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Tag: Climate

  • Why the ‘Mother of Dragons’ at SpaceX left her job building rockets to work on nuclear fusion

    Why the ‘Mother of Dragons’ at SpaceX left her job building rockets to work on nuclear fusion

    Darby Dunn, the Vice President of operations at Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

    Photo courtesy Commonwealth Fusion Systems

    From March 2009 to December 2018, Darby Dunn held a handful of engineering and production roles at SpaceX.

    “In one role in particular, my unofficial title was ‘Mother of Dragons,’” Dunn told CNBC in an interview in Devens, Massachusetts. “In that role, I was leading the build out of our new manufacturing facilities for the crew Dragon vehicle.”

    While she was overseeing production of the Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX went from ramping up production to making its very first spacecraft, and then to sending cargo to the International Space Station on it regularly, Dunn says.

    Building rockets is a very cool thing to do. But in January 2019, Dunn started work at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup that is attempting to commercialize nuclear fusion as an energy source. Fusion is the way the sun and the stars make energy. If it can be harnessed here on Earth, it would provide virtually unlimited clean energy.

    But so far, fusion at scale remains in the realm of science fiction.

    Darby Dunn with the SpaceX Dragon rocket.

    Photo courtesy Darby Dunn

    Dunn says she made the switch from building rockets to working on making fusion energy a reality because she wants to see the impact of her efforts in her lifetime.

    “I very much believe SpaceX will make life multiplanetary. I don’t know how much of that I’ll see in my lifetime,” Dunn, 37, told CNBC at the end of May.

    But Dunn has spent large chunks of her life living in California, where SpaceX is based, and has very much seen the effects of climate change in the shape of wildfires and mudslides stemming from extreme rain.

    “For me, it really came down to wanting to use my energy to clean up the planet instead of get off it. So that was the the huge shift for me to come to CFS,” Dunn told CNBC.

    Joining Commonwealth Fusion Systems in the early stages, as its 10th employee, has allowed her to see a different stage on the journey of company growth, too.

    “We’re a 5-year-old company with 500 employees,” Dunn told CNBC. “I joined SpaceX when it was 6 years old with about 500 employees. So I’ve actually been able to see the entire era that I didn’t get to experience at SpaceX and doing so at CFS.”

    The Commonwealth Fusion Systems campus in Devens, Mass.

    Photo courtesy Commonwealth Fusion Systems

    A key difference between the two jobs is the maturity of the respective industries.

    “The aerospace industry has been around for a long time. So building a rocket engine, the mechanics of it look really similar, or the structure itself, or the physics of how it works is all very, very well studied and very well understood,” Dunn told CNBC.

    Fusion machines have been studied in academic settings and research labs since the early 1950s, but the entire industry is just at the very first stages of trying to prove that the science can have commercial applications. It’s being a part of that excitement that was a big draw for Dunn.

    Of course, there are plenty of skeptics who say the industry is the equivalent of Don Quixote tilting at his windmills. But Dunn says her time at SpaceX prepared her to face the skeptics.

    “When Elon said publicly that we were going to launch and land rockets back from space, everybody said, ‘That’s not possible! You can’t do it!’” Dunn said, referencing SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. SpaceX’s response was that the laws of physics say it is possible and so they were going to prove it, Dunn told CNBC.

    “It took many attempts, a lot of learning, a lot of iterations on our software, many failed attempts off the boat — and then we did it. And then we did it again. And we did it again. And we did it again,” she said.

    Darby Dunn, vice president of operations at Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

    Photo courtesy Commonwealth Fusion Systems

    “Now it’s gotten to the point where you’ve seen the aerospace industry shift to say, ‘Well, why aren’t these other companies also lending their rockets back from space?’ It’s completely changed the way that people are looking at it. They first said, ‘It wasn’t possible. Then, ‘OK, it is possible.’ And now it is saying, ‘Well, why isn’t everybody else jumping in?’”

    Dunn is looking to be part of that kind of transition for the fusion industry at Commonwealth.

    Speed is key

    Dunn is the vice president of operations, which covers manufacturing, safety, quality and facilities. She’s helping Commonwealth make the transition from research and development-scale processes to manufacturing and full-scale production.

    The company spun out of research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the company’s goal is to build 10,000 fusion power plants around the world by 2050, Dunn told CNBC.

    First, however, Commonwealth has to prove that it can generate more energy in its fusion reactor than is necessary to get the reaction started, a key threshold for the fusion industry called “ignition.” To do that, the company is currently building its SPARC tokamak — a device that will help contain and control the fusion reaction. The company plans to turn it on in 2025 and demonstrate net energy shortly thereafter.

    To build SPARC, Commonwealth needs to make a lot of magnets using high-temperature superconducting tape.

    The advanced manufacturing facility located at the Commonwealth Fusion Systems campus in Devens, Massachusetts, where magnets are manufactured.

    Photo courtesy Commonwealth Fusion Systems

    “The cool part of this building is that the concept for it started out as a doodle that I made on a whiteboard three years ago,” Dunn told CNBC. “To see the steel beams going up, walls going up, concrete getting poured, it’s a whole vision coming to life, which is super exciting.”

    To fund the construction, Commonwealth has raised more than $2 billion from investors including Bill Gates, Google, Khosla Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital.

    Even as Commonwealth is figuring out how to make one magnet, Dunn is leading her team to develop manufacturing processes that can eventually scale to a process that looks like an automotive assembly line, she told CNBC.

    Moving fast is a priority for Dunn, and the rest of the team. After building the demonstration fusion machine, SPARC, the company aims to build a bigger version called ARC, which it says is going to deliver electricity to the grid. The aim is to have ARC online in the 2030s.

    “The biggest thing I think about a lot is time, about how fast can we go,” Dunn told CNBC. “The sooner we can get the magnets built, the sooner we can build SPARC, the sooner we can turn it on, the sooner we can get in net energy, the sooner we get to our first ARC. So I think that’s probably the element that I think about the most.”

    Darby Dunn in the Commonwealth Fusion Systems advanced manufacturing facility.

    Photo courtesy Commonwealth Fusion Systems

    Speed matters because critics argue that it will take too long to get fusion to work as an energy source to meaningfully contribute to the very urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    Top climate scientists at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have said that to have “no or limited” overshoot of the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming above preindustrial levels will require a 45% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 compared to 2010 levels and hitting net zero around 2050.

    “I have asked myself, ‘Why am I doing fusion as opposed to something that is going to be deployed next year?’” she told CNBC. “For me, it comes down to the fact that fusion is the most energy dense reaction in our solar system.”

    But she does not believe fusion should be the only solution.

    “I very much believe in in solar power and wind and a lot of other renewables — that we absolutely need those. We need those deployed now. We need those deployed all over the world,” Dunn told CNBC. “But I don’t think they will be enough to get us to 2050 and beyond.”

    Electric cars, heat pumps, green steel and green cement all depend on having large quantities of clean electricity. Its Dunn’s focus to build the energy sources that the world will need in the decades and centuries to come.

    If Commonwealth is going to deliver that solution, though, Dunn first has to make a whole lot of very high-powered magnets.

    “My own personal opinion is I’m going to keep on keeping on — keep on building. And we have a poster in the back stairwell that says, ‘Keep calm and fuse on,” Dunn told CNBC. “Regardless of what the outside world is saying, we are working every day towards our mission of getting net-positive energy from fusion. And I look forward to proving that to the world in a couple of years.”

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  • New York City tops world’s worst air pollution list from Canada wildfire smoke

    New York City tops world’s worst air pollution list from Canada wildfire smoke

    A smokey haze blankets Times Square in New York City as smoke from Canada’s wildfires moves down the Northeastern U.S.

    Photo: Jadyn Kist

    New York City’s air pollution ranked the worst of any city in the world on Wednesday as wildfire smoke from Canada continued to drift over the area, creating a second day of orange haze over the city and prompting some residents to wear face masks outdoors.

    As of Wednesday afternoon, the city reached an AQI of 342, a level considered “hazardous” for all residents.

    The city’s schools are open but are not having outdoor activities as the air quality is expected to deteriorate throughout the day. The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday halted some flights bound for New York’s LaGuardia Airport due to the smoke. Visibility was also causing delays at Newark Liberty International Airport.

    Smoke from the Canadian wildfires blankets New York City affecting air quality on June 7th, 2023. 

    Leslie Josephs | CNBC

    City officials have advised residents to limit outdoor activity Wednesday and warned that children, older adults and people with preexisting respiratory problems are especially vulnerable.

    Wildfire smoke releases fine particulate matter, called PM2.5, which enters the lungs and causes health issues such as asthma and bronchitis. PM2.5 concentration in New York City is currently 15 times the World Health Organization’s annual air quality guideline value.

    In this GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken Monday, June 5, 2023 at 7 p.m. EDT and provided by CIRA/NOAA, smoke from wildfires burning in Quebec, Canada, top center, drifts southward.

    NOAA | AP

    The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has issued an Air Quality Health Advisory for all five boroughs. City officials have said they expect the advisory to remain in place for the next few days but added it’s particularly difficult to forecast smoke conditions.

    New York also extended its air quality health advisory to Thursday.

    Mayor Eric Adams in a press briefing Wednesday urged vulnerable residents to remain indoors and said dangerous air quality conditions are forecast to temporarily improve later tonight through Thursday morning but continue to deteriorate Thursday afternoon and evening.

