RACIAL (IN)JUSTICE: Black Lives Matter movement marks 10 years of activism and renews its call to defund the police (AP)
COP28: EU to push for fossil fuel phaseout ‘well ahead of 2050’ at Cop28 (Climate Home), India’s Modi to discuss climate change, COP28 on UAE visit (Bloomberg $), UAE to set out vision for UN climate summit (FT $)
- EMISSIONS: Climate talks chief, who also heads oil company, says world must ‘attack all emissions, everywhere’ (AP)
FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Ukraine warns it won’t negotiate new Russian gas transit deal (Politico Pro $)
9:37 🚂 TO THE PETROCHEMICAL DYSTOPIA: Chemical irritant polluted air after Ohio train derailment: study (The Hill)
CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Europe agrees landmark nature and climate deal after tense negotiations (CNN, New York Times $, Inside Climate News, The Hill, Democracy Now), Canada pledges US$340m to UN’s Green Climate Fund (Climate Home, Reuters)
INSURANCE: ‘Cascading impacts’ warning as Farmers becomes latest insurer to quit Florida (The Guardian, Gizmodo), ‘Bud Light of insurance’: Florida official blames insurer crisis on wokeness (MSNBC), Property insurers' ratings under pressure as risk rises, Morningstar says (Reuters), Vermont is the soggy edge of America’s flood insurance crisis (Heatmap $), What is flood insurance, and why do you need it? (CNN), Why insurance companies are fleeing Florida (Heatmap $)
GOP vs. ESG: 4 takeaways from House Republicans' anti-ESG hearing (Politico Pro $)
CRISIS OF EXCLUSION: Boat found off Senegal’s coast adds to mystery over migrant vessels reported missing (AP)
SCOTUS: Lawyers with Supreme Court business paid Clarence Thomas aide via Venmo (The Guardian)
AGENCIES: US Department of Agriculture to invest $300 million in monitoring agricultural emissions (AP, New York Times $, Reuters)
EPA: EPA affirms decision to pull Trump cost-benefit rule (Politico Pro $), EPA moves to reduce childhood exposure to lead-based paint dust (AP, Politico Pro $, The Hill, Grist), Millions of homes, schools may have to eliminate lead dust under EPA plan (Washington Post $)
DOE: Biden administration announces $660 million to plug abandoned wells (Grist), Energy Department invests $45M to bolster US solar manufacturing (Utility Dive)
WHITE HOUSE: US climate envoy John Kerry to visit China as talks pick up again (CNBC)
THE HILL: The Farm Bill could address climate change and structural racism (Prism Reports)
SENATE: Fossil fuel booster speaks to Senate Republicans (E&E News), Senator says New Mexico eligible for $25M to plug, clean up abandoned oil wells (AP)
CITIES AND STATES: As East Harlem waits for infrastructure projects to mitigate flood risk, residents are creating their own solutions (Inside Climate News), Hawai’i will be first state to install federally-funded EV chargers, with others soon to follow: officials (Utility Dive, Honolulu Star Advertiser), Mayor’s response to wildfire smoke was sluggish, New York officials say (New York Times $), Missouri overhauls electric rates, raising rewards — and risks — for customers (E&E News), Too much heat, too few "chief heat officers" (Axios)
IMPACTS: Floods, fires and deadly heat are the alarm bells of a planet on the brink (Washington Post $), Vermont capital submerged in floodwaters with dam on verge of capacity (Reuters, Democracy Now), China evacuates 40,000 people from floods, more rain expected (Reuters), Climate change in India: A growing environmental crisis (Deutsche Welle), How fast are the seas rising? (Yale Climate Connections), World’s oceans changing colour due to climate breakdown, study suggests (The Guardian, CNN, Bloomberg $), Flash flooding expected in southern Arkansas and north Louisiana (New York Times $, KTLA, Magnolia Reporter), El Nino is threatening rice crops while grain supplies already are squeezed by the war in Ukraine (AP)
HEAT: 3 reasons why this summer is so damn hot (Vox)
- NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to survive a blackout in a heat wave (Heatmap $)
