Last Wednesday and Thursday, China’s new top climate diplomat Liu Zhenmin travelled to Washington DC for two days of talks with his US counterpart John Podesta, also fresh in the job.

They discussed co-operation on climate issues, including plans for both sides to ramp up renewables, and vowed to “intensify technical and policy exchanges”.

But the day after, with Liu still in the country, the US State Department briefed journalists that Podesta had told Liu that China was producing too many solar panels and lithium-ion EV batteries.

India wants its own solar industry but has to break reliance on China first

Then on Tuesday, the White House increased tariffs on Chinese EVs, lithium-ion batteries and solar panels, accusing the Chinese government of “unfair, non-market practices” and “flooding global markets with artificially low-priced exports”.

“Clear protectionism”

In response, the state-owned China Daily newspaper in an editorial described the tariffs as “a clear act of protectionism”.

The head of the China Automobile Association Fu Bingfeng agreed, adding that “the new energy industry is jointly created by mankind and can bring common benefits to mankind”, saying the tariffs were “very unreasonable”.

Asia Society analyst Li Shuo told Climate Home that, rather than thinking of over-supply of solar panels as a problem, “it is the world’s inability to deploy these products that is the problem”.

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The tariffs reflect “the new reality global climate politics needs to deal with” – that low-carbon products will not be made in the most cost-efficient way and distributed around the world, he explained. India also has trade barriers against Chinese solar panels, designed to boost its domestic solar manufacturing.

Research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies has found that such trade barriers can, in general, delay the competitiveness of low-carbon technologies against their market rivals – like solar against gas, or EVs against internal combustion engines.

Limited effect on solar, batteries bigger

The US-imposed measures are designed to increase the cost of Chinese goods needed for the energy transition – and could therefore slow down America’s shift away from fossil fuels.

But BloombergNEF solar analyst Jenny Chase told Climate Home that the increase in the tariff on solar cells and modules from 25% to 50% would “have little effect”.

She noted that tariffs of 25% have been in place “for ages – and as a result the US imports almost no cells or modules directly from China, instead importing from Southeast Asia”.

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The Biden administration is currently weighing whether to impose tariffs on solar imports from four Southeast Asian countries over concerns that China is routing its panels through these nations.

US solar panel manufacturers are lobbying the government in favour of those tariffs, while US solar panel installers are lobbying against them. A decision is needed by June 6, two years on from a pause on tariffs affecting the Southeast Asian nations.

Similarly, the US already imports relatively few electric vehicles from China, as it already has Trump-era tariffs on them. The US’s adoption of electric vehicles is far slower than in Europe or China.

But US car-makers do import lots of lithium-ion EV batteries for their vehicles despite existing 7.5% tariffs. China produces about three-quarters of all the world’s EV batteries, with the US producing less than a tenth.

(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)

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Export credit and development agencies from six developed nations have approved $4.4 billion in funding for oil and gas projects overseas since the start of 2023, research from campaigning group Oil Change International shows.

More than half of the total financing has been provided by the United States ($1.5 billion) and Italy ($1.2 billion), followed by Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Claire O’Manique from Oil Change International said the countries are “going rogue by backtracking on their commitment to end international public finance for fossil fuels”.  “Public money that should be going to support a just transition to renewable energy is instead being pumped into more climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects”, she added.

One pledge, many interpretations

Twenty countries signed up to the Glasgow Statement at Cop26 pledging to end new direct public finance for overseas fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022.

However, the signatories have interpreted the promise in different ways.

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The United Kingdom and France have stopped all public subsidies going to international fossil fuel projects. Italy carved out a wide range of energy security exemptions for the continued support of fossil fuel projects. Germany published a draft policy for its export credit agency last July planning to support new gas projects overseas until 2025. The US has not made its guidelines public.

The Glasgow pledge allowed exceptions in “limited and clearly defined circumstances that are consistent with a 1.5C warming limit”. The International Energy Agency warned last year that investment in new coal, oil and gas production was incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C.

LNG and oil expansion

The US and Germany have backed projects aiming to boost the production and trade of liquified natural gas (LNG), which has been in heightened demand since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The expansion of an oil refining facility in Indonesia’s Borneo has received support from the Italian and US export credit agencies. The US Export-Import Bank justified its backing of the project by claiming it would allow Indonesia to reduce its reliance on imported fossil fuels.

African leaders skirt over fossil fuels in climate summit declaration

Analysts and campaigners told Climate Home News that expansion of oil refining falls within the scope of the Glasgow agreement.

The majority of the $4.4 billion greenlit in 2023 comes in the form of state-backed guarantees provided by export credit agencies. These products limit the risk taken by companies selling services and goods in other countries, influencing investment.

Climate Home News has contacted the export credit agencies of Germany, Italy and the US for comment.

The post Rich countries sink billions into oil and gas despite Cop26 pledge appeared first on Climate Home News.

Developing nations successfully demanded at last year’s Cop27 climate summit funding for loss and damage caused by climate change, including a dedicated fund, which countries will adopt this year.

In climate negotiations, “loss and damage” refers to existing costs incurred from climate-fueled weather impacts, such as last year’s devastating Pakistan flooding.

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The new Loss and Damage fund should target the most vulnerable countries and focus on areas not already covered by development banks or emergency relief funds, two U.S. State Department officials told Reuters.

The European Union has taken a similar position. But the G77+China umbrella group of countries classified as developing by the United  Nations argues that they are all particularly vulnerable and should be eligible.

Need to specialise

US negotiator Christina Chan is part of a 24-country committee deciding how the fund will work before the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai can officially adopt it this year. The committee will meet again next week in the Dominican Republic.

“We don’t really want redundancy with existing funds, because that’s not an effective and efficient way to deal with the issue,” said Sue Biniaz, deputy special envoy for climate at the State Department.

Instead, she said, the new fund should develop an expertise “as opposed to covering everything in the universe.”

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The U.S. had wanted a two-year process to analyse funding gaps before launching a fund, but it went along with the Cop27 consensus for action this year, Biniaz said.

At the committee’s last meeting in July, the U.S. proposed focusing the fund on covering slow-onset events such as sea level rise and desertification, as such needs can fall through the funding cracks, said Chan. This would mean less focus on climate disasters like floods, heatwaves and storms.

She said the US also suggested the fund be used for post-disaster reconstruction if a country needs more beyond eligible development bank grants.

Reluctant evolution

The U.S. position on loss and damage has evolved in recent years, from a point at which Washington and the EU resisted even discussing the issue for fear of legal liability for historic emissions.

At Cop27, the EU agreed to a fund on the condition that China pays into it – although it later abandoned that insistence. The US did not block the Cop decision approving the fund.

Biniaz said she “violently opposes” arguments by some countries and environmental groups that developed countries have a legal obligation to pay into the fund.

Nonprofit Action Aid has said, for example, that the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change implies this obligation with the idea that industrialized nations responsible for emitting most of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last century should do more to address climate change.

“That’s just completely inaccurate,” she said on whether developed countries are liable, adding that the 2015 Paris Agreement did not include such an obligation.

Other sources

Instead, both Washington and Brussels say the fund should be filled from myriad sources including industry taxes, philanthropic donations or other schemes. Biniaz said one example might be revenues from the U.S.-proposed carbon reduction accelerator.

The U.S. and EU have also said a big economy like China could contribute, despite its low per person income and relatively small historic contribution to climate change .

Biniaz said this came up during recent bilateral meetings with China, but she did not offer more details.

Other negotiators and officials have proposed ideas including creating new revenue streams through taxing environmental pollution, such as methane emissions or shipping pollution and windfall profits from oil and gas.

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“We need to have a global system with a broad contribution heavily weighted to the richest people to make the biggest contribution,” said Avinash Persaud, special finance envoy to Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados.

With many national budgets strained, Persaud said the idea of taxing emissions was gaining popularity in some countries.

Who benefits?

Another sticking point likely to emerge is who should benefit from a fund, with disagreement over which countries are most vulnerable

“It's very difficult to create a straight cut dividing eligible and noneligible,” said Dileimy Orzoco, senior policy advisor at climate advisory group E3G.

The world’s least developed nations and small island developing nations want to be prioritised for funding.

Others worry that limiting funds to these countries will leave out some of the worst hit by climate impacts, such as middle-income countries like Pakistan or the Philippines.

The post US aims to limit loss and damage fund appeared first on Climate Home News.

Biden is trying to reshape the U.S. economy by investing billions of taxpayer dollars in green technology, while forcing companies that want lucrative subsidies being offered to help the push do more of their manufacturing in the U.S.

Biden took a small tour of Philadelphia’s shipyard and praised the upcoming construction of the Acadia, a union-built vessel that will support hundreds of jobs and be used to help build offshore wind farms.

“When I think climate, I think jobs, union jobs,” Biden said, adding that the ships blades, hull and other parts – some the size of city skyscrapers – will be built by nine unions across the country.

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Biden is betting that union workers whose jobs are threatened by the energy transition will eventually find a place in the green economy, but that’s a hard sell in union-friendly Philadelphia.

About a dozen union workers in the Philadelphia region Reuters spoke to questioned whether the new industries can produce a similar number of jobs at the same high wage scale.

They may have good reason to worry.

Roughly 80% of the more than 50 EV battery, solar panel and other factories announced since passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in August are in states with laws that make it harder for workers to unionize, a Reuters analysis published this year found.

Dozens of oil & industry lobbyists attended secretive shipping emissions talks

Nancy Minor, 57, worked as a union operator at a Philadelphia’s largest and oldest refinery for nearly three decades before it shut after a 2019 explosion. Now a refinery safety consultant, she made enough money to buy a house, raise her kids as a single mother and send them to private school.

She worries clean energy projects like solar and wind farms, along with hydrogen pipelines, oversell and under deliver when it comes to long-term, full-time employment.

“The initial promise of jobs is spectacular but after the equipment is built they can run it with a fraction of the people,” Minor said.

Overall energy jobs in the U.S. grew 3.8% in 2022, to more than 8.1 million, led by fast growth in clean energy jobs, the Department of Energy said in June. Clean energy jobs, a wide category including wind and solar power, nuclear, and grid technologies and battery storage, made up 3.1 million of those.

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Ali Zaidi, Biden’s national climate adviser, says the president is pushing to make sure unions are part of the energy transition, and to get unions and companies working together.

Unions will benefit from an expanded power grid, a boom in manufacturing from clean energy supply chains and new industries like hydrogen, Zaidi said, noting Danish renewable energy group Ørsted’s recent partnership with North America’s Building Trades Unions.

Biden’s union push comes as business and labor are divided over who will benefit from the changing economy with the Auto Workers are bracing for a possible labor shortages unless there are new union protections for EV battery plants.

A potential economically-damaging strike by Teamster-represented UPS workers looms next month.

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Pat Eiding, long-time president and current treasurer of Philadelphia AFL-CIO Council, said a rash of refinery closures in the region over the past two decades crushed some local unions. Many of those laid off workers struggled to find similar paying jobs and he fears the same for any worker hurt by the energy transition.

Eiding also believes the green economy will struggle to replicate the employment from refineries and power plants, which require 24-hour, 365-day staffing and significant annual maintenance.

“I believe Biden when he says that green energy jobs will be union, the question is just how many jobs will there be,” Eiding said.

Seth Harris, who previously served as Biden’s top labor policy adviser at the White House, said unions have made progress in some green industries, like agreeing contracts for wind farms, but are still struggling to get a foothold in a solar industry dominated by China.

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The Biden administration has pushed new funds to help workers like coal miners find new jobs, but more can be done, Harris said, including increased investment in community colleges and apprenticeship programs.

“The labor movement has legitimate cause for concern and they are aggressively in discussions with Congress and with the White House about how to make certain that current members have the opportunity to be represented by a union and to have good quality jobs as a result,” Harris said.

John Hirschfeld, 50, a shipyard security worker with the local electrician’s union who was in the audience, said Biden’s message Thursday made sense. The shipyard was down to just a handful of union employees not long ago, he said, but new wind farm and other projects have breathed life into the facility and made him hopeful.

“This is a big deal for me, as a father, as a husband,” Hirschfeld said. “It helps me sleep at night knowing I can take care of my family.”

The post Biden’s union-friendly green jobs pitch meets sceptical response appeared first on Climate Home News.

When asked about the tax during a press conference in Paris on Friday, US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said it was a “very constructive suggestion” and “something the United States will look at”.

But the US was not among the 22 countries who put their names to a statement backing the idea at the Paris summit.

A State Department spokesperson told Climate Home by email that “the United States has supported a greenhouse gas fuel standard, although an economic measure such as a maritime emissions pricing mechanism could complement this standard.”

They added: “The United States is open to consideration of a maritime pricing mechanism, although it would be necessary to work through a number of important design and policy issues that would not be resolved this year.”

Pacific push

A group of Pacific islands and others have been pushing for a levy for several years at the UN shipping agency, known as the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

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Over the next two weeks, government negotiators are meeting at the IMO’s London headquarters to decide whether to include a levy on shipping emissions in their list of measures to respond to climate change.

Most of the world’s products are moved abroad by ship, often using very polluting bunker fuels. The sector is responsible for around 3% of the world’s emissions, roughly the same as Germany.

The group of nations signing up to support a levy in Paris includes the European Union, several small island states, Vietnam, Kenya and major shipbuilder South Korea. More countries have indicated support in the IMO but were not at the meeting in Paris.

The US government has not explained its stance, either in public or at the behind-closed-door IMO talks this week. The State Department did not reply to Climate Home’s request for comment.

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One delegate to the IMO talks, from a nation that supports the levy, told Climate Home the US was “still on the fence”.

Political reasons

E3G analyst Ronan Palmer said the US was not opposed to a tax but, with presidential elections next November, it “is just not going to move for it’s own political reasons”.

“If Biden gets up and says we need this tax for climate, imagine what [leading Republican presidential candidate Ron] De Santis is going to say,” Palmer said.

Aoife O’Leary, head of the shipping think tank Opportunity Green, said US concerns that a tax would have to be put to Congress were unfounded. The US’s domestic law to prevent pollution from ships, signed in 1980, allows amendments to the international convention which governs shipping emissions without approval from Congress, she said.

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As a major polluter, O’Leary added, “the US has a large moral responsibility to support this levy”.

Delaine McCullough, shipping lead at US-based campaign group Ocean Conservancy, said she thought the US would only support a levy if it was combined with a fuel standard, which tells shipping companies they have to make their fuel cleaner each year.

She said her understanding was that the US government felt that shipping companies would just pay the levy and not change to cleaner ways of operating.

But a levy high enough to change their behaviour would be difficult to get agreement on for “political” reasons, she said.

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Different options

Last year, governments agreed that they would put a price on shipping emissions. But they have not agreed what form this would take or how much should be paid.

Alternatives to a levy include a system where emissions are capped and anything above that cap is traded or a reward system for reducing emissions.

A group of Pacific islands are calling for a levy with a carbon price of $100 a tonne on bunker fuels, while the world’s biggest container shipping company Maersk has called for a $150 a tonne levy.

But the shipping industry’s trade association has previously supported a levy of just $2 a tonne of fuel to fund research and development of clean shipping technology.

Some nations, particularly in the developing world, are calling for the money to be spent not just on cleaning up the industry but on other climate projects.

This article was updated on 30 June to include the State Department’s comment

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The proposal would limit the amount of carbon dioxide that power plants, which are the source of more than a quarter of U.S. emissions, can send into the atmosphere, putting the industry on a years-long course to install billions of dollars of new equipment or shut down.

Environmental groups and scientists have long argued that such steps are crucial to curb global warming, but fossil-fuel-producing states argue that they represent government overreach and threaten to destabilise the electric grid.

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The Environmental Protection Agency projects the plan would cut carbon emissions from coal plants and new gas plants by 617 million tonnes between 2028 and 2042. That’s around 44m tonnes a year, about the same as the nation of Denmark pumps out.

CCS or hydrogen

The proposal sets standards that would push companies to install carbon capture equipment that can siphon the carbon dioxide from a power plant’s smokestack before it reaches the atmosphere, or use super-low-emissions hydrogen as a fuel.

“EPA’s proposal relies on proven, readily available technologies to limit carbon pollution and seizes the momentum already underway in the power sector to move toward a cleaner future,” Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

Nations split over fossil fuels and carbon capture

Regan is to announce more details of the proposal in a youth-focused speech at the University of Maryland later on Thursday.

