Climate activists gather to protest with demanding President Biden stop the Willow Project by unfurling a banner on the Lafayette Square in front of the White House on January 10, 2023 in Washington D.C.
Celal Gunes | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The Biden administration approved a major and controversial oil drilling plan in Alaska, known as Willow, just one day after unveiling protections for more than 16 million acres of land and water in the region.
The $8 billion plan, led by Alaska’s largest crude oil producer, would produce about 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years and generate around 278 million metric tons of carbon emissions, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Under the plan, ConocoPhillips will be allowed to develop three well pads within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 23 million-acre area that is the largest expanse of public land in the U.S.
The approval of Willow is one of the president’s most consequential climate decisions. Environmental groups have long condemned the plan, arguing it undermines the administration’s pledge to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The project’s emissions would be about equivalent to what 66 new coal-fired power plants produce in a year.
Proponents of Willow, including the state’s congressional delegation and some Alaska Native tribal governments and residents of Alaska’s North Slope, have said the plan would create about 2,500 jobs, deliver up to $17 billion in revenue for the federal government and boost U.S. domestic energy security.
Prior to the president’s decision, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management released an environmental analysis last month that proposed lowering the number of drilling sites from five to three under the project. The Interior said it had “substantial concerns” about Willow, including its direct and indirect emissions and its impact on local wildlife.
In an apparent effort to offset criticism about Willow, the administration on Sunday declared the Arctic Ocean off limits to oil and gas leasing and said it will also impose regulations to protect nearly 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
“While we celebrate the administration’s unparalleled protections for Alaskan landscapes and waters, the decision to approve the Willow project may very well wipe out many of these climate and ecological benefits,” Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said in a statement.
For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas, representing a turning point in a yearslong effort to bestow order on vast stretches of the planet where conservation has previously been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws.
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept. The treaty agreement concluded two weeks of talks in New York.
An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The unified agreement treaty, which applies to nearly half the planet’s surface, was reached late Saturday.
“We only really have two major global commons — the atmosphere and the oceans,” said Georgetown marine biologist Rebecca Helm. While the oceans may draw less attention, “protecting this half of earth’s surface is absolutely critical to the health of our planet.”
Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts who observed the talks in New York, called the long-awaited treaty text “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the oceans — a major win for biodiversity.”
The treaty will create a new body to manage the conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. And Clark said that’s critical to achieve the U.N. Biodiversity Conference’s recent pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s waters, as well as its land, for conservation.
Treaty negotiations initially were anticipated to conclude Friday, but stretched through the night and deep into Saturday. The crafting of the treaty, which at times looked in jeopardy, represents “a historic and overwhelming success for international marine protection,” said Steffi Lemke, Germany’s environment minister.
“For the first time, we are getting a binding agreement for the high seas, which until now have hardly been protected,” Lemke said. “Comprehensive protection of endangered species and habitats is now finally possible on more than 40% of the Earth’s surface.”
The treaty also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans.
“It means all activities planned for the high seas need to be looked at, though not all will go through a full assessment,” said Jessica Battle, an oceans governance expert at the Worldwide Fund for Nature.
Several marine species — including dolphins, whales, sea turtles and many fish — make long annual migrations, crossing national borders and the high seas. Efforts to protect them, along with human communities that rely on fishing or tourism related to marine life, have long proven difficult for international governing bodies.
“This treaty will help to knit together the different regional treaties to be able to address threats and concerns across species’ ranges,” Battle said.
That protection also helps coastal biodiversity and economies, said Gladys Martínez de Lemos, executive director of the nonprofit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense focusing on environmental issues across Latin America.
“Governments have taken an important step that strengthens the legal protection of two-thirds of the ocean and with it marine biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal communities,” she said.
The question now is how well the ambitious treaty will be implemented. Formal adoption also remains outstanding, with numerous conservationists and environmental groups vowing to ensure passage.
The high seas have long suffered exploitation due to commercial fishing and mining, as well as pollution from chemicals and plastics. The new agreement is about “acknowledging that the ocean is not a limitless resource, and it requires global cooperation to use the ocean sustainably,” Rutgers University biologist Malin Pinsky said.
When Tesla CEO Elon Musk promoted a 2023 Investor Day event to be held on March 1, he promised to reveal his “Master Plan 3,” a long-term vision for the company’s next stage of growth.
Last year, Musk said his new plan would include details on: “scaling to extreme size, which is needed to shift humanity away from fossil fuels, and AI.” He also promised the plan would include “sections about SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company.”
The hours-long Tesla Investor Day on Wednesday evening left many shareholders and fans wanting more, however, and sent Tesla’s stock price lower on Thursday, though analysts were positive on balance.
Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a Friday morning autos update, “Walking away from Tesla’s investor day, we were admittedly disappointed with the overall lack of details on its next-gen platform, including launch timing, vehicle segments and price points, and financial implications. At the same time, the company showcased impressive traction and presented high-level plans for deep technological and manufacturing improvements which in our view, leave its long-term volume and margin upside trajectory intact.”
At the event, there was no discussion of the very affordable electric car the company first teased at a 2020 Battery Day event, no update on start of deliveries for the Cybertruck, no details about the long-delayed revamped Roadster, and no update on the company’s progress in heavy duty trucking with its new Semi.
Musk did not discuss ways in which Tesla plans to work with his other ventures. And a “Master Plan 3” document was still not posted to the company’s Investor Relations page as of Friday morning.
What worked and what didn’t work at the presentation?
Pivotal Media founder Marisa Thomas, who has trained executives in tech, finance and elected officials to hone their presentation skills for more than a decade, shared her analysis.
One thing the Investor Day accomplished well was to turn shareholders’ attention to the broader organization under Tesla’s celebrity CEO.
During the event, Tesla trotted out 17 different company leaders who spoke about what the company has achieved so far, and where it hopes to go next.
“I guess it’s no longer the Elon show,” Thomas said. “At a time when so many people are concerned about how fragmented his focus is as a leader, it makes sense to try to make people comfortable with the team– that the team is more than Elon.”
Since Musk led a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and appointed himself CEO there in October last year, Tesla shareholders have voiced frustration over his split focus, his use of Tesla personnel to help him at Twitter, and the controversy he has courted with his own tweets and by making massive changes to the platform.
His moves at Twitter and increasingly political provocations on Twitter appear to have dampened interest in the Tesla brand, particularly among left-leaning potential customers and shareholders, according to data from YouGov shared with CNBC.
While the investor day highlighted Tesla’s bench, diversity was not a strong point: Only two of the leaders who presented were women. Thomas said that in 2023, two women on stage of 17 presenters amounted to a “a very poor showing,” and did not give a “feeling of optimism” about diversity and equity at the company.
The presentation could have been more polished as well. While some presenters spoke more confidently, others read nervously from teleprompters.
