[ti:Working to Fight Climate Change] [ar:Steve Ember] [al:In the News] [by:www.51voa.com] [04:56.58][00:00.00]visit 51voa.com for more... [00:03.69]From VOA Learning English, [00:06.67]this is In The News. [00:09.05]Delegates from nearly 200 countries [00:12.44]have spent the past two weeks in Warsaw, Poland. [00:17.94]More than 9,000 representatives gathered [00:21.63]for a United Nations conference on climate change. [00:27.11]Organizers called the meeting to work toward a treaty [00:31.19]to fight rising temperatures on our planet. [00:35.73]The treaty would be signed in 2015 and take effect after 2020. [00:43.14]Several environmental groups [00:46.38]walked out of the climate talks earlier this week. [00:50.31]They were protesting what they considered a lack of progress [00:55.61]towards a deal to limit carbon dioxide [00:59.60]and other global warming emissions. [01:03.50]Studies have shown links between such gases and the rise in temperatures. [01:10.47]In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency [01:15.74]is leading government efforts to fight climate change. [01:21.66]The agency just ended a series of public hearings across the country. [01:28.39]The EPA was seeking comments as it considers [01:32.83]tightening clean air rules for coal-burning power plants. [01:38.81]America's 1,000 coal-burning power plants [01:43.54]supply 40 percent of the nation's electricity. [01:47.98]The plants are responsible for one-third of the global warming emissions. [01:54.75]The Obama Climate Action Plan has promised [01:59.51]to cut the production of such gases. [02:02.75]Mitch McConnell is the leader of the Republican Party [02:07.58]in the United States Senate. [02:10.11]He spoke at the EPA hearing in support of his home state of Kentucky, [02:16.33]which is a major coal producer. [02:19.12]"By now it is clear that this administration and your agency [02:21.36]have declared a war on coal. [02:23.31]For Kentucky, this means a war on jobs and on our state's economy." [02:28.45]Brian Patton also spoke at the EPA hearing. [02:32.89]Mr. Patton comes from a long line of Kentucky coal mine workers. [02:38.32]Today he is president of James River Coal Service. [02:43.71]His company has dismissed 725 workers over the past six months. [02:51.98]He fears that new rules could bring even greater hardship [02:57.91]to an area that is already economically depressed. [03:02.54]"Understand, these are communities of just 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 people. [03:06.92]And when you have that type of an economic impact [03:09.80]due to regulations that come from Washington, DC [03:13.59]-- that have very little understanding of what the outcome [03:17.37]is for the local folks, for folks that get up and go to work every day [03:21.75]and what that impact will be for their families [03:23.89]in the future, and that's wrong." [03:26.05]David Doniger is a climate policy expert [03:30.78]with the Natural Resources Defense Council, [03:33.47]one of the nation's largest environmental groups. [03:37.41]He says it is the duty of the EPA to control carbon as a pollutant. [03:45.18]He wants the agency to establish new rules [03:49.21]that would move the United States toward a cleaner energy environment. [03:55.58]"No one is proposing standards that would knock out all those power plants. [04:01.15]We're talking about a shift from the dirtier ones to the cleaner ones, [04:04.83]and from all those fossil fuel-powered ones towards renewable [04:09.25]and even nuclear sources of energy." [04:11.20]He says the government is responsible for protecting clean air, [04:16.93]not protecting old and dirty power stations. [04:21.51]"That's the only way that we can continue to have the way of life we want [04:26.93]without running into the wall on climate change impacts, [04:31.11]which in turn will come back and destroy the quality of life we have." [04:35.49]The EPA is now considering comments from the nationwide hearings. [04:41.11]The agency plans to announce proposed rule changes in June. [04:47.19]And that's In the News from VOA Learning English. [04:54.59]I'm Steve Ember.