White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters the proposal will keep the U.S. on track to meet its goal to achieve net-zero power sector emissions by 2035.

“When you look at what is in the rule and what is proposed we are absolutely in line with the president’s goal,” he said.

Plan B

The proposal, more than 18 months in the making, reflects constraints imposed on the EPA by the Supreme Court, which ruled last year that the agency cannot impose a system-wide shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, but can regulate plants by setting technology-based standards applied on-site.

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An effort by the administration of Democratic former President Barack Obama in 2015 to broadly slash power industry emissions was hung up by legal challenges and eventually repealed in 2019 under the administration of Republican President Donald Trump.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led the legal challenge against the previous EPA carbon rule, said in a statement that his state will “be ready once again to lead the charge in the fight against federal overreach.”

Industry push back

Investor-owned utility group Edison Electric Institute said it has been in close consultation with the EPA to ensure that the agency is flexible with compliance deadlines and recognizes the role of natural gas in cleaning up the sector.

Gas is a fossil fuel and the International Energy Agency has said that, if global warming is to be held to 1.5C, the amount of electricity produced with gas should peak around 2030 and fall dramatically by 2040. No new gas production projects are compatible with the strongest target of the Paris Agreement, it says.

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“We will assess EPA’s proposed new regulations through the lens of whether they align with our priorities and support our ability to provide customers with the reliable clean energy they need at an affordable cost,” EEI President Tom Kuhn said.

The proposal is subject to the regulatory rule-making process, including a public comment period. The final rule will have to reflect the public comments, although Congress has already authorized the EPA to craft the rule. It will likely take about a year for the rule to be finalized.

Better air

The EPA anticipates the proposal will cost the power industry over $10 billion, while yielding health and climate benefits of around $85 billion.

It said the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate bill, will offer billions of dollars in tax incentives and credits that will bring down costs for deployment of CCS and green hydrogen, justifying its decision to base new standards on those technologies.

According to the proposal, new and existing large natural gas plants will be expected to install CCS that removes 90% of their carbon emissions by 2035, or alternatively to co-fire with 30% hydrogen by 2032 and 96% hydrogen by 2038.

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New gas-fired “peaker plants,” used as backup generation, would face less stringent standards.

For existing coal plants – whose numbers have been declining in recent years – the EPA will take into account their planned lifespan. Coal plants that run past 2040, for example, will be required to install CCS technology starting in 2030, while those shutting between 2035 and 2040 would be required to co-fire with 40% gas by 2030.

Regan said the EPA is planning to see some early retirements of older plants as a result of the proposals, but said the impact on electricity prices will be “negligible.”

Environmental groups welcomed the proposal, saying it has been crafted carefully to weather legal fights.

“After two failed attempts to regulate the power sector’s tremendous carbon pollution load, EPA finally gets it just right with this proposal,” said Jay Duffy, litigation director for the Clean Air Task Force.

The post After court blocks renewables push, US promotes carbon capture & hydrogen appeared first on Climate Home News.

But since then, it’s all gone quiet. We looked into why and the answers are personal and geopolitical.

The two sides’ climate relationship is heavily reliant on the personal relationship of their climate envoys, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua.

They’re both in their seventies and climate diplomacy is hard work.

A month after Kerry caught Covid at Cop27, Xie suffered what Kerry described as  “something of a stroke”, leaving him incapacitated for weeks and unable to travel abroad ever since.

Then there was the Chinese spy balloon scandal and the visit of Taiwan’s president to California to meet Congressional leader Kevin McCarthy.

But the relationship seems to have survived as Kerry has been invited to China for climate talks. Formal cooperation on methane emissions, the energy transition and saving forests could follow.

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Kerry and an unconfirmed Chinese representative will join 38 other ministers in Berlin on Tuesday, as the climate circus comes to town for the annual Petersberg climate dialogue.

After the opening speeches, in which the UAE’s Sultan Al-Jaber will lay out his vision for Cop28, the government officials will sit in circles around flip charts to talk.

That health-check on progress since the Paris Agreement was signed will dominate climate talks to Cop28 and beyond so we’ve published a handy explainer.

You can watch all the public parts here with opening speeches at 10.30am German time on Tuesday and a closing press conference at 1.45pm on Wednesday followed by words from German leader Olaf Scholz.

The post Climate Weekly – US-China talks stall but survive appeared first on Climate Home News.

The two veteran diplomats spoke virtually last week as the US hosted the Major Economies Forum on climate. During this talk,  Xie issued an invitation to Kerry, the former US secretary of state told Foreign Policy magazine.

“My hope is that out of these discussions we get back to where we were two years ago because we must be able too cooperate together on this issue”, Kerry said.

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While US president Joe Biden’s government has tried to keep climate talks separate to the broader US-China relationship, issues such as the independence of Taiwan and the recent Chinese spy balloon scandal have prevented the two sides from engaging meaningfully on climate change.

Health issues have also hindered progress, with Kerry telling Foreign Policy magazine that Xie suffered “something of a stroke” in January which prevented him from working for “a month and a half or so”. Xie has not made any foreign trips since and his participation in November’s Cop28 climate talks is in doubt.

Early promise

Biden appointed Kerry as his climate envoy shortly after he was elected in November 2020. Three months later, China’s president Xi Jinping brought Zhenhua out of retirement to be his climate envoy.

The appointments were seen as a boost to the chances that the two sides could work together on climate change, as they did under the Obama administration to bring about the Paris agreement in 2015, due to the two men’s long and friendly relationship.

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After dozens of virtual and several in-person meetings, these hopes were further boosted at the end of 2021 when the two sides announced a joint agreement on climate at the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow. Both sides committed to discuss measures to reduce methane emissions.

Powerful officials and experts from both countries were supposed to begin discussions on issues such as clean electricity, the circular economy and city climate action, as well as methane, in September 2022.

Pelosi triggers breakdown

But in August 2022, the head of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi went on an official visit to Taiwan, an island nation off China’s east coast that the Chinese government considers part of China.

China reacted by cancelling the climate talks, a move Kerry called “both disappointing and misguided”. Instead of cooperating, official from both sides engaged in public Twitter spats over their climate records.

Nancy Pelosi walks with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen (Photo: Makoto Lin/Taiwan President’s office)

A few months later in November, tensions cooled after Biden and Xi had a productive meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in Indonesia. They agreed to work together on climate change and their climate teams, both of which were at Cop27 in Egypt at the time, were allowed to talk formally again.

After that meeting, the US announced that its top foreign affairs official Anthony Blinken would visit China. But that trip was cancelled when the US military shot down a Chinese balloon in US airspace in February.

McCarthy compromises

Then in April, Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-Wen visited the US and met with Pelosi’s successor as leader of the US House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy.

According to Thom Woodroofe, senior fellow of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former climate diplomat, the meeting was made less provocative to China because it was held in McCarthy’s home state of California rather than in the US Congress or in Taiwan.

The US government downplayed this trip by calling it a mere “transit stop” on Tsai’s way to the Caribbean.

Despite these setbacks, Kerry told Foreign Policy last week that the two sides are “back in the place where we are hopefully able to move forward”. But, he added, “it’s purely speculative at this point”.

If they did meet, Kerry said they would work together on reducing methane emissions, the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables, and stopping forests from being destroyed.

US solar boom on hold as industry awaits subsidy rules

Compared to geopolitics, intellectual property and other controversies, climate is considered a relatively easy issue for the two sides to discuss.

Greenpeace East Asia advisor Li Shuo told Climate Home: “If both countries can’t talk on such an issue with shared interest then I don’t know what else is there for the bilateral relationship.”

Woodroofe said that, if the US and China are going to cooperate, it has to be now. Kerry has talked about retiring soon, Xie is unwell and there may be a Republican in the White House next year, he noted.

“Diplomacy is all about personalities and people,” said Woodroofe. “The fact is we have the two elder statesmen – who both have the cache to achieve outcomes – it’s a really rare and significant situation that can achieve progress”.

“If not them now, then who?” he asked.

The post Despite Taiwan and spy balloon tensions, China invites US for climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will fund organisations, which could include large non-profit groups, tribal nations and universities, that will serve as grantmakers for its new Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking program that will invest in community-led projects in areas that have been historically overburdened by air and water pollution.

The money is part of $3 billion included for environmental justice block grants authorized by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Biden administration’s signature legislation that will drive investment of nearly $369 billion in clean energy and climate priorities.

“The money that we have been entrusted with is more than triage. It is more than fixing a small problem. The scale and the vision of this investment that Congress has given us will change these communities,” Robin Morris Collin, senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA, told Reuters in an interview.

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Last September, the EPA launched a new office focused on the needs of low-income and minority communities that have been overburdened by pollution. It will oversee the deployment of the $3 billion in environmental justice grants.

The programme will help the Biden administration meet its goal of delivering 40% of the overall benefits of federal climate investments to disadvantaged communities and under-invested communities, which have had trouble accessing federal support.

“We are stepping our processes up to expand what has traditionally not been a very welcoming environment for low income and disadvantaged communities to access financial resources,” Collin told Reuters.

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The block grant program is one of several investments the IRA made focused on environmental and climate justice.

This month, the EPA outlined how states and non profit groups can apply for up to $27 billion from “green banks” that will offer low-cost financing for clean energy and emission reducing projects.

The deadline for organizations to apply is May 31, 2023. EPA expects the grant makers to start awarding subgrants no later than early 2024.

The post US offers $550m to tackle pollution in poor neighbourhoods appeared first on Climate Home News.

Developed countries nominated the US Treasury’s Victoria Gunderson to jointly lead the UN flagship climate fund’s deliberations in 2023. These appointments are typically approved without discussion.

On behalf of African board members, Kenyan environment official Pacifica Ogola raised an official objection. The US has contributed just $1 billion to the fund in its 12-year history, compared to $9bn from EU countries and $3bn from Japan. A further $2bn pledged under former president Barack Obama was never delivered. His successors Donald Trump and Joe Biden have not paid in a cent.

Ogola stressed, in a letter dated 16 January, rich countries’ responsibility to inject money into the GCF and called for better enforcement of commitments. Approving Gunderson’s role must not “normalise the situation” of non-payers holding sway over decisions, she argued.

The outgoing co-chairs persuaded African members not to veto the appointment, on the assurance that the board would discuss their broader concerns.

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In March 2022, GCF executive director Yannick Glemarec warned that without more resources, the fund would have to tightly ration support for carbon-cutting projects in the developing world. “Some turn-off will be unavoidable,” he said. “It’s one of my fears.”

US outreach

One week after African members raised the objection, US treasury secretary Janet Yellen visited a project in Zambia helping farmers adapt to the climate crisis.

“The project we are visiting today helps small-scale farmers…It’s funded by the Green Climate Fund, which the United States is proud to be a part of.”

Read US Treasury @SecYellen‘s remarks during her visit to the GCF-@UNDPZambia #climateaction project: https://t.co/YIZF9yT910 pic.twitter.com/Xf2sUwT5vr

— Green Climate Fund (@theGCF) January 26, 2023

Yellen told reporters: “It’s funded by the Green Climate Fund, which the United States is proud to be a part of. We are committed to making sure that the Fund has sufficient resources to carry on this important work.”

The GCF is hosting its next regular request for donations at the end of 2023.

In December 2022, Congress did not earmark any finance for the GCF in the government’s 2023 fiscal year budget. There is enough flexibility in the spending bill that a contribution is still possible – but a Republican majority in the House of Representatives is expected to resist.

Liane Schalatek speaks for civil society as an observer to the GCF board. “The objection highlights the expectation that is placed on a developed country chairing during replenishment to dig deep with their own contributions,” she said.

During the GCF’s last request for donations in 2019, the UK as board co-chair made the largest pledge. But “it is doubtful that the US can replicate the UK example”, Schalatek added.

While the UK promised the most money, it has fallen behind on its payment plan. In October 2022, The Wire reported that three climate projects had to be postponed after the UK failed to pay $288m it had promised by the end of September 2022.

This article was updated on February 2nd to add the final sentence

The post Africa objects to US chairing UN climate fund, citing unpaid $2bn appeared first on Climate Home News.

The emails are between the US-based employees of companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell and lobbyists working on their behalf.

After decades of delaying climate action, these companies now present themselves as part of the solution to climate change. Some 503 fossil fuel representatives attended last year’s Cop26 climate talks, touting the potential of technologies like biofuels, hydrogen and carbon capture to prolong the industry’s relevance.

But these released emails show that what they say in private is different to what they say in public.

Ro Khanna, a Democrat representing California, told the hearing that the documents were “explosive” and he was “appalled” on reading them. Here are five things we learned.

1.Shell will not sacrifice profits for the climate

Under outgoing CEO Ben Van Beurden, Shell has been keen to differentiate itself from other fossil fuel companies.

Sitting alongside climate activists at a TED talk in December 2021, Van Beurden said: “I share, my company shares the anxiety of what is going on at the moment. We get it and we want to be on the right side of history.”

But in January 2020, six years into Van Beurden’s tenure, a Shell lobbyist in Washington DC called Patricia Tamez sent colleagues a series of slides on what they should and should not say publicly.

It says that Shell will not sacrifice profits for the climate. “Please do not give the impression that Shell is willing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to levels that do not make business sense”, the memo says.

The same briefing says “please do not imply, suggest, or leave it open for possible misinterpretation that [net zero emissions] is a Shell goal or target”. Shell has energy intensity targets but “no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio over our investment horizon of 10-20 years,” it adds.

This was only three months before the company changed tack and announced a target of net zero emissions by 2050.

2.Shell is scared of lawsuits…

The same briefing shows Shell’s fear of the growing number of climate lawsuits brought by campaigners around the world.

In 2019, Dutch campaigners took Shell to court in an attempt to force it to align its business model with the goals of the Paris agreement. In 2021, they won. Shell is appealing against the ruling.

“We are seeing a rising number of legal cases including active litigation specifically against Shell and other oil companies related to climate change and its impacts,” the memo warns.

It continues: “Discipline, consistency and heightened awareness of the sensitivities in our communications regarding energy transitions is therefore paramount, as what we are saying has the potential to either expose or insulate Shell to/from the legitimacy of further claims – from greenwashing to misleading investors”.

…and campaigners

In May 2021, a Shell lobbyist on the US West Coast called Steve Lesher told a colleague that Shell’s sell-off of the Deer Park oil refinery is “further evidence that the company is divesting of most of the really energy intensive carbon emitters”.

He continues: “You can throw in our sale of the Canadian oil sands operation from a few years back (a big greenhouse gas headache with a lot of NGO opposition) and see this trend pretty clearly.”

He finishes: “No one has said this, mind you but the pattern is pretty clear: If you’re a major greenhouse gas emitter, and particularly if you operate in a [greenhouse gas] sensitive area like [California], [Washington state] or [Canada], your days in the Shell Family are probably numbered.”

Asked by colleague Gavin McHugh if there’s a similar trend outside the US, he says the Pernis oil refinery in the Netherlands “will be an interesting one to watch” as “it’s right there in the motherland where we are most sensitive and our reputation is mixed”.

“The other pattern to notice,” Lesher says, “is where we DO own high [greenhouse gas] intensive things, it’s in areas where they aren’t that politically sensitive about such matters: China, Singapore, Malaysia, Louisiana…”.

Since Lesher’s email, Shell has continued to sell off assets in places like Scotland’s Cambo oil field after political opposition. But developments in Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Oman, Malaysia, Brunei and Brazil continue.

3. Shell sees climate activists and scientists as enemies

In 2019, Shell invited a climate scientist called Peter Kalmus to speak at a conference. But after he provided his slides ahead of the event, Kalmus was disinvited.

US website The Intercept reported on the incident. Shell’s climate change adviser David Hone shared the article with colleagues, commenting that it was “not a very flattering account”.

He added: “Looks like the organisers didn’t do their due diligence before reaching out to a climate scientist.”

Sharing official lines to take on the incident for Shell staff, press officer Curtis Smith remarked “the clean up on [a]isle 5 because of this shit show continues”.

A few months earlier, an external lobbyist called John Mulligan emailed Shell’s in-house lobbyists “flagging that the Sunrise Movement recently announced that they’re organizing a ‘Road to the Green New Deal’ tour”.

Shell’s chief lobbyist Krista Johnson said “I wish them the very best”. Shell’s press officer Curtis Smith replied “and bedbugs”.