“It’s public speaking, not public reading. It’s hard to have confidence in someone who is supposed to be the expert, but who is looking down and reading off scripts. Too often, engineers think they get a pass on public speaking — but this skill has to be in the tool kit of any executive,” Thomas advised.
Investor Day may have succeeded in showing off the Tesla team, but the content left some fans and analysts disappointed.
For one, Thomas said, the event started late and ran on far too long — about three hours, followed by a question-and-answer session. “People have trouble sitting through a two-hour action movie these days! A three-hour investor presentation totally lacks focus,” said Thomas.
Tesla also failed to deliver clear takeaways at Investor Day. “Every good presentation should have a few key takeaways — are they obvious to investors, and why do they matter for Tesla’s future? This event didn’t accomplish that,” she added.
Tesla’s long time head of investor relations, Martin Viecha, seemed to acknowledge the meeting was too long and that key points may not be clear to all. He posted a 9-point recap on Twitter, “for those who don’t have 3 hours.”
Executives also waited to confirm the company’s biggest news of the week until several hours into the event. At the start of a question-and-answer session, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla will be opening its next major factory outside of Monterrey, Mexico.
He didn’t offer any new details.
On Thursday, Mexican officials filled in some of those blanks in media interviews, revealing that Tesla is expected to spend $5 billion on the vehicle assembly plant near-term and $10 billion over the long run, employing between 5,000 and 10,000 workers.
The factory will be Tesla’s largest in the world, with a land purchase of about 4,200 acres in an industrial zone and the capacity to build up to 1 million cars per year. By contrast, Tesla’s factory in Austin, Texas sits on about 2,500 acres.
At Investor Day, Musk said he thought some officials from Mexico were in attendance. He didn’t say their names, and wasn’t sure of their titles. Thomas said that if the new factory is going to be important to Mexico’s economic future, and to Tesla’s business, it was not smart for the CEO to treat these officials in an offhand, lackluster manner. He could have welcomed the guests by name, and more respectfully acknowledged their partnership.
Gondolas are docked along a canal with a low water level during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Some of Venice’s smaller canals are running dry amid unusually low tides and a lack of rainfall, making it difficult for gondolas, water taxis and ambulance boats to navigate the Italian city.
Dwindling water levels in the canals are linked to a combination of issues, including a prolonged spell of low tides and a lingering high-pressure weather system over much of Italy. The muddy canals have disrupted some transportation and tourists services in a city that doesn’t have cars.
The situation in Venice, which is historically known for its regular flooding, comes after weeks of dry winter conditions in Italy that have prompted fears of another drought emergency after the dry summer last year.
The Italian Alps have received roughly half of their normal snowfall this winter and the country’s longest river, the river Po, currently holds 61% less water than normal during this time of year, according to Italian environmental group Legambiente. Last July, Italy declared a state of emergency for areas surrounding the river Po.
Take a look at some photos from the past couple weeks of docked gondolas in Venice’s canals:
A gondola is docked on a dry canal during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. Some of Venice’s secondary canals have practically dried up lately due a prolonged spell of low tides linked to a lingering high-pressure weather system.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Gondolas are docked along a canal during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
A view of a dried canal during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Boats are docked along a canal during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Gondolas are docked along a canal with a low water level during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023.
Luigi Costantini | AP
Gondolas are docked along a canal with a low water level during a low tide in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023.
A general view of the site of the derailment of a train carrying hazardous waste in East Palestine, Ohio, February 23, 2023.
Alan Freed | Reuters
Federal environmental authorities have ordered a temporary halt in the shipment of contaminated waste from the site of a fiery train derailment earlier this month in eastern Ohio near the Pennsylvania state line.
Region 5 administrator Debra Shore of the Environmental Protection Agency said Saturday the agency ordered Norfolk Southern to “pause” shipments from the site of the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine but vowed that removal of the material would resume “very soon.”
“Everyone wants this contamination gone from the community. They don’t want the worry, and they don’t want the smell, and we owe it to the people of East Palestine to move it out of the community as quickly as possible,” Shore said.
Until Friday, Shore said, the rail company had been solely responsible for the disposal of the waste and supplied Ohio environmental officials with a list of selected and utilized disposal sites. Going forward, disposal plans including locations and transportation routes for contaminated waste will be subject to EPA review and approval, she said.
“EPA will ensure that all waste is disposed of in a safe and lawful manner at EPA-certified facilities to prevent further release of hazardous substances and impacts to communities,” Shore said. She said officials had heard concerns from residents and others in a number of states and were reviewing “the transport of some of this waste over long distances and finding the appropriate permitted and certified sites to take the waste.”
The Ohio governor’s office said Saturday night that of the twenty truckloads (approximately 280 tons) of hazardous solid waste hauled away, 15 truckloads of contaminated soil were disposed of at a Michigan hazardous waste treatment and disposal facility while five truckloads had been returned to East Palestine.
Liquid waste already trucked out of East Palestine would be disposed of at a licensed hazardous waste treatment and disposal facility in Texas, but that facility would not accept more liquid waste, the Ohio governor’s office said.
“Currently, about 102,000 gallons of liquid waste and 4,500 cubic yards of solid waste remain in storage on site in East Palestine, not including the five truckloads returned to the village,” the governor’s office said. “Additional solid and liquid wastes are being generated as the cleanup progresses.”
No one was injured when 38 Norfolk Southern cars derailed in a fiery, mangled mess on the outskirts of town, but as fears grew about a potential explosion due to hazardous chemicals in five of the rail cars, officials evacuated the area. They later opted to release and burn toxic vinyl chloride from the tanker cars, sending flames and black smoke billowing into the sky again.
Shore said the EPA was not involved in the decision to do the controlled burn, but she called it a “well-founded” decision by local and state officials based on the information they had at the time “to deal with a highly explosive toxic chemical.”
Federal and state officials have repeatedly said it’s safe for evacuated residents to return to the area and that air testing in the town and inside hundreds of homes hasn’t detected any concerning levels of contaminants from the fires or burned chemicals. The state says the local municipal drinking water system is safe, and bottled water is available while testing is conducted for those with private wells.
Despite those assurances and a bevy of news conferences and visits from politicians, many residents still express a sense of mistrust or have lingering questions about what they have been exposed to and how it will impact the future of their families and their communities.
Below-normal rainfall is expected during the rainy season over the next three months in parts of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, a climate research centre says.
Drought trends in the Horn of Africa are now worse than they were during the 2011 famine in which hundreds of thousands of people died.
The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Center said on Wednesday that below-normal rainfall is expected during the rainy season over the next three months.
“In parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda that have been most affected by the recent drought, this could be the 6th failed consecutive rainfall season,” it said.
Drier than normal conditions have also increased in parts of Burundi, eastern Tanzania, Rwanda and western South Sudan, the centre added.
While famine thresholds have not been reached, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that 8.3 million people – more than half Somalia’s population – will need humanitarian assistance this year.
