US Supreme Court decision on GHGs

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has statutory power to regulate new vehicle emissions as a means of controlling GHG and mitigating man-made climate change. Several interesting points:

• There was uncontested evidence that climate change is already costing states millions of dollars in coastal land erosion, storm events etc. The Court noted that 2004 affidavits about possible damage to New Orleans from man made climate change were spot on in terms of subsequent hurricane Katrina effects.

• The Court said that in the face of the current problems and in particular the risk of much greater harm from man-made climate change, any regulatory steps, no matter how small, needed to be taken (the EPA argued that new vehicle emission regulations wouldnot help much in the bigger scale of things, argued that China's emissions would wipe out any gains etc etc).