FT: Obama speech: carbon and coal
The market not the president is leading the attack on coal
US President Barack Obama’s opponents have labelled his latest efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions as a “war on coal”. This is both predicable and deceptive. The leader of the attack on coal is not the president but the free market. As his enemies like to say in other contexts, Mr Obama is “leading from behind”.
On Monday, the Stowe global coal index of coal mining shares fell 4 per cent, anticipating that the president would call for carbon emission standards for existing power plants (rules for new plants had previously been drafted). A bad fall – but the index is already down 24 per cent over the previous 12 months. MORE