    “This may be the first time we’ve experienced something like this of this magnitude,” Adams said. “Climate change is accelerating these conditions. We must continue to draw down emissions and improve air quality and build resiliency.”

    Heavy smoke fills the air as people cross 34th Street in Herald Square, Manhattan, New York, June 6, 2023.

    Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images

    Canada is on track to experience its worst-ever wildfire season, with more than 400 active wildfires currently burning across nearly all Canadian provinces and territories. Federal officials said last week that wildfires have burned more than 6.7 million acres and about 26,000 people are under evacuation orders.

    The smoke from Canada’s wildfires has drifted south and prompted air pollution warnings across the country.

    A man sits at the bus stop with a mask on his face in New York City, June 6, 2023.

    Selcuk Acar | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

    Millions of people in the Midwest are experiencing dangerous air quality conditions, with air quality advisories in effect in southeastern Minnesota, parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and areas in Wisconsin. Air quality alerts have also been posted across most of New England.

    The National Weather Service in a forecast said the smoke was expected to linger through Wednesday and continue to travel further west.

    Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of global wildfires and air pollution from wildfire smoke is also growing worse. Last year, Stanford researchers found millions of Americans are routinely exposed to wildfire smoke pollution at levels rarely seen only a decade ago.

    Smoke from the Canadian wildfires blankets New York City affecting air quality on June 7th, 2023. 

    Leslie Josephs | CNBC

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  • Europe is struggling with a precarious water situation ahead of another drought-riven summer

    Europe is struggling with a precarious water situation ahead of another drought-riven summer

    A view of the drought that affected the Los Bermejales reservoir which is at 18% of its capacity in Arenas del Rey in Granada, Spain, on May 13, 2023.

    Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

    European policymakers are battling to get to grips with a growing water crisis ahead of what researchers fear could be yet another climate crisis-fueled summer of drought.

    Water resources in Europe are growing increasingly scarce because of the deepening climate emergency, with record-breaking temperatures through spring and a historic winter heatwave taking a visible toll on the region’s rivers and ski slopes.

    Reservoirs in Mediterranean countries like Italy have fallen to water levels typically associated with summer heatwaves in recent weeks, threatening agricultural production, while protests have broken out over water shortages in both France and Spain.

    It comes as temperatures are poised to climb through summer and many fear Europe’s already “very precarious” water problem could get even worse.

    Satellite data analyzed by researchers from Austria’s University of Graz at the start of the year found that drought was impacting Europe on a much larger scale than researchers had previously expected.

    The study was published after European Union researchers found that Europe experienced its hottest summer ever last year, with the intense drought thought to be the worst the region had seen in at least 500 years.

    Researchers at the University of Graz said Europe had been suffering from a severe drought since 2018, with the effects becoming clear last year as receding waters wreaked havoc for food and energy production, while numerous aquatic species lost their habitats.

    “A few years ago, I would never have imagined that water would be a problem here in Europe, especially in Germany or Austria,” said Torsten Mayer-Gürr, a lead author of the satellite study.

    “We are actually getting problems with the water supply here — we have to think about this.”

    2022 was ‘a wake-up call’ for policymakers

    In Spain, which saw temperatures climb to nearly 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in April, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned in the same month that drought in the southern European country had become one of its leading long-term concerns.

    “The government of Spain and I are aware that the debate surrounding drought is going to be one of the central political and territorial debates of our country over the coming years,” Sanchez told Parliament, according to The Associated Press.

    Last month, Spain’s government approved a 2.2 billion euro ($2.4 billion) package in an attempt to alleviate the impact of drought that has hit its agricultural sector.

    A farmer displays a water pot as she talks in a microphone about drought during a demonstration of farmers to draw attention on rural living conditions and to claim the importance of agriculture in the society and its contribution to the country’s economy, in Madrid on May 13, 2023.

    Oscar Del Pozo | Afp | Getty Images

    Meanwhile, the European Drought Observatory warned in a special snapshot report earlier this year that conditions in late winter were similar to those seen last year, when high temperatures and a lack of precipitation resulted in a widespread and protracted drought that affected much of the continent.

    The latest available data shows warning conditions for drought for more than a quarter of the EU’s 27-nation bloc, while 8% of the region is in a state of drought alert.

    Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said the outlook this summer for large parts of Europe “doesn’t look as scary as it did a month ago.”

    That’s because, amid an especially variable spring which saw record-breaking April temperatures in Spain and Portugal and devastating flash floods in Italy, heavy rain across southern Europe in recent weeks has helped to top up reservoirs and improve soil moisture.

    However, Burgess said large parts of northern Europe and countries including Spain, France and Portugal in the south were still looking “fairly dry” at a time when some researchers fear Europe could be on track for another brutal summer.

    “For water security across Europe, we really need to change how we treat water — and I think that the events of the last year were really a wake-up call for many European decision makers,” Burgess told CNBC via telephone.

    Cedric Sabate, arborist, thins his trees to help them withstand the water restrictions in Thuir, near Perpignan, southern France, on May 16, 2023.

    Raymond Roig | Afp | Getty Images

    A spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, did not respond to a CNBC request for comment.

    Chloe Brimicombe, a climate researcher at Austria’s University of Graz, said water scarcity was a particularly acute problem in southern Europe.

    “But I do think that central and Western Europe are less prepared — and in the coming years it has the potential to hit them in a way that they really aren’t expecting,” Brimicombe told CNBC via telephone.

    “Europe needs to realize that climate change is affecting them,” she continued.

    “They quite like to think that climate change is affecting the global south and that’s it. And, of course, it is affecting those people a lot more, but it is also affecting Europe. Not only do they need to help the global south, but they also need to help themselves at home too — and that means stronger mitigation and adaptation measures.”

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  • The rise of Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producer

    The rise of Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producer

    Demand for lithium, a key component for electric vehicle batteries, is expected to surge, from 500,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate in 2021 to three to four million metric tons in less than a decade, according to McKinsey & Company.

    Albemarle, the world’s top producer of this critical metal and the operator of mines in Australia, Chile and the U.S., says it plans to bring another domestic lithium mine online by 2027 — Kings Mountain in North Carolina. It already operates Silver Peak in Nevada.

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    Albemarle is also building a $1.3 billion processing facility in South Carolina, where it will process battery-grade lithium hydroxide. The plant will support the manufacturing of 2.4 million electric vehicles annually and be able to process lithium from recycled batteries.

    Despite that growth, Albemarle faces a number of potential headwinds including a possible economic downturn that could slow the demand for EVs, new battery chemistries that could reduce the need for lithium, battery recycling and additional competitors. Tesla began construction of a lithium refinery in Texas in 2023.  

    To better understand how lithium, known as “White Gold,” is extracted, the challenges involved and where production is moving to next, CNBC got a behind-the-scenes look at Albemarle’s operations in Chile and the U.S.

    Watch the video to learn more.

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  • Arizona sets limits on construction around Phoenix as groundwater dwindles

    Arizona sets limits on construction around Phoenix as groundwater dwindles

    Aerial views of new homes under construction in the Pinal County, AZ town of Florence Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022.

    Brian Van Der Brug | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

    Arizona will not allow new housing construction in the Phoenix area that depends on groundwater, a decision that comes as the state grapples with a multi-decade drought and diminishing water supplies.

    Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, during a news briefing Thursday, announced the restrictions that could impact the quickly expanding suburbs around Phoenix. The decision by the Arizona Department of Water Resources applies only to groundwater supplies and would not affect current homeowners who already have an assured water source.

    A megadrought has generated the driest two decades in the West in at least 1,200 years, and human-caused climate change has helped to fuel the conditions. Water sources are declining across the U.S. West and restrictions on the Colorado River are impacting all sectors of the economy, including construction.

    Earlier this year, Arizona projected that developers planning to build homes in the desert west of Phoenix don’t have enough groundwater supplies to execute those plans.

    A more recent analysis found that roughly 4% of the area’s demand for groundwater, nearly 4.9 million acre-feet, would not be met over the next 100 years. An acre-foot of water is about what two average households consume per year.

    The decision would allow developers to continue to build in the affected areas but would require them to find alternatives to groundwater supplies. During a nationwide housing shortage, developers are hoping to build homes in growing metropolitan regions such as Phoenix despite water shortages.

    Arizona developers have said they can work around dwindling water supplies, pointing to technology such as low flow fixtures, drip irrigation and desert landscaping. The state’s restriction could also prompt developers to seek out other water sources, such as purchasing access to river water from farmers.

    Despite the restriction, the governor said Arizona isn’t running out of water and is equipped to manage the situation.

    “My message to Arizonans is this: we are not out of water and we will not be running out of water because, as we have done so many times before, we will tackle the water challenges we face with integrity and transparency,” Hobbs said.

    The announcement comes as Arizona experiences disappearing groundwater as well as diminishing levels from the drought-stricken Colorado River, which supplies water to more than 40 million people in the U.S. The state receives roughly 2.8 million acre-feet per year, or about 18% of the total allocation, from the Colorado River.

    Last month, Arizona struck a deal with California and Nevada to voluntarily reduce their water usage from the river in exchange for federal funding. Arizona has endured two rounds of mandatory water cuts from the river over the past two years.

