Climate News Weekly: Apple's Green Ad, Peak Fossil Fuels, G20, and more

This week we're joined by Dina Capiello and Julio Friedmann to talk about the latest climate news. The IEA released its global warming emissions report for 2023, and emissions continue to rise, but at a slower rate than in previous years. Meanwhile, to better track those emissions, EDF launched its long-anticipated MethaneSAT on March 4th, a satellite that will measure methane pollution worldwide.  And on March 6th the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions (SEC) released its final rules to require companies to disclose their climate risk.

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Today, given route lengths and cargo capacity, it is possible to electrify 65% of medium-duty and 49% of heavy-duty trucks. Commercial fleets’ are responding to this promise, with announced commitments to electrification surpassing 140,000 vehicles in 2022 in the United States alone. Still, the number of electric fleet trucks currently on the road in the US is well under 1% of all medium and heavy duty trucks, and companies are facing a dearth of EV charging infrastructure to support the expansion of these commercial fleets. 

 The good news is, companies are emerging to fill the gaps in charging infrastructure, assuage concerns from prospective EV fleet owners, and make commercial adoption not just a possibility but an advantage. In this episode, the second installment of a three-part series on the state and future of electric fleet charging, Climate Now is joined by three industry leaders: Anthony Harrison (TeraWatt Infrastructure), Jonathan Colbert (Voltera), and Jeffrey Prosserman (Voltpost). Anthony, Jonathan, and Jeffrey join Climate Now’s James Lawler and Darren Hau to discuss what factors prospective EV fleet adopters are considering, what their companies are doing to facilitate buildout of charging infrastructure, and how that buildout means growth for many industries – not just EV charging. 

You can find the full transcript as well as sources mentioned in this episode here: https://climatenow.com/charging-electric-fleets-2-3

These interviews were recorded in Summer 2023. Since then, Voltera has published additional playbooks, which you can find here: Playbook 1, Playbook 2, Playbook 3.

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In this week's episode of Climate News Weekly, James Lawler, Julio Friedmann, and Darren Hau discuss falling natural gas prices and the impact of that on the energy transition, how leasing companies are responding to the EV industry, the need for more sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and more. 

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In the United States, nearly one quarter of national greenhouse gas emissions come from the 280 million vehicles that drive on the nations roads each year. And while fleet vehicles – including the ~5 million buses, garbage trucks, law enforcement vehicles and more that make up public fleets, and the ~6.5 million rental cars, taxis, delivery trucks, long-haul trucks, and more that make up commercial fleets – represent only a small fraction of those vehicles, they are an excellent target for early electric vehicle (EV) adoption, by virtue of their affordability through bulk pricing, their ability to demonstrate EV technology to a wide audience, and the outsized impact fleet electrification could have in reducing air pollution that stems from auto emissions. 

 But critical to the wide-spread adoption of electric fleets, is wide-spread development of charging infrastructure that will support those fleets, which have unique charging demands in comparison to the personal EV. In this first installment of a three-part series examining the state and future of electric fleet charging, Climate Now is joined by EV charging entrepreneurs Nathan King (itselectric), and Arcady Sosinov and Rob Anderson (Freewire Technologies) to explore the current EV charging landscape in the US, what makes fleet charging a challenge, and new strategies and technologies that are helping existing infrastructure meet the growing demand for EV charging. 

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On today's episode of Climate News Weekly, James Lawler and Julio Friedmann discuss the IEA's 50th anniversary, Siemens' plans to open a US-based transformer plant, Ireland's energy woes, and more.

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In the late 1970’s, English chemist Dr. James Lovelock and American biologist Dr. Lynn Margulis published a research paper hypothesizing that living organisms – without intention or agency – could have a regulatory effect on their environment that helped ensure their continued habitability. While the Gaia hypothesis they originated has remained controversial for the last four decades, it has provided a provocative explanation for why the Earth remained more or less clement over its ~4 billion year history, even though the sun that warms it has grown about 30% brighter over that time span. Of course, there have been notable catastrophic exceptions to Earth’s habitable stability – in the form of cataclysmic Snowball Earth events that froze the entire planet at least twice in its first 3.5 billion years of existence. 

 In our latest episode, Probable Futures founder Spencer Glendon explores another application of the Gaia Hypothesis, as it applies to human civilizations. In a December 2023 newsletter, Mr. Glendon examines how for much of the last 12,000 years, humans have been agents in shaping the stable global climate from which we are a beneficiary, through the expansion of agriculture and its related deforestation. By releasing CO2 at rates that balanced the cooling effects of various planetary orbital shifts, humans helped avoid the planet plunging into another Ice Age. But, much like the Snowball Earth events of the Precambrian Era, the advent and acceleration of fossil fuel combustion then shifted people’s relationship with climate from stabilizing to potentially catastrophic. The difference between the ancient and modern examples is that now – with awareness of the problem – humans can impact their environment with intention and agency. Join us as we examine how past climate stability has shaped much of humanity’s world view, and how that might impact our approach in responding to climate change now.  

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In this episode of Climate News Weekly, James Lawler sits down with Julio Friedmann and Darren Hau to discuss potential responses to California's most recent torrential rains, how both California and the UK are responding to heat pumps, the EU's new emission targets and plan, and more.

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Passage of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022 was a game changer in the United States’ effort to address climate change. The hundreds of billions of dollars the IRA has made available for clean energy and climate mitigation projects will likely double the pace of U.S. decarbonization. While this rapid expansion in clean energy development is tied to the sheer scale of the IRA (it is the largest climate spending bill ever passed), how climate spending from this bill is taking place is also a critical.  

Most of the IRA funding for climate change mitigation is in the form of generous tax credits for developing a new project, or producing clean energy. But, most developers that could receive credits for large capital projects don’t have enough tax liability to use them. As a solution, for the first time ever, IRA tax credits for clean energy development were made transferable, meaning that the credits can be sold for cash to third parties. To understand what this finance rule change means, Climate Now sat down with Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, whose startup company provides a comprehensive platform for buyers and sellers in this new transferable tax credit market. Alfred explains how tax credit transfers work, why they are so important to unlocking the financing potential of the IRA, and Crux’s role in cultivating the clean energy tax credit ecosystem. 

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On this week's episode of Climate News Weekly, James Lawler and Julio Friedmann discuss the consequences of the Biden administration's decision to delay the approval of a LNG export plant in Louisiana, some European countries' plans to transition away from coal, what happens when storms super charge windmills, and more.

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This week on Climate News Weekly, host James Lawler is joined by Julio Friedmann, Darren Hau, and Canary Media Reporter Julian Spector. They discuss the various issues facing EV users and owners during the US' recent cold snap, new developments in British carbon capture projects, concerns that recent US electricity demand will strain the grid, and the latest developments in Hawaii's newest virtual power plant. 

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