Workneh Gebeyehu, the head of IGAD, urged governments and partners to act “before it’s too late”.
The drought, the longest on record in Somalia, has lasted almost three years and tens of thousands of people have died.
Last month, the UN resident coordinator for Somalia warned excess deaths in the country will “almost certainly” surpass those of the famine declared in the country in 2011, when more than 260,000 people died of starvation.
A camel carcass rots in the desert near the village of War Idad in Somalia [File: Scott Peterson/Getty Images]
Ongoing hunger crisis
About 1.3 million people, 80 percent women and children, have been internally displaced in Somalia by the drought sweeping the Horn of Africa. After five consecutive poor rainy seasons, the ongoing drought has already become the longest and most severe in Somalia’s recent history.
Close to 23 million people are thought to be highly food insecure in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, according to a food security working group chaired by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development.
Already 11 million livestock that are essential to many families’ health and wealth have died, Wednesday’s statement said. Many people affected across the region are pastoralists or farmers who have watched crops wither and water sources run dry.
The war in Ukraine has affected the humanitarian response, as traditional donors in Europe divert funding for the crisis closer to home.
“These prolonged and recurrent climate change-induced droughts will further worsen other existing, mutually exacerbating humanitarian challenges in the region, including the ongoing hunger crisis, the impacts of COVID-19, and internal displacement.
“We need an all-hands-on-deck approach to strengthen food systems, livelihoods, and climate resilience,” said Mohammed Mukhier, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies director for Africa.
Cold temperatures, icy blizzards and strong gusts are expected to sweep through cities like Minneapolis, Minnesota.
A “historic winter storm” is forecasted to dump record snowfall on parts of the midwestern United States this week, with local officials warning of “life-threatening travel conditions” in areas expected to receive blizzard conditions.
“A huge swath of the US is currently being, or will be impacted, by potentially dangerous winter weather,” the National Weather Service wrote on its Twitter page Tuesday, projecting heavy snow, sleet and gusts to last through Thursday. An estimated 40 million Americans could be affected by the three-day blast.
Snow could fall as quickly as 5cm (2 inches) per hour, the agency warned, as it anticipated “treacherous, potentially impossible travel conditions and possible power outages”. Southern Minnesota could receive up to 61cm (2 ft) of fresh powder, it added.
This model reflectivity loop gives a general idea of what we’re expecting for timing of the snow through Thursday. Note that this particular model has some rain with the first wave, but this will be ALL SNOW. We are NOT anticipating any mixed precip! #mnwx#wiwxpic.twitter.com/zgl2s0be69
The storm is expected to break records in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, located on the state line between Minnesota and Wisconsin. The cluster of cities, which boasts a total of more than 3.5 million residents, could net up to 50.8cm (1.6 ft) of snow, one of its highest totals in history.
“Snowplow crews will be out working statewide, but this storm could be a doozy,” the Minnesota Department of Transportation tweeted on Tuesday. In anticipation of the extreme weather, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced the city was “planning to declare a snow emergency on Wednesday”.
Public school buildings in the city have been closed through Friday, with students attending class through online “e-learning” facilities.
The winter storm comes as an Arctic air mass moves south from Canada into the US, combining with two “energetic” fronts and pushing eastward across the Great Plains region towards the Great Lakes, the National Weather Service explained.
Vehicles navigate a snowy downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, on February 21 [Abbie Parr/AP Photo]
Winds could whip up to 128.7km per hour (80 mph) in some areas. And temperatures could plunge 20 to 30 degrees below average, with the wind chill making some areas feel like -32C (-25F).
The storm is expected to roll through the region in two waves: the first lasting through Wednesday morning and the second, “more impactful” portion arriving Wednesday afternoon and continuing through Thursday.
Already on Tuesday, conditions were worsening in Great Plains states like Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. The city of Great Falls, Montana, recorded temperatures of -15C (-5F), according to the National Weather Service.
Winter storms are growing in frequency and intensity, experts warn, as climate change supercharges extreme weather events, from droughts to heavy snow.
As the US Midwestest is pummelled by another onslaught of snow, other parts of the country are also experiencing unusual weather events. The National Weather Service in Jacksonville, Florida, along the southeast coast, tweeted on Tuesday that “near record warmth is forecast into early next week”.
And in California’s San Francisco Bay Area, part of the US west coast, back-to-back storms are expected to yield the possibility of light snowfall — something not seen in San Francisco since 1976.
Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw told CNBC he thinks it’s safe for families to return to East Palestine, Ohio, nearly three weeks after toxic chemicals were released following a train derailment earlier this month.
Asked by CNBC’s Morgan Brennan whether he’d bring his children to the town, Shaw said: “Yes, yes, I’ve come back multiple times. I’m drinking the water here. I’ve interacted with the families here.”
The company will also continue to help residents of the town, as well, Shaw said.
On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed, igniting a dayslong fire. The environmental magnitude of the derailment could remain unknown for years and more testing may be required. Officials have said air levels are safe and the town’s water is free of harmful levels of contaminants, although residents have expressed skepticism about those assurances.
“Our focus right now is on environmental remediation, cleaning up this site, continual air monitoring, water monitoring, financial assistance to the residents of this community, and investing in this community so that the community in East Palestine can thrive,” Shaw said in an interview that aired Tuesday.
Earlier Tuesday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency ordered the company to handle and pay for all cleanup efforts. It will require Norfolk Southern to clean any contaminated soil and water resources, reimburse the EPA for cleaning services and participate in public meetings at the EPA’s request.
A company spokesperson told CNBC Norfolk Southern has been in communication with the agency and in compliance with its requests since the incident.
Ron Fodo, Ohio EPA Emergency Response, looks for signs of fish and also agitates the water in Leslie Run creek to check for chemicals that have settled at the bottom following a train derailment that is causing environmental concerns on February 20, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio.
Michael Swensen | Getty Images
Three days after the derailment, the company’s independent consultant and the Ohio EPA recommended unified command for a controlled release to burn off toxic chemicals, including known carcinogens.
“The fact that we knew at that time that the pressure relief valves on the cars had failed, temperatures were rising, caused our independent expert to become very concerned about the potential for an uncontrolled explosion that would shoot harmful gas and shrapnel into a populated community,” Shaw said.
The air monitoring picked up no traces of toxic chemicals, officials said, although Shaw acknowledges “how it could scare folks.”
Ohio opened a new health clinic Tuesday to address increasing reports of headaches, nausea and rashes in East Palestine. Worried residents also reported dead fish and chickens as authorities said it’s safe to return. As early as this week, medical teams from the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health are expected to arrive in the community.
Shaw said air monitoring was installed within an hour of the derailment, and water monitoring was in place several hours afterward. He said all tests for air and water have come back clean, but he said the community can get additional air and water testing in their homes.