4. Exxon and Chevron didn’t want to commit to the Paris Agreement

The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) is a group of 12 oil and gas companies chaired by the former chief executive of BP Bob Dudley. Its stated mission is to “accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions”.

US companies ExxonMobil, Chevron and Occidental Petroleum joined the group in 2018. These emails reveal that Exxon and Chevron immediately tried to water down the group’s climate commitments.

ExxonMobil’s policy manager Peter Trelenberg sent a memo to his CEO Darren Woods before Woods jetted off to Geneva for the OGCI CEOs meeting. The memo said Exxon and Chevron were trying to remove language in support of the Paris Agreement because “creating a tie between our advocacy/engagements and the Paris Agreement could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris Agreement goals”.

Trelenberg added: “Need to remove language that potentially commits members to enhanced climate-related governance, strategy, risk management and performance metrics and targets.”

Last year, Trelenberg wrote publicly that Exxon has supported the Paris Agreement “framework” since 2015 and commended the new president Joe Biden for re-joining it.

“Chevron has expressed that they are generally aligned with” Exxon’s edits, Trelenberg said. An annotated document shows Chevron trying to change a commitment to “net zero emissions” to a commitment to the vaguer “emissions reduction”.

OGCI responses suggest exasperation at the attempts by the two new American members to change language that had long been agreed. “Net zero emissions is the goal and our support for it is historical,” OGCI says.

5. Exxon researchers don’t buy the company’s hype on biofuels

A recent report by Influence Map found that 65% of ExxonMobil’s messaging contains green claims while just 8% of its investment is in low-carbon technology.

One of the most common green claims is that Exxon is pioneering the development of sustainable biofuels like algae. But, while algae is green, it’s very difficult to produce it on a scale big enough to be useful for decarbonisation.

The leaked emails show Exxon’s researchers know this, even if its advertising team doesn’t. In 2016, an Exxon marketer suggested a TV advert mentioned Exxon is “researching ways to turn abundant algae into biofuels”.

Neely Nelson from Exxon’s research team pushed back. “The concern on abundant is that, even though they are abundant, it will take a ton of them to make biofuels so that might create some angst with the research folks who know that.”

Notes alongside a 2018 set of powerpoint slides created by Exxon researchers say that “scale has been a challenge” for biofuels. It says algae- based fuels are “still decades away from the scale we need”.

Exxon continues to promote its algae research in adverts. For example, an advert from 2021 says “we want something that will grow really fast, so we can make a lot of fuel”.

The post Bedbugs, sh*t shows and algae hype: 5 reveals from Big Oil emails appeared first on Climate Home News.

Earlier this month, China cancelled a climate working group with the US after congressional leader Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. Beijing regards the island state as part of China, despite its independent democracy, and enforces its diplomatic isolation from the rest of the world.

As the US passed $370bn of climate measures in its Inflation Reduction Act, the US’s ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tweeted “the US is acting on climate change… [China] should follow and reconsider its suspension of climate cooperation with the US”.

The U.S. is acting on Climate Change. The recent bill passed by Congress is the largest climate investment in our history and could lead to a roughly 40% reduction in U.S. emissions by 2030. The PRC should follow+reconsider its suspension of climate cooperation with the U.S. https://t.co/BmvnaIkiib

— Ambassador Nicholas Burns (@USAmbChina) August 14, 2022

China’s foreign ministry account responded coolly. It quote-tweeted Burns saying: “Good to hear. But what matters is, can the US deliver?”

The anonymous official added: “Our suggestion: Start by lifting sanctions on Xinjiang’s photovoltaic [solar power] industry +fulfilling its pledge under the Green Climate Fund+ contributing the US’s fair share of an annual $100 billion​​ climate​ finance committed​ by developed countries to [developing] countries.”

Our suggestion: Start by lifting sanctions on Xinjiang’s photovoltaic industry +fulfilling its pledge under the Green Climate Fund+ contributing the US’s fair share of an annual $100 billion​​ climate​ finance committed​ by developed countries to deleveping countries.

— Spokesperson发言人办公室 (@MFA_China) August 16, 2022

The public sparring continued, with Burns replying: “Combatting climate change is a shared responsibility. [China] accounts for 27% of global emissions, the US 11% so why doesn’t [China] resume our climate dialogue? We’re ready.”

The Inflation Reduction Act is now law, you can bet will meet our commitments. But combatting climate change is a shared responsibility: PRC accounts for 27% of global emissions, the U.S. 11%, so why doesn’t the PRC resume our climate dialogue? We’re ready. https://t.co/Z3XOaYIUWb

— Ambassador Nicholas Burns (@USAmbChina) August 17, 2022

The cancelled working group would have brought together experts and politicians from both countries to collaborate on issues like methane emission reductions, clean electricity, the circular economy and climate action from cities.

US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns called on Beijing to “follow” Washington (Pic: Flickr/Brookings Institution)

The Inflation Reduction Act is the US’ largest ever climate spending package. Princeton University’s Repeat project estimates the bill will cut US emissions by 42% between 2005 and 2030. Previously, it was on course for a 27% reduction and it’s target is 50-52%.

The Biden Administration has seized the moment to call on other big emitters to raise their game. But negotiators from emerging economies told Climate Home that while US action could help bring down clean technology costs for everyone, they needed direct support to increase their ambition.

The US lags other developed countries in providing climate finance, including through the UN’s flagship Green Climate Fund. President Joe Biden promised more, but has yet to deliver, and his chances of getting funds through Congress are expected to shrink after November’s midterm elections.

Grenada’s Simon Stiell appointed to lead UN Climate Change

China’s call to end sanctions on the solar industry of the Chinese region of Xinjiang is unlikely to be heeded. The US and independent experts say that quartz, a key ingredient in  polysilicon and therefore solar panels, is mined in Xinjiang by forced labourers from the Uyghur ethnic minority.

The US has banned imports of all goods made in Xinjiang and customs official have seized shipments of solar panels suspected to contain quartz and polysilicon from Xinjiang at the US border.

A 2021 report by Sheffield Hallam University researchers found that Uyghur people were forced to produce quartz and polysilicon under China’s “labour transfer” and “surplus labour” programmes. The Chinese government claims these work programmes are voluntary.

Around 95% of the world’s solar modules rely on solar-grade polysilicon, the report says, and 45% of this is produced in Xinjiang. This polysilicon can be found in solar panels produced and used anywhere in the world.

Burns’s claim that China’s emissions are far higher than the US’s is true but only part of the story. China has over four times as many people, so the average Chinese resident is responsible for half the emissions of an American.

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, China spent around $300bn a year on the energy transition last year while the US spent $120bn, counting public and private investments.

The post China responds coolly to US climate bill, rejecting a call to resume cooperation appeared first on Climate Home News.

Several studies project that its climate and energy provisions could enable the United States to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by around 40% below 2005 levels by 2030. That would be a significant improvement over the current projections of around 27%, and it could put the US within hailing range of its pledge under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions at least 50% by 2030.

Notably, one linchpin of the bill’s climate provisions is a set of incentives to substantially expand technologies that capture carbon dioxide and either store it underground or ship it for reuse.

So far, the uptake of carbon capture technologies has been slow. The costs are high, and these technologies can require miles of pipeline and vast amounts of underground storage, both of which can trigger local backlash. A recent study projected that the US would have to construct 65,000 miles of carbon dioxide pipelines to achieve net-zero emissions in 2050, a whopping 13 times the current capacity.

I’m the former founding co-director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy at American University. While the bill, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, has many provisions designed to jump-start the carbon removal sector, it’s far from certain that the industry will be able to move quickly.

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The bill includes two primary types of carbon capture.

Carbon capture and storage entails capturing carbon dioxide generated during power generation and industrial processes, such as steel and concrete production, and transporting it for storage or use. The most common use to date has been for enhanced oil recovery – injecting the gas into oil and gas reservoirs to extract more fossil fuels.

The bill also seeks to drive deployment of direct air capture technologies, which can pull carbon dioxide out of the air.

A Princeton University analysis estimated that pertinent provisions of the bill “would increase the use of carbon capture 13-fold by 2030 relative to current policy,” with only a modest amount projected to come from carbon dioxide removal. This could translate into about one-sixth to one-fifth of the projected carbon dioxide emissions reductions from the new bill.

Consistent with most of its other energy and climate provisions, the bill seeks to drive widespread deployment of carbon removal technologies through incentives. Most importantly, it substantially amends a provision of the U.S. tax code referred to as 45Q, which is designed to drive corporate investments in carbon capture.

Under the bill, tax credits for capturing carbon dioxide at industrial facilities and power plants would increase from $50 per ton today to up to $85 per ton if the carbon is stored. If the carbon is used instead for oil drilling, the credit would go from $30 today to $60 per ton.

Credits for capturing carbon from air via direct air capture would also dramatically jump, from $50 to $180 per ton if the carbon dioxide is stored, and from $35 currently to $130 per ton if it is used.

The bill would also move back the deadline for starting construction of carbon capture facilities that qualify from 2026 to 2033, reduce the minimum capture requirements for obtaining credits, and permit direct payments for the full value of credits for the first five years of a project’s operation in lieu of tax credits.

Currently there are only a dozen carbon capture and storage facilities in the US and a couple of direct air capture facilities removing a small amount of carbon from the air.

There’s a reason the uptake of carbon capture, particularly direct air capture, has been slow. Direct air capture cost estimates vary from $250 to $600 per ton, according to one analysis, while experts have estimated that a price under $100 and closer to $50 could create a market.

Some experts believe that the bill sufficiently ratchets up 45Q credits to start driving widespread construction of carbon capture and storage facilities in the power and industrial sectors. Others believe that the direct pay provision is “the fundamental missing piece” for carbon capture and storage because project developers and sponsors can avoid the often onerous and costly process of raising tax equity to qualify to use the credits.

There’s hope that the increase in credit values for direct air capture will help to foster “synthetic economics” for this nascent market, infusing sufficient capital to develop technologies at scales that are profitable.

Over the rainbow: The role of hydrogen in a clean energy system, explained

However, while the bill may appear helpful on a theoretical basis, both carbon capture and storage and direct air capture could face some serious headwinds over the course of the next decade and beyond.

One major challenge could be resistance to the construction of pipelines to transport carbon dioxide to storage sites. In recent years, counties and private landowners in Iowa have voiced opposition to such projects, particularly the idea that the state might allow pipeline builders to seize private land for their projects.

Pipeline construction is also a point of contention for environmental groups, especially environmental justice organizations, and could lead to protracted litigation. This stems in part from a carbon dioxide pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi, in 2020, which hospitalized 45 people.

If public opposition delays construction, projects could be pushed past the window for the incentives, leaving developers with expensive projects. While some studies argue that enhanced oil recovery results in a net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, this may ultimately be a hard political sell for local communities.

The bill may ultimately brighten the prospects for carbon removal in America, but this is by no means assured, especially in the optimistic time frame of the next decade.

Wil Burns is professor of research in environmental policy, American University School of International Service

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Why the US climate bill might struggle to deliver on carbon capture appeared first on Climate Home News.

After months of preparatory talks, policymakers and experts were supposed to hold their first official meeting next month to discuss cooperation on topics like methane emission reductions, clean electricity, the circular economy and climate action from cities.

But a diplomatic spat has led China to suspend the working group. Thom Woodroofe, of the Asia Society think tank, lobbied for the group to be set up and called its suspension “a great shame”.

Last Tuesday, Pelosi visited Taiwan along with a Congressional delegation and pledged to “defend its freedom in the face of aggression”.

The Chinese government, which considers Taiwan as part of China, then issued a statement saying it was “suspending China-US talks on climate change” along with military and legal cooperation.

US climate envoy John Kerry, who has led talks with China, said this was “both disappointing and misguided” and “the entire world will suffer the consequences if we don’t, together, lead the way on climate action”.

From day one, the United States has made clear that our climate engagement with the PRC should remain separate from the other tough issues our two countries face. (1/6)

— Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry (@ClimateEnvoy) August 5, 2022

Kerry has tried to keep climate talks separate from geopolitical and human rights discussions. But China’s foreign minister Wang Yi warned last September that while climate talks are an “oasis”, “surrounding the oasis is a desert and the oasis could be desertified very soon”.

While climate diplomacy experts broadly agreed the suspension of talks between the world’s two largest emitters would hinder climate action, they were divided on its significance.

Some pointed to the role US-China cooperation can play in speeding up emissions reductions in the two nations and on moving forward broader international climate talks.

Greenpeace East Asia advisor Li Shuo told Climate Home News : “The two putting their weight together matters a great deal. One upcoming case in point would be Cop27. Expect more turbulent politics there as a result of today”.

But others said both countries would continue to reduce their emissions domestically and that some aspects of climate action, like international finance, could be sped up by competition between the two superpowers on who gives the most.

Chinese companies seek global carbon market for green hydrogen

E3G’s US-China analyst Alex Hacbarth told Climate Home: “Both were acting on climate outside of bilateral talks and will continue to do so. China, like the US, is not immune to climate impacts and will continue to act because it is in its national interest to do so.”

Chatham House futures research director Bernice Lee added: “This fallout need not be the deal-breaker… ultimately it is both their self-interest to accelerate ambitious domestic climate action”.

The most immediate short-term consequence is that the planned first meeting of a revived US-China climate working group is unlikely to go ahead next month.

The group was set up under US president Barack Obama and helped bring about co-operation which led to the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015 before it was scrapped by Donald Trump’s administration.

US-funded trees ‘not likely to survive’ in Haiti when project ends

In 2021, president Joe Biden’s climate envoy Kerry held a series of meetings with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua. These led to the signing of a surprise joint agreement at Cop26 in November.

Beijing and Washington agreed to set up a “working group on enhancing climate action in the 2020s which will meet regularly…focusing on enhancing concrete actions in this decade”.

The group’s work “may include”, the agreement said, discussions of policies and technicalities, identification of programmes and projects both sides are interested in and meetings of government officials and experts.

Two sources with knowledge of the discussions said that methane, clean electricity and action by cities were likely to be on the agenda. One of these sources and a third source said that  forestry is also on the agenda. Methane, electricity and forests are thought to be US priorities while action by cities is understood to have been pushed by China.

Woodroofe said the working group would be overseen by Kerry and Xie but that several work streams were being led by technical specialists.

Egypt pitches for climate funding in list of African projects to be showcased at Cop27

Woodroofe said this format “allows you to bring technical specialists to the table and actually for both sides to concretely see the benefits of cooperation because you have discussions which are genuinely designed to help both sides on how to reduce methane emissions further or what to to do to accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles”.

He added: “Folks were wondering why it had been nine months [since Cop26] and there hadn’t been any convening of that group but my understanding is that it was quite imminent and was due to happen probably in September.”

The post US-China climate working group cancelled after Pelosi’s Taiwan visit appeared first on Climate Home News.

After hold-out Senator Joe Manchin agreed to it, the Inflation Reduction Act looks set to become law, introducing $370 billion of climate spending.

The bill would introduce a “waste emissions charge”, making companies who produce, transport or store oil and gas pay for methane which leaks from their facilities into the atmosphere.

Methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas and frequently leaks from oil and gas pipelines as a waste product. Companies have allowed it to leak because they either don’t know about it or they think fixing it will cost them more than it saves.

US set to pass $369bn of climate spending after Manchin U-turn

Methane has risen up the climate agenda in recent years. A report last year by IPCC scientists said “strong, rapid and sustained reductions” in methane emissions were needed and the US and EU persuaded over 100 countries to sign a “global methane pledge” at Cop26.

Brian Prest, an economist at Resources for the Future, told Climate Home that the fee, which will rise to $1,500 a tonne by 2026, will reduce methane leakage from its current rate of 1.9% to somewhere between 0.4% and 1.1%.

“That’s a big reduction right?”, he said, although whether it’s 0.4% or 1.1% will depend on how accurately methane emissions are measured.

Several studies conducted with satellites, helicopters and specialist recording equipment suggest that methane emissions from oil and gas facilities are far higher than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), using companies’ self-reported data, estimates.

At first, the methane fee will be based on the lowest of the EPA’s estimates, known as the greenhouse gas reporting programme. The EPA uses reports from oil and gas companies about operations at their facilities and then uses that to estimate the total emissions. A 2018 study in Science magazine suggested that the real figures were about four times as high as these figures.

