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STAKES RAISED: Senate Democrats unveiled plans this morning to pass legislation, without Republican votes, to put the United States on track to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
And now, the stakes are even higher after the United Nations’ premier climate science panel released a report finding the world is likely to cross a warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius as soon as 2030, an outcome Democrats say their plans are designed to help avoid.
“If Senators truly followed the science in this report, we’d have 100 votes for climate action to match the 100 percent certainty that human-caused climate change is destroying our planet,” said Sen. Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, in response to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (read my take-aways later on).
Democrats are hoping the one-two step of the bipartisan infrastructure bill with some climate provisions and their larger reconciliation package will get the U.S. on course to do its part to avoid the worst outcomes of global warming.
“Congress must act with the urgency this moment demands, and get President Biden’s climate plan across the finish line,” said Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida, the chairman of the House Select Climate Crisis Committee, reacting to the IPCC report.
Details on Democrats’ plan: The centerpiece of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget resolution released this morning calls for the Senate Energy Committee to create a “clean electricity payment” program that would essentially pay utilities to generate a growing percentage of power from carbon-free sources.
It would require the electric utility sector as a whole to generate 80% of its power from clean energy sources by 2030. That would keep pace with Biden’s goal, submitted as part of the Paris Climate Agreement, to cut U.S. emissions across the economy by 50% by the end of the decade.
The budget blueprint is not legislation but would unlock a process, called budget reconciliation, that would allow Democrats to pass bills with a simple majority in the Senate.
Democrats included other climate policies as part of the agreement that they are counting on to meet Biden’s goals, including clean energy tax credits and funding to create a Civilian Climate Corps, modeled off a New Deal-era program, to put people to work weatherizing homes, restoring coastlines, managing forests, and other climate-related projects.
Other measures would provide consumers rebates for electrifying homes, electrify the federal vehicle fleet, and impose fees on carbon-intensive products imported from abroad.
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MORE FROM IPCC…CLIMATE-INDUCED EXTREME EVENTS ARE ALREADY HERE: The IPPC says global warming from the use of fossil fuels is aggravating extreme weather across the world and the problem will become significantly worse with further emissions, as I wrote this morning for our story on the report.
Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries, especially deep ocean warming, ice sheet melt, and sea-level rise.
But the world is inching closer to reaching a temperature threshold that would lead to even worse consequences unless governments take action in the coming decades to cut emissions deeply.
Going the wrong direction: Global greenhouse gas emissions are still growing, as countries have failed to meet targets they set under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement even as they set bolder pledges.
If emissions don’t start falling, the world is on track to hit 1.5 degrees of warming in the early 2030s and 2 degrees by mid-century.
If that happens, it would represent a failure of the Paris accord, under which countries pledged to hold total global warming to “well below” 2 degrees and agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.
“The ship has kind of sailed on 1.5 degrees,” Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute who contributed to the report, told me.
Room for hope: But Hausfather said he is more optimistic that the less-stringent 2 degrees target can be met, if countries fulfill their recent promises — like Biden’s pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and China’s vow to be carbon neutral by 2060.
While a half-degree may not sound like much, the report details that even that much warming could have a big impact on the natural world, leading to a loss of all coral reefs and risking the extinction of animal species.
At 1.5 degrees of warming, ocean levels are projected to rise another 1 to 2 feet this century, on top of an 8-inch increase over the past century.
“The actions we take – or fail to take – now and in the coming decade, to cut climate pollution and build greater resilience to the climate change that is already irreversible, will reverberate for generations,” said Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL PRIMED FOR PASSAGE: The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill cleared a procedural hurdle yesterday, setting up a final vote by tomorrow or sooner on a measure Biden and Democrats hope to tout as a major bipartisan achievement that will create jobs and provide funding for roads, bridges, clean energy and water projects, and broadband access.
The Senate convened for a rare Sunday session that cut into their scheduled August recess, haggling all day about a package of amendments without reaching a deal, the Washington Examiner’s Susan Ferrechio reports.
Lawmakers voted to cut off debate last night, setting up another clock that runs out early tomorrow, when the Senate will be able to take a final vote on the bill. Eighteen Republicans voted to advance the bipartisan infrastructure legislation.
The measure provides $550 billion in new spending, including $7.5 billion on new electric vehicle charging stations as well as billions on mass transit, rail, climate resilience, grid upgrades, and more.
ONE FUNNY THING: Former President Donald Trump is deriding the bipartisan infrastructure bill the “beginning of the Green New Deal.”
I wonder if Trump is aware that he signed into law authorization of the clean energy spending that makes up a good chunk of the climate provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
The bill would fully fund more than a dozen clean energy demonstration projects originally authorized under the Energy Act of 2020 approved at the end of last year, including for energy storage, advanced nuclear reactors, carbon capture, direct air capture, and renewables.
DIXIE FIRE MAKES (BAD) HISTORY: The Dixie Fire that has burned in Northern California for 25 days is now the second-largest wildfire ever recorded in the state, officials said.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the land engulfed by flames in Butte, Plumas, Lassen, and Tehama counties amounted to more than 463,000 acres since the wildfire began on July 14.
The Dixie Fire is now only surpassed by last year’s August Complex, which led to 1,032,648 acres of scorched earth and 935 structures being destroyed from the flames.
Most of the state’s 20 worst wildfires by acres have taken place over the past two decades, according to Cal Fire.
UPDATE…EXXON’S DEFENSE AFTER LOSING SPOT IN CARBON TAX GROUP: U.S. oil and gas giant ExxonMobil is fighting back after being suspended from an advocacy group supporting a carbon tax.
The Climate Leadership Council and its advocacy arm American for Carbon Dividends pulled Exxon’s membership in both groups, as I reported Friday.
The move comes after one of Exxon’s senior lobbyists claimed in a bombshell sting video that the oil and gas giant’s support for a carbon tax is only for show.
In a statement that came in after publication of my last newsletter, Exxon called CLC’s decision “disappointing and counterproductive.”
“It will in no way deter our efforts to advance carbon pricing that we believe is a critical policy requirement to tackle climate change,” Exxon said.
Exxon was one of the first oil companies to endorse the Council’s carbon tax and dividend proposal in 2017, later committing $1 million over two years to help promote the plan.
An Exxon official told me the company was on Capitol Hill earlier this month advocating for a carbon tax at the request of CLC’s board.
The Rundown
Wall Street Journal Renewables are fast replacing coal, except in rural America
Washington Post In a summer of smoke, a small town wonders: ‘How are we going to do better than survive?’
Axios Biden taps Russia hawk for key energy post
Financial Times Jeff Ubben: Engine No 1 model is ‘not enough to create lasting change’
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | AUG. 11
12 p.m. CRES Forum will hold a virtual event titled, “Resiliency & Clean Energy: Keeping the Lights on While Reducing Emissions.”
