US President Donald Trump has signed and executive order aimed at rolling back most of his predecessor’s climate change policies, promising that the measure would create jobs in the fossil fuel industry.
Trump signed the document titled the ‘Energy Independence Executive Order’ at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday, suspending more than half a dozen measures enacted by former President Barack Obama.
The order intends to reverse a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, and overturns rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production, with critics slamming Trump’s measure, as dangerous and against the global trend toward cleaner energy technologies.
Flanked by a group of coal miners, the new US president said this is “the start of a new era” in energy production, praising the move as a way to promote energy independence and to restore thousands of lost coal industry jobs.
“My administration is…