    Correction: A more recent analysis found that roughly 4% of the area’s demand for groundwater, nearly 4.9 million acre-feet, would not be met over the next 100 years. An earlier version misstated the timing.

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  • World’s biggest investment fund says firms mismanaging climate risk could face exclusion from next year

    World’s biggest investment fund says firms mismanaging climate risk could face exclusion from next year

    Norway’s sovereign wealth fund was established in the 1990s to invest the surplus revenues of the country’s oil and gas sector.

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Norway’s $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund says it is prepared to start dropping companies for mismanaging climate risk starting next year, adding to the decarbonization pressure that activist shareholders are already piling on firms.

    It comes shortly after the world’s the biggest investment fund said it would vote for shareholder proposals at Chevron and Exxon Mobil‘s respective annual meetings on Wednesday.

    The resolutions seek to compel the U.S. oil majors to align their climate targets with the landmark Paris Agreement and commit to absolute carbon emission cuts by 2030.

    Norway’s oil fund had refused to back similar shareholder proposals tabled in recent weeks at European oil majors, such as BP and TotalEnergies.

    The fund says it assesses every shareholder proposal individually and notes there are differences between how European and U.S. oil majors tackle the Scope 3 emissions generated by customers’ use of their oil and gas.

    “We are a particularly active owner when it comes to climate,” Carine Smith Ihenacho, chief governance and compliance officer at Norges Bank Investment Management, told CNBC via telephone.

    Established in the 1990s to invest the surplus revenues of Norway’s oil and gas sector, the fund said last year that it would take a tougher line on companies that failed to adopt credible climate plans.

    It may come to a point where we feel the company is absolutely not listening to us, they are not reporting anything, we see no changes, we may then sell out.

    Carine Smith Ihenacho

    Chief governance and compliance officer at Norges Bank Investment Management

    “We clearly said it is in our long-term interest that the companies in our portfolio will get to net zero by 2050 because, for our financial returns in the long term, we think that will be beneficial,” Ihenacho said, reflecting on the fund’s 2025 climate action plan.

    “As an active owner, we really want to influence and push the companies towards setting net-zero 2050 targets and also push them towards having credible transition plans. By that, we mean science-based transition plans,” she added.

    Palpable frustration

    Norway’s oil fund has invested in more than 9,000 companies in 70 countries around the world and acknowledges that “companies care how we vote at AGMs.”

    Ihenacho said that the main tools the fund seeks to use when engaging with corporate directors on environmental, social and governance factors are dialogue and voting, but added that the fund could soon be forced to consider selling out of climate laggards.

    “It is something we have to balance the whole time,” Ihenacho said. “I think our starting point is very much that we want to be an owner and want to influence the companies. Selling out is not going to solve the climate crisis at all. You just sell to somebody else who may care less about climate as an owner than we do.”

    “Having said that, it may come to a point where we feel the company is absolutely not listening to us, they are not reporting anything, we see no changes, we may then sell out. We may decide to sell out,” Ihenacho said.

    “The earliest there will be any companies either on an observation list or excluded will be next year or maybe the year after that. We will try to use our ownership tools first,” she added.

    Protesters outside the Salle Pleyel venue in Paris could be heard chanting “all we want is to knock down Total” and “one, two, three degrees, we have Total to thank.”

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    It comes amid a sense of palpable frustration among climate activists during the proxy voting season, with demonstrations taking place both inside and outside the AGM venues of oil giants.

    Burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas and coal, is the chief driver of the climate emergency.

    Dutch group Follow This, a small activist investor and campaign group, has tabled resolutions at several Big Oil companies in recent weeks calling for faster green transition plans.

    A rebellion of 30% voted in favor of a resolution at TotalEnergies’ AGM last week, reflecting a significant rebuke by the typical standards of annual shareholder meetings.

    By comparison, support for a similar resolution at BP’s AGM last month came in at just 17%, up from 15% last year, while backing for a climate resolution tabled at Shell‘s annual meeting last week came in at 20%, or the same level as in 2022.

    Chevron and Exxon Mobil have urged shareholders to reject the shareholder proposals put forward by Follow This at their respective annual meetings.

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  • A ‘Big Short’ investor sees financial disaster brewing in housing markets — again

    A ‘Big Short’ investor sees financial disaster brewing in housing markets — again

    Housing markets are undergoing a fundamental shift because of higher mortgage rates and as global central banks keep up the inflation fight by hiking interest rates. Against this backdrop, some — including a ‘Big Short’ investor — fear the real estate sector is overlooking a systemic issue: flood risk.

    A ‘Big Short’ investor fears an often-overlooked climate risk could see history repeating itself in the housing market.

    Dave Burt, CEO of investment research firm DeltaTerra Capital, was one of the few skeptics who recognized the real estate sector was teetering on the brink of collapse in 2007.

    He helped two of the protagonists of Michael Lewis’ bestselling book “The Big Short” bet against the mortgage market in the lead-up to the 2008 economic collapse. As it turned out, they were right and made millions.

    Now, Burt believes the mortgage market is underestimating another systemic issue: flood risk. If realized, he warns the fallout could resemble the massive correction seen during the global financial crisis.

    “Ultimately, until people have good information about what these climate-related costs are going to look like, we’re creating new problems every day. I think that’s really the crux of the matter,” Burt told CNBC.

    So, why does the U.S. housing market seem to be underestimating the cost of flooding? What does this mean for homeowners and homebuyers in the U.K. and around the world? And what can be done to mitigate this risk?

    Watch the video above to find out.

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  • State Farm to stop accepting homeowners insurance applications in California due to wildfires, construction costs

    State Farm to stop accepting homeowners insurance applications in California due to wildfires, construction costs

    A private wild land firefighter monitors a backfire along Old Lawley Toll Road during the Glass Fire in Calistoga, California, U.S., October 2, 2020. Picture taken October 2, 2020.

    Stephen Lam | Reuters

    State Farm General Insurance Company on Friday announced that it will stop accepting new homeowners insurance applications in California, citing “rapidly growing” catastrophe risks like wildfires, “historic increases” in construction costs and a challenging reinsurance market.

    “We take seriously our responsibility to manage risk,” the company said in a release.

    State Farm said it will stop accepting new business, personal lines property and casualty insurance applications starting Saturday. The new policy will not impact personal auto insurance, according to the release. State Farm’s independent contractor agents will also continue to serve existing customers.

    The company said it will work with the California Department of Insurance and other policymakers to improve conditions in California, but that State Farm decided to take action to improve its “financial strength.

    “We will continue to evaluate our approach based on changing market conditions,” State Farm said.

    State Farm did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

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  • Biden Interior advances renewable energy transmission projects in Nevada

    Biden Interior advances renewable energy transmission projects in Nevada

    Heavy electrical transmission lines at the powerful Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, located in California’s Mojave Desert at the base of Clark Mountain and just south of this stateline community on Interstate 15, are viewed on July 15, 2022 near Primm, Nevada. The Ivanpah system consists of three solar thermal power plants and 173,500 heliostats (mirrors) on 3,500 acres and features a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW).

    George Rose | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management this week said it has advanced two transmission projects proposed by public utility NV Energy that would facilitate more renewable energy development and delivery in Nevada. 

    The agency will start an environmental review for the Greenlink North project, which will span over 450 miles to connect Las Vegas to Reno, and release a draft environmental impact statement for the Greenlink West transmission project, which will cover 232 miles from Ely to Yerington.

    Once completed, the projects will connect eight gigawatts of clean energy to the Western power grid. The plans would bolster the Biden administration’s goal to deploy 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on public lands and waters by 2025 and achieve a carbon-free power sector by 2035. 

    The announcement comes as Congress debates federal energy permitting overhauls, with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., introducing a measure earlier this month to speed permitting of both fossil fuel and renewable energy projects.

    Transmission projects involve expanding high-voltage lines that transport renewable energy to populated areas and will play a critical role in accelerating the clean energy transition while meeting growing power demand.

    The BLM aims to finalize proposed documents and develop a record of decision for the Greenlink West project by late 2024. It will also release draft environmental planning documents for the Greenlink North project for public comment later this year.

    “Our public lands have a critical role to play in the clean energy transition,” BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement. 

    The agency said it has approved 35 clean energy projects over the past couple of years, including solar, geothermal, and gen-tie installations, which are anticipated to generate 8,160 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power more than 2.6 million homes.

    Some projects include the SunZia Southwest Transmission Project in New Mexico and construction approval for California’s Sunlight Storage II Battery Storage System. The agency is also reviewing projects like Utah’s Star Range Solar Project and Nevada’s Bonanza Solar Project.

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  • ‘Go to hell, Shell’: Climate protesters try to storm stage at oil giant’s annual shareholders meeting

    ‘Go to hell, Shell’: Climate protesters try to storm stage at oil giant’s annual shareholders meeting

    Climate activists protest outside the Shell annual general meeting at the ExCel center in London, U.K., on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. The protests come as Shell faces a shareholder vote on a measure to increase its climate ambitions following a year of record profits at the company.

    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    LONDON — Shell Chief Executive Wael Sawan and the firm’s board of directors on Tuesday were shielded by security staff as climate protesters unsuccessfully tried to storm the stage at the British oil giant’s annual shareholders meeting.

    The acrimonious meeting, which was held at the ExCeL London exhibition center, was repeatedly disrupted by protesters before they were removed by security staff.

