Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine and get Washington Briefing: politics and policy stories that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!
IS COP25 OVER YET? Countries didn’t leave Madrid with much to show for blowing through the scheduled Friday end of the U.N. annual climate conference, known as the 25th Conference of the Parties or COP25, and working nonstop through 2 p.m. Sunday.
Negotiators failed to reach agreement on the rules for an international carbon market under the Paris climate agreement. They also didn’t agree on the governance for a mechanism to help direct funding to developing countries for the losses and damages they experience from climate change.
Even where countries did agree, the outcome fell far short of expectations. Text of the agreement that was supposed to send a strong signal for countries to ramp up their voluntary emissions reduction pledges under the Paris deal next year only invites nations to “consider” the gap between their pledges and what must be done to achieve the climate pact’s temperature target.
It doesn’t explicitly urge nations to “enhance” their pledges next year — language many negotiators for small islands vulnerable countries, as well as environmentalists, were calling for.
Where the breakdown happened: Several large emitters drew bright red lines on how they wanted to count emissions credits, how they wanted loss and damage funding to be set up, and how far they were willing to push in strengthening emissions pledges — and then they refused to budge.
In a tense moment late Saturday, many of the world’s largest emitters, including the U.S., Brazil, China, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the European Union, held a closed negotiating session on the carbon market rules. They were trying to find agreement on whether countries could carry over emissions credits from the Kyoto Protocol, the pre-Paris climate deal, into the new market.
Small island nations and African countries, who insisted any carryover would compromise the environmental integrity of a global carbon market, weren’t invited.
“Are we a party to this process or not?” Carlos Fuller, from Belize and lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, told reporters Saturday. “I represent 44 countries. How can I not be a party to this process?”
Fuller said he’d blame the talks’ failure on certain countries that blocked efforts to increase transparency for emissions reporting and strengthen commitments to reducing emissions and adapting to climate change.
Don’t hate the game, hate the players: There were lots of questions in the hallways of the conference venue — as the hours ticked into early Sunday morning and the meeting’s closing plenary appeared to face endless delays — about whether the U.N. process was broken.
Late Saturday evening, environmental advocates held their own closing meeting — the “people’s plenary” — during which they railed on large emitters and the U.N. for handing the COP over to fossil fuel interests and littering the Paris Agreement with “loopholes.”
But even so, advocates didn’t declare the U.N. process dead.
“This forum is a very, very important forum,” Rachel Cleetus, climate and energy policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told reporters in Madrid. “It’s the only one, frankly, where least developed countries have the ability to engage directly, state what’s needed, explain the challenges that they face, and we make consensus decisions together as a world.”
It’s countries and corporations “playing an obstructionist role” that are poisoning the process, Jacqui Patterson, environmental and climate justice director for the NAACP, said in Madrid. She added that’s when “we need to make this more the true democracy that it’s supposed to be.”
What’s next: We wait for Glasgow, where negotiations could be even tougher.
2020 is the first true test for the Paris Agreement, when countries are supposed to ramp up their pledges. And it could be a telling reflection of the role of U.S. politics in these negotiations.
Negotiators will descend on the Scottish town just five days after the U.S. formally exits the Paris deal, and just four days after the 2020 presidential election.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
US REPUTATION TAKES A HIT: The U.S. didn’t come into the U.N. climate talks with the best reputation, and that only got worse as the two weeks went on.
Small island nations and environmentalists accused U.S. negotiators, a team of all career staffers from the State Department and other agencies, of blocking more funding for loss and damage from climate change and opposing stronger language to ramp up emissions pledges under the Paris Agreement next year.
That push came even as the U.S. is exiting the global climate deal in 2020, a frustration in the minds of many in Madrid.
U.S. negotiators, though, defended their engagement in the talks: “We are working to achieve a level playing field,” said Marcia Bernicat, principal deputy assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, in a statement.
“We will continue to provide our leadership in the way we innovate, share, and sell technology and know-how to the rest of the world to help improve the environment everywhere,” Bernicat, who led the U.S. delegation to the talks, added.
OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY BRACES FOR CHINA TRADE DEAL DETAILS: Senior administration officials told reporters that China “committed to increasing their purchases of manufactured goods, agricultural goods, energy products, and services by at least $200 billion over the course of the next two years” as part of a “phase one” trade agreement Friday.
The White House has promised to further break down the purchases included in those categories, but has not done so.
One source close to the administration told Josh that China agreed to buy more liquified natural gas from the U.S.
But oil and LNG in the crosshairs: But retaliatory tariffs imposed by China on imports of U.S. energy do not appear to have been lifted or reduced by the new trade deal.
That includes a 25% tariff on imports of U.S. LNG and a 5% tariff on crude oil.
“De-escalation is a positive step forward, but we urge both countries to continue working toward a final agreement that completely lifts tariffs on both sides and fully restores U.S. energy export growth opportunities in China, one of our most important global export markets,” said Aaron Padilla, senior advisor for international policy at the American Petroleum Institute.
