American President Joe Biden last night suffered a major setback to his plans to tackle climate change.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has lost some of its power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions following a landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court.
The President called it a "devastating decision".
He added: "While this decision risks damaging our nation's ability to keep our air clean and combat climate change, I will not relent in using my lawful authorities to protect public health and tackle the climate crisis."
Last night’s development will be noted by governments around the world, as it will affect global efforts to tackle climate change. The US accounts for nearly 14% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
The American decision is at odds with what needs to be done to halt the climate crisis.
Just this week, the latest quarterly net-zero tracker published by MSCI reinforces the urgent action required from the world's listed companies to meet the 1.5C target set by the Paris Agreement.
MSCI says all listed companies must each reduce their total carbon intensity by 8-10% every year until 2050 if the 1.5C target is to be met. Only 39% of firms reduced emission intensity by that amount between 2019 and 2020.
The US Supreme Court case against the EPA was brought by West Virginia on behalf of 18 other mostly-Republican-led states and some of the nation's largest coal companies.
They argued that the agency did not have the authority to limit emissions across whole states.
Severe economic cost
These 19 states were worried their power sectors would be forced to move away from using coal, at a severe economic cost.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court sided with the conservative states and fossil-fuel companies, agreeing that the EPA did not have the authority to impose such sweeping measures.
Attorney General Eric Schmitt for Missouri - one of the 19 states - called it a "big victory... that pushes back on the Biden EPA's job-killing regulations".
The BBC says the court hasn't completely prevented the EPA from making these regulations in the future, but says that Congress would have to clearly say it authorises this power. And Congress has previously rejected the EPA's proposed carbon-limiting programmes.
Environmental groups will be deeply concerned by the outcome as historically the 19 states that brought the case have made little progress on reducing their emissions - which is necessary to limit climate change.
The states made up 44% of the US emissions in 2018, and since 2000 have only achieved a 7% reduction in their emissions on average.
President Biden is now relying on a change of policy from these states or a change from Congress - otherwise the US is unlikely to achieve its climate targets.
Significant loss
This is a significant loss for the president who entered office on a pledge to ramp up US efforts on the environment and climate.
On his first day in office, he re-entered the country into the Paris Agreement - the first legally-binding universal agreement on climate-change targets.
And he committed the country to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 52% by 2030 against 2005 levels.
Meanwhile, a new report has found one in six adults in the UK does not believe that climate change is mainly caused by human activities.
That's despite scientists and policymakers around the world almost unanimously believing this to be the case.
King's College London conducted the study as part of a project looking at public trust in expertise.