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Where Hurricane Beryl is Headed Next
Current conditions: Rain storms prompted China to evacuate 240,000 in the east • A heat wave is breaking records in Moscow • Beachgoers along the Gulf of Mexico are cautioned to beware dangerous rip currents this weekend. THE TOP FIVE1. Fires rage in California as ‘very dangerous’ heat wave hits western states More than 100 million people in the United States remain under heat alerts. A dangerous heat wave is baking the West, with temperatures expected to peak today and tomorrow. In some desert areas, temperatures could reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit. “It’s not your typical heat wave,” said Joe Sirard, a...
The Biochar King of Minneapolis
Minneapolis may be the only city in the country with a carbon sequestration program manager on staff. Now, Jim Doten — who holds that title — is about to realize his dream of starting up one of the first municipally owned and operated carbon removal projects. The Minnesota metropolis has just purchased its very own biomass pyrolyzer, a machine that heats up tree clippings in a low-oxygen environment and turns them into a form of charcoal called biochar. As the wood grew, it sucked carbon out of the air during photosynthesis; as biochar, that carbon becomes stable for hundreds of...
What to Make of Q2 EV Sales
Current conditions: Hurricane Beryl could bring up to 9 feet of storm surge to Jamaica • Northeastern India, already flooded, is expecting more rain • Last month beat June 2023 as the hottest June ever recorded. THE TOP FIVE1. Car companies see EV growth in Q2 sales reports Many automakers are reporting Q2 U.S. sales and deliveries this week. Let’s take a look at how the EV numbers are shaping up: General Motors Deliveries: 21,930 EVs, up 40% compared to Q2 last year, and up 34% compared to Q1. EV registrations are up 17% YTD, “outpacing the industry average of 10%.” Sales of...
FERC Is Already Split Over the End of Chevron
As decades of administrative law were being rendered irrelevant last week by a landmark Supreme Court decision denying regulators deference in their interpretations of ambiguous legal statues, one such regulator, Mark Christie, already had some ideas about what do with this new development.Christie, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s sole Republican member, had taken issue with FERC Order No. 1920, which was unveiled in May and established a new set of rules requiring transmission planners to be more proactive in assessing their future needs and how to pay for them. The order was decided in a 2-1 vote along partisan...
How Europe and America Are Weatherproofing Climate Policy
Jesse is on vacation until August, so this is a special, Rob-only summer episode of Shift Key. The far right is rising across Europe. The global order seems to be deteriorating. And American politics is careening toward a crisis. Where does climate policy go from here? On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob chats with two leaders at Breakthrough Energy, the Bill Gates-funded climate venture capital and advocacy group. They are Ann Mettler, a former EU official who is now Breakthrough’s vice president for Europe, and Aliya Haq, its vice president for U.S. policy and advocacy. We talk about why...
How the Supreme Court Just Changed Climate Law, According to 9 Lawyers
The word “consequential” barely touches the importance of the Supreme Court’s decisions this term, as two cases — Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors — took a wrecking ball to the stability of the administrative state. Courts will no longer give deference to regulators to interpret statute and will permit new challenges against existing rules. Essentially, depending on whom you ask, anything goes. So naturally, we had to ask. While the legal universe is still digesting these rulings, climate and environmental law experts had plenty of opinions about them, as lawyers tend to...
Does Biden Himself Matter for Climate Policy?
Joe Biden was not a late arrival to the cause of arresting climate change, even if for most of his career he was better known for advancing the interests of the credit card industry than for environmental passion. He introduced an early climate bill in 1987, and though it didn’t do much (the bill, which eventually passed, set up a task force to study the issue), he can legitimately claim to have been there early. As president he has spoken with sincere feeling about climate; even through the muddle of his first debate with Donald Trump, he managed to...
The Supreme Court Is Slowly Breaking the EPA
Perhaps it’s futile to talk about any Supreme Court decision this term other than the justices’ unprecedented ruling in the Trump case. The court’s decision to grant broad immunity to the president from criminal prosecution could reshape the modern presidency and empower Donald Trump during his potential — and increasingly likely — second term. That ruling, too, will have profound practical implications for Americans who care about climate change. During his presidency, Trump flexed his power to slow the energy transition, bury scientific reports, and attack protesters. What will happen now that he is unbound?But just as the court...
Biden’s LNG Permitting Pause Is No More
Current conditions: Raging wildfires are forcing evacuations on several Greek islands • More rain is forecast for China’s sodden rice growing regions • Temperatures in Death Valley could reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit early next week. THE TOP FIVE1. Judge blocks Biden’s LNG permitting pause A federal court last night blocked President Biden’s pause on permits for new liquefied natural gas export terminals. The administration issued a temporary moratorium on new LNG approvals in January, allowing the Energy Department to study what effect terminals have on the climate, a move seen as a big win for climate activists. But it was quickly...
We Fact Checked Everything Trump Has Said About Energy Efficiency Since 2021
You can take the real estate magnate out of development, but becoming a politician hasn’t made Donald Trump less invested in dishwashers and water flow. Here’s what he’s gotten right and wrong about at-home energy efficiency on the campaign trail.All I know about magnets is this: Give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.” [Jan. 5, 2024]Fact check: Trump made this comment while discussing electric catapults and magnetic elevators on aircraft carriers. While there have certainly been problems with the roll-out of these advanced systems on the ships,...