- NOT HOT NEWS ENDORSED: The surprising reason you shouldn’t eat lots of ice cream when it’s hot out (Washington Post $)
WILDFIRES: Multiple fires erupt as heat wave descends on Southern California (LA Times $)
DROUGHT: Uruguay facing worst drought in decades (NBC)
DEFORESTATION: Colombia says deforestation fell 29% in 2022 (Reuters)
LUMBER: The wood industry releases more carbon than Russia — and we’re mostly not counting its emissions: study (The Hill, LA Times $, Mongabay, Grist)
TOMATOES: An Indian culinary must-have is off the menu as prices jump 400% (CNN)
RENEWABLES: BP, Total win in $14 billion German offshore wind site tender (Reuters, FT $), German wind permits continue to rise ahead of 3 GW August tender (S&P Global), Hornsea Four offshore wind farm given green light after five-month delay (The Guardian), Lawsuits could delay the start of New Jersey’s first offshore wind power project (AP), Wind turbines in Brazil stir conflict with Indigenous rights (Context)
BATTERIES: Can mobile batteries make dirty diesel generators obsolete? (Canary Media), How $90 million could help US buildings withstand climate disasters (Washington Post $), Volkswagen wades into electricity trading, weighs large-scale battery storage (Bloomberg $)
BUILDINGS: Why a $90 million push could help US buildings withstand climate disasters (Washington Post $)
BUILDING MATERIALS: Pilot project uses volcanic ash to make cement (Yale Climate Connections), Cement can’t be sustainable if it falls apart. This firm may have a fix. (Washington Post $)
OIL & GAS: Brent closes above $80 for first time since April on cooling CPI (Bloomberg $, OilPrice), European gas falls to lowest in a month as troll set to resume (Bloomberg $), Extreme heat is pushing the US toward a grim new fossil fuel milestone (HuffPost)
MINERALS: Demand for lithium and other critical minerals is skyrocketing, IEA says, but concerns over supply linger (CNBC), IEA celebrates energy transition minerals investment, as fears of shortage lessen (Climate Home), IEA: EV battery manufacturing capacity now on track for net-zero target (Politico Pro $)
PIPELINES: Army Corps limits scope of Line 5 tunnel environmental review (Michigan Advance), Court halts section of construction on Mountain Valley Pipeline (Democracy Now)
HYDROGEN: Germany to hook up industrial hubs with hydrogen supplies (Bloomberg $)
NUKES: The US may soon get its first new source of nuclear fuel in 70 years (Canary Media)
UTILITIES: A third of utilities have begun to pilot generative AI for customer service, other uses: report (Utility Dive), DTE to retire coal plants by 2032, invest $11 billion in clean energy push (Reuters)
GRID: Why the high price of modernizing the US power grid is worth it (Axios)
EVs: Rivian breakout is expanding the rift in EV stocks (Bloomberg $), UAW chief says ahead of talks union prepared to strike against Big Three automakers (The Hill), Volkswagen overhauls its charging and energy business (Utility Dive)
AVIATION: Fueling jets with trash? Investment flows into sustainable aviation fuel (Wall Street Journal $)
AGRICULTURE: A river at Europe’s heart gives a climate solution to riled farmers (Bloomberg $), An Arizona farmer on how to grow alfalfa in the middle of the desert (Bloomberg $), Planting seeds for more equitable farming (Atmos)
BOOKS: Apocalypse nowish: Singing the prophetic warnings of Octavia Butler (New York Times $), Repairing the roads that were built to divide (Bloomberg, Veronica Davis interview $)
BUSINESSES: ‘Greenhushing’: Why some companies quietly hide their climate pledges (Washington Post $)
CARBON PRICING: Will the voluntary carbon market survive mistrust and regulation? (Context)
WILDLIFE: New York’s shark-infested waters are a good thing. Yes, really. (Vox)
INTERNATIONAL: China signals deeper reforms in power sector, focus on carbon emissions (Reuters), Future murky for big China bill with energy, climate language (E&E News), Indonesia to urge G20 to label coal power plant retirement funding as green (Reuters)