“If folks are experiencing symptoms with which they’re not accustomed, I would strongly encourage them to go see a trusted medical professional,” Shaw said, acknowledging it has been a “traumatic experience.”
Tests have revealed no signs of carcinogens including vinyl chloride in the environment, officials said. Still, there remains the possibility that the full impact won’t surface until years from now. Shaw said some researchers have said this is not a concern and testing will continue into the future.
Shaw said the company so far removed about 450 cubic yards of contaminated soil and secured about 1.1 million gallons of contaminated water. He said the company will continue to “do the right thing for this community” and see the recovery effort all the way through. He did not lay out a time frame.
Shaw said it’s safe for families to return to the community as environmental remediation with the Ohio EPA is underway. He said Norfolk Southern has reimbursed or committed a “downpayment” of $6.5 million to East Palestine and will continue financial assistance to residents.
The company previously offered residents $1,000 “inconvenience” checks, but a Cleveland attorney cautioned residents these checks would get residents to waive future claims against the company. Shaw in the interview denied the lawyer’s claims after the company made public statements that doing testing absolved Norfolk Southern of no liability.
“I know they’re hurt. I know they’re scared. I know they’re confused. They’re looking for information and who to trust,” Shaw said.
Shaw said Norfolk Southern is fully cooperating with the NTSB and the FRA to come up with the root cause of the derailment. He avoided talking about security footage showing a wheel shooting off sparks about 20 miles before the derailment.
“We’re going to be here tomorrow. We’re going to be here a year from now. We’re going to here five years from now. We’re going to do what’s right for this community and help this community get back on its feet and help this community thrive,” Shaw said.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sent a letter Sunday to Norfolk Southern, warning that the company must “demonstrate unequivocal support for the people” of East Palestine.
Buttigieg wrote that Norfolk Southern and other rail companies have “spent millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose common-sense safety regulations, stopping some entirely and reducing the scope of others.”
Some companies have adopted precision-scheduled railroading, which includes running longer trains, and cutting costs and headcounts to create a more effective network — and potentially profit.
In response, Shaw said Norfolk Southern invests over $1 billion a year in “science-based soutions,” including maintaining tracks, equipment and technology.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said in a CNN interview that railroads “are simply not investing the way they should in car safety and the rail lines themselves,” resulting in layoffs and stock buybacks.
“It’s pretty clear that our safety culture and our investments in safety didn’t prevent this accident,” Shaw said in response. “We need to take a look at this and see what we can do differently and what we can do better.”
The European Union has drawn up a plan to boost the production of electric cars and renewable energy projects.
The International Energy Agency estimates the global market for mass-produced clean energy will triple to around $650bn a year by 2030.
The world’s biggest economies want a slice of that growing industry.
The United States Congress recently passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes billions of dollars in grants and loans to boost financing and deployment of clean energy projects. But it has sparked a trade dispute with allies in Europe.
Now the European Union has set out its own plan to compete with the US as a production hub for green products.
Elsewhere, we look at why Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is threatening the central bank’s autonomy.
This photograph taken on May 11, 2022 shows Shivaram, a villager walking through the cracked bottom of a dried-out pond on a hot summer day at Bandai village in Pali district. – Every day dozens of villagers, mostly women and children, wait with blue plastic jerry cans and metal pots for a special train bringing precious water to people suffering a heatwave in India’s desert state of Rajasthan.
Prakash Singh | Afp | Getty Images
Scientists from Africa, Asia and South America are getting a new infusion of $900,000 to study the effects of reflecting sunlight to cool the Earth and mitigate the impacts of global warming. The money comes from Open Philanthropy, a venture funded primarily by billionaire Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook and Asana, and his wife, Cari Tuna.
Sunlight reflection involves releasing aerosols like sulfur dioxide high in the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays back into space, temporarily mitigating global warming. (It’s sometimes called solar radiation modification or solar geoengineering.)
The idea has been around for decades, but it is being taken more seriously as the effects of climate change become more apparent. While volcanic eruptions have proven that the technique can work, there are significant risks as well, including damage to the ozone layer, acid rain and increased respiratory illness.
On Tuesday, nonprofit research organization The Degrees Initiative and the United Nation’s World Academy of Sciences announced they are distributing more than $900,000 to scientists across Africa, Asia and South America to study solar radiation modification in a program called “The Degrees Modelling Fund.” The Degrees Initiative has been funded by various donors over the years, but the biggest has been Open Philanthropy and all of the $900,000 disbursement announced Tuesday came from that group, Degrees Initiative co-founder and CEO Andy Parker told CNBC.
The money will go to 81 scientists in Benin, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand and Uganda working on 15 solar geoengineering modeling projects.
Sunlight reflection is getting more attention as scientists have started suggesting that its negative effects may not be as bad as the harm from climate change will be in the future. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is coordinating a five-year research plan into solar geoengineering and in January,the quadrennial U.N.-backed Montreal Protocol assessment reportincluded an entire chapter addressing stratospheric aerosol injection for the first time ever.
“Like anyone else sensible, when I first heard about the idea of blocking out the sun, I thought it was a terrible idea. As time goes by, the view didn’t really change it. It’s a horrible idea,” Parker told CNBC. “But it may prove to be less horrible than not using it and allowing temperatures to keep rising if we don’t cut our emissions far enough.”
I liken the decision to chemotherapy. Chemotherapy to treat cancer is also a horrible idea. It’s very dangerous. It’s unpleasant. It’s risky. And no one would ever consider doing it unless they feared the alternative. might be worse. And so it goes for solar geoengineering.
Andy Parker
CEO of The Degrees Initiative
Sunlight reflection is not a solution to climate change or global warming. It is a relatively fast and inexpensive way to temporarily cool the Earth. We know it works: In the 15 months following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, the average global temperature was about 1 degree Fahrenheit lower, according to NASA. Releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere from retrofitted planes would essentially mimic the way a volcano releases large quantities of aerosols into the atmosphere.
“It’s not a pleasant idea. It’s not a fun thing to work on. But it’s potentially important, it could be very, very helpful, it could be disastrous,” Parker told CNBC.
“I liken the decision to chemotherapy. Chemotherapy to treat cancer is also a horrible idea. It’s very dangerous. It’s unpleasant. It’s risky. And no one would ever consider doing it unless they feared the alternative might be worse. And so it goes for solar geoengineering,” he said.
A giant volcanic mushroom cloud explodes some 20 kilometers high from Mount Pinatubo above almost deserted US Clark Air Base, on June 12, 1991 followed by another more powerful explosion. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991 was the second largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century.
One of Parker’s goals with the Degrees Initiative is to ensure that scientists from developing countries in the global south will be part of international conversations about sunlight reflection, he told CNBC.
“If it can work well to reduce the impacts of climate change, then they’ve got the most to gain because they’re on the frontlines of global warming,” he said. “If, on the other hand, it all goes wrong and there are nasty side effects, or perhaps if it’s rejected prematurely, when it could have helped, then developing countries have got the most to lose.”