So using that method “is not great”, says Prest. But the bill addresses this by saying that within two years the EPA administrator shall revise the “requirements… to ensure the reporting… are based on empirical data… [and] accurately reflect the total methane emissions and waste emissions”.

Global hub launched to help countries slash methane emissions

Despite false claims from some Republicans, the fee will not apply to sources of methane other than oil and gas, like livestock or landfills. Oil and gas companies will be exempt if they comply with EPA regulations which are being drawn up now and are likely to focus on forcing companies to install certain technologies.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the fee will raise $6bn over ten years, according to EE News. This money will not be earmarked for anything in particular. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse earlier proposed it should be dedicated to coastal resilience projects.

Prest has estimated that the fee will increase the costs of producing natural gas by around 3-9 cents per million units of energy (MMBtu) and raise the gas price by 1-7 cents. The cost of natural gas is currently around 770 cents per MMBtu.

Prest and Jonathan Banks, global director of super pollutants at the Clean Air Task Force, both told Climate Home that they were unaware of any similar fees in other countries – although Norway has a nitrogen oxide fee.

Indian tribes fight to save forest homes from coal mining

Both the US and Norway are members of a US-led “Net Zero Producers Forum” for oil and gas producing nations who want to reduce emissions. The other members are Canada, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Banks said the fee “could be repeated elsewhere [in the world]”. But, he said, “the key is to layer it on other regulations. The fee will apply to all sources until the regulations go in place and then to sources outside of the regulations which is important. I don’t think you get the kinds of reductions we need with just a fee.”

The bill has to pass both houses of Congress and be signed off by the President before it becomes law. This is expected in the next few weeks, although the Democrats’ Senate majority could be threatened by the absence of any senators due to illness or by Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema, who has been sceptical of green spending in the past.

This article was amended on 29 July to clarify that companies report to the EPA on their operations at their facilities rather than their leaks directly

The post US set to fine oil and gas companies for methane leaks appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Senate Democrats said the bill was “the single biggest climate investment in US history by far” and would put the US on track to reduce emissions by 40% on 2005 levels by 2030. The US’s target, set by president Joe Biden last year, is to reduce emissions by 50-52%.

This is real! Schumer & Manchin cemented a budget bill to cut inflation, energy & health care costs, and invest a reported ~$370B in clean energy. https://t.co/mQSDw7hpSq is waiting for details but that’ll probably cut emissions by >800m & <1b tons in 2030 or to ~40% below 2005

— JesseJenkins (@JesseJenkins) July 27, 2022

Since his election, Biden has tried to pass ambitious climate legislation to meet this target but coal-state Senator Manchin, whose vote is needed to pass any legislation, has repeatedly blocked it.

Talks between Manchin and the Biden administration were thought to have ended for good last month and Biden announced he would instead take executive action, which does not depend on Senate support.

But yesterday, Manchin announced he would support a bill very similar to the one he rejected a month earlier, rebranded the “Inflation Reduction Bill”.

It raises money mainly from corporation tax and spends it on healthcare, debt repayment and $369bn of climate and energy measures.

Make polluters pay for climate adaptation, voluntary carbon market body proposes

Grants and loans will help organisations like ports, schools, waste disposal companies and the postal services buy zero-emission vehicles.

Up to $20bn in loans will help car companies build new clean vehicle factories and $2bn in grants will help them convert existing factories to clean vehicles.

Companies wanting to build factories producing green technologies like solar panels or wind turbines can apply for $10bn in investment tax credits and heavy industries like cement and steel will be given $6bn in grants and tax credits for emissions reductions.

American homeowners will be able to apply for $9bn in partial refunds and $1bn in grants for home energy efficiency improvements.

The bill also contains spending on adapting the US to the effects of climate change. There is funding to make forests more resistant to fires, farming more resistant to drought and coasts more resistant to sea level rise and storms.

Fossil fuel companies whose facilities leak methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, face fines.

South Africa turns to renewables, gas and batteries to end power cuts

Reacting, Minnesota Senator Tina Smith tweeted: “Holy shit. Stunned, but in a good way…[Big Fucking Deal]” while UCSB professor Leah Stokes, who has been pushing for a climate bill behind the scenes, called it “game-changing”.

Some climate groups were more cautious, wary of hidden support for the fossil fuel industry. Food & Water Action executive director Wenonah Hauter warned: “More subsidies for dirty hydrogen, carbon capture, and nuclear energy are not climate action, they are the opposite.”

Brett Hartl, from the Centre for Biological Diversity, pointed out the scale of funding paled in comparison to the $800 billion spent on the US military every year.

“What’s truly terrifying are the unknown concessions made to [Senator] Manchin to get this desperately needed funding,” he said. “As a coal baron, Manchin wants permitting changes that would ramp up mining and drilling at the worst possible time for our planet.”

We now have a game-changing clean energy and climate package ready to go in the Senate. What’s in the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022?” $369 billion in transformative investments.

Here’s one BIG, IMPORTANT climate policy thread…https://t.co/X5RaQKa6Zw

— Dr. Leah Stokes (@leahstokes) July 28, 2022

The bill contains funding to hire staff to speed up permitting and approval of projects, whether in clean technologies or fossil fuels. Manchin owns a stake in a series of coal companies which are managed by his son.

While Manchin’s approval removes the main obstacle to the bill passing, it still needs to go through the House of Representatives and the Senate before Biden can make it law. Arizona’s Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema, another holdout against Build Back Better, has yet to confirm whether she backs the revised text.

The post US set to pass $369bn of climate spending after Manchin U-turn appeared first on Climate Home News.

On Friday, the US Interior Department opened the leasing programme for 2023-28 to a 90-day consultation.

Interior secretary Deb Haaland, a supporter of the Green New Deal and fossil fuel critic, hinted that these auctions might not all go ahead, depending on the public response.

“President Biden and I have made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy. Today, we put forward an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing. The time for the public to weigh in on our future is now,” she said in a statement.

Ten of the eleven proposed leases are in the yellow area of the Gulf of Mexico. (Screenshot/BOEM)

Ten of the proposed leases are in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. One is in southern Alaska’s Cook Inlet, near state capital Anchorage. These areas all have existing production and infrastructure.

The plan rules out expansion of drilling to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as former president Donald Trump’s administration had intended, with 47 leases earmarked for auction 2023-28.

One of the proposed leases is in the Cook Inlet, in southern Alaska, near Anchorage. (Photo: BOEM)

In January 2021, Joe Biden’s administration paused new oil leases on federal lands and waters. Six months later, it was ordered to resume the programme by a Louisiana judge, who cited the “millions and possibly billions of dollars” at stake.

The case was brought by a group of 12 state attorneys general: 11 Republicans and one Democrat. The Koch brothers, who have substantial fossil fuel interests and a record of promoting climate denial, contribute funds to the Republican Attorney General Association. So too do oil companies Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy.

The offshore leasing proposal follows a similar compromise on land. Last week, the Biden administration held auctions of oil leases covering more than 120,000 acres, mostly in Wyoming.

But the administration has increased royalties and environmental groups launched legal challenges, dampening the industry’s enthusiasm. There were no bids on more than a third of the chunks of land up for auction on day one, according to Reuters.

The number of leases has declined over the last few decades and concentrated in the Gulf of Mexico. (BOEM/Screenshot)

Oil lobbyists expressed concern that the consultation might result in no new offshore lease sales. The gap between licensing rounds is “leaving US producers at a significant disadvantage on the global stage and putting our economic and national security at risk,” argued the American Petroleum Institute’s Frank Macchiarola.

The oil industry has presented drilling as a solution to fast-rising fuel prices, although it will take years for new supplies to come onstream.

Last year, the International Energy Agency said that no new fossil fuel production was compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement. “Beyond projects already committed as of 2021, there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our [net zero emissions] pathway,” it said.

“This proposed five-year program is out of line [with] the Biden admin’s climate & environmental justice goals,” said the National Resources Defence Council. “Oil and gas companies already hold significantly more leases than they use and new leasing will lock us in to decades of climate-harming pollution and carbon emissions.”

The post US proposes up to 11 new offshore oil leases, under industry pressure appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a case known as West Virginia vs. the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Republican-dominated court said that the EPA, the body tasked with protecting America’s water, air and land, can regulate individual power plant emissions but can’t set emissions standards to shift power generation away from fossil fuels to cleaner sources.

The ruling kills off the Clean Power Plan, a policy proposed by former president Barack Obama to assign each US state a goal to reduce carbon emissions and make them submit a plan for how to it.

The plan was scrapped before it got started by president Donald Trump but a group of climate denier-funded Republican attorneys general, working with fossil fuel companies, challenged it anyway in the hope of preventing similar policies in future.

The Supreme Court, dominated by the ideological right, ruled in the Republicans’ favour, hamstringing the EPA’s powers to drive a nationwide transition away from fossil fuels to generate electricity. Climate analysts agree this will make it much harder for the Biden administration to meet a goal to generate 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035.

While US environmentalists have described the ruling as “a setback” and “a blow”, analysts argue it is not as bad as it could have been and doesn’t change the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

It’s not surprising that with a decision this important, there have been some inaccurate takes floating around. This post from @amyturner about what the Court *didn’t* say is worth keeping in mind. 4/42 https://t.co/ygJnJFElWI

— Kirti Datla (@kirti_datla) July 1, 2022

“It does not take EPA out of the game,” responded EPA administrator Michael Regan. President Joe Biden said the ruling “risks damaging our nation’s ability to keep our air clean and combat climate change” but “our fight against climate change must carry forward, and it will”.

Around the world, climate negotiators and observers told Climate Home News of being “disappointed” and saw the ruling as further weakening the US’ credibility on climate action — already damaged by former Republican presidents’ record of backsliding – from George W Bush’s refusal to endorse the Kyoto Protocol to Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

Meanwhile under Biden, a paralyzed legislation process in Congress is not delivering the climate policies needed to meet its goal of at least halving its emissions by 2030, from 2005 levels. Biden has still not managed to pass his Build Back Better act because of opposition from Republicans and fossil-fuel friendly Democratic Senators.

“This shocking decision is unfortunately a reflection of the decades-long influence of the fossil fuel industry on US politics,” said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics. “This is nothing new to the rest of the world: over the past 30 years there’s been blow after blow delivered, either in terms of failure on the part of Congress to take action, or legal challenges to climate policies.”

“The world is getting tired of this,” added Alden Meyer, senior associate at E3G.

Germany, Italy moot support for gas export facility in Argentina

Quamrul Chowdhury, a veteran climate negotiator from Bangladesh, described the ruling as “a negative driving force on president Joe Biden and his climate team”. “Biden needs to do a lot to show his global leadership especially by taking some bold decisions domestically,” he told Climate Home.

Johan Kuylenstierna, chair of the Swedish climate policy council, agreed: “It will most likely have a negative impact on ‘US leadership’ internationally if the the country cannot deliver on set targets at home,” noting the renewed importance of action from sub-national actors including states, cities and corporations.

“Just when the rest of the world thought that the US is ‘back’ on climate leadership, the [Supreme Court] decides otherwise. America is now back [to] the drawing board,” said Esther Tamara, a researcher at the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia.

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Others emphasised that the US’ moral authority and ability to pressure other governments to take bolder climate action has once again been damaged.

“It puts the [Biden] administration in a very weak negotiating position as their attempts to get everyone to increase their ambition will be met with scepticism,” said Carlos Fuller, Belize’s ambassador to the UN and a lead climate negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis).

From China, Greenpeace East Asia advisor Li Shuo, said the ruling “will no doubt be noticed by Beijing and feed into its long-standing perception that significant US federal action is not possible”. That “will further limit the potential of US-China bilateral climate talks, and it only highlights the importance of both countries getting their own house in order,” he said.

Some further fear the ruling will make it harder to argue the case for climate action if the world’s largest historic emitter is unable to embrace policies that accelerate the clean energy transition.

“It weakens our hands in terms of convincing our own authorities throughout the world that they need to remain committed,” said Giza Gaspar Martins, climate negotiator for Angola.

Chia-Wei Chao, chair of Taiwan Environment & Planning Association, said he feared that anti-climate forces in Taiwan, like industry associations, would seize on and exaggerate the ruling to argue against climate action. “We are co-writing an op-ed to explain this decision doesn’t mean the US has dropped out of the climate game again and emphasising the necessity of passing a comprehensive climate law this September,” he said.

The post ‘The world is getting tired of this’: Supreme Court deals blow to US climate credibility appeared first on Climate Home News.

An investigation into solar panel imports from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia had effectively frozen the roll-out of solar power in the US, pushing up American electricity prices and the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Biden signed an executive order freezing these import restrictions for two years. “That sound you hear is the sigh of relief from thousands of American solar workers and businesses,” responded the head of the Solar Energy Industries Association Abby Hopper. The Coalition for a Prosperous America, a conservative lobbying group, called it a big win for the “climate lobby and Chinese solar exporters”.

Following the decision, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) revised their projections for US solar capacity upward by 2GW. The impact is limited by a shortage of solar panels everywhere in the world as supply has not kept pace with soaring global demand, BNEF researcher Jenny Chase told Climate Home News.

For Greenpeace East Asia adviser Li Shuo, the move does not go far enough as it still restricts solar imports from China. Li told Climate Home: "For solar [panels], I can tell you no one is going to be more cost efficient than Chinese products. So if the US wants to build domestic manufacturing capacity, that’s fine, but they will just pay a higher price, which one can argue is a bad thing for climate action."

The decision is the latest move in a decade-long saga in which the US government has balanced its climate plans and the interests of solar installers against its desire to protect US manufacturers from cheap, largely Chinese, imports.

In 2011, a Californian solar panel manufacturer called Solyndra filed for bankruptcy despite receiving a $535m loan from the green package of president Barack Obama's stimulus bill. An anti-climate lobbying group called Americans for Prosperity spent $8m running attack adverts denouncing the loan as fiscally irresponsible.

To neutralise these attacks, Obama introduced tariffs on Chinese solar panels. He argued that China was illegally subsiding its industry and dumping products on the market at below cost price. China challenged these tariffs in the World Trade Organisation but lost the case. The tariffs stayed and were renewed and extended by presidents Donald Trump and Biden.

But a US solar panel manufacturing industry did not take the place of Chinese imports. Instead, US solar installers bought their panels from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. In 2021, 85% of solar panel imports were from these four countries.

Outcompeted by cheap imports, a tiny Californian solar panel manufacturer called Auxin Solar made a complaint to the Department of Commerce and hired Washington lobbyists and public relation spinners to make its case.

They argued that Chinese exporters were getting around tariffs by exporting their solar panels through these southeast Asian countries. The complaint referenced data from BNEF and Chase. But she told Climate Home: "We don't sanction their interpretation of it particularly". The SEIA has rebuked Auxin's arguments.

Finland sets world’s most ambitious climate target in law

But US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo decided she was legally obliged to open an investigation, which could result in retroactive tariffs on imports. Solar installers stopped importing. Rystad analysts estimated this could have cost the US 17.5GW of uninstalled solar power capacity in 2022.

The SEIA, whose members include the US subsidiaries of Chinese solar panel manufacturers, lobbied against the investigation in Washington DC. They won vocal support from politicians like Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from the solar-reliant, south-western state of Nevada and eventually convinced the Biden administration to act.

The freeze is only due to last two years, during which Biden is hoping to build up a US solar manufacturing industry. His executive order authorises the use of the Defense Production Act, a law designed to help the US win wars, to speed up production of solar panel parts. The federal government will further prioritise US-made solar panels in procurement and has called on state and local governments to do the same.

Proposed legislation known as the Build Back Better bill would provide new tax credits for solar wafers, cells and modules produced in the US but it is being blocked by fossil-fuel-friendly Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The post US solar installers ‘breathe sigh of relief’ as Biden eases protectionism appeared first on Climate Home News.

Green Climate Fund (GCF) executive director Yannick Glemarec told a board meeting yesterday: “Regarding the need for more mitigation projects, this will very much depend on whether or not we are able to mobilise some additional resources”.

Without that additional funding, “some turn-off will be unavoidable,” he said. “It’s one of my fears.”

Campaigners blamed the US for these potential cut-backs. Action Aid’s policy director Brandon Wu told Climate Home News: “If the GCF needs to limit its operations in the near future due to lack of funding, it’s hard to find any single country more at fault than the United States”.

