's plan to cut greenhouse gases and boost clean power.

A spokeswoman for the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said it would lift chances of a global deal at a Paris climate summit in December. When asked if the US had now overtaken Europe in its ambition on climate she declined to comment.

And she declined to say why renewables were deemed affordable by the US but apparently unaffordable in the UK.
President Obama's Clean Power Plan is his strongest action so far on climate change. It increases a previous offer of a 30% reduction in emissions by 2030 to a 32% drop.
The tone of his statements is at odds with the recent slew of cuts to energy efficiency and renewable energy from the UK government.
British ministers recently insisted the UK will play its part in tackling climate change - but will no longer lead whilst other nations are refusing to follow.
This statement puzzled leading academics like Prof Jim Skea from Imperial College London, who judged the previous US offer of a 30% emissions cut to be roughly comparable to efforts made in Europe, including the UK.
EU officials also told BBC News they believed the US was approximately matching Europe in terms of effort.
A Decc spokeswoman declined to draw that comparison. She said: "The US' Clean Power Plan will add more momentum ahead of agreeing a new global, ambitious, and legally binding climate deal in Paris in December.
"It's difficult to do a crude comparison between the US and EU targets - there are different parameters. The US uses 2005 emissions levels as a base, and EU uses 1990 levels, but both are ambitious."

Expanding incentives

We asked Decc why President Obama was expanding incentives for renewable energy whilst the Chancellor was cutting support for renewables and even imposing a pollution tax on wind and solar.
The spokeswoman declined to comment.
But analysts warn that the UK will have future problems of affordability because the clean energy levy on bills disproportionately loads costs on to the poorest households.
Lord Stern, the former UK government chief economist, told BBC News it was impossible yet to be sure whether the government was watering down its previous commitments on climate change.