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A CLOUD HANGS OVER G20 TALKS AFTER GREENS LOSE CLIMATE FIGHT IN BONN: The G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, this weekend promises very little when it comes to climate change, say environmentalists, who are still licking their wounds from a major upset at Thursday’s United Nations meeting in Bonn, Germany.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, whose Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman will be meeting with President Trump on Saturday, led a successful cabal to block discussions at the United Nations climate meeting on incorporating a much more strict temperature target into the Paris climate agreement.
A U.N. report issued last October said the world must limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, instead of the Paris agreement’s 2 degree goal, or risk a climate catastrophe.
“While they may have succeeded in short-circuiting formal discussion of the report, the Saudis can’t prevent scientific fact from continuing to drive the heightened awareness amongst governments, the business community and the public of the need for an urgent response to the climate crisis,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental advocacy group in Washington that has been pushing back against the Trump administration’s policies.
U.N. officials said they hope to resolve these issues before the COP25 climate summit in Chile in December.
So what is expected from the G20?: The meeting of the 20 most industrialized nations is not expected to mean much for the climate discussions. In fact, groups are expecting Trump and other leaders to play up fossil fuel development.
“Given that it is hosted by Japan, one of the world’s top financiers of coal and other fossil fuels, and is being attended by Trump, one of the world’s top climate criminals, we don’t have great expectations for the G20 Summit to seriously address the climate crisis,” said Karen Orenstein, deputy director of economic policy at the left-leaning Friends of the Earth environmental group.
A senior White House official said the president will discuss how increased natural gas production has reduced greenhouse gas emissions while boosting the economy.
Meeting of oil giants: Saudi Arabia’s MbS will be sitting down with Trump on Saturday for a working breakfast meeting, and oil is sure to come up.
The crown prince was in Seoul on Thursday to personally oversee a number of major agreements with South Korean President Moon Jae-in to continue billions of dollars in oil refinery investments. Analysts say it’s part of a Saudi plan to secure market share in the region as U.S. oil exports continue to rise and sanctions keep Iran’s oil exports at bay.
Trump likes to keep tabs on OPEC oil dealings while routinely touting at rallies how the United States is now beating Saudi Arabia in oil production.
OPEC is meeting in Vienna, where the Saudis are leading talks on possibly continuing production cuts to balance the market and keep prices on the high side.
Meanwhile, Trump donors who are in the oil business want to see action on resolving the trade dispute with China.
Dan Eberhart, a Trump supporter and CEO of oil services giant Canary, told John in a recent interview that the president has been hinting at reaching a deal with President Xi Jinping for weeks. His company, and many others in the oil sector, has had a hard time with the tariffs, as they have raised costs.
Eberhart said he still supports the president going into 2020, but his trade policy makes him vulnerable “and he’s betting his presidency on it.”
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DEMOCRATS SQUABBLE OVER WHO CAN BEST FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE: Democratic presidential candidates who participated in the second night of debates Thursday made the most of limited time devoted to the subject of climate change by explaining why they could best tackle the problem.
The fossil fuel fighter: Bernie Sanders kicked things off with his usual promise to be an unabashed fighter against the fossil fuel industry while providing few specifics. Sanders, who has not introduced a climate change plan like many of his competitors, fought accusations from younger candidates that older people do not have the foresight to mitigate climate change.
“It’s not generational,” said Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont. “The issue is: Who has the guts to take on Wall Street, to take on the fossil fuel industry, to take on the big money interests who have unbelievable influence over the economic and political life of this country?”
A generational argument: Sanders spoke after California congressman Eric Swalwell directed a slight at frontrunner Joe Biden, imploring him and other older candidates to “pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.”
“If we’re going to solve the issue of climate chaos, pass the torch,” Swalwell said.
I’ve been here before: Later, Biden implicitly rejected the notion he is too old to appreciate the danger of climate change by detailing his record as President Barack Obama’s vice president.
Biden touted his work helping negotiate the Paris climate agreement, bristling at a suggestion by moderator Chuck Todd that the Obama administration failed to get a cap-and-trade climate bill across the finish line because it had used up its political capital on passing Obamacare.
“You’re so underestimating what Barack Obama did,” Biden said. “He’s the first man to bring together the entire world, 196 nations, to commit to deal with climate change, immediately.”
Biden said he would rejoin the Paris agreement, which Trump rejected, and set a stricter emissions reduction target. “We have to have someone who knows how to corral the rest of the world, bring them together and get something done, like we did in our administration,” Biden said.
He also committed to specific policies, such as investing $400 million in new science and technology “to be the exporter not only of the green economy” and building 500,000 recharging stations to help electric vehicles by 2030.
Policy is the answer: Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, also tried to drill down on policy specifics to make his case for why he can handle climate change.