“By failing to meet its responsibilities to fund the GCF,” Wu said, “the US is failing frontline communities in developing countries and it is also undermining the prospects of global climate cooperation more broadly.”

The US owes the GCF $2 billion. In 2014, then president Barack Obama promised the fund $3bn but only handed over $1bn before the end of his term. His successor Donald Trump did not give any money to the GCF and, so far, neither has Joe Biden.

Earlier this month, the US Congress approved a 2022 spending bill with a mere $1bn for international climate finance and no money for the GCF. Biden had requested Congress to approve $1.25bn for the fund but negotiations brought the amount down to zero.

Comparison of proposals for US international climate finance in 2022 (Source: Joe Thwaites/World Resources Institute)

On Monday, the Biden administration published its request to Congress for the 2023 fiscal year, which includes $1.6bn for the GCF. Erika Lennon, a senior attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law who attends GCF board meetings on behalf of civil society, told Climate Home this was a "paltry" amount.

Lennon reiterated campaigners' demand for the White House to deliver $8bn to the GCF. That would cover its $2bn debt plus $6bn to bring the US in step with other donor countries, which doubled their contributions to the fund during its first replenishment in 2019. Collectively, EU member states have delivered more than $9bn to the fund.

If Biden is to ensure that at least $1.6bn is allocated to the GCF in 2023, it will need to make it a funding priority, World Resources Institute's climate finance analyst Joe Thwaites said.

Republicans have previously blocked GCF funding and securing Congress' backing won't be easy. Commenting on Biden's $1.6bn request, Republican representative Lance Gooden tweeted "Biden will give handouts to the green industry while Americans are stuck paying $4 [a gallon] at the gas pump".

Last year, representative Lauren Boebert tweeted: "Democrats have no problem wasting and spending as much of your tax dollars as possible on their liberal wishlist".

$3.2 billion to a Clean Technology Fund.
$1.6 billion to a Green Climate Fund.
$1.45 billion for environmental justice.
$900 million to research climate change.

Joe Biden will give handouts to the green industry while Americans are stuck paying $4 at the gas pump.

— Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) March 29, 2022

Thwaites said the US could fund the GCF through flexible funds like the state department's economic support fund, which wouldn't require Congress approval. This is the vehicle Obama used to make two $500m payments in 2016 and 2017. In 2022, the fund's budget was increased by $1bn.

"However," Thwaites warned, "this account is used to fund many different overseas programmes and so it depends on how many other claims there are on these resources and whether the administration will prioritise funding the GCF".

The GCF was set up at UN climate talks in 2010 as a financing vehicle for developing countries' climate action. It has since allocated more than $10bn to projects designed to cut emissions and support vulnerable communities cope with climate impacts.

Recent carbon-cutting projects include funding for solar panels in Africa's Sahel region, clean ways of cooking in Nepal and light rail transit in Costa Rica's capital San José.

At the urging of developing countries, the GCF is trying to assign more of its funding to adapting to climate change rather than reducing emissions.

While it is aiming for a 50:50 split, projects to reduce emissions have so far received 62% of the funding in nominal terms and 52% on a grant-equivalent basis.

This article was amended on 29/3/22 to clarify that Lauren Boebert was commenting on the 2022 GCF funding proposal not the 2023 proposal. Lance Gooden's comments on the 2023 proposal were added in.

The post After US fails to pay its debt, UN’s flagship climate fund warns of austerity appeared first on Climate Home News.

The climate change committee (CCC) gave the government nine out of 10 for its commitments, but “somewhere below four” for delivery in its annual progress report to parliament. 

Without a comprehensive net zero strategy in place before November, it will be difficult for the UK to deliver a successful Cop26, the committee warned. “Everyone is looking for action and delivery not just for promises,” said committee chair Lord Deben. 

The UK has set the world’s most ambitious climate target for 2030, pledging to slash emissions by 57%, compared to 1990 levels. But CCC CEO Chris Stark said the government is not on track to meet this goal or its carbon budgets.

“Targets are not going to be achieved by magic. Surprisingly little has been done so far to deliver on them,” he said.

Across the pond, Joe Biden declared that he has reached a deal on his flagship infrastructure bill. 

Biden resorted to splitting the $2 trillion bill in two to get Republicans and conservative Democrats, like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, on board. He agreed to significantly watering down climate spending in a $1.2 trillion bipartisan package, scaling back support for clean energy and electric vehicles.

Biden said he would only sign this package if a spending bill is enacted at the same time that advances Democratic priorities like climate action. 

Researchers told Climate Home that the bipartisan package does not match the ambition of US climate goals, a 50-52% reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050, compared to 2005 levels. 

“This year is the last best chance for America to pass major climate legislation,” said Joel Jaeger from the World Resources Institute. 

It remains to be seen whether Biden will get a more ambitious deal through the Senate.

This week’s stories

• Months after probes launched, Brazilian environment minister quits
• Infrared images show under-regulated ‘methane crisis’ across Europe
• UK has done ‘surprisingly little’ to deliver on climate targets, say official advisers
• Biden scales down climate spending in search of bipartisan deal
• An outbreak of ‘sea snot’ is killing Turkey’s fishing industry 

and comment…

• What makes a good net zero target? – Silke Mooldijk, Frederic Hans and Claire Fyson
• By greenwashing Shell, the Science Museum is failing young people – Izzy Warren

The post UK, US still need to deliver on climate – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

In one in a series of executive orders aimed at tackling the climate crisis in the US and abroad, Biden committed his government “to identify steps through which the United States can promote ending international financing of carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy while simultaneously advancing sustainable development and a green recovery”.

The order stated the secretary of state together with the treasury and energy secretaries would work with the US Export–Import Bank and the head of the Development Finance Corporation to achieve this.

Biden also directed federal agencies to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. “Unlike previous administrations, I don’t think the federal government should give handouts to big oil to the tune of $40 billion in fossil fuel subsidies,” he said in a speech before signing the executive order.

A few hours earlier, presidential climate envoy John Kerry told a panel discussion organised by the World Economic Forum that Biden had asked his administration to develop “a plan for ending international finance of fossil fuel projects with public money”.

The announcement brings the US in line with the EU, where foreign ministers have called this week for an end to fossil fuel finance abroad. Last month, the UK committed to ending its financing of oil and gas projects, but the policy is yet to come into force.

Carney’s carbon offset taskforce ducks environmental integrity questions

The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and its predecessor, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, approved around $4 billion for overseas fossil fuel projects over the past five years, according to climate group Friends of the Earth. Since 2018, the US Export-Import Bank greenlit over $5bn for fossil fuel investments abroad. 

This included a $4.7bn loan for a natural gas project in northern Mozambique, $400 million in financial support for Mexican oil company Pemex, and an $18m loan for oil and gas production in Vaca Muerta, western Argentina.

The US Export-Import Bank also provided a $805m loan for the Kusile power plant, a 4,800MW coal-fired station that is currently under construction in South Africa. 

Many of these projects were approved under Donald Trump, Han Chen, international energy policy manager at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Climate Home News. 

“You had a lot of fossil fuel promoters, trade associations and interest groups really using the Trump administration and the apparatus of US diplomacy to push deals in a lot of countries. There was a lot of pressure for countries to agree to LNG deals – they were part of the trade and economic negotiations,” said Chen.

In October the DFC said it planned to invest in fossil fuel projects in several countries in southeast Asia to “help expand access to secure and reliable energy.”

One project under consideration by the DFC involved the construction of a 2,250MW gas plant in Binh Thuan province, southeast Vietnam.

“Without that very pro-fossil fuel export agenda, what [will] happen to all of these projects that, frankly, financially weren’t really viable?” Chen added. 

John Kerry promises ‘significantly’ more climate finance at adaptation summit

Campaigners welcomed Biden’s announcement but said questions remained around when the policy could be implemented and whether the order included ending funding for methane gas. 

“The executive order leaves the door open to only covering coal, rather than all fossil fuels with the questionable language ‘carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy’,” Kate DeAngelis, international finance manager at Friends of the Earth, told Climate Home.  

Gas is commonly touted as a cleaner fuel than coal, because it emits around half the carbon dioxide when burned for energy. But methane leaks or flaring during extraction, processing and transport leads to fugitive emissions which can significantly worsen the fuel’s climate impact. 

Chen said there have been indications that the Biden administration is set on moving away from financing gas projects. “Kerry has really been hammering down the point that there is no time left for doing gas,” she said. 

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Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Kerry commented: “The problem with gas is if we build out a huge infrastructure for gas now to continue to use it as the bridge fuel, when we haven’t really exhausted the other possibilities, we’re going to be stuck with stranded assets in 10, 20, 30 years.”

Kerry announced this week that the US would draft a climate finance plan and pledged to “significantly increase” international finance for adaptation and resilience initiatives. 

In his executive orders, Biden said he would reconvene the Major Economies Forum. Launched by the Obama administration, the forum brings together the world’s 17 largest emitters to discuss high-level leadership and collaboration on climate action.

“Fossil fuel financing is definitely going to be a big issue [at the forum]. Coal financing in particular will be at the forefront. There will be a lot of countries that are heavily reliant on coal [attending]. That is one of the major conversations [that needs] to happen first – getting commitments to end financing on coal,” said Chen.

The post US plans to end fossil fuel finance overseas, threatens billions in support for oil and gas appeared first on Climate Home News.

Those expecting a repeat of President Xi Jinping’s surprise announcement last week that China was aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 were left disappointed.

Xi outlined no grand plan for reversing nature loss and environmental destruction when he addressed the high-level biodiversity event on Wednesday. 

“The goal is to seek a kind of modernisation that promotes harmonious coexistence of man and nature,” he told political leaders in a pre-recorded message, insisting that economic development could take place while preserving the environment.

“It falls to all of us to act together and turn the earth into a beautiful homeland,” he added, calling on countries to strike an agreement during major biodiversity talks in Kunming, provisionally scheduled for May 2021, when governments are due to agree on a new framework to halt the decline of biodiversity beyond 2020. 

The UN summit on biodiversity convened by UN secretary general António Guterres on the sidelines of the general assembly aimed to build political momentum and bolster financial commitments ahead of the talks in Kunming. 

The UN hoped the event would be a platform for countries to announce concrete action to stem the decline of the planet’s biodiversity. But beyond speeches, few leaders came with a plan.

UN summit highlights $700bn funding gap to restore nature

“If the summit is nothing but rhetoric, then we are repeating the mistakes made in Aichi,” Li Shuo, Beijing-based senior energy and climate officer at Greenpeace, told Climate Home. 

“The lack of substance can’t hide the fact that political will on global nature protection is low,” Li tweeted during the summit. 

On Monday, 64 political leaders and the European Union launched a “leader’s pledge for nature” with a 10-point plan to halt global biodiversity destruction.

The pledge has now been signed by more than 70 countries, but China is not one of them. Australia, Brazil, Russia and the US, whose governments all control vast swathes of land and oceans, have not signed up either. 

Campaigners say that without concrete commitments, next year’s talks will fall flat.

A UN report earlier this month concluded that the world has missed all 20 biodiversity targets for 2020 agreed in Aichi, Japan, in 2010. Funding shortfalls were highlighted as a significant barrier to meeting the targets and campaigners fear the failure could repeat itself if countries do not raise more funds ahead of the talks in Kunming.

UN agencies have warned that countries needed to commit an additional $700 billion per year to reverse the destruction of nature. But at a funding conference on Monday, only Germany made a firm commitment to increase its funding for protecting biodiversity in developing countries.

Bolsonaro shifts blame for unprecedented Brazilian wetland fires

“China should provide stronger leadership in the current Kunming process. It is crystal clear that the negotiations are heading to an Aichi 2.0. If one looks at the Aichi round, it is essentially a rhetorical boom in 2010 followed by an implementation bust over the subsequent decade,” Li told CHN. 

Other major emitters have also been criticised for their lack of commitment.

The US did not even send a representative to the UN event. And Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro told the UN in a statement last week the country was already subject to “the best environmental legislation on the planet”. 

On Tuesday, Bolsonaro revoked regulations that protect tropical mangroves and other coastal ecosystems. 

“Their deliberate plans to actively destroy nature makes both the Trump and Bolsonaro administrations climate villains,” said Arlo Hemphill, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace US.

Australia was also noticeably absent from the UN biodiversity summit. A government spokesperson said Australia would not agree to environmental targets “unless we can tell the Australian people what they will cost to achieve and how we will achieve it”.

The post China host of major nature talks fails to step up at UN biodiversity summit appeared first on Climate Home News.

US President Barack Obama (Flickr/ Brian Wolfer)

By Alex Pashley

No target was spared on Saturday night as President Barack Obama poked fun at acerbic Republicans, fellow democrats and even himself.

Though one of the celebrity-filled bash’s most raucous moments came with an outburst on US opposition to tackling global warming.

Inviting on stage American comic Keegan-Michael Key before an audience of 2,600 from the media, politics and show business, Obama spoke in level-headed presidential tones, while Key translated his true thoughts.

But when the act turned to climate change, Obama flipped: “It’s crazy! What about our kids?! What kind of stupid, shortsighted, irresponsible…” before Key stopped him, and told him to get counselling.

Chapeau Obama.

The post On climate change, Obama don’t need no ‘anger translator’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

Hillary Clinton: “America’s ability to lead the world on climate and energy hinges on our commitment to act ourselves” (Source: flickr/US State Dept)

By Megan Darby

The US can be “the clean energy superpower the world needs”, Hillary Clinton told green business leaders on Thursday.

Addressing the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, the former secretary of state paid tribute to Nevada’ record on renewables.

Her speech came as Tesla announced plans to build the world’s largest electric car battery plant in Reno, Nevada. The “Gigafactory” will also produce storage units to work with solar panels.

Clinton, who is widely expected to run for presidency in 2016, said climate change posed “the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world”.

On carbon dioxide emissions and rising temperatures, she said: “The data is unforgiving, no matter what the deniers try to assert.

“The threat is real. But so is the opportunity.”

Green growth

Nevada has quintupled its renewable energy capacity since 2008, investing more than US$5.5 billion, she said.

Tesla claims its new factory will bring US$100 billion worth of benefits to the state by 2020, while producing enough batteries for 500,000 electric cars a year.

Highlighting the skilled jobs created in clean energy sectors, Clinton hit out at those who present a “false choice” between protecting the environment and economic growth. “We can do both.”

In an appeal to nationalist impulses, she said: “China and other competitors are racing ahead with big bets on renewables. We cannot afford to cede leadership in this area.”

She added: “If we come together to make the hard choices, the smart investment in infrastructure, technology and environmental protection, America can be the clean energy superpower for the 21st century.”

In a more controversial message for environmentalists, she lent her support to shale gas to provide a “safe bridge” to a clean energy future.

When burned for electricity, gas produces lower carbon emissions than coal.

However, campaigners have raised concerns about the “fracking” techniques used to extract shale gas.

Clinton acknowledged these concerns, saying the risk of methane leaking from wells and pipelines was “particularly troubling”.

But she said with “smart regulations” and technology, these problems could be tackled.

Leadership

Globally, negotiators are preparing to strike a deal to act on climate change in Paris next year.

All eyes are on China and the US, as the two highest emitting countries, to show leadership.

“America’s ability to lead the world on climate and energy hinges on our commitment to act ourselves,” said Clinton.

“No other country will fall in line just because we tell them to.”

US president Barack Obama has created the country’s first climate action plan, including rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power stations.

He and Clinton have experienced the difficulty of international climate negotiations first hand, at the 2009 Copenhagen summit.

According to Clinton, the pair had to gatecrash a “secret” meeting of emerging economy leaders to get them onside.

The leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa were seeking to dilute the deal the US was seeking, she claimed.

While Copenhagen was widely seen as a flop, Clinton said the discussions at that meeting “did provide a foundation to build on”.

Now, she is “cautiously hopeful” the Chinese are coming round to the idea of climate action.

The post Hillary Clinton: US can be clean energy superpower appeared first on Climate Home News.

Geothermal energy, Kenya (Pic: GDC)

By Megan Darby

Barack Obama is promoting efforts to double the amount of electricity in sub-Saharan Africa, as African leaders converge on Washington this week.

The US president told the Economist he was “really excited” about Power Africa, a “transformative” aid programme to improve access to electricity.

In the first event of its kind, the White House is hosting a three-day summit with heads of those African states “in good standing with the United States”.