But without philanthropic donations, research and decisions about solar geoengineering would be primarily relegated to the parts of the world that can afford it, like North America, the European Union and Japan, Parker said.
The $900,000 announced Tuesday is the second round of funding of this kind. In 2018, The Degrees Modelling Fund distributed $900,000 to 11 projects in Argentina, Bangladesh, Benin, Indonesia, Iran, the Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Philippines and South Africa.
The money goes out in grants of up to $75,000, of which $60,000 is for salary and $15,000 is for the tools that a local research team would need, Parker told CNBC. Each scientific team should suggest its own proposal in the application for the grant money, he said. But broadly, the task for each team is to use computer models to predict the weather and their regional impacts — both with and without sunlight reflection.
“By comparing the two, they can start to generate evidence on what the impact of solar radiation modification might be on things that matter locally,” Parker said.
Scientists who have had their work funded by The Degrees Modelling Fund at a recent research-planning workshop for old and new teams in Istanbul.
Ines Camilloni, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires, has received two Degrees Initiative grants and is also getting funded by the government of Argentina. With the funding, Camilloni is researching how solar radiation modification would affect the hydroclimate of La Plata Basin, the fifth largest water basin in the world, covering parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, she told CNBC.
“A large fraction of the economic activities within the basin relies on water availability, including agriculture, river navigability and hydroelectric production, and therefore any variations in the water cycle of the basin could have significant impacts on the economy of each country,” Camilloni told CNBC.
Prof. Inés Camilloni speaking at the 2022 Paris Peace Forum.
Photo courtesy The Degrees Initiative
Camilloni says her research has so far showed that sunlight reflection could be helpful to some parts of the La Plata Basin region, but particularly harmful to others. Large rivers that power hydroelectric dams could see higher flows and increased energy production, balanced by a risk of more flooding.
In Buenos Aires, awareness of sunlight reflection has grown in the oast couple years, and it spurs strong emotions.
“The range of feelings that solar radiation modification generates goes from disbelief to fear. Everyone perceives it to be controversial,” Camilloni told CNBC.
Clear communication is critical, though, because even research proponents do not see it as a climate change silver bullet.
“This is no one’s Plan A for how you deal with climate risk, and whatever happens, we have to cut our emissions,” Parker told CNBC. “But people are finally starting to seriously address the question: What do we do if we don’t do enough with emissions cuts, if they prove insufficient to avoid very dangerous climate change? What are our options? And that leaves people regretfully, but necessarily, to think about things like solar radiation modification.”
Correction: Andy Parker is the co-founder and CEO of The Degrees Initiative. An earlier version didn’t attribute some quotes to him.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his security detail depart the company’s local office in Washington, January 27, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Elon Musk and Tesla were found not liable by a jury in a San Francisco federal court on Friday in a class action securities fraud trial stemming from tweets Musk made in 2018.
The Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter CEO was sued by Tesla shareholders over a series of tweets he wrote in Aug. 2018 saying he had “funding secured” to take the automaker private for $420 per share, and that “investor support” for such a deal was “confirmed.” Trading in Tesla was halted after his tweets, and its share price remained volatile for weeks.
Jurors deliberated for less than two hours before reading their verdict. Plaintiffs’ attorneys told CNBC they were “disappointed with the verdict and considering next steps.”
“I am deeply appreciative of the jury’s unanimous finding,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
“He doesn’t think ahead of time in that rushed moment that this could be interpreted differently and what it means to him,” Musk’s attorney told the jury earlier on Friday. “In that moment he didn’t think, ‘how could my words be interpreted differently by you than it means to me.’”
“You have to assess this in context – he’s considering taking it private and the issue is will it actually take it forward,” Musk’s attorney said. “No fraud has ever been built on the back of a consideration.”
Musk’s lead counsel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The shareholders in the certified class action lawsuit included a mix of stock and options buyers who allege that Musk’s tweets were reckless and false, and that relying on his statements to make decisions about when to buy or sell cost them significant amounts of money.
Musk later claimed that he had a verbal commitment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, and thought funding would come through at his proposed price based on a handshake. However, the deal never materialized.
During the course of this trial, Musk also said he would have sold shares of SpaceX to finance a going private deal for Tesla, as well as taking funds from the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
A Tesla Model Y on display inside a Tesla store at the Westfield Culver City shopping mall in Culver City, California, U.S., on Thursday, April 14, 2022.
Bing Guan | Bloomberg | Getty Images
DETROIT – The U.S. Treasury said Friday it is changing its definition of an “SUV” to make more electric vehicles from Tesla, General Motors and other automakers eligible for up to $7,500 federal tax credits at higher prices.
The decision follows Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly criticizing the former standards as well as automakers such as GM and Ford Motor lobbying to change the guidelines ahead of final rules being announced next month.
The change raises the retail price cap to $80,000 from $55,000 for vehicles such as the Tesla Model Y, Cadillac Lyriq, Ford Mustang Mach-E and Volkswagen’s ID.4. Previously some or all models of these vehicles did not qualify because they didn’t weigh enough to be considered an SUV by the Treasury’s standards.
The credits are part of the Biden administration’s $437 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which was approved in August. Under the bill, SUVs can be priced at up to $80,000 to qualify for EV tax credits, while cars, sedans and wagons have to be priced at or under $55,000.
It’s unclear how the decision will impact up to 20% pricing cuts announced by Tesla last month that made the Model Y eligible for the credits. Tesla did not immediately respond for comment.
GM, in an emailed statement, thanked the Treasury and hailed the changes: “The alignment on classification will provide the needed clarity to consumers and dealers, as well as regulators and manufacturers.”
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group for most automakers operating in the U.S., also commended the decision.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk smiles as he addresses guests at the Offshore Northern Seas 2022 (ONS) meeting in Stavanger, Norway on August 29, 2022.
Carina Johansen | AFP | Getty Images
Tesla shares surged 33% this week, marking their best weekly performance since May 2013 and second best on record.
The stock rose 11% on Friday to close at $177.88. The rebound followed a six-month period in which Tesla shares had declined more than 40%. The stock’s 65% plunge in 2022 was its worst in Tesla’s 12-plus years as a public company.
Tesla’s rally this week was aided by an upbeat fourth-quarter earnings report. During the call with shareholders and analysts, CEO Elon Musk said the company was on target to potentially produce 2 million vehicles in 2023, and he suggested demand would support sales of those cars as well.
Official guidance called for production of 1.8 million vehicles this year. The company has not revised its longstanding target for 50% compound annual growth rate over a multi-year horizon.
Tesla’s five day performance charted against Rivian and Ford Motor Company.
Tesla beat on both the top and the bottom lines, recording total revenue of $24.32 billion, including $324 million of deferred revenue related to Tesla’s driver assistance systems. The company cut prices for its cars dramatically in December and January, leading to concern about demand and a buildup of inventory.