    Proceedings were scheduled to get underway at 10 a.m. London time but waves of disruption delayed the meeting for well over an hour.

    Protesters could be heard singing to the tune of “Hit the Road Jack,” “Go to hell, Shell, and don’t you come back no more” as Sawan, Chairman Andrew Mackenzie and other directors looked on.

    It comes as climate-focused investors seek to ramp up pressure on the energy major after an extraordinary run of record profits.

    Follow This, a small Dutch activist investor and campaign group with stakes in several Big Oil companies, tabled a resolution at Shell’s shareholder meeting.

    Climate Resolution 26 calls on Shell to align its climate targets with the landmark Paris Agreement and commit to absolute carbon emissions cuts by 2030. These cuts, Follow This says, should include emissions generated by customers’ use of their oil and gas, known as Scope 3 emissions.

    It echoes a 2021 ruling by a Dutch court that Shell should reduce its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of the decade, which the company has appealed.

    For the first time, Dutch pension managers MN and PGGM — both Shell shareholders — have endorsed the resolution. The institutional investors lead engagement with Shell on behalf of the world’s largest climate-focused investor group Climate Action 100+, which represents $68 trillion in assets.

    It comes as investors increasingly see a warming planet as a growing risk to their portfolios. The burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, gas and coal, is the chief driver of the climate crisis.

    Shell reported adjusted earnings of $39.9 billion for the full-year 2022.

    Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

    Meanwhile, the Church of England Pensions Board, Britain’s Local Authorities Pensions Funds Forum, the the U.K.’s National Employment Savings Trust, and shareholder adviser PIRC have said they will either vote against or recommend a vote against the re-appointment of Shell’s Mackenzie.

    Adam Matthews, chief responsible investment officer at the Church of England Pensions Board, reportedly said earlier this month that it had “lost confidence in the direction of the company.”

    Shell, which is aiming to become a net-zero emissions business by 2050, has recommended shareholders vote against the motion tabled by Follow This. The company described Climate Resolution 26 as “unclear, generic and would create confusion as to Board and shareholder accountabilities.”

    “We strongly disagree with the Follow This resolution and with those organisations which have recommended supporting it, or voting against Board members. There must be an emphasis on changing the use of energy as much as its supply, and this is reflected in our approach,” a spokesperson for Shell said in a statement.

    “We will continue to invest in producing the energy the world needs today and for the foreseeable future. All of our investments have to provide a rate of return that our investors demand,” they added.

    Proxy advisors Glass Lewis and ISS have both recommended that their clients vote against Resolution 26.

    Follow This said it represents nearly 10,000 Shell shareholders, although the majority hold only a couple of shares.

    It is unlikely that those planning to vote in favor of the resolution will trigger a broader shareholder revolt or succeed in ousting board members, but Follow This says it hopes investors take the opportunity to compel the company to align their 2030 emissions reduction targets with the Paris accord.

    At BP‘s annual general meeting last month, support for a Follow This resolution calling for tougher emission reduction targets by the end of the decade came in at 17%, although this was up from 15% last year.

    Bumper profits

    Big Oil posted bumper profits last year, bolstered by soaring fossil fuel prices and robust demand following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    For its part, Shell reported its highest-ever annual profit of nearly $40 billion in 2022. That comfortably surpassed the $28.4 billion in 2008 which Shell said was its previous annual record and was more than double the firm’s full-year 2021 profit of $19.29 billion.

    Earlier this month, Shell posted adjusted earnings of $9.6 billion for the first three months of 2023.

    The record profits were seen from within the industry as something of a vindication. Oil and gas giants came under immense pressure from shareholders and activists to invest in clean energy as oil demand cratered in the peak of 2020 Covid lockdowns.

    The push toward green reform lost momentum last year, however, alarming investors and campaigners as the world’s leading climate scientists warned of “a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future.”

    After ultimately failing with several climate resolutions in 2022, Follow This’ Mark van Baal told CNBC earlier this year that it was clear from discussions with oil majors that they were determined to fend off activist and shareholder pressure and continue with their core oil and gas businesses.

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  • Cacti, wild coffee and false bananas: Scientists sketch out the menus of the future

    Cacti, wild coffee and false bananas: Scientists sketch out the menus of the future

    Kocho, a food produced using enset, served with honey and red pepper sauce.

    Mwayout | Istock | Getty Images

    Earlier this year, shoppers in the U.K. faced a shortage of fresh fruit and vegetables, with some of the country’s grocery stores rationing produce like tomatoes, lettuce and peppers.

    The reasons behind the scarcity of ingredients crucial to a tasty salad were complicated and varied, ranging from high energy prices to adverse weather conditions in supplier countries.  

    While the shortage has more or less abated, it did highlight the fragile nature of our food system and the huge importance of food security.

    In 2022, a major report from the United Nations showed the scale of the problem.

    “Between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021,” The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report said.

    The U.N.’s report flagged the “major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition: conflict, climate extremes and economic shocks, combined with growing inequalities.”

    With concerns about the effects of climate change on the agriculture sector mounting, what we grow and eat could be on the cusp of a significant shift.

    Crops unfamiliar to many of us could have a crucial role to play in the years ahead. In June 2022, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, listed several sources of food that could play a big role in future diets.

    They include seaweed; cacti like the prickly pear; a type of wild coffee able to cope with far warmer temperatures than Arabica coffee; and enset, also known as the false banana.

    “Enset is a relative of the banana,” James Borrell, research leader in Trait Diversity and Function at RBG Kew, told CNBC.

    “But whereas a banana is from Southeast Asia and you eat the fruit, enset is from Africa and has been domesticated — and is only cultivated — in Ethiopia,” he added.

    “You actually eat the whole trunk, or pseudo stem, and the underground corm.”

    “Something like 15 plants could feed a person for a year, so it’s … very large, and it’s very productive.”

    The enset plant in Ethiopia. Enset is also known as “the tree against hunger.”

    Glen_pearson | Istock | Getty Images

    When it comes to food security, the potential of enset — which is also referred to as “the tree against hunger” — appears to be considerable.

    Borrell told CNBC that it possesses a combination of traits and characteristics “very unusual in crops.”

    “Firstly, it’s perennial, and so it keeps growing each year if you don’t harvest it,” he said.

    A fruit tree may also be perennial, he noted, “but it only produces its fruit at a certain time of year — so you either need to consume it then or you need to store it.”

    With enset, however, “you eat the whole thing … so the fact that it gets larger each year, you can simply harvest it when you need it.”

    A ‘bank account of food’

    That, Borrell said, makes it particularly useful for subsistence farmers working on several crops.

    “If some year your other crops fail, or they don’t have a sufficient yield, you can eat a little bit more of your enset,” he said.

    “If you have a good year for your other crops, you can eat a bit less of your enset.” That means enset could “buffer seasonal food insecurity.”

    “For a subsistence farmer, that’s an amazing product,” he added.

    “It’s like a bank account of food, it’s like a green asset that you can maintain and nurture and if you don’t use it, it keeps accumulating.”

    At the moment, RGB Kew says enset supplies food to 20 million people in Ethiopia, but the organization adds it “could be a climate-smart crop for the future” thanks to its “high yield and resilience to long periods of drought.”

    In late 2021, researchers based in the U.K. and Ethiopia, including Borrell, published a paper in Environmental Research which provided a tantalizing glimpse of the role it might play in the future.

    “We find that despite a highly restricted current distribution, there is significant potential for climate-resilient enset expansion both within Ethiopia and across eastern and southern Africa,” the authors said.

    Kocho, produced using the enset plant, photographed in Ethiopia.

    Glen_pearson | Istock | Getty Images

    Could, then, the cultivation of enset extend from Ethiopia to other parts of the world, buffering other crops in the process?

    “The very important caveat is that it is an Ethiopian crop,” Borrell said.

    “And so those kinds of decisions are entirely up to Ethiopia … it’s Ethiopia’s indigenous knowledge, and it’s Ethiopia’s farmers that have spent thousands of years domesticating it.”

    “So although we can talk about what is the potential and would it work, it’s very specifically not up to us to say whether it should happen and if it can happen.”

    It’s unlikely, then, that people outside of Ethiopia will be seeing enset on their plate anytime soon.

    Nevertheless, its resilience and importance in shoring up supply for farmers there illustrate how practices rooted in tradition may have a big role to play in the way we think about and consume food.

    “It’s an amazing crop, with amazing indigenous knowledge underlying it,” Borrell said.

    “I think the message is that this is just one of hundreds or even thousands of underutilized crops that are not particularly extensively researched, and they’re not widely known.”

    “So for every plant we talk about, like enset, there’s many others that could have … particular combinations of traits that could help us address a challenge that we face.”

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  • Southwest states strike landmark deal with Biden to conserve Colorado River water

    Southwest states strike landmark deal with Biden to conserve Colorado River water

    One of the boat ramps at Callville Bay Marina no longer reaches the water on April 16, 2023 in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada.

    Rj Sangosti | Medianews Group | The Denver Post via Getty Images

    The Biden administration on Monday announced that it’s reached an agreement with states reliant on the Colorado River to reduce their water usage temporarily in exchange for at least $1 billion in federal funding, a deal that comes after months of negotiations and some missed deadlines to protect the drought-stricken river.

