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Climate

Downgraded Debby Churns North

On record rainfall, carbon removal standards, and a methane vaccine.

Downgraded Debby Churns North
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: At least 11 people have died from extreme heat in South Korea • A fast-moving fire scorched 100 acres in California’s San Bernardino county • The Atlantic’s Saharan dust plume is disappearing, which could make for stronger tropical storms.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Southeast braces for record rainfall as Debby lingers

Hurricane Debby has been downgraded to a tropical storm after slamming into Florida’s Big Bend region yesterday. Despite the downgrade, the storm remains extremely dangerous. In the days to come, it is expected to bring historic rainfall and life-threatening flooding to Georgia and the Carolinas as it churns up the coast. “Major flooding is the number one concern with Debby going forward,” according to The Weather Channel. In Sarasota, Florida, more than 11 inches of rain fell Sunday, breaking a daily record from 1945. “Essentially we’ve had twice the amount of the rain that was predicted for us to have,” Sarasota County Fire Chief David Rathbun said. More than 150,000 customers are without power, and at least five people are known to have died in the storm.

The Weather Channel

2. New Carbon Removal Standards Initiative launches

There’s a new player in carbon removal. The Carbon Removal Standards Initiative wants to help establish a different system for advancing carbon removal — one where the challenging but important goal of scrubbing CO2 from the atmosphere is treated as a public good and not just a business opportunity. The initiative is run by Anu Khan, the former deputy director of science and innovation at Carbon180. CRSI will provide technical assistance to policymakers, regulators, and nongovernmental organizations in quantifying carbon removal outcomes, and as Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported, “Khan hopes CRSI will be a fulcrum around which the entire industry can begin to pivot.”

3. Rivian to report Q2 earnings

EV startup Rivian reports Q2 earnings today, after months of cost-cutting measures in its quest for profitability. We already know the company delivered nearly 13,800 vehicles, which was a slight improvement on Q1 but down from Q4 of last year. Wall Street analysts expect revenue to have hit $1.15 billion, with losses of about $1.24 per share. CEO RJ Scaringe has cautioned investors that this quarter will be “messy” but hopes they’ll hang in there until efficiency upgrades to the manufacturing process start to pay off in the company balance sheets. Last month Rivian announced a $5 billion joint venture with Volkswagen that boosted its stock. The startup is working on its next-gen R2 and R3 vehicles, which are “expected to significantly expand its market,” wrote Peter Johnson at Electrek. But they’re not expected until 2026.

4. Trump says he has ‘no choice’ but to embrace EVs

Former President Donald Trump told supporters at a rally that he has “no choice” but to support electric cars. Why? “Because Elon endorsed me very strongly.” He’s referring, of course, to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has backed Trump’s campaign. The two men have reportedly been speaking on the phone lately and despite Trump’s long history of trashing EVs, he seems to have changed his mind. Trump told the rally crowd EVs would make up a “small slice” of the auto industry and that “every kind of car” would be available. Trump’s concession “already feels very much like quid-pro-quo for the support of the world’s richest man,” wrote Rob Stumpf at Inside EVs.

5. Bezos Earth Fund puts $9.4 million toward cow methane vaccine research

The Bezos Earth Fund is pouring $9.4 million into researching whether a vaccine could be given to cows to cut their methane emissions. The funding will go to the Pirbright Institute and the Royal Veterinary College, which will “use state-of-the-art biotechnology to figure out the mechanism by which a vaccine could cut livestock methane emissions by more than 30%.” Microbes in the guts of cattle produce methane, which the cows burp out. Methane is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide that many see as a good target for limiting global warming in the short term. There are a lot of ongoing efforts to curb agricultural methane emissions – from feed additives to better ranch management – but “a vaccine offers a universal solution which is both scalable and cost effective,” the fund said.

THE KICKER

Morgan Stanley yesterday released its annual intern survey, which examines the likes and dislikes of nearly 600 of the company’s summer interns to reveal the evolving preferences of future business leaders. It finds that Tesla is now less popular than Mercedes and BMW, and gas-powered cars are favored over EVs nearly 2-to-1.

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Politics

AM Briefing: Climate Grants Terminated

On Lee Zeldin’s announcement, coal’s decline, and Trump’s Tesla promo

The EPA’s $20 Billion Climate Grants Have Been Terminated
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Alaska just had its third-warmest winter on record • Spain’s four-year drought is nearing an end • Another atmospheric river is bearing down on the West Coast, triggering evacuation warnings around Los Angeles’ burn scars.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Zeldin terminates $20 billion in climate grants

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said yesterday he had terminated $20 billion in congressionally-approved climate change and clean energy grants “following a comprehensive review and consistent with multiple ongoing independent federal investigations into programmatic fraud, waste, abuse and conflicts of interest.”

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Climate

What the NOAA Layoffs Are Doing to Climate Science

And how ordinary Americans will pay the price.

A hand in the NOAA logo.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

No one seems to know exactly how many employees have been laid off from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — or, for that matter, what offices those employees worked at, what jobs they held, or what regions of the country will be impacted by their absence. We do know that it was a lot of people; about 10% of the roughly 13,000 people who worked at the agency have left since Donald Trump took office, either because they were among the 800 or so probationary employees to be fired late last month or because they resigned.

“I don’t have the specifics as to which offices, or how many people from specific geographic areas, but I will reiterate that every one of the six [NOAA] line offices and 11 of the staff offices — think of the General Counsel’s Office or the Legislative Affairs Office — all 11 of those staff offices have suffered terminations,” Rick Spinrad, who served as the NOAA administrator under President Joe Biden, told reporters in a late February press call. (At least a few of the NOAA employees who were laid off have since been brought back.)

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Podcast

How Trump Has All But Halted Offshore Wind

Rob and Jesse talk with Heatmap senior reporter Jael Holzman.

Offshore wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s second term has now entered its second month. His administration is doing much to slow down renewables, and everything it can to slow down offshore wind. Jael Holzman is a senior reporter at Heatmap and the author of our newsletter, “The Fight,” about local battles over renewable permitting around the country.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk to Jael about the bleak outlook for offshore wind, the use of presidential authority to impede energy development, and why solar has been spared — so far. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.

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