Analyst reaction to Tesla’s numbers was mixed.
“For bulls, the growth story is alive and well,” Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi, who has an underperform rating on the stock, wrote in a note on Thursday. “For bears, the numbers don’t lie.”
Tesla’s stock jump came amid a broader market rally. The S&P 500 was up 2.2% for the week and the Nasdaq gained 4.3%.
Other U.S.-based electric vehicle makers saw their shares climb higher. Rivian rose 22% during the week, while shares in legacy automakers Ford and General Motors each gained more than 7%.
Rival electric car manufacturer Lucid spiked on Friday as well, rising 43% on reports of rumors that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, intended to take the company private.
Some of Tesla’s underperformance last year was attributed to Musk’s shift of focus to Twitter, which he acquired for $44 billion in October. Under Musk’s leadership, Twitter has experienced mass layoffs and fleeing advertisers, gutting morale.
Tesla remains the second most-shorted stock in U.S. markets, behind only Apple, meaning that a large numbers of investors are betting on a decline. Over 94 million of the automaker’s shares are shorted, according to data from S3 Partners.
Despite the rally, active short selling continues, S3 managing director Ihor Dusaniwsky told CNBC. Short sellers view Tesla’s appreciation as having created “an overheated and overbought stock that is due for at least a short-term reversal,” he said. In the last week, S3 Partners said it’s seen a 3.9% increase in total shares shorted, while investors shorting the stock lost $4.3 billion over that stretch.
The pace of change in the modern world is often rapid and dizzying. Technologies that seem integral to our lives can, in what feels like an instant, become redundant and irrelevant.
Energy is one sector where innovation and new ideas matter a great deal, as countries and companies try to find ways to shift to a society based around renewables like wind and solar rather than fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.
During a panel discussion at last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, one analyst expressed his fear that the market did not seem to have learned from other technological revolutions.
Thomas Hohne-Sparborth, head of sustainability research at Lombard Odier, highlighted the huge shifts taking place in the field of low and zero-carbon technologies and, by extension, wider society.
“We’ve seen past industrial revolutions, including past energy transitions,” Hohne-Sparborth said. “What we’re really seeing now is the complete transformation of our entire economy.”
“The demand side of our economy, the way we power vehicles, the way we heat our buildings, the way we use energy in industry — all of that needs to be transformed.”
We were, Hohne-Sparborth said, “looking at investment needs in the trillions of dollars.”
When it comes to the energy transition, the sums being discussed are indeed significant. Last year, the International Energy Agency’s “World Energy Outlook 2022” report said clean energy investment could be on course to exceed $2 trillion per year by 2030, an increase of over 50% compared to today.
As the discussion in Davos — which was moderated by CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche — progressed, Hohne-Sparborth was asked if clean energy was now affordable at the scale required.
The answer to that question was, he replied, “very rapidly shifting, and today I would say, yes, it has become the cheapest source of energy.”
“What I think the market at large is underestimating is simply the pace at which this transition is unfolding,” he added, explaining that lessons could be learned from history.
“We’ve done some work looking at past technological revolutions, whether it’s the adoption of steamships, of mobile phones — any piece of major sort of new technology of infrastructure.”
All such transitions had, Hohne-Sparborth argued, “tended to follow a very similar pattern. They unfold very slowly … and then the transition completes in a span of 10 to 20 years.”
“Yet if you look today at what the market is anticipating — how long it will take us to electrify our buildings, to electrify our vehicle fleets — the timeframes there are still much longer.”
For Hohne-Sparborth, it didn’t seem to be getting through that, “when a new, superior technology emerges, that becomes cost competitive, that rollout can happen very quickly.”
Dramatic change
Also appearing on the CNBC panel was Andrés Gluski, the CEO of energy firm AES.
“What we’re facing … is a dramatic change,” he said, adding that renewables now represented “the cheapest form of energy, in most cases.”
“The problem is capacity — how do you keep the lights on 24/7 — and that’s where you have to use lithium-ion batteries on a daily basis.”
Expanding on his point, he went on to emphasize the importance of adopting a variety of technologies.
“To really get to a complete decarbonization we’re going to need green hydrogen, we’ll probably need small modular nukes, etcetera.”
“And I also agree very much that what we need is for renewables to be more than just competitive — just better so that we lower costs, [and] equal in quality.”
“And that’s honestly what the corporate sector is demanding very much, and many consumers.”
Most people want to hibernate during the chilly winter months — not Minnesotans. The inhabitants of one of the coldest corners of the U.S. embrace the subzero temperatures. They even have a festival to celebrate it.
The Great Northern festival will return to the Twin Cities from January 25 through February 3, 2023, featuring immersive outdoor activities, such as the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships, ice fishing, and something called The Great Northern Sauna Village.
For those interested in thoughtful discussion on climate change, the festival will host a climate series, including a panel series with music legend Brian Eno.
Eric Dayton, the co-founder of The Great Northern and CEO of Askov Finlayson, which fittingly makes winter parkas and vests, says the inspiration for the festival partly came from growing up in Minnesota, hearing people in the east and west coast disparage his hometown.
“My friends thought we were something out of a Garrison Keillor book or the movie Fargo, and it wasn’t a great impression they had,” he said in an interview with Entrepreneur. “We knew what our region, state, and city had to offer, but we weren’t getting credit for it.”
So he asked himself, “What if we started thinking about the cold in our winters as an asset rather than something we need to apologize for?”
Dayton and his partners organized a festival to “showcase the best this place has to offer.” That meant an immersive experience of winter sports, food, art, music, and lifestyle. This will be the Great Northern’s seventh year. In 2022, over 300,000 winter enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and curious tourists attended, and organizers expect a bigger turnout tin 2023.
New to the festival this year, the Sauna Village will feature 18 mobile saunas that can accommodate groups of 4 to 12 people at a time. Think of it like a food truck park with saunas instead of grilled cheese trailers. No two saunas will be alike — some will offer yoga, and others will offer guided tours and a live DJ. Ares saunas too hot for you? At Silverwood Park, festivalgoers can plunge into an ice-cold bath and practice the Wim Hof breathing method.
U.S. Pond Hockey Championships
Watch dozens of ice hockey teams from across the country compete on Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis. ESPN listed this tournament in their “101 Things Sports Fans Must Experience Before They Die.”
Ice Fishing
For a unique variation on this quintessentially Northern pastime, anglers catch – and then remove – the invasive carp species from the lake ecosystem at Silverwood Park. Attendees can also document the carp they’ve caught by making an artistic print of it, inspired by a Japanese printmaking technique called Gyotaku.
Climate talks
Music producer Brian Eno and Prince collaborator Donna Grantis discuss the role of arts in the climate crisis. In another talk, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson lays out the city’s role as a climate refuge city, thanks to its access to clean water from Lake Superior, expansion-ready city infrastructure, and relatively cool climate.
