This fossil fuel trade threatens to undermine President Barack Obama's strategy for reducing the gases blamed for climate change and reveals a little-discussed side effect of countries acting alone on a global problem, according to The Associated Press.
As the Obama administration weans the U.S. off dirty fuels blamed for global warming, energy companies have been sending more of America's unwanted energy leftovers to other parts of the world where they could create even more pollution, the AP reported.
The contribution of this exported pollution to global warming is not something the administration wants to measure, or even talk about, according to the AP.
"This is the single biggest flaw in U.S. climate policy," said Roger Martella, the former general counsel at the Environmental Protection Agency under President George W. Bush, the AP reported. "Although the administration is moving forward with climate change regulations at home, we don't consider how policy decisions in the United States impact greenhouse gas emissions in other parts of the world."
Over the past six years, as the U.S. cut coal consumption by 195 million tons, about 20 percent of that coal was shipped overseas, according to an AP analysis of Energy Department data.
Sending coal overseas makes the U.S. appear to be making more progress than it is on global warming because it shifts some pollution and the burden for cleaning it up onto other countries' balance sheets, the AP reported.
As companies look to double U.S. coal exports, with three new terminals along the West Coast, America could be fueling demand for coal when many experts say that most fossil fuels should remain buried to avert the most disastrous effects of climate change, according to the AP.
The administration has resisted calls from governors in Washington and Oregon to evaluate and disclose such global fallout, saying that if the U.S. didn't supply the coal, another country would, the AP reported.
White House officials say U.S. coal has a negligible global footprint and reducing coal's use worldwide is the best way to ease global warming, according to the AP. The U.S. in 2012 accounted for 9 percent of worldwide coal exports, the latest data available.
Carbon dioxide, regardless of where it enters the atmosphere, contributes to the sea level rise and in some cases severe weather in the U.S. and the world, the AP reported.
