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On COP29 funding goals, congestion pricing, and the Cybertruck
Current conditions: Smog in India has obscured views of the towering Taj Mahal • Thousands of people have evacuated Málaga, Spain, due to extreme flooding • Most of the U.S. will experience higher-than-average temperatures through the end of the week.
Developing nations will need at least $1 trillion a year in climate finance by 2030, growing to $1.3 trillion by 2035, according to new analysis from economists with the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance. The study was released as negotiators continue to hammer out a new climate finance goal at COP29. The current funding goal – $100 billion per year – was agreed in 2009. Meanwhile, Brazil unveiled its new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) yesterday. The country aims to cut emissions between 59% and 67% by 2035 compared to 2005 levels and “gradually replace” the use of fossil fuels. But as Climate Home Newsreported, “the South American nation is also planning to increase oil and gas production by 36% by the same year.” The U.S. is expected to announce its new NDC at the climate summit.
A new report published this morning finds that projections for temperature increases through 2100 remain stagnant for the third year in a row. The research group Climate Action Tracker found that the world is likely to warm by 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. But there’s a 50% chance the number could be lower – or higher. By 2030, temperatures are now expected to rise somewhere between 1.9 and 2.6 degrees Celsius (3.4 and 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), a slight uptick thanks to “minimal progress” from governments in strengthening emissions targets. “Mixed signals from the political space are canceling each other out and clearly hindering progress in climate action,” the report said. “COP29 must be an enabling COP, delivering concrete outcomes to translate the pledges made last year into real-world, real-economy results.”
Climate Action Tracker
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will re-introduce a plan to introduce congestion pricing for vehicles traveling into Lower Manhattan, but the fees will be significantly lower than those in the original proposal: $9 compared to $15. The plan could be fast-tracked for approval by next week and could go into effect before January, The New York Timesreported, “a time frame that aims to pre-empt [President-elect Donald] Trump’s vows to kill the program.”
The storm system churning in the Caribbean is expected to become Tropical Storm Sara today and poses a “catastrophic risk to lives and property” in Honduras, Belize, and Nicaragua. Areas in Central America with steep terrain “are especially vulnerable to flooding,” AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jon Porter said. Tropical storm and hurricane alerts have been issued for the region. The National Hurricane Center warns of dangerous flash flooding and mudslides. The storm could strengthen into a hurricane by the weekend, though its trajectory is uncertain and Floridians are advised to keep an eye on the situation.
NOAA and NHC
Tesla issued another recall for the Cybertruck this week due to a fault with the drive inverter that “may cause it to stop producing torque. If the inverter stops producing torque, the driver loses the ability to apply torque to the vehicle using the accelerator pedal resulting in a loss of propulsion, which may increase the risk of a collision.” This is the Cybertruck’s sixth recall, and it applies to about 2,400 trucks. This particular fault can’t be fixed with a software update, so vehicles have to be serviced and the inverter replaced.
Researchers have discovered the world’s largest known coral colony in the Solomon Islands. Measuring 111 feet wide, 105 feet long, and 18 feet tall, the mega coral is estimated to be at least 300 years old. Its location deep down in cool waters may help protect it from rising temperatures.
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Did a battery plant disaster in California spark a PR crisis on the East Coast?
Battery fire fears are fomenting a storage backlash in New York City – and it risks turning into fresh PR hell for the industry.
Aggrieved neighbors, anti-BESS activists, and Republican politicians are galvanizing more opposition to battery storage in pockets of the five boroughs where development is actually happening, capturing rapt attention from other residents as well as members of the media. In Staten Island, a petition against a NineDot Energy battery project has received more than 1,300 signatures in a little over two months. Two weeks ago, advocates – backed by representatives of local politicians including Rep. Nicole Mallitokis – swarmed a public meeting on the project, getting a local community board to vote unanimously against the project.
According to Heatmap Pro’s proprietary modeling of local opinion around battery storage, there are likely twice as many strong opponents than strong supporters in the area:
Heatmap Pro
Yesterday, leaders in the Queens community of Hempstead enacted a year-long ban on BESS for at least a year after GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, other local politicians, and a slew of aggrieved residents testified in favor of a moratorium. The day before, officials in the Long Island town of Southampton said at a public meeting they were ready to extend their battery storage ban until they enshrined a more restrictive development code – even as many energy companies testified against doing so, including NineDot and solar plus storage developer Key Capture Energy. Yonkers also recently extended its own battery moratorium.
This flurry of activity follows the Moss Landing battery plant fire in California, a rather exceptional event caused by tech that was extremely old and a battery chemistry that is no longer popular in the sector. But opponents of battery storage don’t care – they’re telling their friends to stop the community from becoming the next Moss Landing. The longer this goes on without a fulsome, strident response from the industry, the more communities may rally against them. Making matters even worse, as I explained in The Fight earlier this year, we’re seeing battery fire concerns impact solar projects too.
“This is a huge problem for solar. If [fires] start regularly happening, communities are going to say hey, you can’t put that there,” Derek Chase, CEO of battery fire smoke detection tech company OnSight Technologies, told me at Intersolar this week. “It’s going to be really detrimental.”
I’ve long worried New York City in particular may be a powder keg for the battery storage sector given its omnipresence as a popular media environment. If it happens in New York, the rest of the world learns about it.
I feel like the power of the New York media environment is not lost on Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella, a de facto leader of the anti-BESS movement in the boroughs. Last fall I interviewed Fossella, whose rhetorical strategy often leans on painting Staten Island as an overburdened community. (At least 13 battery storage projects have been in the works in Staten Island according to recent reporting. Fossella claims that is far more than any amount proposed elsewhere in the city.) He often points to battery blazes that happen elsewhere in the country, as well as fears about lithium-ion scooters that have caught fire. His goal is to enact very large setback distance requirements for battery storage, at a minimum.
“You can still put them throughout the city but you can’t put them next to people’s homes – what happens if one of these goes on fire next to a gas station,” he told me at the time, chalking the wider city government’s reluctance to capitulate on batteries to a “political problem.”
Well, I’m going to hold my breath for the real political problem in waiting – the inevitable backlash that happens when Mallitokis, D’Esposito, and others take this fight to Congress and the national stage. I bet that’s probably why American Clean Power just sent me a notice for a press briefing on battery safety next week …
And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.
2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.
3. Bandera County, Texas – On a slightly brighter note for solar, it appears that Pine Gate Renewables’ Rio Lago solar project might just be safe from county restrictions.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
In Illinois, Armoracia Solar is struggling to get necessary permits from Madison County.
In Kentucky, the mayor of Lexington is getting into a public spat with East Kentucky Power Cooperative over solar.
In Michigan, Livingston County is now backing the legal challenge to Michigan’s state permitting primacy law.
On the week’s top news around renewable energy policy.
1. IRA funding freeze update – Money is starting to get out the door, finally: the EPA unfroze most of its climate grant funding it had paused after Trump entered office.
2. Scalpel vs. sledgehammer – House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled Republicans in Congress may take a broader approach to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act than previously expected in tax talks.
3. Endangerment in danger – The EPA is reportedly urging the White House to back reversing its 2009 “endangerment” finding on air pollutants and climate change, a linchpin in the agency’s overall CO2 and climate regulatory scheme.