    Under the agreement, California, Arizona and Nevada will voluntarily conserve 3 million acre-feet of water until 2026, amounting to about 13% of those states’ total allocation from the river. The Biden administration will compensate cities, water districts, Native American tribes and farm operators for 2.3 million acre-feet of savings using funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. (An acre-foot of water is about what two average households consume per year.)

    The Colorado River supplies water to more than 40 million people and roughly 5.5 million acres of farmland in seven U.S. states. But a combination of prolonged drought, dwindling reservoir levels and increased demand have strained the river. The river’s major reservoirs, including Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have experienced dramatic declines in water levels.

    “This is an important step forward towards our shared goal of forging a sustainable path for the basin that millions of people call home,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said.

    California has the largest allocation of Colorado River water, with roughly 4.4 million acre-feet each year, comprising about 29% of the total allocation. Arizona receives roughly 2.8 million acre-feet per year, or about 18% of total allocation. Nevada’s allocation is approximately 300,000 acre-feet each year, representing around 2% of the total allocation.

    The temporary agreement will avoid a situation where the federal government imposes unilateral water cuts on all seven states.

    The administration on Monday also agreed to withdraw its environmental analysis from last month that would have required states to cut nearly 2.1 million additional acre-feet of their water usage in 2024. Today’s plan will be finalized after the Interior Department conducts an environmental review.

    “Today’s announcement is a testament to the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to working with states, Tribes and communities throughout the West to find consensus solutions in the face of climate change and sustained drought,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

    In January, after negotiations reached another standstill, six states submitted a proposal to the Bureau of Reclamation that outlined ways to cut water use, factoring in water that’s lost because of evaporation and leaky infrastructure. California released its own plan.

    The Biden administration has previously urged all seven states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — to save between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet of water, or up to a third of the river’s average flow.

    Photo taken on March 13, 2023 shows the Colorado River near Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada border, the United States. The Colorado River, the parched lifeline in U.S. southwest, which supplies water to some 40 million people in seven states, got a jolt in the arm from the 2022-23 winter thanks to the snowpack that is melting and swelling streams and rivers.

    Xinhua News Agency | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

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  • An exclusive look inside Amazon’s uniquely sustainable HQ2

    An exclusive look inside Amazon’s uniquely sustainable HQ2

    Starting next week, the first of 8,000 Amazon employees will begin moving into one of two brand new 22-story towers in Arlington, Virginia. Move-in is expected to be complete by the end of the summer. Amazon’s HQ2, formally called Metropolitan Park, has many features that contribute toward the company’s goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions across all operations by 2040.

    The buildings will run with no operational carbon emissions and will be powered by 100% renewable energy from a nearby solar farm.

    “We eliminated fossil fuels from this building, which is huge and really new for a lot of developments, particularly of this size,” said Kara Hurst, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide sustainability.

    The 2.1 million square feet of space includes some of the newest clean energy technology and sustainability features. An enormous meeting room has a mass timber ceiling made from 70-foot laminated planks of sustainable material. The floor is made of concrete from Carbon Cure, a clean cement company funded by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund. 

    A meeting room at Amazon’s HQ2 

    Diana Olick | CNBC

    There are 3,000 tinted glass windows for cooling, and red/green lights by the side of the windows that tell workers when is a good time to open those windows. The building is also using special cooling technology that helps save about 7 and a half million gallons of water per year. That’s more water than is needed to fill the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

     The heating and cooling systems operate based on need, meaning the ventilation and temperatures will change depending on occupancy. There are also advanced energy metering systems in the building to help evaluate future improvements as the building is occupied and teams use the space.

    “I think it’s incredibly important for a company like Amazon to demonstrate leadership and sustainability and to be out there to talk about where we’re testing and trialing things, to also send demand signals to the market that these are products and services that we want,” said Hurst. “We want to see the innovation in building materials. We want to see the innovation in construction equipment. We want to see it in how we’re incorporating that and we want that to go at scale, one for cost parity, but also for availability for everyone.”

    Hurst wouldn’t say how much the sustainability features increased the cost of the development. Amazon officials said only that some things were found to be cost-neutral, like the low-carbon concrete.

    “Other choices were about long term value like our water conservation measures. Sustainability also goes beyond utility cost savings decisions,” the officials said.

    The Development was designed in heavy consultation with the surrounding community. The dog parks and a childcare center in the complex are open to surrounding residents. There is also a rooftop vegetable garden on the new tower now opening that is not for employees — the food produced instead will be distributed to local community organizations through non-profits.

    However, there are still plenty of amenities for the 8,000 employees, who Hurst says will be in the office at least three days a week.

    “We’re still committed to all the hiring goals that we set out. So we’ll continue on that path but really over the next decade,” said Hurst.

    As for the second phase of HQ2 offices that was recently delayed, Hurst wouldn’t give a time frame but said Amazon is in the pre-construction phase and still committed to it.

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  • Americans are keeping their cars longer amid sky-high prices, rising interest rates

    Americans are keeping their cars longer amid sky-high prices, rising interest rates

    Cars, trucks, SUVs, and other vehicles drive in traffic on the 405 freeway through the Sepulveda Pass in Los Angeles, California, on August 25, 2022.

    Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

    DETROIT — The average age of passenger vehicles on U.S. roadways climbed to a record this year, as car owners hold on to their vehicles longer amid low supplies of new vehicles and sky-high prices.

    The average age of a light-duty vehicle on U.S. roads rose by more than three months — the highest year-over-year increase since the Great Recession in 2008-2009 — to 12.5 years as of Jan. 1, according to a new report Monday from S&P Global Mobility. That includes a 3.8% increase for passenger cars to 13.6 years and a 1.7% uptick in trucks, SUVs and crossovers to 11.8 years.

    Rising vehicle ages are good news for aftermarket parts suppliers like AutoZone, O’Reilly Automotive and Advance Auto Parts. It also can benefit dealer service centers, but it doesn’t bode well for new vehicle dealers and sales.

    “The aftermarket and the repair market as a whole is definitely a winner as the average age continues to grow,” said Todd Campau, associate director of aftermarket solutions for S&P Global Mobility. “The more older vehicles that are on the road, the more repairs they need.”

    In total, S&P Global Mobility reports there are more than 284 million vehicles in operation on U.S. roads. That’s up slightly from 283 million last year.

    S&P reports the average vehicle age last year experienced upward pressure initially due to supply constraints that caused low levels of new vehicle inventory, and then by slowing demand as rising interest rates and inflation reduced consumer demand in the second half of the year.

    New and used vehicle prices have been elevated since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as the global health crisis combined with supply chain issues caused production of new vehicles to sporadically idle. The costs and scarcity of inventory led consumers to buy more used vehicles, increasing those prices as well.

    In addition, the Federal Reserve’s moves to raise interest rates 10 times since March 2022 have not assisted new vehicle sales.

    Cox Automotive reports the average listed price of a used vehicle was $26,799 in April — the highest price point this year. The average transaction price for a new vehicle was $48,275 in April, up 3.7%, or $1,744, from a year earlier.

    Trucks dominate

    Part of the pricing increase is due to the vehicle mix, swinging away from passenger cars to utility vehicles.

    The number of passenger cars on the road will fall below 100 million for the first time since 1978, according to S&P, as U.S. consumers demand larger vehicles that automakers are happily building at higher profit margins.

    “Pickup trucks have stayed healthy. … They’ve stayed pretty consistent,” Campau said. “The real driver here is the crossover utility vehicle that really has displaced the passenger car for most families.”

    In 2022, S&P reports 78% of all new vehicles registered in the U.S. last year were crossovers, trucks or SUVs.

    EVs increasing

    Battery electric vehicles, or BEVs, is another growing subsegment of new vehicles. S&P reports new BEV registrations jumped 58% year over year, to nearly 758,000 units in 2022.

    Of the nearly 2.3 million BEVs registered in the U.S. from 2013 to 2022, S&P reports about 2.12 million are still on the road today. That equates to an average age of 3.6 years for active vehicles.

    The increase in EVs comes as automakers spend billions of dollars to increase the number of new all-electric cars and trucks amid tightening government emissions regulations globally.

    For example, President Joe Biden set a national target in 2021 for electric vehicles to represent half of all new auto sales by 2030.

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  • Recycling ‘end-of-life’ solar panels, wind turbines, is about to be climate tech’s big waste business

    Recycling ‘end-of-life’ solar panels, wind turbines, is about to be climate tech’s big waste business

    Solarcycle CTO Pablo Dias and COO Rob Vinje show a solar panel laminate after it’s been cleanly separated from the glass to investors and partners. The laminate is where most of the value is contained in a panel, like silver, silicon, and copper.

    Solarcycle

    The growing importance of wind and solar energy to the U.S. power grid, and the rise of electric vehicles, are all key to the nation’s growing need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, lower carbon emissions and mitigate climate change.

    But at the same time, these burgeoning renewable energy industries will soon generate tons of waste as millions of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, wind turbines and lithium-ion EV batteries reach the end of their respective lifecycles.

    As the saying goes, though, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Anticipating the pileup of exhausted clean-energy components — and wanting to proactively avoid past sins committed by not responsibly cleaning up after decommissioned coal mines, oil wells and power plants — a number of innovative startups are striving to create a sustainable, and lucrative, circular economy to recover, recycle and reuse the core components of climate tech innovation.

