Coup d'etat against congress who have been the ones holding up Obama's attempts to fight climate change. The EPA's ruling provides extra leverage against congress which means that Obama is likely to be able to go further in promising to cut emissions at Copenhagen.

On-road vehicles contribute more than 23 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions. EPA’s proposed GHG standards for light-duty vehicles, a subset of on-road vehicles, would reduce GHG emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons. This ruling makes higher standards much more likely. This is an area where the EPA has control over and it already imposes standards on other gases released so this will have an impact.

If the United States and other industrialized countries are responsible for the emission of climate-altering gases in a larger proportion than the rest of continents in the world, they have the moral obligation to change and improve their environmental politics and offer to the Copenhagen Conference more guarantees that their agreements will be honoured. They also should be committed to provide a share of finance to help developing countries who are paying for the waste of energy from the industrialized countries. Obama understands this and is willing to make much greater pledges than his predecessors, and indeed override congress if necessary. According to the New York Times “President Obama is pledging a provisional target for reduction of C02 emission in the United States, the first time inmore than 10 years that the US Administration has offered even a tentativepromise to reduce production of climate-altering gases, reducing the emissions in the range of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% by 2050 but it will depend on whether the Democratic sponsors of the legislation can win 60 votes for the measure”.