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Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon will continue to fight climate change despite Trump’s order

Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon will continue to fight climate change despite Trump’s order

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Companies voice support for clean energy regulations that Trump seeks to gut

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft say they will continue their efforts to combat climate change, Bloomberg reports, even after President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order that will undo a series of climate regulations put in place by the Obama administration.

In a joint statement provided to Bloomberg, the tech companies said: “We believe that strong clean energy and climate policies, like the Clean Power Plan, can make renewable energy supplies more robust and address the serious threat of climate change while also supporting American competitiveness, innovation, and job growth.”

Trump’s executive order targets the Clean Power Plan (CPP), which ordered power generators to reduce carbon emissions by 32 percent by 2030. The order, signed Tuesday, instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin the process of reversing the CPP, which could still take several years.

“Delaying action on climate change will be costly in economic and human terms.”

Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have supported Obama’s climate policies in the past. In 2016, the companies filed a brief with the Washington, DC federal court of appeals in defense of the CPP, which has faced an array of legal challenges.

“Delaying action on climate change will be costly in economic and human terms, while accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy will produce multiple benefits with regard to sustainable economic growth, public health, resilience to natural disasters, and the health of the global environment," the brief stated.

Several tech companies have begun transitioning to renewable energy sources in recent years. Last year, Apple announced that 93 percent of its facilities run on renewable energy, while Google aims to purchase enough clean energy to meet its global electricity needs this year.

Companies such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and IKEA have also said they will maintain clean energy commitments laid out under the Obama administration, Bloomberg reports. But the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil fuel industry has welcomed Trump’s executive order, saying it will undo regulations that inhibited economic growth.