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Climate

Fossil Fuel Emissions Are Still Rising

On the carbon budget, Rivian, and permitting reform

Fossil Fuel Emissions Are Still Rising
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: A brush fire caused major delays to Amtrak journeys along the East Coast • More flood alerts have been issued for Spain as new storms loom • It’s cloudy in Washington, where President Biden will host President-elect Donald Trump at the White House today.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Fossil fuel emissions are still going up

Global fossil fuel emissions are projected to rise again this year, and there is “no sign” of a peak, according to the Global Carbon Project. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal in 2024 will hit about 37.4 billion metric tons, up 0.8% from 2023. Total CO2 emissions – including from land-use changes like deforestation and wildfires – will rise to 41.6 billion metric tons, up from 40.6 billion metric tons last year. Projected emissions vary on a regional level: China’s are expected to rise by 0.2%, while U.S. emissions are expected to fall 0.6%. India’s will be up 4.6%, while the EU’s will be down by nearly 4%. Notably, emissions from land-use changes have been falling for a decade but are set to rise this year. And then there’s this sobering reminder: “Current levels of technology-based Carbon Dioxide Removal (excluding nature-based means such as reforestation) only account for about one-millionth of the CO2 emitted from fossil fuels.” The research team behind the project estimates that the 1.5 degrees Celsius target will be breached in six years.

Relatedly, in a speech at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, asked: “What does it mean for the future of the world if the biggest polluters continue as usual? What on Earth are we doing in this gathering, over and over and over, if there is no common political will on the horizon to go beyond words and unite for meaningful action?”

2. Climate finance goal debate continues at COP

In other news from Baku, nations have been debating the draft text for a new climate finance goal, the most anticipated initiative at this year’s conference. Carbon Brief’s Josh Gabbatiss reported that the text had “ballooned” from 9 pages to 34. “Before there were just 3 options for what the goal would look like – now there are also 13 ‘sub-options,’” he said. A large number of developing countries reportedly rejected the original document, asking for at least $1.3 trillion in adaptation finance and saying they don’t want to broaden the contributor base to include China and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, developed countries “are indicating that they don’t want to commit to providing more than $100 billion a year unless the contributor base is expanded,” Climate Home Newsreported. A new draft text on the finance goal is expected later today.

3. Rivian and Volkswagen finalize joint venture

The $5 billion deal between Rivian and Volkswagen Group, announced back in June, was finalized this week. And it’s about 16% bigger than initially thought, according toTechCrunch. Volkswagen will actually invest up to $5.8 billion in the electric pickup maker through 2027. The partnership will provide an influx of capital for Rivian, while VW gets access to the EV company’s technology. The joint venture kicks off today.

4. Exclusive: Lawsuit threatens Michigan’s permitting reform law

The most important legal challenge for the renewables industry in America may have just been filed in Michigan, reported Jael Holzman in a Heatmap exclusive. On Friday afternoon, about 70 towns and a handful of Michigan counties appealed the rule implementing part of a new renewable energy siting law – PA 233 – providing primary permitting authority to the Michigan Public Services Commission and usurping local approval powers in specific cases. The law was part of a comprehensive permitting package passed last year by the state legislature and seen by climate advocates as a potential model for combatting NIMBYs across the country. The appeal challenges multiple aspects of the law’s implementation, saying it went beyond statute, as well as the rulemaking procedure itself, claiming it failed to follow proper processes. “The lawsuit aims to effectively undo the law going into effect,” Holzman explained, “or at least enjoin what opponents say are the most onerous restrictions on municipalities and county governments.”

5. Florida prepares for another potential hurricane

Forecasters are watching a tropical development in the western Caribbean that is expected to strengthen into Sara, the 18th named storm of the season and the 12th hurricane. The storm could strike Florida as a hurricane next week, according to AccuWeather, just weeks after Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck the state. “Should the feature become a hurricane, it would be the 12th of the season, which is a testament to the supercharged nature of the season, where the historical average is seven hurricanes,” said AccuWeather’s hurricane expert Alex DaSilva said.

AccuWeather

THE KICKER

“There is no national security, there is no economic security, there is no global security, without climate security.” –U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaking at COP29.

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Climate

AM Briefing: A Forecasting Crisis

On climate chaos, DOE updates, and Walmart’s emissions

We’re Gonna Need a Better Weather Model
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Bosnia’s capital of Sarajevo is blanketed in a layer of toxic smog • Temperatures in Perth, in Western Australia, could hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend • It is cloudy in Washington, D.C., where lawmakers are scrambling to prevent a government shutdown.

THE TOP FIVE

1. NOAA might have to change its weather models

The weather has gotten so weird that the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is holding internal talks about how to adjust its models to produce more accurate forecasts, the Financial Timesreported. Current models are based on temperature swings observed over one part of the Pacific Ocean that have for years correlated consistently with specific weather phenomena across the globe, but climate change seems to be disrupting that cause and effect pattern, making it harder to predict things like La Niña and El Niño. Many forecasters had expected La Niña to appear by now and help cool things down, but that has yet to happen. “It’s concerning when this region we’ve studied and written all these papers on is not related to all the impacts you’d see with [La Niña],” NOAA’s Michelle L’Heureux told the FT. “That’s when you start going ‘uh-oh’ there may be an issue here we need to resolve.”

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Culture

2024 Was the Year the Climate Movie Grew Up

Whether you agree probably depends on how you define “climate movie” to begin with.

2024 movies.
Heatmap Illustration

Climate change is the greatest story of our time — but our time doesn’t seem to invent many great stories about climate change. Maybe it’s due to the enormity and urgency of the subject matter: Climate is “important,” and therefore conscripted to the humorless realms of journalism and documentary. Or maybe it’s because of a misunderstanding on the part of producers and storytellers, rooted in an outdated belief that climate change still needs to be explained to an audience, when in reality they don’t need convincing. Maybe there’s just not a great way to have a character mention climate change and not have it feel super cringe.

Whatever the reason, between 2016 and 2020, less than 3% of film and TV scripts used climate-related keywords during their runtime, according to an analysis by media researchers at the University of Southern California. (The situation isn’t as bad in literature, where cli-fi has been going strong since at least 2013.) At least on the surface, this on-screen avoidance of climate change continued in 2024. One of the biggest movies of the summer, Twisters, had an extreme weather angle sitting right there, but its director, Lee Isaac Chung, went out of his way to ensure the film didn’t have a climate change “message.”

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Politics

Republicans Will Regret Killing Permitting Reform

They might not be worried now, but Democrats made the same mistake earlier this year.

Permitting reform's tombstone.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Permitting reform is dead in the 118th Congress.

It died earlier this week, although you could be forgiven for missing it. On Tuesday, bipartisan talks among lawmakers fell apart over a bid to rewrite parts of the National Environmental Policy Act. The changes — pushed for by Representative Bruce Westerman, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee — would have made it harder for outside groups to sue to block energy projects under NEPA, a 1970 law that governs the country’s process for environmental decisionmaking.

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