    Wind and solar energy combined to generate 13.6% of utility-scale electricity last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and those numbers will undoubtedly rise as renewable energy continues to scale up. Some leading utilities across the nation are far ahead of that pace already.

    Meanwhile, sales of all-electric vehicles rose to 5.8% of the total 13.8 million vehicles Americans purchased in 2022, up from 3.2% in 2021. And with the Environmental Protection Agency’s newly proposed tailpipe emissions limits and power plant rules, EV sales could capture a 67% market share by 2032 and more utilities be forced to accelerate their power generation transition.

    Solarcycle is a prime example of the companies looking to solve this climate tech waste problem of the future. Launched last year in Oakland, California, it has since constructed a recycling facility in Odessa, Texas, where it extracts 95% of the materials from end-of-life solar panels and reintroduces them into the supply chain. It sells recovered silver and copper on commodity markets and glass, silicon and aluminum to panel manufacturers and solar farm operators.

    “Solar is becoming the dominant form of power generation,” Solarcycle CEO Suvi Sharma said, citing an EIA report stating that 54% of new utility-scale electric-generating capacity in the U.S. this year will come from solar. “But with that comes a new set of challenges and opportunities. We have done a phenomenal job making solar efficient and cost-effective, but really have not done anything yet on making it circular and dealing with the end-of-life [panels].”

    Keeping solar panels out of landfills

    The average lifespan of a solar panel is about 25 to 30 years, and there are more than 500 million already installed across the country, Sharma said, ranging from a dozen on a residential home’s rooftop to thousands in a commercial solar farm. With solar capacity now rising an average of 21% annually, tens of millions more panels will be going up — and coming down. Between 2030 and 2060, roughly 9.8 million metric tons of solar panel waste are expected to accumulate, according to a 2019 study published in Renewable Energy.

    Currently, about 90% of end-of-life or defective solar panels end up in landfills, largely because it costs far less to dump them than to recycle them. “We see that gap closing over the next five to 10 years significantly,” Sharma said, “through a combination of recycling becoming more cost-effective and landfilling costs only increasing.”

    Indeed, the market for recycled solar panel materials is expected to grow exponentially over the next several years. A report by research firm Rystad Energy stated they’ll be worth more than $2.7 billion in 2030, up from only $170 million last year, and accelerate to around $80 billion by 2050. The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Laboratory (NREL) found that with modest government support, recycled materials can meet 30%-50% of solar manufacturing needs in the U.S. by 2040.

    Both the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provide tax credits and funding for domestic manufacturing of solar panels and components, as well as research into new solar technologies. Those provisions are intended to cut into China’s dominant position in the global solar panel supply chain, which exceeds 80% today, according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency.

    One recipient of this federal funding is First Solar, the largest solar panel manufacturer in the U.S. Founded in 1999 in Tempe, Arizona, the company has production facilities in Ohio and another under construction in Alabama. It has been awarded $7.3 million in research funds to develop a new residential rooftop panel that is more efficient than current silicon or thin-film modules.

    First Solar has maintained an in-house recycling program since 2005, according to an email from chief product officer Pat Buehler. “We recognized that integrating circularity into our operations was necessary to scale the business in a sustainable way,” he wrote. But rather than extracting metals and glass from retired panels and manufacturing scrap, “our recycling process provides closed-loop semiconductor recovery for use in new modules,” he added.

    Massive wind turbines, blades are almost all recyclable

    Retired wind turbines present another recycling challenge, as well as business opportunities. The U.S. wind energy industry started erecting turbines in the early 1980s and has been steadily growing since. The American Clean Power Association estimates that today there are nearly 72,000 utility-scale turbines installed nationwide — all but seven of them land-based — generating 10.2% of the country’s electricity.

    Although the industry stalled over the past two years, due to supply chain snags, inflation and rising costs, turbine manufacturers and wind farm developers are optimistic that the tide has turned, especially given the subsidies and tax credits for green energy projects in the IRA and the Biden administration’s pledge to jumpstart the nascent offshore wind sector.

    The lifespan of a wind turbine is around 20 years, and most decommissioned ones have joined retired solar panels in landfills. However, practically everything comprising a turbine is recyclable, from the steel tower to the composite blades, typically 170 feet long, though the latest models exceed 350 feet.

    Between 3,000 and 9,000 blades will be retired each year for the next five years in the U.S., and then the number will increase to between 10,000 and 20,000 until 2040, according to a 2021 study by NREL. By 2050, 235,000 blades will be decommissioned, translating to a cumulative mass of 2.2 million metric tons — or more than 60,627 fully loaded tractor trailers.

    How the circular renewable energy economy works

    Players in the circular economy are determined not to let all that waste go to waste.

    Knoxville-based Carbon Rivers, founded in 2019, has developed technology to shred not only turbine blades but also discarded composite materials from the automotive, construction and marine industries and convert them through a pyrolysis process into reclaimed glass fiber. “It can be used for next-generation manufacturing of turbine blades, marine vessels, composite concrete and auto parts,” said chief strategy officer David Morgan, adding that the process also harvests renewable oil and synthetic gas for reuse.

    While processing the shredded materials is fairly straightforward, transporting massive turbine blades and other composites over long distances by rail and truck is more complicated. “Logistics is far and away the most expensive part of this entire process,” Morgan said.

    In addition to existing facilities in Tennessee and Texas, Carbon Rivers plans to build sites in Florida, Pennsylvania and Idaho over the next three years, strategically located near wind farms and other feedstock sources. “We want to build another five facilities in the U.K. and Europe, then get to the South American and Asian markets next,” he said.

    In the spirit of corporate sustainability — specifically not wanting their blades piling up in landfills — wind turbine manufacturers themselves are contracting with recycling partners. In December 2020, General Electric’s Renewable Energy unit signed a multi-year agreement with Boston-based Veolia North America to recycle decommissioned blades from land-based GE turbines in the U.S.

    Veolia North America opened up a recycling plant in Missouri in 2020, where it has processed about 2,600 blades to date, according to Julie Angulo, senior vice president, technical and performance. “We are seeing the first wave of blades that are 10 to 12 years old, but we know that number is going to go up year-on-year,” she said.

    Using a process known as kiln co-processing, Veolia reconstitutes shredded blades and other composite materials into a fuel it then sells to cement manufacturers as a replacement for coal, sand and clay. The process reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 27% and consumption of water by 13% in cement production.

    “Cement manufacturers want to walk away from coal for carbon emissions reasons,” Angulo said. “This is a good substitute, so they’re good partners for us.”

    GE’s wind turbine competitors are devising ways to make the next generation of blades inherently more recyclable. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has begun producing fully recyclable blades for both its land-based and offshore wind turbines and has said it plans to make all of its turbines fully recyclable by 2040. Vestas Wind Systems has committed to producing zero-waste wind turbines by 2040, though it has not yet introduced such a version. In February, Vestas introduced a new solution that renders epoxy-based turbine blades to be broken down and recycled.

    Electric vehicle lithium-ion battery scrap

    Lithium-ion batteries have been in use since the early 1990s, at first powering laptops, cell phones and other consumer electronics, and for the past couple of decades EVs and energy storage systems. Recycling of their valuable innards — lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper — is focused on EVs, especially as automakers ramp up production, including building battery gigafactories. But today’s EV batteries have a lifespan of 10-20 years, or 100,000-200,000 miles, so for the time being, recyclers are primarily processing battery manufacturers’ scrap.

    Toronto-based Li-Cycle, launched in 2016, has developed a two-step technology that breaks down batteries and scrap to inert materials and then shreds them, using a hydrometallurgy process, to produce minerals that are sold back into the general manufacturing supply chain. To avoid high transportation costs for shipping feedstock from various sites, Li-Cycle has geographically interspersed four facilities — in Alabama, Arizona, New York and Ontario — where it’s deconstructed. It is building a massive facility in Rochester, New York, where the materials will be processed.

    “We’re on track to start commissioning the Rochester [facility] at the end of this year,” said Li-Cycle’s co-founder and CEO Ajay Kochhlar. Construction has been funded by a $375 loan from the Department of Energy (DOE), he said, adding that since the company went public, it’s also raised about $1 billion in private deals.

    A different approach to battery recycling is underway at Redwood Materials, founded outside of Reno, Nevada, in 2017 by JB Straubel, the former chief technology officer and co-founder of Tesla. Redwood also uses hydrometallurgy to break down batteries and scrap, but produces anode copper foil and cathode-active materials for making new EV batteries. Because the feedstock is not yet plentiful enough, the nickel and lithium in its cathode products will only be about 30% from recycled sources, with the remainder coming from newly mined metals.

    Former Tesla CTO JB Straubel tackles battery recycling with Redwood Materials

    “We’re aiming to produce 100 GWh/year of cathode-active materials and anode foil for one million EVs by 2025,” Redwood said in an email statement. “By 2030, our goal is to scale to 500 GWh/year of materials, which would enable enough batteries to power five million EVs.”

    Besides its Nevada facility, Redwood has broken ground on a second one in Charleston, South Carolina. The privately held company said it has raised more than $1 billion, and in February it received a conditional commitment from the DOE for a $2-billion loan from the DOE as part of the IRA. Last year Redwood struck a multi-billion dollar deal with Tesla’s battery supplier Panasonic, and it’s also inked partnerships with Volkswagen Group of America, Toyota, Ford and Volvo.