We Fact Checked Everything Trump Has Said About Oil and Gas Since 2021
For being so cozy with (not to mention bankrolled by) the oil and gas industry, Donald Trump still manages to get a lot wrong about the world’s dominant petroleum industry. Here’s everything he’s gotten wrong, and occasionally right, about the oil and gas industry while on the 2024 campaign trail. “On January 6, we were energy independent.” [June 27, 2024] Fact check: What does “energy independence” actually mean? Experts frequently dismiss the term as a political buzzword that isn’t helpful for understanding the United States’ position in the global energy market. According to one definition, “energy independence” means that the United States...
We Fact Checked Everything Trump Has Said About Electric Vehicles Since 2021
Donald Trump claims to be a “big fan” of electric vehicles despite making them a frequent target of derision on the campaign trail. He might be a bigger fan, though, if he got his facts straight. Here’s what Trump has gotten right and wrong about EVs since 2021.“To China, if you’re listening — President Xi, you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you are building in Mexico right now, and you think you are going to get that, not hire Americans, and you’re going to sell the...
We Fact Checked Everything Trump Has Said About Wind and Solar Since 2021
Donald Trump loves eagles and whales and therefore he wants to protect them — from clean energy development. Trump may, however, be relieved to hear that many of his concerns about wind and solar energy are unfounded. Here’s what he gets right and wrong.Pointing out the window to the Atlantic Ocean at one point, one attendee said, the former president claimed that offshore wind turbines break down when they are exposed to saltwater … [April 17, 2024]Fact check: Let’s just get this out of the way: offshore wind turbines are designed to withstand saltwater exposure. People have been building...
We Fact Checked Everything Trump Has Said About the Paris Agreement Since 2021
If Donald Trump retakes the White House in November, he will direct the U.S. to leave the Paris Agreement — again. This time, though, the ex-president and his allies also plan to make it more difficult for any future Democratic president to rejoin the international deal to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. Trump’s most frequently proclaimed gripe with the climate treaty (beyond not believing in climate change) is that it rips off the U.S. “The Paris Accord was going to cost us $1 trillion and China, nothing, Russia, nothing, India, nothing. It was a ripoff of the...
We Fact Checked Everything Trump Has Said About Climate and Weather Since 2021
Long before Donald Trump ever became a politician, he was a climate change denier. “I’m in Los Angeles and it’s freezing,” he tweeted back in 2013. “Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!” On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump has continued to claim that cold weather is proof that the planet isn’t warming — and that if it is, the consequences won’t be that bad. If only he were correct. Here’s our fact-check of everything Trump has said about climate and weather since he left office in 2021. “I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean...
We Fact Checked Everything Trump Has Said About Climate Change Since 2021
Donald Trump has never been closer to returning to the White House than he is at this moment. Despite becoming a convicted felon in early June, Trump was polling on par with President Biden at the start of the summer — and that was before Biden’s disastrous debate performance. Now, Dems really do seem to be in disarray over the best course of action going into the critical final months before the November election. What voters ultimately decide will have significant ramifications for Biden’s climate legacy — namely, the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark bill enacted in...
What Makes Hurricane Beryl So Unusual
Current conditions: Intense storms in Europe killed at least seven people over the weekend • Nine inches of rain fell in 24 hours in Delhi, causing deadly flooding just days after blistering high temperatures • California will have “record-challenging heat” for the 4th of July.THE TOP FIVE1. Potentially catastrophic Hurricane Beryl heads for small Caribbean islandsThe first hurricane of the season, Hurricane Beryl, has started lashing the southeastern islands of the Caribbean today as a category 3 storm. Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadine Islands, Grenada, and Tobago – islands that don’t normally endure storms of this...
Electric Cars’ Heat Problem
If the world is going to slash greenhouse emissions from transportation, then we need a vast number of drivers to switch from fossil fuel engines to electric cars powered by renewable energy. Yet the EVs we need to mitigate further climate damage might, in one way, be ill-suited to the warmer and more extreme climate we’ve already created. You may have heard that frigid temps are no friend of the electric vehicle. That is true, since extreme cold is a two-pronged problem. First, physical processes in the battery happen more slowly if it’s chilly out. When the mercury drops, my...
What Happens After Chevron?
It’s a sad day for the regulatory state. On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down a 40-year-old precedent that deferred to agencies’ interpretations of their own mandates where the statutory guidance was incomplete or ambiguous, otherwise known as Chevron deference, after the losing side in the original case. Not only has it been cited in more than 19,000 federal opinions, it’s the one congressional aides — the ones actually writing the laws — are most familiar with, as Lisa Heinzerling, a professor of environmental law at Georgetown Law, told me. “So there’s a way in which Congress has been...
Why Our ‘Only Existential Threat’ Got Shortchanged at the Debate
Advocates for televised presidential debates argue that they offer the best chance voters will have during the campaign to get an extended look at the candidates, beyond what they see in 30-second ads and 8-second sound bites. We can hear them defend their records as they critique their opponents, and answer tough questions from seasoned reporters about key issues. It’s a rare opportunity to delve deep into substance on important issues.If only that were how televised debates actually turn out. The one exchange on climate change that occurred in Thursday’s meeting between Joe Biden and Donald Trump showed just...
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