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KERRY LAYS OUT PLANS: We’ve already explained how John Kerry is not a czar but rather an climate diplomat who will elevate the issue in President-elect Joe Biden’s national security and foreign policy.
Yesterday, the man himself explained how he’ll spend his time, during a round of interviews ahead of the 5th anniversary of the Paris agreement on Saturday.
Meat on the bones: Kerry said he’ll work to get other countries to lay out specific emissions-cutting actions they’d take by 2030, not just banking on net-zero by 2050 goals. The Biden administration, after moving to re-join the Paris agreement on Day 1, is expected to submit its own pledge for 2030, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, to the U.N. ahead of the next climate conference in Glasgow next November.
“We have to lay out a pathway,” Kerry told NBC News. “We have to show people what countries are going to do between 2025, 2030, 2035. You can’t just put a target 40 years out or 30 years out, and pretend that we have done the deal.”
“It’s not just about increasing the target,” said Paul Bodnar, a managing director at the Rocky Mountain Institute who was special assistant to President Obama and senior director for energy and climate change at the National Security Council. “It’s about: How do we replace coal with renewables faster, how do we control methane emissions, how do we decarbonize heavy industries, how do we accelerate the advent of hydrogen, how do we roll out EV infrastructure?” Bodnar told Josh.
How Kerry will talk to China — and Big Oil: Kerry also tread carefully on China, noting they “were a partner” in the Obama administration when the U.S. worked with Beijing to lay the groundwork for the Paris deal in 2015.
He vowed to challenge China on its funding of coal exports through the Belt and Road Initiative.
But Kerry said “we have to do it in a way that doesn’t force people into a corner to hunker down and head towards conflict,” in an interview with NPR.
Kerry indicated he’s in the process of “reaching out” to oil and gas companies, suggesting he’d like industry to be at the table as the U.S. determines its goals.
“I’m listening to what their needs are on how they view the world so I can begin to understand better what the possibilities may be,” Kerry said.
Avoiding bureaucratic blowups: Kerry, who gets a seat on Biden’s National Security Council, dismissed concerns he’d interfere with the work of Biden’s chosen secretary of state, Anthony Blinken. Blinken was Kerry’s former deputy when the latter was chief diplomat in the Obama administration.
“I really respect and understand the lines that are drawn within the State Department and the administration,” he said.
Bodnar, who is a former colleague of Kerry’s involved with the Paris negotiations, also does not anticipate turf wars.
“Are there bureaucratic considerations sure, but these are some of the most experienced foriegn policy practitioners around. They will figure it out,” Bodnar said.
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HOUSE GOP WARNING SHOT TO FED ON CLIMATE: Nearly four dozen Republican lawmakers are blasting the Federal Reserve’s recent steps sounding the alarm on financial risks posed by climate change, saying that if the Fed incorporates climate risks into its decisionmaking it would disadvantage U.S. banks and certain fossil-heavy industries.
In a letter yesterday, the lawmakers, led by Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr, warn Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and Vice Chairman for Supervision Randal Quarles against introducing climate change into its stress testing of banks.
The GOP lawmakers also suggest the Fed shouldn’t join a group of central banks working on climate change — known as the Network for Greening the Financial System — “without first making public commitments to only accept and implement in the U.S. recommendations that are in the best interest of our domestic financial system.” Quarles said during a Senate hearing last month the Fed had recently applied to join the climate group and could officially join by next spring.
One more big concern: The Fed including climate change in its stress tests could give banks an excuse to drop investments of fossil fuel companies, the Republican lawmakers say. Republican politicians have increasingly criticized major U.S. banks for saying they won’t invest in new oil and gas drilling projects in the Arctic or coal mining.
The Trump administration recently, in a last-ditch effort, proposed to prohibit banks from restricting services from specific industries, a response to the GOP outcry, but it’s unlikely the rule will be finalized before Biden takes office.
MILESTONE FOR OIL PRICES: The international benchmark Brent oil price topped $50 per barrel this morning for the first time since March as vaccine rollouts are set to start in the U.S. and Canada.
Analysts are surprised to see prices rise after a week in which the U.S. reported a record build of crude inventories.
“It is not every day that the market ignores weekly builds of US crude inventories. News on the speed of vaccine rollouts are for now the strongest market movers,” said Rystad Energy’s head of oil markets Bjornar Tonhaugen.
BUT…DROP IN US REFINING CAPACITY: U.S. petroleum refining capacity has fallen to its lowest level since May of 2016, 18.4 million barrels per calendar day, the Energy Information Administration reported today.
U.S. refining capacity had reached a record high of nearly 19.0 million b/cd earlier this year, but several refineries have closed since then, with some slated to be converted into renewable diesel plants.
The pandemic has created uncertainty for U.S. fuel-makers as people change their travel habits and work from home, with the prospect of stricter environmental regulations also coming.