    Ascend Elements, headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts, utilizes hydrometallurgy technology to extract cathode-active material mostly from battery manufacturing scrap, but also spent lithium-ion batteries. Its processing facility is strategically located in Covington, Georgia, a state that has attracted EV battery makers, including SK Group in nearby Commerce, as well as EV maker Rivian, near Rutledge, and Hyundai, which is building an EV factory outside of Savannah.

    Last October, Ascend began construction on a second recycling facility, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, using federal dollars earmarked for green energy projects. “We have received two grant awards from the [DOE] under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that totaled around $480 million,” said CEO Mike O’Kronley. Such federal investments, he said, “incentivizes infrastructure that needs to be built in the U.S., because around 96% of all cathode materials are made in East Asia, in particular China.”

    As the nation continues to build out a multi-billion-dollar renewable energy supply chain around solar, wind and EVs, simultaneously establishing a circular economy to recover, recycle and reuse end-of-life components from those industries is essential in the overarching goal of battling climate change.

    “It’s important to make sure we keep in mind the context of these emerging technologies and understand their full lifecycle,” said Garvin Heath, a senior energy sustainability analyst at NREL. “The circular economy provides a lot of opportunities to these industries to be as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible at a relatively early phase of their growth.”

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  • FAA sued over SpaceX Starship launch program following April explosion

    FAA sued over SpaceX Starship launch program following April explosion

    Environmental and cultural-heritage nonprofits sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday, alleging the agency violated the National Environment Policy Act when it allowed SpaceX to launch the largest rocket ever built from its Boca Chica, Texas, facility without a comprehensive environmental review, according to court filings obtained by CNBC.

    SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy test flight on April 20 blew up the company’s launchpad, hurling chunks of concrete and metal sheets thousands of feet away into sensitive habitat, spreading particulate matter including pulverized concrete for miles, and sparking a 3.5-acre fire on state park lands near the launch site.

    The lawsuit against the FAA was filed in a district court in Washington, D.C., by five plaintiffs: The Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, SurfRider Foundation, Save Rio Grande Valley and a cultural-heritage organization, the Carrizo-Comecrudo Nation of Texas.

    The groups argue the agency should have conducted an in-depth environmental impact statement (EIS) before ever allowing SpaceX to move ahead with its Starship Super Heavy plans in Boca Chica.

    “The FAA failed to take the requisite hard look at the proposed project and has concluded that significant adverse effects will not occur due to purported mitigation measures,” they wrote in the lawsuit.

    The plaintiffs argue the agency waived the need for more thorough analysis based on proposed “environmental mitigations.” But the mitigations the FAA actually required of SpaceX were woefully insufficient to offset environmental damages from launch events, construction and increased traffic in the area, as well as “anomalies” like the destruction of the launch pad and mid-air explosion in April, they said.

    In their complaint, the attorneys note that the FAA’s own chief of staff for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation in June 2020 said the agency was planning an EIS. Later, “based on SpaceX’s preference,” the lawyers wrote, the federal agency settled on using “a considerably less thorough analysis,” which enabled SpaceX to launch sooner.

    Despite the particulate matter, heavier debris and fire, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said this weekend on Twitter Spaces, “To the best of our knowledge there has not been any meaningful damage to the environment that we’re aware of.”

    The exact impact of the launch on the people, habitat and wildlife is still being evaluated by federal and state agencies, and other environmental researchers, alongside and independently from SpaceX.

    National Wildlife Refuge lands and beaches of Boca Chica, which are near the SpaceX Starbase facility, provide essential habitat for endangered species including the piping plover, the red knot, jaguarundi, northern aplomado falcon, and sea turtles including the Kemp’s Ridley. Kemp’s Ridley is the most endangered sea turtle in the world, and the National Wildlife Refuge contains designated critical habitat for the piping plover.

    Boca Chica land and the wildlife there, namely ocelots, are also sacred to the Carrizo-Comecrudo tribe of Texas.

    As of last Wednesday, researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had not found any carcasses of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act on the land that they own or manage in the area. However, the researchers were not able to access the site for two days after the launch, leaving open the possibility that carcasses could have been eaten by predators, washed away or even removed from the site.

    Access to the state parks, beaches and the National Wildlife Refuge area near Starbase, by tribes, researchers and the public, are of particular concern to the groups challenging the FAA.

    The plaintiff’s attorneys noted that in 2021, Boca Chica Beach was closed or inaccessible for approximately 500 hours or more, based on the notices of closure provided by Cameron County, with a “beach or access point closure occurring on over 100 separate days.” That high rate of closure, which the FAA allowed, “infringes upon the ability of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas to access lands and waters that are part of their ancestral heritage,” the groups argued.

    The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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  • The business case for green sports stadiums and arenas is growing

    The business case for green sports stadiums and arenas is growing

    A general exterior view of Climate Pledge Arena before the game between the Seattle Kraken and the Carolina Hurricanes on October 17, 2022.

    Steph Chambers | Getty Images

    Professional sports are inherently a copycat industry. From Major League Baseball’s Moneyball revolution to the NBA’s renewed focus on 3-point shooting driven by the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry, in-season and championship success quickly becomes a blueprint for other teams to follow.

    Another recent trend spreading across sports has many hoping it will also follow suit: arenas and stadiums not only adopting sustainable and environmentally friendly practices, but putting those efforts front and center for fans, players, musicians, and anyone else who enters the building.

    Much like the broader world of commercial real estate, arenas, and stadiums have been slowly adopting sustainable practices over the last few decades, from recycling programs to energy efficiency efforts. But several major sports facilities across the U.S. have taken this to another level in recent years, and their operators and owners hope that the success they’ve seen across multiple fronts creates real momentum around the idea of environmentally friendly stadiums.

    Mercedes Benz Stadium, home of both the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and MLS’s Atlanta United, became the first pro sports venue in the U.S. to achieve LEED Platinum Certification in 2017. Footprint Center, home of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, works directly with the materials science company that holds its naming rights to eliminate single-use plastic from the arena and on other sustainable practices.

    The bar across sports was set even higher in 2021 when Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle opened and not only became the first net zero certified arena in the world but served as a call-to-action for Amazon’s push for companies globally to be net zero carbon by 2040.

    “Venue operators are relatively quickly understanding their opportunities and their responsibilities as it related to operating more sustainability,” said Chris Granger, CEO of OVG360, a management company that works with more than 300 venues across the world ranging from arenas and stadiums to amphitheaters and performing arts centers.

    “Sports teams and venues have a platform on the topic of social change, and we have the ability to shine a light on issues that matter in a way that many businesses don’t,” he said. “I think our venue operators are saying ‘Okay, we get it. Now what do we do about it?’”

    The trend in sports is not dissimilar to what is being seen across other industries: a desire from businesses to be better stewards in their community and connect with the growing number of people putting an increased emphasis on environmentally friendly actions, coupled with the fact that many of these measures also have a solid business case attached to them.

    When work to renovate KeyArena in Seattle began, there were many discussions on how to introduce sustainability measures not only for construction goals but also operational goals, said Seattle Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena senior vice president of sustainability and transportation Rob Johnson.

    That quickly evolved into making an arena that could be a “beacon of a sustainability district,” Johnson said, which helped attract the attention of Amazon, who in 2019 co-founded the Climate Pledge initiative to have companies, organizations, and partners work together to address the climate crisis and solve the challenges around decarbonizing.

    That led to what has become the Climate Pledge Arena. Its efforts include being zero-waste by using compostable containers and reducing single-use plastic use, conserving water by retaining rainwater for reuse, and not using fossil fuels in the arena for daily use – including electric-powered Zambonis for Kraken games.

    Setting a zero-waste goal at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium

    Mercedes-Benz Stadium has been on its own sustainability path since it opened in 2017, with operator Arthur Blank pushing his AMB Sports and Entertainment Group (AMBSE) executives to set a higher standard for an environmentally friendly stadium.

    The stadium opened as the first LEED Platinum stadium in the U.S., but “that was just the start,” said Steve Cannon, vice chairman of AMBSE.

    “Anyone can make that incremental investment into your building, but if operationally you don’t perform in a manner that’s consistent with that, you’re leaving something on the table,” Cannon said.

    That has led to a focus on getting to zero-waste status, which the stadium first achieved in 2020 for an Atlanta United match, Cannon said. After an investment of about $1 million to retrofit the building and put in other measures to achieve that zero-waste consistently, the stadium has now reached that goal.

    In its 2022 fiscal year, there were more than four million pounds of waste at the stadium, and more than 91% of that was diverted away from landfills, according to Andrew Bohenko, Mercedes-Benz Stadium sustainability coordinator.

    That required a significant amount of education for employees and fans, and also working with vendors and other departments within the company to ensure that “there was buy-in across all our of two-million-square-foot footprint,” Bohenko said.

    Ultimately, the stadium saw more than 95% compliance from fans putting trash in the right receptacles, and it projects a $400,000 yearly return on its initial investment while spending about 13 cents per guest for its overall zero-waste efforts right now. AMBSE has even created a “playbook” for other stadium operators to follow if they also want to get to zero waste.

    “Everyone understands that the environment is our number one global challenge. It’s reached a level of critical mass where people have moved past greenwashing, and they’re making substantive changes to their business practices,” Cannon said. “The platform that sports represents has a disproportionate impact on our society at large, so if you think about the aggregated impact of all ballparks and stadiums across America diverting waste from landfills that’s huge, but where it becomes even more important is the power of the platform to influence other businesses – then you start to really make meaningful change.”

