Executive actions on climate change include partnerships, gas fixes

Keeping with his year of action, President Obama on Tuesday will announce more initiatives his administration will implement to tackle climate change.

As the Environmental Protection Agency launches the second-phase of its extensive outreach on Obama’s signature climate rule Tuesday, the White House will unveil new partnerships with companies like Microsoft and IBM, which have committed to help build tools for agricultural communities to respond to climate changes, according to White House adviser John Podesta.

{mosads}The administration will also announce a series of executive actions, partnerships, and stakeholder commitments to modernize the nation’s natural gas transmissions, and distributions systems that will help reduce methane emissions.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers released a report Tuesday, which details the economic costs of inaction on climate change. The report, which estimates that if the global temperature increases to 3 degrees celsius, it would cost the U.S. $150 billion per year, is a shift in messaging by the administration on the climate change front.

Questions about whether or not climate change risks should be included in federal budget projects is one the administration and Senate Democrats are pivoting to this week.

The Senate Budget Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on the economic and budgetary impacts of climate change, signaling a new battleground for the administration on the topic.

After packaging the climate agenda as a push to reduce greenhouse gases, to a fight against public health issues, the White House is now starting a debate on climate change around expenses in the federal budget.

“There is uncertainty of the timing magnitude and full consequences of the enormously complex phenomenon on climate change. And some claim that argument for not acting today,” chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman, said on a call with reporters Monday. “This report makes clear is we know way more than enough to justify acting today and delaying action will only increase costs.”

The report argues that climate change risks should be treated like insurance individuals and companies routinely purchase to guard against fire, theft, or other losses.

It also warns that further delaying action will increase budgetary costs, and worsen the state of the globe’s climate.

Based analyzing a number of previous climate change reports from the White House, United Nations, and more, the economic council determined that if one target such as cutting the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions by a given amount is not reached than costs increase on average roughly 40 percent per decade of delay.

The report will likely get strong pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill. A main point of contention for opponents of the administration’s climate agenda, and carbon pollution rules, is the harm they claim it will inflict on the economy and the energy sector.