With the focus on trade and investment links, energy infrastructure is high on the agenda.

The summit also includes a session on boosting resilience to a changing climate.

Starting with six partner countries, Power Africa promises to add 10GW of “cleaner, more efficient electricity generation capacity”.

This includes gas-fired generation in Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania as well as renewable energy and smart metering projects.

“There are a whole bunch of different models for generating power,” Obama told the Economist, adding that America could “play a unique role” in getting neighbouring countries to cooperate and spread the benefits.

The US has committed US$7 billion over five years to the programme, which was launched in June 2013. To date, private investors have put in double that.

The International Energy Agency estimates some US$300 billion is needed to bring electricity to all sub-Saharan Africans by 2030.

On climate adaptation, the summit will highlight how climate change is threatening food production.

The agenda noted: “Climate shocks, as well as shocks caused by other environmental, social and economic disturbances, undercut household and community stability and resilience, and erode hard-won development gains.”

Barack Obama: Corporate CEOs do not engage in climate change denial “nonsense” (Pic: White House)

In a wide-ranging interview with the Economist, Obama also raised the subject of climate change in a defence against criticisms his administration is anti-business.

His recent moves to curb coal pollution were welcomed by international climate negotiators and NGOs but met resistance from certain sectors of the US business lobby.

Despite opposition to his policies, Obama said even in the fossil fuel industries, corporate CEOs he talks to do not deny “climate change is a factor”.

Obama said: “What they want is some certainty around the regulations so that they can start planning. Given the capital investments that they have to make, they’re looking at 20-, 30-year investments. They’ve got to know now are we pricing carbon? Are we serious about this?

“But none of them are engaging in some of the nonsense that you’re hearing out of the climate-change denialists.”

Businesses “always complain about regulation”, Obama said, insisting his policies had been friendly towards business and these complaints should be taken “with a grain of salt”.

While corporations might say they care about the environment and other policy issues, Obama challenged them to reflect that in their activities.

“There’s a huge gap between the professed values and visions of corporate CEOs and how their lobbyists operate in Washington,” he said.

The post Obama promotes Africa energy links at White House summit appeared first on Climate Home News.

Activists fear relaxation of trade rules could lead to more fracking

By Megan Darby

Protest is ramping up against a transatlantic trade treaty critics say could weaken environmental protection.

The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership is intended to boost commerce between Europe and the US, by cutting tariffs and aligning regulations.

Green groups on both sides of the ocean have expressed fears this could mean watering down environmental safeguards and increasing fossil fuel consumption.

A national day of action is planned for Saturday 12 July in the UK to highlight concerns with the TTIP ahead of further negotiations in Brussels next week. This will include a protest outside the business department building in London.

The UK Green Party, which supports the protests, said the TTIP was a “corporate power grab” that “must be stopped”.

Keith Taylor MEP said: “Though huge chunks of this trade deal are shrouded in secrecy what we do know is that TTIP poses a very real threat to the quality of life of people in the UK.

“This deal, favoured by multinationals, threatens to slash regulations that protect our environment and health. But, most worryingly, it represents a serious threat to democracy in our country.”

It follows an anti-TTIP demonstration in Brussels two months ago that resulted in 240 arrests.

Climate impact

One concern of greens is that loosening regulations could increase oil and gas exports from America, increasing European reliance on polluting fossil fuels.

A European position paper leaked earlier this week endorsed lifting restrictions on trade in gas and crude oil. It argued this would help with security of supply, an increasingly hot topic since tensions in the Ukraine highlighted Europe’s heavy dependence on Russian gas.

Natacha Cingotti, campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “This leaked proposal further confirms our concerns that, while the public is being kept in the dark, the EU-US trade deal is being used to trade away regulations that protect us from dangerous climate change…

“Europe needs to end its high import dependency and make an urgent transition to clean, renewable energy and greater energy efficiency.”

US grassroots environmental network the Sierra Club also raised concerns. Ilana Solomon, director of its responsible trade programme, said: “The EU wants a free pass to import dirty fossil fuels from the US, a run-around US law that would result in more dangerous fracking for oil and gas in our backyards and more climate-disrupting pollution globally.”

Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, called the proposals “climate denial, pure and simple”. German-based Power Shift executive director Peter Fuchs said communities and the environment would suffer.

German think-tank the Heinrich Boll Foundation, in contrast, said in a report the treaty presented an opportunity to phase out fossil fuel subsidies [FFS]. That would benefit low carbon sectors.

In principle, the European Commission has argued, increased economic cooperation should facilitate greater climate and environmental protection.

In practice, the think-tank pointed out a 2013 impact assessment from Brussels predicted an 11.8 million tonne increase in carbon emissions, in the most liberalised scenario.

The report added: “In the absence of FFS reform, the TTIP will be a step in the wrong direction.”

Precautionary principle

The other core concern for European environmentalists is the treaty could erode the precautionary principle. This is the tenet, long held in Europe, that an action or policy must be proved not harmful before it goes ahead.

In America, on the other hand, it must normally be proved something is harmful before it can be banned.

The philosophical divide is one reason that shale gas fracking has been slower to take off in Europe than the US, for example.

Blogging for the European Greens’ campaigning website against TTIP, MEP Jose Bove said: “Under TTIP, big business is teaming up on both sides of the Atlantic to challenge the precautionary principal, claiming it creates unnecessary ‘technical barriers to trade’. We are fundamentally against this dangerous assumption.

“If anything, we need to do more in the EU to safeguard our citizens and our environment from untested or risky substances or processes.”

The European Commission acknowledges the different approaches on its TTIP website, but insists the high level of environmental protection in Europe is “non-negotiable”.

“Both the EU and the US are committed to high levels of protection for our citizens, but we go about it in different ways. The EU sometimes relies more on regulations, the US more on litigation. Both approaches can be effective, but neither is perfect,” it says.

“This is not a race to the bottom.  Making our regulations more compatible does not mean going for the lowest common denominator, but rather seeing where we diverge unnecessarily.”

Transparency

Protestors’ concerns around the treaty have been compounded by a perceived lack of transparency around the negotiations, which are led by unelected officials.

The Corporate Europe Observatory accused the European Commission of favouring big business in its consultations around the treaty. It found that of the 560 lobbyist meetings and communications the Commission had with stakeholders, 92% were with business and just 4% with public interest groups.

Pia Eberhardt, trade campaigner at the Corporate Europe Observatory, said: “[The trade directorate] actively involved business lobbyists in drawing up the EU position for TTIP while keeping ‘pesky’ trade unionists and other public interest groups at bay.

“The result is a big-business-first agenda for the negotiations which endangers many achievements that people in Europe have long struggled for, from food safety rules to environmental protection.”

A European Court of Justice ruling last week could result in more TTIP documents being made public, but a lawyer told Euractiv it was a “modest step forward”.

The sixth round of negotiations on TTIP takes place in Brussels from 14 to 18 July.

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Pic: John Kerry/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

US Secretary of State John Kerry has hailed the growing understand between the US and China on climate change, after the countries signed eight deals to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

At the main annual economic dialogue between the two global powerhouses, Kerry highlighted that through joint deals and initiatives the two countries were converging on efforts to cut the greenhouse gases responsible for warming the planet.

“Despite our differences, our two nations have the ability to find common ground,” he said, speaking alongside Chinese vice premier Wang Yang.

Climate change issues have been pushed as a top priority for the high-level talks. Kerry added that how the two countries deal with the problem will determine the quality of economic growth.

“Ultimately, the true measure of our success will not be just whether our countries grow, but how our countries grow. And that is one area where we have made real strides in the deepening of our relationship on climate change and clean energy,” he said.

Speaking alongside Kerry, Vice Premier Wang Yang talked of “greater opportunities of cooperation for both countries”, stressing the urgency of “concrete action”.

“I also understand that many people in the world are watching how China and the U.S. will perform on the issue of climate change in this round of dialogue,” he said.

On Tuesday, eight companies and research bodies signed agreements to cooperate on low carbon projections: four on carbon capture and storage, and four on smart grids.

“This accelerates sharing of information on carbon capture and storage for power,” said Julio Friedmann, deputy assistant Secretary for Clean Coal for the US Department of Energy.

Kerry and his Chinese counterpart State Councillor Yang Jiechi also agreed to adopt more stringent fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards, conduct a study on gas efficiency in industrial boilers, and launch a new initiative on climate change and forests.

2020 targets

Despite deals and bilateral talks, there is still a deep rift between the US and China on how a new UN climate treaty, scheduled to be signed off in 2015, should be applied.

China is backing an agreement that maintains a legal separation between developed and developing countries, based on a list that the UN drew up in 1992.

The US wants to do away with this division, which it says means emerging economies can get away without making any emission cuts.

US climate envoy Todd Stern, speaking in Beijing today, described it as “one of those conversations that just goes on and on and doesn’t stop.”

He said that he had engaged in “quite detailed conversations” with the Chinese about a post-2020 target for greenhouse gas reduction, but added that the two teams were still not discussing concrete numbers.

“It is more what is your process for developing a target, what sort of form you think your target is going to take. What are the policies that underpin the target you are going to develop?”

Stern and his counterpart, Chinese negotiator Xie Zhenhua, chaired a full day of policy dialogue on 8 July aimed at coordinating efforts to reach a deal.

Urgency

Earlier on Wednesday, researchers from Point Carbon at Thomson Reuters warned that a failure to agree on a post-2020 deal to reduce emissions at the Paris conference means the world’s “carbon budget” will run out by 2037.

This budget is the amount of carbon dioxide that the world can emit before the world exceeds 2C, a level deemed dangerous by scientists.

They add that pledges put forward by the countries will have to be much more ambitious than they are currently.

“In our scenarios, the carbon budget runs out between 2037 and 2048 regardless of whether Paris is a huge success or not. The world just can’t escape the fact that so many emissions have already occurred,” said Frank Melum from Point Carbon.

“Even if China implemented emission reductions to the same extent as Europe’s proposal [40% reduction by 2030] – a politically unimaginable scenario – the carbon budget only lasts an extra two years.”

The post Kerry hints at “common ground” between US and China on climate appeared first on Climate Home News.

Pic: Michaël Garrigues/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

The US and China will discuss climate change during a high-level talks taking place this week in Beijing.

How the US and China plan to reduce their carbon footprints could unusually prove one of the more harmonious topics during the sixth Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the most important annual discussion between the world’s two largest emitters.

The bilateral relationship between the US and China has been fraught following maritime disputes and the indictment of five Chinese military officers in Washington in May over cyber hacking.

But climate change is expected to remain a “positive area of cooperation”, said Barbara Finamore, Asia Director at US-based Natural Resources Defense Council, who is currently in Beijing for the talks.

“I think the leaders at the S&ED can and will separate out the opportunities for collaboration on climate issues from the difficulties we face,” she said.

Wheels up and #Beijing-bound to join @USTreasury Sec. Lew in the U.S.-#China Strategic & Economic Dialogue. pic.twitter.com/LByw26kn22

— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) July 7, 2014

Renewed domestic efforts on both sides to tackle climate change, including Obama’s new standards for coal-fired power plants and Chinese policies to reduce air pollution, could provide “new reason to engage afresh” on climate issues, she added.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew will represent the United States, with State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Vice Premier Wang Yang representing China.

Collaboration

Climate change is a divisive topic in US-China relations, but one that both countries have officially stated their determination to resolve.

But their efforts are complicated by opposing attitudes in the two countries on China’s future development and who should take responsibility for the problem of global warming.

Overcoming these differences is central to global efforts to tackle climate change. Together, these two countries are responsible for around 40% of the world’s greenhouse gases.

In 2009, the two countries tightened their bilateral cooperation with seven joint initiatives on clean energy, coal and electric vehicles, and a US-China Climate Change Working Group was established at last year’s S&ED.

According to the US State Department, this is “intended to spur large-scale, cooperative efforts to address the climate challenge, including deepening and expanding work already underway.”

Addressing journalists yesterday, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that this year’s round of discussions is expected to yield “expanding cooperation” within this platform.

Foreign investment

Both the US and China have signalled their determination to take domestic action on climate change ahead of a UN summit in Paris 2015, where all countries will sign a global agreement.

For China, the key issues are how to combat its choking air pollution, and when it will be able to peak its CO2 emissions. Emissions in the US are already declining, but will need to decline much faster if the world is going to stay below an internationally agreed limit of 2C of warming.

A study released this week by Jiang Kejun, director of the Energy Research Institute at China’s National Development and Reform Commission, said that China could peak its emissions by 2025, but that it will need US$ 453billion every year by 2030 if it is to stay on a 2C pathway.

In an interview, Jiang emphasised the need for foreign collaboration to achieve these goals.

“We need foreign investment here because the global economy is so interlinked, and we cannot distinguish between Chinese technology and technology from other countries. We need many new technologies from other countries, like Europe, the United States and Japan,” he said.

China is currently working on its 13th Five Year Plan, the blueprint for its policies between 2016 and 2020. An absolute emissions cap should be a “serious consideration” for this period, he added.

Report: China could cap carbon emissions from 2016

This week’s round of talks is not expected to deliver anything in the way of new targets – these are more likely to emerge for UN deadlines in September and March – but is an important opportunity for the two sides to consider their domestic and international efforts, said Changhua Wu, director of The Climate Group in China.

“I don’t think there will be anything dramatic in terms of decisions made at this moment but this is a very important time where two big countries come together to talk about sharing their views, perspectives, and even discuss each other’s positioning in the global process,” she said.

The post US and China set for latest climate change discussions appeared first on Climate Home News.

New funding for clean energy welcomed, but US coal emissions are still rising (Pic: Roland Peschetz/Flickr)

By Ed King

The US government has made $4 billion in clean energy funding available, in support of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

The loan guarantees are for US renewable energy and energy efficiency projects that cut, store or reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“Through previous loan guarantees and other investments, the Department is already helping launch or jumpstart entire industries in the US, from utility-scale wind and solar to nuclear and lower-carbon fossil energy,” energy secretary Ernest Moniz said in a statement.

“Today’s announcement will help build on and accelerate that success.”

The new loans are the latest in a series of measures aimed at cutting emissions, deployed through the President’s executive powers.

Last month Obama announced new carbon emission standards for coal power plants, which could see reduce carbon pollution fall 26% by 2020 compared with 2005 levels.

By 2030, the draft rule would mandate that the emissions be cut by 30% compared with 2005 levels.

Political battle

The tough challenge facing US decarbonisation efforts is highlighted by latest data from the US Energy Information Agency, which suggest the country’s emissions are set to rise for a second successive year.

US wind installations are performing even worse than a very poor 2013, due to the end of favourable tax credits, while coal generation is climbing.

In the past year climate change has rapidly become one of the White House’s signature policy initiatives, set against a hostile Congress that has refused to pass any new green laws.

Last week Obama mocked his Republican opponents, many of whom say global warming is not a threat, and have called for low carbon legislation to be scrapped.

“Folks will tell you climate change is a hoax or a fad or a plot, it’s a liberal plot,” he said.

“Many who say that actually know better and they’re just embarrassed, they duck the question.

“‘They say, hey, I’m not a scientist,’ which really translates into, ‘I accept that manmade climate change is real, but if I say so out loud, I will be run out of town by a bunch of fringe elements that thinks climate science is a liberal plot.'”

Scientists say parts of the US are already feeling the effects of climate change-related weather patterns, with 20% of the country suffering severe to extreme drought.

Published in May, the USA National Climate Assessment warned of temperature rises between 1.1 to 2.2C in the coming decades.

“The most recent decade was the nation’s and the world’s hottest on record, and 2012 was the hottest year on record in the continental United States,” it said.

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Rhode Island State House, where the state’s legislature meets (Pic: Ken Zerkel/Flickr)

By Timmons Roberts

Almost every year since 2008, a quixotic state representative in Rhode Island has introduced the “Climate Solutions Act,” which lays out a series of targets for emissions reductions in the tiny state.

Each year, the bill has died in committee.

It wasn’t that Representative Art Handy, a Democrat in a state with about 90 percent of its legislature on the blue side of the aisle, was in the minority party.  (Full disclosure: Representative Handy has worked with climate stakeholders across the state, including with Brown University, where I teach.)

In fact, Democrats have all but one small row of six seats in the 70-some seat legislature.  It wasn’t a hostile committee he had to make it through either—Handy himself chaired the House Environment Committee.

