Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Climate

Clean Energy Investment Is Eclipsing Fossil Fuel Funding

On a new IEA report, Hochul’s congestion pricing u-turn, and the heat dome

Clean Energy Investment Is Eclipsing Fossil Fuel Funding
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Unseasonably cool temperatures brought snow to parts of Scotland • New South Wales in Australia recorded more than a month’s worth of rain in just 12 hours • Multiple tornadoes were reported across Maryland.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Gov. Hochul pauses NYC congestion pricing ‘indefinitely’

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced yesterday that she will “indefinitely pause” the long-awaited NYC congestion pricing program that was set to start on June 30. The policy would have charged drivers for entering some of the city’s busiest areas, raising $1 billion annually for the transit authority, cutting pollution, and easing traffic congestion. It would have been the first such program in the nation. But, no more. Hochul said it risked “too many unintended consequences.”

Environmental groups, state budget hawks, and transit advocates are outraged by the u-turn. Her decision “will be a generational setback for climate policy in the United States,” wrote an incensed Robinson Meyer for Heatmap. “New York was bushwhacking a trail for everyone else to follow: If congestion policy was a success there, then other American cities could experiment with it in some form. By pausing that trial before it has even begun, Hochul has essentially frozen our ability to experiment with congestion pricing anywhere else in the country.”

2. IEA: Clean energy investment set to double fossil fuels in 2024

Global investment in clean energy is on track to reach $2 trillion in 2024, double the $1 trillion expected to be invested in fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency. In its new World Energy Investment report, out today, the IEA said global spending on renewables surpassed the amount invested in fossil fuels last year for the first time. Most of the money is going toward solar power. Here’s a look at recent annual investment in solar PV (light blue) compared to all other power generation sources (dark blue):

IEA

China accounts for the largest share of clean energy investment by a long shot, and China, the U.S., and Europe make up more than two thirds of the world’s clean energy investment. “More must be done to ensure that investment reaches the places where it is needed most, in particular the developing economies where access to affordable, sustainable and secure energy is severely lacking today,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. Even as clean energy funds are flowing, spending on oil and gas is set to rise this year and remains far too high to meet the world’s climate goals, the report said. Just 4% of oil and gas companies’ 2023 investments went toward clean energy.

3. UN secretary-general calls for global ban on fossil fuel ads

António Guterres yesterday urged nations to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies in a speech at the American Museum of Natural History. The UN secretary-general called the fossil fuel industry “the Godfathers of climate chaos,” and said advertising and PR agencies that take Big Oil on as clients are “enablers to planetary destruction.” He said the end of the fossil fuel age was an economic inevitability, but that global emissions need to fall 9% every year until 2030 to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius alive. The next 18 months will be key to deciding our future, he said. “I call on leaders in the fossil fuel industry to understand that if you are not in the fast lane to clean energy transformation, you are driving your business into a dead end – and taking us all with you,” Guterres said.

The speech coincided with a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) concluding there is an 80% chance that the global annual average temperature will exceed the 1.5C degree increase in one (or more) of the next five years. That’s up from a 66% chance last year, and as Guterres noted, “in 2015, the chance of such a breach was near zero.”

4. Southwestern states bake under intense heat dome

Temperatures across much of the American Southwest are between 20 and 30 degrees Fahrenheit higher than usual for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service. Residents in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas are roasting under a heat dome that has settled on the region and will likely peak in severity today. In Phoenix, where temperatures will hit 111 degrees Fahrenheit today, all fire department vehicles are being kitted out with large ice bags in which people suffering from heat stroke can be submerged to lower their temperatures. In California’s Death Valley, the mercury will hit 120 degrees today. The heat wave is expected to boost emissions from California’s power sector as customers crank up their air conditioners. Below is a snapshot of the region today from the NWS HeatRisk tool. Regions in red are experiencing “major” heat-related impacts; purple regions are under extreme heat conditions.

NWS HeatRisk

5. GM records best month for North American EV sales

In case you missed it: General Motors just had its best month ever in terms of EV sales. During a shareholder meeting on Tuesday, CEO Mary Barra said May was the company’s “best month ever for EV sales in North America,” adding that “we’re seeing profit improvement in our EV portfolio as we scale production of the broadest EV portfolio on the market, a portfolio purposely built to win new customers.” Demand was particularly strong for the Cadillac Lyric and the new Chevrolet Blazer EV. The news would have been unfathomable even last year, when GM reported cratering EV sales after it discontinued the Chevy Bolt EV, wrote Patrick George at Inside EVs. The new numbers are “an outstanding development for GM and for the wider EV market,” he said.

THE KICKER

A Department of Energy initiative will repurpose two former nuclear test sites in Idaho by using the land to install 400 megawatts of solar power with battery storage.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Climate Tech

Tapestry and PJM Partner on AI for the Interconnection Queue

The project from Google’s internal incubator program aims to help speed approvals to get more renewables on the grid.

The Google logo and power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The country’s largest electricity market, PJM, has a problem: It’s facing a slew of retiring fossil fuel resources just as electricity demand is ramping, largely thanks to AI data centers. Meanwhile, PJM has a years-long waitlist full of wind and solar projects seeking permission to connect to the grid that are languishing in no small part due to its slow approval process.

Enter Tapestry, the so-called “moonshot for the electric grid,” as Page Crahan, Tapestry’s general manager, put it on a press call Wednesday. The initiative is a part of Google’s internal project incubator, known simply as X. Today, the tech company and the grid operator announced a partnership that will use artificial intelligence to develop a unified model of the grid’s electricity network, bringing in data from dozens of disparate tools into one simplified “Google Maps for electrons,” as Crahan put it.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Sparks

Trump to New York: End Congestion Pricing, or Else

The administration is doubling down on an April 20 end date for the traffic control program.

Kathy Hochul and Janno Lieber.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Congestion pricing has only been in effect in New York City for three months, but its rollout has been nearly as turbulent as the 18-year battle to implement it in the first place.

Trump’s Department of Transportation escalated its threat this week to retaliate against New York if the state’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA, does not shut down the tolling program by April 20.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Energy

Trump Can’t Save Coal From Natural Gas

The president’s executive order is already too late to save at least one Arizona plant.

An open coal plant.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration is trying to save coal again. But despite the president’s seemingly forceful actions, there’s little indication he’ll be any more successful at it this time than he was the last time around.

Backed by coal miners in hard hats and high visibility jackets, Trump on Tuesday announced a series of executive orders meant to boost “beautiful, clean coal.” The orders lift barriers to extracting coal on public lands, ask the Department of Energy to consider metallurgical coal a critical mineral, push out compliance with some air quality rules by two years, instruct the Department of Energy to use emergency authorities to keep coal plants open, and direct theattorney general to go after state climate laws that Trump claimed “discriminate” against greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources like coal.

What’s not clear is how much these orders will boost the coal industry, let alone save it. It’s not even clear whether the specific plant Trump said he was saving will burn coal again.

Keep reading...Show less
Red