One of the advantages of living in California is that we have long been blessed with legislation that effectively outlaws coal as a significant portion of our electricity supply. Consequently our carbon footprint is half that of the rest of America.

Now Europe is following California's lead on coal plants. Members of the EU Parliament voted this week for tough regulations that would force energy companies to install expensive equipment to trap the emissions, killing plans for a whole new generation of polluting, coal-fired power stations.

The new carbon dioxide emissions limit mirrors California: no more than 500 grams of CO2 per kilowatt per hour.

They also voted for a €10 billion fund to test carbon capture and storage, or CCS, a clean-coal technology that traps most emissions. If CCS proves effective, some additional coal stations would be built using EU funding. While carbon capture would mitigate some climate change problems caused by burning coal, it does not address the environmental hazards caused by mining. And even CCS supporters admit that the technology would not be available on a commercial scale until at least 2020.

John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace said: "Emissions performance standards have already worked to stop new coal-fired power stations in California, and it's a welcome development that Europe is adopting a similar principle here."