And it wasn’t that Rhode Island would be way out in front of other states: Rhode Island’s neighbour Massachusetts passed identical wording to the Rhode Island bill in 2008, establishing a program that with other legislation is credited with lowering the state’s emissions, bringing over a billion dollars in economic benefits, and generating more than 12,000 new jobs.

Another neighbour, Connecticut, has also passed climate targets and begun state-wide efforts to reduce its emissions.

But Rhode Island’s legislative leadership remained consistently concerned with the failing economy, and climate legislation was seen as both a burden on business and underfunded and understaffed state agencies.

So each year, Handy’s Climate Solutions Act was “held for further consideration” in committee, failing to muster the approval of the leadership in the legislature’s extremely centralized power structure.

Risk management

After yet another disappointing year in 2013, Handy had a new idea in mind for the future.

He thought, given major storm-driven river flooding in March 2010, and the impacts of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in 2011 and 2012, that preparing the state for future disasters was a much easier sell in cash-strapped “Little Rhody.”

His vision was that preparing for rising sea levels and more intense storms should become “business as usual” in state agencies (an idea recently echoed by Hank Paulson), and that climate impacts should be considered in every state and local bond issue and infrastructure project.

In early descriptions of his new approach, Handy repeatedly told the story of a part of his district where several public and commercial buildings and their parking lots and service roads have created a vast nearly continuous swath of pavement and asphalt.

His concern was that this and other similarly poorly planned areas upstream from his district would create hazardous flooding, so Handy imagined a complete rethinking for the future of the area.

This, he reasoned, would create a better long-term business climate than an area where utilities, services, or businesses might be knocked out unexpectedly by weather impacts that could have been prevented.

Handy’s new idea for the 2014 session was to wrap adaptation efforts around the mitigation targets, which would be sensible parts of an effort to save families and businesses money with greater efficiency.

Since the state produces none of its own fossil fuels, every dollar spent on heating oil, natural gas, electricity and gasoline flows quickly out of the state.

Money spent on insulating homes, installing wind, solar and geothermal creates immediate jobs in the state, generates payroll taxes, and staunches the flow of cash out of the state for fossil fuels.

Under this way of thinking, climate change preparation and emissions reductions all become the logical and responsible thing to do.

Passing the Act

The bill, now renamed the Resilient Rhode Island Act, includes both adaptation and mitigation efforts.

It inspired Governor Lincoln Chafee to issue an executive order in late February, 2014 creating an Executive Climate Change Council, which with great leadership reviewed efforts across state agencies and issued a report and ambitious recommendations in record time.

Meanwhile, two state senators drafted their own climate legislation, including both mitigation and adaptation goals, and the administration, Brown University, and others worked to submit amendments to strengthen the bill.

The bill was amended and the senate bill eventually was renamed the Resilient Rhode Island Act. The bill passed out of committees in both houses, and was approved on the floor of both chambers last week.

Governor Chafee’s office has signalled that he will proudly sign the bill, as an important legacy achievement of his time in office.

The bill makes Governor Chafee’s executive coordinating council of agency heads permanent.  It creates an advisory board for that council, consisting of stakeholders with expertise across the state economy and institutions.

And it creates a science and technology advisory board, with expert faculty and staff from universities, environmental laboratories and agencies in the state. The bill also includes some ambitious mitigation targets for Rhode Island.

The full story of the 2014 legislative session is a longer one for another article, involving a campaign to develop the Resilient Rhode Island Act of 2014 with Representative Handy and support from the team out of Brown University on which I participated.

Aligning the stars

Given this year’s legislative effort and the targets for the region in past agreements under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and another agreement of governors with their Canadian counterparts, President Obama’s recent move to have the EPA reduce power plant emissions by 30% by 2030 was no problem for the director of Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management, Janet Coit: “Nothing I’ve heard so far is concerning because of the steps we’re already taking,” she said.

For once, political logic lines up with best practices. The lesson from Rhode Island in the 2014 legislative session is that climate mitigation and adaptation need to be considered together right from the start.

For planning at the local and state level, there is little doubt that this is the logical way to confront the dual needs of climate change—for immediate protection against the storms and for the dramatic decarbonization of our economy and our institutions. Immediate and longer-term climate solutions are all business solutions in a resilient economy.

Timmons Roberts is a nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings, and a leading expert on climate change and development assistance. Follow him on Twitter @TimmonsRoberts

This article first appeared on the Brookings website.

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Hurricane Sandy caused extensive damage to Rhode Island, breaching parts of the coastline (Pic: US Fish and Wildlife Service/Flickr)

By Ed King

The US state of Rhode Island has passed a climate change act, outlining how it should cut fossil fuel use and prepare for future extreme weather events.

The Resilient Rhode Island Act was passed on June 19, approved on the floor of both state chambers, which are dominated by Democrats.

The law stipulates that greenhouse gas emissions should be slashed 45% below 1990 levels by 2035, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

It also includes provisions for a series of carbon budgets every five years, to assess the targets and see if they can be increased, and establishes a climate change coordinating council advisory board.

The Act says: “Consideration of the impacts of climate change shall be deemed to be within the powers and duties of all state departments, agencies, commissions, councils and instrumentalities, including quasi-public agencies, and each shall be deemed to have and to exercise among its purposes in the exercise of its existing authority.”

A small and relatively wealthy state, Rhode Island’s coastline suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, requiring $6.5 million in Public Assistance grants and $35.8 million in insurance payouts.

Extreme experiences

According to Timmons Roberts, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at Brown University in Providence, the experience of Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Irene in 2011 made tough action an “easier sell” for Representative Art Handy, the driving force behind the bill.

“His vision was that preparing for rising sea levels and more intense storms should become ‘business as usual’ in state agencies, and that climate impacts should be considered in every state and local bond issue and infrastructure project,” said Roberts.

Currently 28 US states have climate action plans and nine have state-wide emission targets.

On June 12 Hawaii passed a new adaptation law, targeting rising sea levels and guiding state policy up to 2050.

Nine East Coast states including Rhode Island are part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap and trade scheme formed in 2003.

California and four Canadian provinces take part in the Western Climate Initiative, another carbon trading scheme.

Until 2011 this also included Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

US ambition

New carbon cutting proposals outlined by President Barack Obama and the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) require all 50 states to develop plans to comply with new carbon cuts.

States will have flexibility in how they comply with the required pollution reductions, such as through carbon trading programs and by mandating minimal levels of renewable energy in the power sold by utilities.

The US currently has international obligations to cut nationwide emissions 17% on 2005 levels by 2020, a target it could increase ahead of a proposed UN global climate deal in 2015.

Any new plans to cut carbon pollution are likely to receive a hostile welcome from the Republican Party, which appears largely set against any climate regulations.

On Wednesday night President Obama accused his critics in Congress of feigning ignorance of climate science to ensure they stay in office.

“They ducked the question and said ‘Hey, I’m not a scientist,’ which really translates into ‘I accept that manmade climate change is real but if I say so I will be run out of town by a bunch of fringe elements,” he said.

Earlier in the day the White House released a ‘climate scorecard’ outlining its achievements and ambitions in addressing global warming.

“We have proven that the U.S. can and will take the lead on climate action, while lowering household energy bills, creating good paying jobs that cannot be outsourced, and protecting our homes, businesses, and way of life from extreme weather events and climate change,” it read.

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Charlotte, the largest city in North Carolina (Pic: James WIllamor/Flickr)

By Gerard Wynn

Cutting air pollution reduces deaths from lung disease, according to a detailed study in North Carolina which supported similar findings in a recent report by the World Health Organisation.

The findings might suggest additional, local health benefits from steps to tackle climate change, although such wider analysis was beyond the scope of the study.

Burning fossil fuels and biomass produces a cocktail of pollutants including particulate matter (PM) in smoke, and chemicals such as sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and ozone (O3).

They also emit carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.

The latest study added to existing knowledge by using especially long-term data, from 1993 to 2010, and for a particularly wide range of air pollutants.

By controlling for other influences on lung disease, and notably smoking, the authors were able to tease out associations between air pollution and death from illnesses including emphysema, asthma and pneumonia.

Emphysema is a condition where the lungs become progressively more damage and constricted, leading to breathlessness.

“We found significant correlations between reduction of air pollutants and dynamics of deaths due to respiratory diseases during the period we studied,” said the authors, from North Carolina’s Duke University, publishing in the International Journal of Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“A decline in emphysema deaths was associated with decreasing levels of SO2 and CO, a decline in asthma deaths with lower SO2, CO and PM levels, and a decline in pneumonia deaths with lower levels of SO2.”

In March, the World Health Organisation reported that in 2012 some 7 million people died as a result of air pollution exposure, making it the world’s biggest killer.

Climate benefits

Increasingly stringent US gasoline and automotive engine rules have resulted in a decrease in CO, NOx, PM, and volatile organic compounds in the air.

“We found air quality in North Carolina gradually improving over time, primarily due to decreasing PM10, NO2, and CO levels,” the study authors said.

“These decreases became more pronounced from 2002.”

“Improved air quality in North Carolina since the mid-1990s is related to a series of federal and state acts and regulations, including the national heavy-duty truck engine standards, reduction of NOX emissions, the Clean Smokestacks Act, and new engine standards.”

Burning fewer fossil fuels may help reduce both air pollution and climate change, as a source of both carbon dioxide and pollutants.

US President Barack Obama has urged local health benefits from tackling climate change to press for curbs on coal-fired power plants.

Analysts say that people may better accept climate policies, which are expected to raise energy prices, if they see an immediate local benefit in fewer lung disease deaths, compared with the longer term, global benefit of avoided climate change.

Complicating the picture, however, climate scientists say that reducing air pollution also cuts emissions of certain light-reflecting aerosols which are thought to cool the Earth.

As a result, the net climate outcome from reducing air pollution is uncertain, and an important area of climate research as big polluters such as China take rapid steps to boost air quality.

Some scientists attribute a rapid increase in global average temperatures in the 1970s and 1980s to the introduction of the US Clean Air Act in 1970 and similar, European laws.

And some explain a slowdown in global average warming in the last decade at least in part to a rapid rise in air pollution from emerging economies and especially China.

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(Pic: Roland Peschetz/Flickr)

By John McGarrity

Plans by the US to cut carbon emissions from power plants by almost a third by 2020 are far below what will be needed to meet medium and long-term climate pledges, while planned reductions in other sectors won’t be enough to deliver ambitious action at UN climate talks. 

If proposals presented by the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday are enacted in their current form, reductions in emissions from power plants would realistically achieve a 10-11% reduction in overall US emissions by 2030, a small share of overall cuts previously pledged over the same timeframe.

At the ill-fated Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, the US proposed to cut total greenhouse gas emissions 17% by 2020 and 42% by 2030 from 2020 levels, although the nearer-term target implies a 4.2% rise on the 1990 baseline used in the Kyoto Protocol.  

“The EPA program is not even proportionate to the US’s own Copenhagen pledge – and may even lead to emissions increases. This means that, even though many of the least costly abatement options are in the power sector, other sectors of the US economy shall have to work that much harder,” said Alex Luta, a policy analyst with UK campaign group Sandbag.

In addition to the EPA’s proposals on existing power plants, the White House has effectively banned new coal power plants, vowed to cut emissions from cars and trucks, reduce methane from oil and gas extraction and agriculture, and slash levels of potent greenhouse gases emitted by the chemicals industry.

Because the EPA reckons coal and gas are likely to account for a 30% share of the US energy mix in 2030, increased expectations on non-electricity sectors might be unrealistic, or prompt the US to pledge a much less ambitious mid-term target than the overall 42% cut offered four-and-half-years ago, some observers point out.

Others point out the 42% figure was merely a footnote in a US submission to the UN in early 2010, and that the figure was based on the premise that the Waxman-Markey climate bill – which was ultimately shot down by legislators – would pass Congress.

Global focus

However, the US is under pressure at UN climate talks to offer a much deeper target for either 2025 or 2030 than what it has pledge so far for 2020, a move that could be reciprocated by other large emitters such as China and the EU as part of global deal that could be agreed in Paris at the end of next year.

Climate Action Tracker, which monitors national climate policies, said the EPA’s plan wouldn’t do enough to help the US meet its 2020 commitment and is inconsistent with 2030 and 2050 pledges.

Niklas Hohne, who also works for climate consultancy Ecofys, said the US would be 500 million tonnes short of its 2020 overall GHG target because the EPA’s curbs on power plants will deliver at most around 200 million tonnes of cuts by the end of the decade , placing additional pressure on other parts of the economy.

By 2030, US carbon emissions from all sectors would be around 5% above a 1990 baseline or 10 % below 2005, “far above the levels required for a two degree pathway,” said Bill Hare of Climate Analytics and a contributor to Climate Action Tracker.

Strategic goals

Yet some observers of global climate policy have cautioned against overstating the longer-term context of the EPA plan, saying the emphasis is to speed up carbon cuts by 2020, rather than complement any 2030 pledge in UN climate targets.

“These measures are very much for domestic consumption and part of the White House’s determination to reduce pollution from coal and promote other sources of energy,” said Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute.

And aside from the issue of whether the EPA proposal on existing power plants will make a fairly small contribution to medium term emissions cuts, the plan released on Monday could mean some states will still be able to increase carbon emissions, leaving others to do the heavy lifting.

Under the proposals coal-dependent states such as Kentucky will have relatively modest targets to cut carbon intensity, meaning emissions in absolute terms could still rise in some parts of the US.

Meanwhile states such as Washington and New York will have to make big cuts in carbon intensity by switching to cleaner energy, and states will have until mid-2016 to decide how they will meet commitments, although some may be granted extensions of 1-2 years.

Through on the plans published on Monday, states will have several options, such as starting up their own carbon trading schemes or joining established markets such as the California-led Western Climate Initiative, apply tougher emissions standards on coal and speed up deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Following a 120-day consultation period, the US government’s environmental watchdog will have until this time next year to present revised and final proposals.

Implementation

The measures are likely to be challenged in the courts, and by supporters of coal in Congress ahead of mid-term elections in November.

Frank Maisano, a consultant to the US energy industry, said some green groups were wrong in their assessment that the Clean Energy Plan would only have a modest impact on the domestic coal industry.

“The truth is that the most cost-effective reductions since 2005 (perhaps the first 10 percent) have already been undertaken,” he said in a note to clients, adding that  economic  growth would complicate  the EPA’s assessment that energy prices would not rise much because of its proposals.

The US coal industry also rejected the notion that the White House had helped deliver a workable compromise through the EPA plan.

“If these rules are allowed to go into effect, the administration for all intents and purposes is creating America’s next energy crisis,” said Mike Duncan, head of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.    

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By John Upton in Chicago

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration proposed an historic yet arguably modest pollution rule for the nation’s greatest source of greenhouse gases on Monday.

The rule was crafted to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s existing fleet of coal- and natural gas-burning power plants.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan proposal, that power plants should reduce climate-changing emissions by 26 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels, triggered responses that ranged from merriment to mild disappointment to corporate indignation.

By 2030, the draft rule would mandate that the emissions be cut by 30 percent compared with 2005 levels.

The proposal is built on four major building blocks. It calls for retrofitting power plants with cleaner technology, switching from dirtier fuel sources to cleaner ones, raising levels of renewable energy generation, and improving energy efficiency.

States will be charged with mandating the reductions after the rule is finalized.

Obama described the proposal as a “sensible, state-based plan” during a telephone press call with reporters on Monday afternoon.

States will have flexibility in how they comply with the required pollution reductions, such as through carbon trading programs and by mandating minimal levels of renewable energy in the power that’s sold by utilities.

Big news: @EPA just proposed carbon pollution standards for power plants to protect our kids’ health → http://t.co/NSyGujgHfn #ActOnClimate

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 2, 2014

The U.S. has long had pollution rules in place for toxic chemicals produced by the power sector. Yet carbon dioxide pollution from its thousands of power plants, some of them built more than a half a century ago, has not been regulated. Obama highlighted that regulatory inconsistency during Monday’s call.

“The essence of the plan that the EPA is presenting makes sure that we’re finally doing the same with carbon,” Obama said.

“Since power plants are responsible for about 40 percent of America’s carbon pollution, these new standards are going to help us leave our children a safer and more stable world.”

Global significance

A new global climate change agreement is to be finalized in Paris late next year, and Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was among the leaders worldwide who welcomed America’s expanding foray into climate action.