REMEMBER VOGTLE? Plant Vogtle, the only nuclear project under construction in the U.S., received its first fuel shipment yesterday, the final step on the path to startup.
The milestone comes after years of delays and cost overruns.
Georgia Power, a subsidiary of utility Southern Company, says the new reactors are on track to come online next year.
Southern Company has pitched Plant Vogtle since 2009 as a way to revive the U.S. nuclear industry to supplement an aging fleet losing out to lower cost natural gas and renewables. The owners promised that two reactors planned for the site would give the state emission-free electricity for as long as 80 years.
But in 2018, Westinghouse, the lead contractor on the project that designed the reactors, went bankrupt, imperiling the future of the plant.
The Trump administration stepped in to provide $3.7 billion in loan guarantees to the plant, after the Obama administration previously provided funding for it.
ANOTHER TRUMP NUCLEAR POWER DEAL:The U.S. signed an agreement yesterday to cooperate on Romania’s nuclear energy program, as the Trump administration looks to undercut China’s influence.
The U.S. will provide financing and expertise to help Romania expand and modernize its Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant.
Previously, China had been expected to finance two new nuclear reactors at the plant, before Romania broke off the agreement. The U.S. funding would be part of a $7 billion memo of understanding authorized by the Export-Import Bank.
“I am happy that Romania rejected Beijing’s predatory financing and is working with the United States through EXIM and the U.S. Department of Energy on a better, more reliable, alternative at Cernavoda,” said Kimberly Reed, Ex-Im’s chairman.
CLIMATE ALLIANCE STATES LEAD CLEAN ENERGY EMPLOYMENT: Ambitious policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the two dozen member states of the U.S. Climate Alliance drove clean energy job creation that outpaced the rest of the country, the alliance said in a new report this morning.
From 2016 to 2019, the U.S. Climate Alliance states created more than 133,000 jobs across clean energy industries, including energy efficiency, renewable energy generation, clean fuels, and grid modernization, the report said. The 24 states accounted for 60% of all clean energy jobs at the end of 2019, according to the data.
MEET MARY NICHOLS’ REPLACEMENT: California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced yesterday he is appointing Liane Rudolph, a commissioner on the state’s Public Utilities Commission, to lead the powerful California Air Resources Board when its current head, Mary Nichols, steps down at the end of this year.
Nichols is term-limited, but she is also the rumored frontrunner to lead the Biden EPA, though her possible nomination has sparked opposition from some liberal environmental groups.
Rudolph, a Democrat, has served on the utilities commission since 2015, and she’d be the first African American to chair CARB, which has recently faced backlash from black employees who raised concerns about experiencing racism at work.
Her appointment launches a new era for CARB, which Nichols has led for more than a dozen years. The California air agency has often set the tone nationally on policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Rudolph, as its new chair, would be responsible for making sure the state can meet its aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets, as well as crafting the regulations to achieve Newsom’s recent directive that all new vehicle sales in California be zero emissions by 2035.
TRILLION TREES, BUT WHO’S COUNTING: Sens. Chris Coons, a Democrat, and Mike Braun, a Republican, introduced legislation yesterday supporting global efforts to plant a trillion trees as a natural solution to combat climate change.
The legislation from the co-chairs of the Senate Climate Solutions Caucus matches similar bipartisan legislation in the House introduced by Rep. Bruce Westerman, the top Republican on the Natural Resources Committee next year.
The Trillion Trees and Natural Carbon Storage Act would create a nonprofit organization to encourage and accept private donations in support of international reforestation, restoration, and deforestation prevention efforts. President Trump supports the concept.
“Any serious proposal to act on climate must include natural solutions — healthy forests, grasslands, wetlands, and coastal ecosystems — that sequester carbon and bolster resilience through ecologically appropriate reforestation and restoration,” said Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, who Biden reportedly is considering to tap for EPA administrator.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY BILL PACKS A PUNCH: A bipartisan measure unveiled yesterday by Reps. Brad Schneider and Tom Rice to boost energy efficiency improvements in commercial and multifamily buildings would avoid 100 million tons of carbon emissions and save $15 billion on energy bills, according to analysis from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. The bill would amend the tax code to make it easier for building owners to invest in energy efficiency upgrades.
The Rundown
Bloomberg The making of Biden’s superfast push for clean electricity
Financial Times BlackRock vows to back more shareholder votes on climate change
Axios New renewable-energy group taps Heather Zichal as CEO
Reuters United Airlines invests in carbon-capture project to be 100% green by 2050
Calendar
FRIDAY | DEC. 11
10:30 a.m. ConservAmerica hosts EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler for a virtual interview on the state of the U.S. environment, climate change, and the Trump administration’s policy.