    Johnson said Seattle’s zero-waste push has led to savings as well, as composting costs less than sending garbage to a landfill.

    Reaching fans, sponsors and performers through sustainability

    Fenway Farms, a roof top garden in Boston’s Fenway Park, on July 6, 2020.

    Boston Globe | Getty Images

    Another impactful revenue opportunity related to the arena’s sustainability push, according to Johnson, is reaching new fans.

    “Folks under 40, who we are all cultivating as critically important fans to our success in the future, identify the environment as one of their top three global concerns,” he said. “So, we believe it’s not just the right thing for us to do for the planet, but we also think that we’re speaking to a demographic that is key to the future of the success of our industry.”

    Kristen Fulmer, senior director of sustainability at OVG360 parent company Oak View Group, said while it’s clear that “sustainability can be a good business,” there still can be confusion about what that really means.

    “Sustainability is kind of noisy; ESG is a catchphrase that everyone knows but doesn’t quite know the meaning of, so there are some things that we can demystify about it,” Fulmer said. “We want to help them figure out what are things that are relevant to me, my specific building, my specific market, my community, my employees, so that they can hone in on something that’s really unique.”

    Granger pointed to efforts like Sacramento’s Golden One Center where the arena is powered by 100% renewable and solar energy, and Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, where a deep-lake water cooling system utilizing nearby Lake Ontario helps keep the building cool and eliminates the need for air conditioning compressors.

    Making sustainability a key part of any construction or building project is also becoming table stakes for bonds, loans, and other financial measurements, both Granger and Fulmer noted, a critical factor for many of the aging arenas and stadiums across the U.S. likely due for upgrades or full replacements in the coming decade.

    It also matters more for artists and athletes. Granger said there are musicians asking for vegan or plant-based food options or asking buildings to let fans bring reusable water bottles to reduce the impact of single-use plastics.

    Johnson said that when singer Billie Eilish came to Seattle to perform in 2022, her tour rider required the arena to not use single-use plastics for at least the night that she was to preform.

    “That was a big inspiration for us; if Billie Eilish can come through your building and you’ll move to no single-use plastics for one night, why couldn’t you do it for the other 364 nights,” he said. Ahead of the tour date, Eilish’s mother and sustainability advocate Maggie Baird asked to tour the arena, telling Johnson and Seattle’s team that they “operationalized” the rider,” Johnson said. Seattle has given tours to numerous artists, teams, athletes and other organizations wanting to see more of the building’s practices in action.

    All of these factors are pointing towards a future where sports and sustainability are more intertwined, Fulmer said.

    “In the sustainability world we often say that imperfection gets in the way and creates inaction, and I think people are always really scared to not quite be perfect. In the sports world of course we all want to be perfect or always win,” she said. “Here, small wins are really important, and they’re leading to bigger wins.”

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  • California bans the sale of new diesel trucks by 2036

    California bans the sale of new diesel trucks by 2036

    Cars, trucks, SUVs, and other vehicles drive in traffic on the 405 freeway through the Sepulveda Pass in Los Angeles, California, on August 25, 2022.

    Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

    California regulators on Friday voted to ban the sale of new diesel big rigs by 2036 and require all trucks to be zero-emissions by 2042, a decision that puts the state at the forefront of mitigating national tailpipe pollution.

    The California Air Resources Board unanimously approved the Advanced Clean Fleets rule, the state’s second zero-emissions trucks rule and first in the world to require new commercial trucks, including garbage trucks, delivery trucks and other medium and heavy-duty vehicles, to be electric.

    Supporters of the rule say it will improve public health in marginalized communities that have endured polluted air while mitigating the effects of climate change. The mandate is estimated to deliver $26.5 billion in public health benefits in California in avoided health impacts and deaths due to diesel pollution. 

    Heavy-duty trucks represent nearly one third of the state’s nitrogen oxide and more than one quarter of its fine particle pollution from diesel fuel, according to the California Air Resources Board While medium and heavy-duty trucks are just 10% of the vehicles on the country’s roads, they emit 25% of the greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit. 

    “Frontline communities across California who breathe in deadly diesel pollution every day can finally get some relief with the Advanced Clean Fleets rule,” said Andrea Vidaurre, senior policy analyst for the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice. “There is no acceptable level of exposure to deadly diesel pollution — so it has got to go, for the sake of our health and our lungs.”

    Some of the country’s major truck manufacturers and their lobbying groups have strongly opposed the regulations, arguing that requirements are costly as electric models are more expensive than diesel trucks. Large trucks are more expensive to convert to electric models than smaller vehicles due to their size and weight.

    The trucking industry has also said that the deadlines are unrealistic given the lack of EV charging infrastructure and available space at ports.

    The mandate would require companies that operate 50 or more trucks to convert their fleets into electric or hydrogen models and achieve zero-emissions by 2042.

    The earliest deadline is for drayage trucks, which carry cargo to and from major ports, which must be converted to electric models by 2035, while new sales starting in 2024 must be zero-emissions. Vehicles like garbage trucks and school buses must be zero-emissions by 2027.

    California had sought waivers from the Clean Air Act to set stricter standards than the federal government for heavy-duty vehicles. The state’s stricter tailpipe emissions rules will have broader effects beyond California — which has significant authority over the U.S. auto industry — and could pave the way for other states to follow suit.

    For instance, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Colorado have already adopted the California’s Advanced Clean Trucks rule.

    The state has committed to achieving 100% renewable energy by 2045. Last year, it banned the sale of new gasoline-powered cars starting in 2035. Today’s mandate also comes a day after the state adopted a historic rule to limit emissions from diesel-powered trains.

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  • Activists gather for Earth Day, urge action to avoid ‘dystopian’ future

    Activists gather for Earth Day, urge action to avoid ‘dystopian’ future

    A man dressed as a tree walks on stilts past the Houses of Parliament at ‘The Big One’ environment event which coincides with “Earth Day”, in London, April 22, 2023.

    Kevin Coombs | Reuters

    Climate change campaigners gathered outside Britain’s parliament building ahead of Earth Day to urge action on global warming, while volunteers worldwide geared up to plant trees and clear trash to mark the 54th annual celebration of the environment.

    Earth Day this year, officially on Saturday, follows weeks of extreme weather with temperatures soaring to record highs in Thailand and a punishing heatwave in India, where at least 13 people died of heatstroke at a ceremony last weekend.

    Average global temperatures could hit all-time highs in 2023 or 2024, climate scientists have warned.

    Pope Francis, who has championed green causes since his election in 2013, urged people to look after the environment.

    “The Book of Genesis tells us that the Lord entrusted human beings with the responsibility of being stewards of creation (Gen 2:15). Care for the Earth, then, is a moral obligation for all men and women as children of God #EarthDay,” he tweeted on Saturday.

    “Climate impacts are here,” Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said on Friday as climate change activists walked down the street outside parliament in London, some dressed in green costumes and green paint.

    Hamid said when she now visits her hometown of Delhi, it feels like “putting your head in the oven” and that London’s 2022 heatwave was like “a dystopian film”.

    “We can’t afford that anymore.”

    Activists led by the Extinction Rebellion group have gathered in London to kick off a four-day action, billed “The Big One”, to coincide with Earth Day.

    About 30,000 people have signed up for family-friendly rallies and marches, marking a change in strategy for a group known for its disruptive tactics, including blocking roads, throwing paint and smashing windows.

    Clean-ups and rituals

    Globally, there was a flurry of activity in the run-up to Earth Day, with events being planned in Rome and Boston and major clean-up campaigns at Lake Dal in India’s Srinagar and Florida’s hurricane-hit Cape Coral.

    In Peru, shamans on Friday made an offering to the “Pachamama”, or Mother Earth. Holding yellow flowers and rattles, the shamans walked around a papier-mache globe as they performed a cleansing ritual.

    The ancestral rituals – whose origins lie in the Indigenous cultures of Peru – are done to thank the Earth and build awareness of the planet, said Walter Alarcon, the president of the Healing Shamans of Peru International Organization.

    In San Francisco on Friday, dozens of demonstrators danced, marched and chanted in the streets as they called on California Governor Gavin Newsom to reduce the state’s fossil fuel usage. In Washington on Saturday, just before rain storms began to kick in, the Climate Justice Alliance marched calling for an end of the fossil fuel era, accompanied by a brass jazz band.

    Earlier in the week, U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to increase funding to help developing countries fight climate change and curb deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest during a meeting with top world leaders. Domestically, he ordered a number of new measures that would protect communities overburdened by pollution, including creating a new White House office of environmental justice and launching a national strategy to prevent plastic pollution.

    Governments have fallen far short of pledges in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit heating of the climate by shifting off fossil fuels, amid crises including COVID-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, food shortages and strained ties between China and the U.S., the top two greenhouse gas emitters.

    A report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the planet is on track to warm beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times – a key threshold for even more damaging impacts – between 2030 and 2035.

    “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all,” the IPCC has said. “The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years.”

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  • New ETF makes a big bet on cleaning up the environment

    New ETF makes a big bet on cleaning up the environment

    A U.S.-based ETF is mimicking an investment trend in Europe that’s designed to boost profits while helping the climate.

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