The U.S. is the second-largest source of climate-changing pollution in the world, behind only China, where emissions are elevated because its factories are major manufacturers of goods consumed elsewhere.

The U.S. was among the few states to not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and its decades of climate inaction have made meaningful international cooperation on global warming difficult.

“The decision by President Obama to launch plans to more tightly regulate emissions from power plants will send a good signal to nations everywhere,” Figueres said in a statement Sunday, as basic details of the proposal became public. “I fully expect action by the United States to spur others in taking concrete action.”

The regulations are the most significant yet in the wake of a 2007 legal victory for progressive states and environmentalists, which was secured during the presidency of Pres. George W. Bush, requiring that the EPA regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Monday’s proposal continues to make good on years of climate change rhetoric by Obama, whose State Department has lately been pressuring other nations, including developing countries, to reduce their own emissions.

Last year, the administration issued climate rules for existing power plants, and it has been striking agreements with China to reduce emissions.

The U.S. House of Representatives has thwarted Obama-led efforts to introduce a national carbon cap-and-trade program, but such programs have been launched by coalitions of states on the east and west coasts. The new power plant rules would not require any approval Congress.

Environmentalists respond

The proposed rule was heartily welcomed by leading environmental groups. But those groups also indicated that they would pressure the government to take bolder steps.

The EPA will accept public comments for four months on its proposal, and it plans to schedule four public hearings during the Northern Hemisphere summer.

“This is a historic step – we’re very pleased that EPA and President Obama have pushed this forward,” David Doniger, a climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an influential NGO that has been pressuring the U.S. to introduce rules similar to those announced on Monday, told RTCC.

“We’re going to provide analysis to show you can do even more, and we’re going to push for the strongest possible standard.”

Obama’s new climate laws are likely to face a tough fight from a hostile Congress (Pic: White House/Flickr)

America’s power industry has been shifting away from coal in favor of energy from fracked natural gas and from renewable sources in recent years, spurred by tightening air quality regulations and lower costs.

The proposed new rule is expected to accelerate that transition. The EPA estimates its proposal would reduce soot and smog pollution by 25 percent during the next 16 years, and that it would lower power bills by mandating more efficient power generation.

Resistance

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents many of the country’s biggest corporations, including power plant operators, fossil fuel companies, and utilities, sounded alarm bells last week.

It argued in a report the new rule would increase overall power bills by hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030 and that it would hobble the economy. The EPA quickly criticized the chamber’s estimates, describing them as “irresponsible speculation.”

On Monday, the chamber repeated its claims, saying that it “will be actively participating in EPA’s input process on these regulations, and will be educating our members and affiliates about their impacts.”

Obama addressed such critics of environmental regulations during Monday’s call, arguing that the new rule would help propel the economy forward – not hold it back.

“You will from critics who say the same thing they always say; that these guidelines will kill jobs or crush the economy,” Obama said. “What we’ve seen every time is that these claims are debunked when you actually give workers and businesses the tools and the incentive they need to innovate. When Americas are called on to innovate, that’s what we do.”

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Marshall Islands’ Foreign Minister Tony de Brum

“Symbolically, I hear the President saying that he’s ready to deliver on his promise to put the fight against global warming at the top of his list of political priorities.

And in practical terms, the announcement strikes right at the heart of the climate change problem – in the US, 40% of emissions come from coal-fired power plants, and the number is even higher in the world’s biggest polluter, China.

“The next big step would be for President Obama to come to the UN Climate Change Summit in September with his new targets and his message that strong action to reduce carbon pollution and decarbonize the world’s energy systems is in all of our economic, health and security interests.  It’s a war we must win, and the long fight starts now.” 

Former US Vice President Al Gore

Today’s announcement by the Obama administration to reduce our nation’s global warming pollution from power plants is the most important step taken to combat the climate crisis in our country’s history. Solving the climate crisis will no doubt be difficult, but – thanks to this action by President Obama and many others – we are now in a position to put ourselves on the path to a sustainable future.

What a big day! Our proposed Clean Power Plan will #ActOnClimate & protect the health of our kids. Find out more http://t.co/C983HYAJDp

— Gina McCarthy (@GinaEPA) June 2, 2014

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres

“The decision by President Obama to launch plans to more tightly regulate emissions from power plants will send a good signal to nations everywhere that one of the world’s biggest emitters is taking the future of the planet and its people seriously.

“It is also a good signal for the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in September and towards securing a new and more importantly meaningful climate agreement by the UN convention meeting in Paris in late 2015.

“I fully expect action by the United States to spur others in taking concrete action—action that can set the stage and put in place the pathways that can bend the global emissions curve down in order to keep world-wide temperature rise under 2 degrees C this century”.

Andrew Steer, President, World Resources Institute

“These standards will catalyze investment in America’s thriving clean energy industry. In Georgia, Minnesota and New Mexico renewable energy has emerged as the cheaper option for new electricity generation. The same holds true in Texas, which now has more wind power capacity than all but five countries.

“Earlier this year solar energy provided a record 18% of California’s energy demand. And studies show consumers save $2 to $5 for every single dollar invested in energy efficiency. Smart climate policy simply makes dollars and sense.

“Despite the usual grumbling from some critics, it’s abundantly clear that these rules can be implemented cost-effectively. Time and again opposition groups have made dire economic predictions about new regulations, when in fact they repeatedly drive innovation and open new economic opportunities.”

Proposed carbon cuts announced by @EPA could provide strong incentive for investments in #LowCarbonDevt. Still much to do for a safer world

— LDC Chair (@LDCChairUNFCCC) June 2, 2014

Evan Juska, Head of US Policy for The Climate Group

“While this kind of flexible approach enables greater emission reductions at lower cost, it also makes the rule more vulnerable to legal challenges. In finalizing the rule, the key challenge for the Administration will be finding the right balance between ambition and legality.”

Nicholas Stern, Chair of  the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment

“These new plans should help the United States to achieve its target of reducing annual emissions of greenhouse gases from all sources by 17 per cent by 2020 compared with 2005. This represents real leadership both by Gina McCarthy, the head of the EPA, and President Obama, who have shown their determination not to let deadlock in Congress prevent progress by the world’s leading economy in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

“It underscores the role that both regulation and carbon pricing have to play in reducing emissions. This welcome news also means that the largest sources of emissions, China, the United States and the European Union, are all approximately on track to meet the targets that they agreed to at the United Nations climate change summit in Cancùn in 2010.

“However, as the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made clear, the United States, China and European Union all need to increase the ambition of their emissions cuts to be consistent with the overall goal of delivering a reasonable chance of avoiding dangerous global warming of more than 2 centigrade degrees above pre-industrial levels.

“These plans should put pressure on European leaders to stop dithering over their plans and to commit to strong cuts of 40 per cent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels. It is strong policy that can foster the investment and innovation that will drive the new story of low-carbon growth.”

Lou Leonard, WWF-US vice president of climate change

“The recent US climate assessment shows that human-caused global warming is biting the country today, not in some distant future. So it makes common sense that today, the Obama Administration should use all of the tools available to protect our communities from this clear and present threat.

“Dirty electricity is the largest source of industrial carbon pollution in America, while also threatening our children’s health and the natural world. Today’s proposed standards employ one of the most popular and successful US laws, the Clean Air Act, to tackle pollution from the dirtiest US power plants. Ambitious final standards will reap major rewards for people, nature, and the next generation of Americans that follow in our footsteps.

“These standards should be strengthened and finalized to ensure that the US can successfully meet existing and future targets for transitioning our nation to a renewable energy future. Strong US targets backed by clear action, like today’s proposed standards, will help secure actions from other nations, which together can produce the needed global effort prior to the UN climate meeting in Paris next year.”

Ed Davey, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

“This is a significant move by the Obama administration. National efforts are crucial in fighting climate change, and in the UK we’ve successfully cut industrial emissions, particularly from the power sector.

“We must strive to get all nations to rise to the urgency of the climate challenge. That way there’s a real chance the world can sign up to a new global climate deal in Paris next year. These US proposals have come at a crucial time, and could shift the global debate.”

Mark Kenber, CEO of The Climate Group

“This announcement could be the key to breaking the climate deadlock. By the Obama Administration placing climate change front and centre today it could be the butterfly moment that sparks a chain of events that ripples across the globe and builds momentum for the international climate negotiations, the U.S. – China bilateral relationship on climate talks which could deliver a global agreement.

“In the US and elsewhere, the clean economy sector has been growing steadily at a time when much of the global economy has been sluggish. Let this be the announcement that will make the world wake up to the potential of the low carbon economy.”

The post What does the world think about new US carbon cuts? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Walmart has started to roll out a fleet of hybrid trucks to boost its logistics chart in (Pic: Walmart)

By Sophie Yeo in Cancun

Walmart’s fight against climate change is not an elaborate PR stunt, but a sensible business strategy, according to the company’s vice president Manuel Gómez Peña.

Any company that hopes to stay in business in the long term must operate sustainably, said Peña, who leads the environmental programmes of Walmart, the world’s largest retailer.

“It’s not something that we’re doing for public relations or it is the nice thing to do. It’s now making business sense,” he said, adding that the impacts of climate change were already having an impact on the economy.

His comments counter the claims of those who say that Walmart’s latest moment in the climate spotlight—hosting President Barack Obama as he unveiled his latest set of solar policies—was exactly that.

Speaking at a California store earlier this month, Obama said that Walmart was leading the shift towards clean energy, which would ultimately save money and create jobs.

“That’s what Wal-Mart understands, and Wal-Mart’s pretty good at counting its pennies,” said Obama. On the same day, Walmart pledged to double the number of onsite energy projects at its US stores.

Renewables

Yet critics pointed out that, despite a 100% renewable goal, EPA figures show that Walmart currently only receives 3% of its energy is sourced from clean technology produced onsite.

Speaking to RTCC, Peña said that the company was currently focused on reducing its energy intensity, rather than putting an absolute gap on its greenhouse gas emissions, and that its intention to procure 7000 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2020 meant that Walmart’s energy intensity was projected to drop by 20%.

The chain has a goal of generating 100% of its energy from renewable sources (Pic: Walmart/California)

This means that if the company itself grows by more than 20%, then Walmart’s emissions would still increase. But Peña said that a global trend in decoupling emissions from growth would allow “our greenhouse gas emissions to even decrease” by 2020.

Peter Seligmann, CEO of Conservation International, voiced his support of Walmart’s sustainability record during a meeting of the Global Environment Facility taking place this week in Mexico, saying that its effort were part of a wider trend of companies “placing concerns about sustainability into their DNA.”

He said: “Walmart has made a commitment to sustainability that is not done out of charity. They recognise they want to sell a lot of goods and they cannot have goods if ecosystems implode and if the climate shifts so what they grow cannot be grown.

“They do it out of self interest.”

Collaboration

Greater collaboration between businesses, governments and NGOs is currently the best action that can be taken to further the climate agenda, said Peña, who said that Walmart was “close to the White house and the Environmental Protection Agency in trying to support their initiatives”, adding that they shared a “common agenda”.

He said that there were plenty of opportunities for businesses to adopt a sustainable pathway under the Obama administration, and that taking advantage of them was “just a matter of being creative”.

An unofficial coalition between the world’s largest businesses including Walmart and Unilever was also helping, he added, as it allowed them to share best practices and make common pledges.

A climate summit to be hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in September to which business leaders have been invited alongside heads of states will determine the level of ambition of these common pledges.

Peña said that Walmart was “still planning” their contribution to the summit, but that they planned to be active. “No company can do it alone, no government can do it alone, no NGOs,” he said. “We strongly believe in the power of collaboration.”

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The US added 1,032MW of wind capacity in 2013, a sharp drop from 12,885 MW in 2012 (Pic: LA Bonita/Flickr)

By Gerard Wynn

The US wind industry remains in a slump and could even fare worse than a poor 2013, federal energy data show, as uncertainty weighs over the extension of a key subsidy.

The latest data contradict industry predictions of a massive US rebound this year from a poor 2013.

The US industry is on track for its lowest growth in a decade, after capacity additions in the first four months of the year halved compared with the same period last year.

The industry is pinning its hopes on a reported surge in the number of new projects under construction, but developers may be in no rush to complete the projects which have qualified for a now expired tax credit.

US wind energy growth has historically followed a boom-bust cycle, in line with the repeated extension and expiry of the federal tax credit.

The shale gas revolution has cut US power prices and market incentives for wind power, leaving the industry more dependent than ever on the subsidy.

The fact that growth has slowed again compared with the start of last year suggests that 2014 will be another poor year.

The United States cumulatively added some 427 megawatts of new wind power capacity from January to April this year, show the latest data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

That compared with some 962 MW added in the same period last year, and 1,636 MW in the same four-month period in 2012.

Grim news?

The FERC data record when new electricity generating installations are grid-connected and come on line.

Some caveats should be considered.

First, there are some collection differences, where FERC data at the beginning of 2013 appear to lag those of the wind energy industry, and may have included a surge in installations at the end of 2012.

If so,  that would make the start of 2014 appear worse in comparison with the same period last year.

Second, the energy regulator has in the past revised its figures over time as it fine tunes its data, but by successively smaller amounts in the past three years.

Third, the wind energy industry has in the past managed to add a lot of capacity in the second half of the year, depending on the urgency to meet a subsidy expiry deadline, as at the end of 2012.

But there should be no such mad rush in the second half of this year, even if the tax credit is renewed.

Subsidies

The US wind power industry is supported by a federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) which provides a tax credit for each kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity produced by a wind farm during the first 10 years of operation.

The credit is worth around 2.2 to 2.3 cents per kWh.

Developers in 2012 rushed to meet a deadline to complete their projects by Dec. 31 2012, to qualify for the credit.

The tax credit was subsequently extended, but only until the end of 2013; and the deadline this time was to start rather than complete construction.

The credit has now expired for new projects, but an extension is up for consideration by the Senate, having been approved by the Senate Finance Committee in April alongside other tax provisions.

Prospects for 2015?

The proposed extension, under the draft bill titled “Expiring Provisions Improvement Reform and Efficiency (EXPIRE) Act of 2014”, would allow tax credits for projects which started construction by the end of 2015.

The PTC has been extended mostly in one- and two-year intervals since its inception in 1992, and was allowed to expire in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2012.

That has resulted in a boom-bust cycle, as illustrated by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

New US wind installations collapsed last year, to just 1,559 megawatts (MW) in 2013 from 12,305 MW the year before, according to FERC data.

Their latest data make grim reading for the industry, with a slump in capacity additions through April even from last year’s low levels.

The data seem to confound industry expectations for a rebound in growth this year.

The Global Wind Energy Council last month published its 2014-2018 forecast, and anticipated a more than three-fold increase in new, North American wind capacity installations this year, to 10,000 MW.

The AWEA reported last month a surge in new projects under construction.

“There is currently more wind power capacity under construction than at any time in the history of the U.S. wind industry. There are more than 13,000 MW of utility-scale wind development under construction across 95+ projects in 21 states,” it said, in its “U.S. Wind Industry First Quarter 2014 Market Report”.

However, that surge in new construction was no doubt partly to meet the tax credit deadline at the end of 2013.

Now that they have secured the credit, developers may have no rush to complete, with a question mark over when they will come on line. The latest FERC data suggest that may not be before late 2014 or 2015.

Meanwhile the uncertainty over the extension of the credit does nothing to support a pipeline of new projects.

The post Why is the US wind industry in the doldrums? appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: UCSA/Flickr)

By Ed King

The Statue of Liberty, Boston’s iconic Long Wharf and Fort Monroe in Chesapeake Bay are among hundreds of historic monuments under threat from climate change.

That’s the finding of a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, highlighting areas of the US at risk from flooding, wildfires and other extreme weather events.

Released two weeks before President Obama embarks on the most ambitious of his climate policies – new emission standards for power plants – it illustrates how the US is likely to be affected by changing weather patterns.

“We must begin now to prepare our threatened landmarks to face worsening climate impacts; climate resilience must become a national priority and we must allocate the necessary resources,” it says.

Read the full study here, or check some of the sites likely to be hit below, downloaded from the UCSA photostream on flickr.

(Pic: UCSA/Flickr)

(Pic: UCSA/Flickr)

(Pic: UCSA/Flickr)

(Pic: UCSA/Flickr)

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