A boon for business
In addition to raising awareness of winter’s wonders, Dayton says The Great Northern will be a boon for the local economy.
“The negative perception of winter here is a real recruiting obstacle for companies trying to attract talent from around the country,” he said. “If we can move winters from the liability to the asset column and start actually selling our winters as a great part of living here, we can show people that this is the winter capital of America, and nobody does it better.”
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday accused the political and business elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, of prioritizing self-interest and short-term profits over people and the planet.
“We are right now in Davos where basically the people who are mostly fueling the destruction of the planet, the people who are at the very core of the climate crisis, the people who are investing in fossil fuels etcetera, etcetera and yet somehow these are the people that we seem to rely on solving our problems,” Thunberg said.
“They have proven time and time again that they are not prioritizing that. They are prioritizing self-greed, corporate greed and short-term economic profits above people and above planet.”
“These people are going to go as far as they possibly can as long as they can get away with it. They will continue to invest in fossil fuels, they will continue to throw people under the bus for their own gain,” she added.
Thunberg said it was an “absurd” situation that the world seems to be listening to Davos delegates rather than those on the frontlines of the climate emergency.
The 20-year-old was released by police earlier this week after being detained alongside other climate activists for protesting the expansion of a coal mine in the tiny village of Luetzerath in Germany.
“Yesterday I was part of a group that peacefully protested the expansion of a coal mine in Germany. We were kettled by police and then detained but were let go later that evening,” Thunberg said on Wednesday via Twitter. “Climate protection is not a crime,” she added.
Thunberg said it was an “absurd” situation that the world seems to be listening to Davos delegates rather than those on the frontlines of the climate emergency.
Fabrice Coffrini | Afp | Getty Images
Alongside IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, Thunberg took part in the CNBC-moderated panel with youth climate advocates Vanessa Nakate, Helena Gualinga and Luisa Neubauer.
The four climate activists arrived in Davos having recently composed an open letter to the CEOs of fossil fuel companies through the non-profit website Avaaz. Thunberg, Nakate, Gualinga and Neubauer called on the executives of energy giants to “immediately stop” opening new oil, gas or coal extraction sites and said they intended to keep protesting in the streets in “huge numbers.”
“We know that Big Oil knew for decades that fossil fuels cause catastrophic climate change, misled the public about climate science and risks [and] deceived politicians with disinformation sowing doubt and causing delay,” the letter says.
What haven’t we said? What haven’t we done? What haven’t we communicated enough?
Vanessa Nakate
climate activist
It adds that fossil fuel executives “must end these activities as they are in direct violation of our human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, your duties of care, as well as the rights of Indigenous people.”
Failure to act immediately, the activists warn, comes at a time when citizens around the world “will consider taking any and all legal action to hold you accountable.” More than 900,000 people added their names to the letter as of Thursday afternoon.
Luisa Neubauer, climate activist and one of the main organizers of the Fridays for Future movement in Germany, on the same panel Thursday that she spent the last week with Thunberg and many others “defending livelihoods against coal diggers” in western Germany.
“And many people then said ‘oh that is an interesting change in scenery coming from the mud in Luetzerath to Davos.’ We walked through the dirty mud in Luetzerath and now we are in Davos witnessing dirty deals being made so I’m not sure how much of a change that actually is,” Neubauer said.
“We don’t see the sense of urgency reflected in action,” said Helena Gualinga, an Indigenous youth climate advocate from Ecuador.
“Indigenous communities, Indigenous peoples, youth, scientists, we have all been pointing towards a direction [but] the oil industry is not going there, the world leaders are not going there,” she added.
The fossil fuel industry has sought to underline the importance of energy security amid calls for a rapid transition to renewables, typically highlighting that demand for fossil fuels remains high.
To be sure, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate crisis.
“What haven’t we said? What haven’t we done? What haven’t we communicated enough?” Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate said on Thursday.
Nakate said it was evident that in most cases, the countries and areas around the world least responsible for the climate emergency were typically the hardest hit.
Asked why new fossil fuel production projects were going ahead despite opposition from both the IEA and climate campaigners, Executive Director Fatih Birol said, “The issue is we have to keep the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. If it goes above that, the rather fragile equilibrium of our planet will be distorted — we will all be in trouble.”
“We need to get energy from clean carbon-free form energy sources and to do that, the magic word is investment.”
Birol said the world currently invests about $1.5 trillion in clean energy, but this needs to increase to $4 trillion in order to be in line with climate targets.
“If we do that … then we don’t need any more coal, we don’t need any more oil and gas. [We don’t need any] new investments there, but the point of departure is making clean energy investments and having a clean, secure energy future for all,” Birol said.
The IEA’s Birol said the world had “never, ever seen an energy crisis of this depth and complexity” following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The climate emergency is one of the main themes for this year’s annual meeting in the Swiss Alpine town of Davos, which brings together roughly 1,500 business leaders.
Addressing delegates during a special address on Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned fossil fuel giants for ignoring their own climate science. He accused the oil and gas industry of seeking to expand production despite knowing “full well” that their business model is incompatible with human survival.
“Some in Big Oil peddled the big lie,” Guterres said. “And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held to account.”
Thunberg has previously excoriated the climate inaction of the world’s political and business leaders at WEF, saying in Jan. 2019, “Our house is on fire.”
Kerry said he hopes the resumption of diplomatic talks with China can make a “huge difference” in the fight to prevent the worst of what the climate emergency has in store.
Fabrice Coffrini | Afp | Getty Images
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Wednesday said he hopes that the resumption of diplomatic talks with China can make a “huge difference” in the fight to prevent the worst of what the climate emergency has in store.
“We very much hope to be able to find the pathway to a breakthrough that could make a huge difference,” Kerry told CNBC’s Tania Bryer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Asked whether he had met with China’s Vice Premier Liu He at WEF, Kerry replied, “I know that he is here. I’ve not yet had a chance to either bump into him or see him, but I’d be happy to. It would be something that I would want to do.”
The U.S. and China formally resumed stalled climate talks with China late last year following a meeting between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping.
The announcement came during the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where many delegates had expressed deep concern about the lack of cooperation between the world’s two largest economies and top greenhouse gas emitters.
A White House readout of the meeting at the time said that Biden and Xi had “agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication and deepen constructive efforts on these and other issues.”
Kerry said Wednesday that U.S. diplomats had since had several meetings with their Chinese counterparts, “and we will be talking very shortly.”
Government ministers and negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed at COP27 to create a new fund to compensate poor nations for the “loss and damage” they’re experiencing as a result of extreme weather worsened by climate change.
The summit made history as the first to see the topic of loss and damage funding formally make it onto the COP27 agenda — 30 years after the issue was first raised by climate-vulnerable countries.
