The climate plan that Mr. Podesta has drafted for Mr. Obama is expected to serve as a blueprint for Mrs. Clinton’s climate change policy, should she run.
Since the deal Mr. Obama made with China calls for the United States to cut its planet-warming carbon pollution by as much as 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, he has effectively placed the obligation on his successor to meet that goal.
That dynamic sets up climate change as a potentially explosive issue on the 2016 campaign trail, which may pit Mrs. Clinton against a field of Republican candidates who question and deny the science that human activity causes global warming. A number of prospective Republican presidential candidates have already attacked what they say is Mr. Obama’s “war on coal.”
Mr. Obama has muscled through his climate change agenda almost entirely with executive authority, bypassing a Congress that has repeatedly refused to enact sweeping new climate change laws. In addition to the agreement with China announced Wednesday in Beijing, Mr. Obama has used the 1970 Clean Air Act to issue ambitious Environmental Protection Agency regulations intended to cut pollution from vehicle tailpipes and power-plant smokestacks.
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