WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama signed an executive order Thursday dictating the federal government will cut its greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent over the next decade from 2008 levels and increase the share of renewable energy in the federal government’s electricity supply to 30 percent during that same period.
Simultaneously, federal suppliers including Honeywell, IBM, General Electric and other major U.S. firms are pledging to reduce their own carbon footprint by 5 million metric tons, from 2008 levels, in the next 10 years. Taken together with the new executive order, this would cut overall U.S. emissions by 26 million tons by 2025, the equivalent of taking nearly 5.5 million cars off the roads for a year.
Speaking to reporters Thursday at the Energy Department. Obama said, “America once again is going to be leading by example.”
White House senior adviser Brian Deese estimated the new measures will save $18 billion; the federal government has cut its overall emissions 17 percent since Obama took office, saving $1.8 billion.
The move came on the same day the president met with Britain’s Prince Charles — a prominent environmentalist and climate-change activist — in the Oval Office.
The executive order detailed how the government will meet the new climate target. This will include reducing energy use in federal buildings by 2.5 percent per year between 2015 and 2025, instructing agencies to obtain 25 percent of their energy from carbon-free sources by 2025, increasing the carbon-per-mile efficiency of federal fleets 30 percent from 2014 levels in the next decade and increasing the percentage of zero-emission and plug-in hybrid vehicles in federal fleets.
The federal government is the largest energy consumer in the United States — with the military accounting for roughly half of its total energy use — although its greenhouse gas emissions were only 0.6 percent of the nation’s total output in 2013, according to federal data.
Still, Christy Goldfuss, acting director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said federal actions can have a huge impact given its reach and the scope of its supply chain.
“President Obama has made it clear that climate change is an all-hands-on-deck challenge,” Goldfuss said, noting the federal portfolio boasts 360,000 buildings, 650,000 fleet vehicles, and $445 billion of spending on goods and services.