Befitting his wonky image, Buttigieg embraced a type of carbon tax popular with moderates of both parties that would return the revenue to taxpayers. John Delaney, a former Maryland congressman, endorsed the same “carbon tax and dividend” approach in the first debate Wednesday.
“We need to do a carbon tax and dividend,” Buttigieg said. “I would propose we do it in a way that is rebated out to the American people in a progressive fashion so that most Americans are made more than whole.”
Buttigieg argued his stature as mayor of a midwestern state that has been harmed by worsening floods helps him understand the local impacts of climate change.
“This is not just happening on the Arctic ice caps; this is happening in the middle of the country,” he said. “Rural America can be part of the solution instead of being told they’re part of the problem. We’ve got to look to the leadership of local communities.”
Working with industry: John Hickenlooper, a moderate former Colorado governor, sought to contrast himself with others by arguing for working with oil and gas companies incrementally to combat climate change. He highlighted his work to impose in Colorado first-in-the-nation regulations of methane, a potent, short-lived greenhouse gas, achieved by negotiating with industry and environmental groups.
He criticized the Green New Deal, arguing its focus on government-provided jobs and health care leaves Democrats vulnerable to attacks of being socialist.
“Socialism is not the solution,” Hickenlooper said. “We have to look at what really will make a difference. We can’t demonize every business. We’ve got to bring them together to be part of this thing.”
KAMALA HARRIS BRANDS TRUMP A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT BECAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: Kamala Harris, who dominated the debate on many topics, also distinguished herself on climate change by demonstrating a willingness to confront Trump, warning the president’s inaction and skepticism of science are a danger to the world.
The California senator said climate change is a “crisis” that “represents an existential threat to us.”
“The fact we have a president who has embraced science fiction over science fact will be to our collective peril,” she said.
Harris declared Trump to be the “greatest national security threat to the United States” and suggested the president’s position on climate change is partly why, because “he denies the science” behind it. Harris has not released a climate change plan, but she broadly endorses the goals of the Green New Deal.
SENATE PASSES MEASURE TO BOOST CARBON CAPTURE AS PART OF DEFENSE BILL: The Senate passed a bipartisan bill Thursday to boost the economic case for carbon capture and storage technology, alongside the 2020 Defense Department spending authorization legislation.
The USE IT Act would invest $50 million to research carbon capture and utilization technologies that would trap carbon from industrial facilities and reuse it for commercial products.
It would also facilitate the construction of pipelines to transport the captured emissions to where it can be sold and set up a program to incentivize the creation of technologies that can suck carbon directly out of the air and store it underground, known as direct air capture.
The Senate’s passage of the measure earned praise from both business and environmental groups, with a broad recognition that advancements in carbon capture are needed to meet international climate targets.
A similar bill has been introduced in the House, but it has not received a vote.
TRUMP’S FISH AND WILDLIFE CHIEF CONFIRMED BY SENATE: The Senate unanimously confirmed Robert Wallace on Thursday to lead the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service.
Wallace was assistant director of legislative affairs for the National Park Service, a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill, and chief of staff to Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer.
The Senate also approved Lane Genatowski to be director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the Department of Energy’s research hub for clean energy technology breakthroughs.
GOP GROUP PROMOTING CARBON TAX ANNOUNCES PERSONNEL MOVES: The Climate Leadership Council, a Republican-backed group urging Congress to pass a federal carbon tax, announced personnel news Thursday.
Steve Rice will serve as managing director of Americans for Carbon Dividends, the advocacy arm of the Climate Leadership Council, a group led by two former Republican secretaries of state, James Baker III and George Shultz.
Rice, formerly of Boeing, will help build support for the group’s carbon tax proposal that would return the revenue to taxpayers.
Greg Bertelsen has been promoted to executive vice president of the Climate Leadership Council after serving in a similar role there.
The Rundown
Wall Street Journal The OPEC head who wants to talk to everybody
E&E News How 4 states view Trump’s carbon rule
Reuters Britain needs more nuclear power, electric chargers for climate goal, business lobby says
Axios Massachusetts sweetening the deal for energy storage systems
Calendar
FRIDAY | June 28
8 a.m.- 4 p.m., 1200 New York Avenue NW. The American Association for the Advancement of Science holds a symposium on “Beyond Electricity: Climate Change and the 75% Problem,” focusing on challenges in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in sectors such as industry, transportation, and agriculture.
MONDAY | July 1
Noon, 1400 16th Street NW. Resources for the Future launches the 2019 Global Energy Outlook: The Next Generation of Energy, the energy economics group’s annual review of global energy market projections by leading international energy organizations and corporations around the world.
THURSDAY | July 4
Independence Day.