Speaking ahead of COP27, Kerry said Washington would not be “obstructing” talks on loss and damage in Sharm el-Sheikh. His comments meant that, for the first time ever, the U.S. was finally willing to discuss reparations at the U.N. climate conference.
Asked how much the loss and damage fund is worth and where the money will come from, Kerry replied, “Those questions are legitimate, but they were all left specifically to the process this year to try and provide the answers to those things.”
Kerry said it is typically the case that the countries least responsible for the climate crisis were being hit the hardest by its impacts.
“You don’t have to work hard, unless you have no heart and no brain, to understand the degree to which justice is critical, inclusivity is critical, and action is critical. Urgent action to begin to reduce those emissions fast enough that we do what the scientists are telling us we must do which is avoid the worst consequences of the crisis,” Kerry said.
“We only avoid the worst consequences if we can hold the Earth’s temperature increase to 1.5 degrees — and we’re on the edge,” he continued.
“There are some scientists who will tell you we have already blown past it, there are some who will tell you, ‘no, we may be to have a little overshoot but we can do a claw back and come back and hold onto the 1.5.’ All I know is we’re not on track for 1.5, we should be, we need to be, and we need to do everything in our power to move in that direction,” Kerry said.
Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said Wednesday that current efforts to produce a set of official global standards on ESG issues were vital to “align capitalism with what society wants from it.”
Asked by CNBC’s Karen Tso at the World Economic Forum in Davos whether stakeholder capitalism needed a reboot through the creation of common standards for corporate disclosures, Moynihan said he was converted to the idea after seeing hundreds of companies sign up to the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals in 2017, followed by ongoing debate over what concepts like sustainability actually mean, and accusations of greenwashing.
“Without that definition, without that convergence, what you had is everybody defined it their own way. Somebody would think this issue’s important or this way to talk about it is important,” he said.
Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives are increasingly discussed in corporate results and by senior business figures, though they have also proven controversial. Critics have included both those who claim they are a PR exercise and, recently, those who argue ESG investment funds will provide weaker returns.
In 2020, Moynihan — who is also chair of WEF’s International Business Council — and WEF founder and chair Klaus Schwab worked with the big four accountants to create a set of common stakeholder metrics for companies to follow.
He said it was now important to “go to the official side” and was supporting the new International Sustainability Standards Board set up by non-profit the IFRS.
On Wednesday’s panel, IFRS Chair Erkki Liikanen said that since setting up the board they had consolidated their work with that of other groups with niche expertise, and were working on a final standards publication to be released in the middle of 2023.
This is due to comprise a set of general non-financial sustainability disclosure requirements for companies, and a set specifically on climate. Liikanen said it would then need adoption and endorsement around the world.
Moynihan also said it was crucial that sustainability and ethical standards became official and global.
He said informal standards-setting meant companies could hide poor sustainability practices “further down the stream” of their supply chains or divest certain assets, or else claim they are too small to carry out checks.
But with standardized, cross-jurisdiction rules that are part of companies’ annual reports and audited, he continued, “then frankly, an investment manager, a consumer, society, others can sit there and say, here’s a line that is acceptable and you’re either above it or below it.”
“If you’re below it we shouldn’t do business with you, and if you’re above it, tell us how you’re making progress along these important things.”
“Which, at the end of the day, will align capitalism with what society wants from it and get us going faster.”
Correction: The headline on this story has been updated to better reflect a quote by Brian Moynihan.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that without further action, humanity was on course for a global temperature increase of 2.8 degrees Ceslius.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday condemned fossil fuel giants for ignoring their own climate science, accusing the oil and gas industry of seeking to expand production despite knowing “full well” that their business model is incompatible with human survival.
“Some in Big Oil peddled the big lie,” Guterres said during a special address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held to account.”
His comments come shortly after research showed how Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest oil companies, accurately forecast global heating as long ago as the 1970s only to then spend decades publicly contradicting their own research.
Research papers have previously found that Exxon was aware of the dangers of global heating since the late 1970s, while other oil industry bodies knew of the risks associated with burning fossil fuels since at least the 1950s.
The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate emergency.
“Every week brings a new climate horror story,” Guterres said, warning that the commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels was “going up in smoke.” This temperature threshold is the aspirational target set in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
It is recognized as crucial because beyond this level, so-called tipping points become more likely. These are thresholds at which small changes can lead to dramatic shifts in Earth’s entire life support system.
Guterres said that without further action, humanity was on course for a global temperature increase of 2.8 degrees Celsius.
“The consequences will be devastating. Several parts of our planet will be uninhabitable. And for many, this is a death sentence,” he said.
“But it is not a surprise,” Guterres said. “The science has been clear for decades. I am not talking only about U.N. scientists. I am talking even about fossil fuel scientists.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently called out what he described as the “massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny.”
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Referring to the research published in Science last week, Guterres said, “Just like the tobacco industry, they rode rough-shod over their own science.”
“Today, fossil fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that this business model is inconsistent with human survival,” he continued.
“Now, this insanity belongs in science-fiction, yet we know the ecosystem meltdown is cold, hard scientific fact.”
The world’s leading climate scientists warned last year that the fight to keep global temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius had reached “now or never” territory. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reaffirmed calls for a substantial reduction in fossil fuel use to curb global heating.
home is being built in in Rio Verde Foothills, Arizona, U.S. on January 7, 2023.
The Washington Post | Getty Images
Developers planning to build homes in the desert west of Phoenix don’t have enough groundwater supplies to move forward with their plans, a state modeling report found.
Plans to construct homes west of the White Tank Mountains will require alternative sources of water to proceed as the state grapples with a historic megadrought and water shortages, according to the report.
Water sources are dwindling across the Western United States and mounting restrictions on the Colorado River are affecting all sectors of the economy, including homebuilding. But amid a nationwide housing shortage, developers are bombarding Arizona with plans to build homes even as water shortages worsen.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources reported that the Lower Hassayampa sub-basin that encompasses the far West Valley of Phoenix is projected to have a total unmet demand of 4.4 million acre-feet of water over a 100-year period. The department therefore can’t move to approve the development of subdivisions solely dependent on groundwater.
“We must talk about the challenge of our time: Arizona’s decades-long drought, over usage of the Colorado River, and the combined ramifications on our water supply, our forests, and our communities,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a statement last week.
Developers in the Phoenix area are required to get state certificates proving that they have 100 years’ worth of water supplies in the ground over which they’re building before they’re approved to construct any properties.
The 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. Arizona has experienced cuts to its Colorado River water allocation and now must curb 21% of its water usage from the river, or roughly 592,000 acre-feet each year, an amount that would supply more than 2 million Arizona households annually.
Despite warnings that there isn’t enough water to sustain growth in development, some Arizona developers have argued that they can work around diminishing water supplies, saying new homes will have low flow fixtures, drip irrigation, desert landscaping and other drought-friendly measures. More than two dozen housing developments are in the works around Phoenix.