Since the beginning of the trade war in July 2018, exports of U.S. natural gas, oil, and refined products to China have sharply declined, data kept by API shows.
RESCUE ON THE WAY FOR COAL MINERS WITH SPENDING BILL: A 2020 spending package being negotiated by congressional leaders will include a measure shoring up pensions and health care for miners at risk from recent coal company bankruptcies.
Coal state Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced Monday morning that his bipartisan American Miners Act has been included in the final funding package to keep the federal government running.
The bill, co-sponsored by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, would prevent the insolvency of the United Mine Workers of America 1974 Pension Plan. It will also protect the health care for miners who would lose coverage because of bankruptcies in 2018 and 2019.
Bill sponsors say these actions would secure the pensions of 92,000 coal miners and protect health care benefits for 15,000 miners.
CLEAN ENERGY GROUPS FEAR TAX EXTENDERS SHUTOUT: Clean energy groups fear their priorities for extending and expanding expiring tax credits for solar, wind and other clean energy technologies will be left out of year-end legislating negotiations.
However, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are seeking at least some clean energy wins.
One potential low-hanging fruit could be extending the investment tax credit to include energy storage, a bipartisan push being led by Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner of Colorado, both vulnerable Republican senators in purple states.
“Senator Collins is supportive of including the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act in the tax extender package,” a spokesperson told Josh.
Republicans are resisting another clean energy priority — expanding the tax credit for electric vehicle — making it less likely it will make the spending bill.
CENTRIST DEMOCRATS RUN FROM GREEN NEW DEAL: The Green New Deal has high-profile backers in Congress, but Democratic candidates running in the party’s primaries for spots further down the ballot and against Republicans in November 2020 are keeping their distance from it, the Washington Examiner’s Naomi Lim reported Monday.
Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, a centrist Democrat first elected to the House in 2004, has upped his criticism of the Green New Deal as he seeks re-election.
Cuellar faces a 2020 primary challenge from attorney Jessica Cisneros, who is running with support from Justice Democrats, the same liberal political action committee that backed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise primary win last cycle.
Justice Democrats “believe in a Green Deal,” Cuellar said. “And in my area, for example, it would kill thousands of jobs.”
California Rep. Harley Rouda, a freshman who flipped the Orange County seat held by 30-year Republican Dana Rohrabacher, deflected a question over whether he would vote for the Green New Deal should the House consider it. He added in a separate interview that GOP uproar regarding the Green New Deal was distracting lawmakers from a more nuanced conversation about climate-related issues, a significant concern in his coastal district.
Across the Capitol complex, Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who joined other Democrats in voting “present” when the Green New Deal was brought to the Senate’s floor in March, has faced a series of protests over his qualified endorsement of the framework.
Peters’s spokesperson this month distanced him from the Green New Deal.
“Sen. Peters did not vote for the Green New Deal when it came to a vote on the Senate floor,” the statement read. “His focus is on commonsense efforts that effectively address climate change and protect the Great Lakes in a manner that will benefit Michigan workers and strengthen our economy and national security.”
SENATE TO BEGIN VOTING ON NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT: The Senate is convening Monday afternoon for a procedural vote on the bipartisan $738 billion defense policy bill, which would sanction companies constructing Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany and its TurkStream pipeline to Turkey.
A BIPARTISAN BOOST FOR GEOTHERMAL: The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Science Committee introduced legislation Friday to advance geothermal energy technologies.
The Advanced Geothermal Research and Development Act would authorize and expand the Energy Department’s early-stage research in enhanced geothermal systems and the facilities needed to support it.
Although the U.S. leads the world in installed geothermal capacity, it accounts for only 2% of the country’s renewable energy.
“Geothermal energy is a tremendous but largely untapped source of power,” said top Republican Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, who introduced the bill with chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas. “What we need is focused, early-stage research so industry can take that foundational knowledge and use it to develop advanced technologies that allow us to better use geothermal energy.”
The Rundown
The Atlantic A major but little-known supporter of climate denial: freight railroads
Axios Is 80 years just a number? Maybe for America’s aging nuclear plants
Wall Street Journal Shale slowdown takes economic toll
Reuters Exxon, Chevron face new round of climate resolutions
Calendar
TUESDAY | DECEMBER 17
9:30 a.m. 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a business meeting to consider the nomination of Robert J. Feitel to be inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, along with S. 3051, America’s Conservation Enhancement Act.
10 a.m. to noon. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to consider the nomination of Lanny E. Erdos to be Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement at the Interior Department.
12:30 p.m. National Press Club. Actor and activist Jane Fonda will speak at a National Press Club Headliners luncheon on her movement to push for political action on climate change.
THURSDAY | DECEMBER 19
9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine the impacts of wildfire on electric grid reliability and efforts to mitigate wildfire risk and increase grid resiliency.
