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Climate

The World Has on Ambition Gap on Emissions, UN Says

On Nationally Determined Contributions, hurricane damage, and PFAS pollution.

The World Has on Ambition Gap on Emissions, UN Says
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions:Tropical Storm Dana touched down in India with 70 mile-per-hour winds, causing 600,000 people to be evacuated • Parts of the Northwestern U.S. and Canada’s British Columbia may see snow this weekend • Dallas is on track for its second-hottest October on record.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Global emissions policies have an ambition gap, UN finds

Only dramatic action on emissions over and above existing policy and pledges will keep warming below the targets set in the Paris Agreement, according to this year’s United Nations Emissions Gap Report released on Thursday.

“Unless global emissions in 2030 are brought below the levels implied by existing policies and current [Nationally Determined Contributions], it will become impossible to reach a pathway that would limit global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot,” the report said. Policy goals “must deliver a quantum leap in ambition in tandem with accelerated mitigation action in this decade.”

Greenhouse gas emissions rose by 1.2% in 2023, which is faster than the annual average rate of change in the 2010s. Current policies would likely deliver 2.9 degrees of warming by 2100, while warming might be limited to around 2.5 degrees if countries meet the policy commitments they’ve already made.

2. Burned by politics

President Donald Trump withheld disaster aid following devastating wildfires in Washington State in 2020 due to his disagreements with Governor Jay Inslee over climate and Covid-19 policy, E&E News reported. Trump “refused to act on Gov. Jay Inslee’s request for $37 million in federal disaster aid because of a bitter personal dispute with the Democratic governor,” reporters Thomas Frank and Scott Waldman wrote. President Biden approved the request for aid in early February, 2021. The reporters wrote earlier this month that Trump had similarly waffled on disaster aid for California in 2018, only changing his mind after aides showed him how many votes he got in Orange County.

3. The shale boom is getting quieter

Natural gas production from shale, the “tight” rocks that nearly always require hydraulic fracturing for gas production, has declined in the United States over the first nine months of the year, and may show its first annual decline since the Energy Information Administration started tracking shale production in 2000.

Shale production fell over 1% through September, according to EIA data, to just over 81 billion cubic feet per day. The production declines are specific to geological formations in Texas and Louisiana, as well as the Appalachian Basin. They are likely driven by declining natural gas prices, which fell to record lows earlier this year.

4. New research shows PFAS pervades U.S. groundwater

As many as 95 million people in the United States may rely on groundwater contaminated with PFAS, the perfluoroalkyls and polyfluoroalkyls otherwise known as “forever chemicals.”

The United States Geological Survey study published in Science looked at the lower 48 states and used a predictive model to estimate how many people may have exposure to PFAS in their drinking water. The researchers first collected samples from “principal aquifers” — the large geologic formations that contain much of the nation’s groundwater — and then used those samples to predict PFAS concentrations throughout the drinking water system. The highest observed PFAS concentration was found in southern Florida.

PFAS can cause a range of negative health effects, including “kidney and testicular cancer, decreased fertility, elevated cholesterol, weight gain, thyroid disease, the pregnancy complication pre-eclampsia, increased risk of preterm birth and low birth weight, hormone interference, and reduced vaccine response in children,” as my colleague Jeva Lange wrote earlier this year. The model “indicate[s] widespread occurrence of PFAS in groundwater at depths of public and domestic drinking-water supplies,” the USGS researchers write.

5. Record-breaking damages from Hurricane Helene

Damages from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina alone have added up to $53 billion, the state’s governor Roy Cooper said. The costs are the hurricane-prone state’s largest ever from a storm, and about three times the repairs from Hurricane Florence in 2018. Nearly 100 people were killed by the storm in North Carolina, with some still missing. Cooper requested almost $4 billion from the state legislature “to begin rebuilding critical infrastructure, homes, businesses, schools, and farms damaged during the storm.”

The aftermath of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. The aftermath of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

THE KICKER

“It is also essential that we continue to cooperate on climate, technology, debt, trade. Climate change and technology are unleashing transformations to the global economy that require global response. Only by working together can we seize the opportunities and mitigate the risks of these great changes.”International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva presenting the organization’s latest Global Policy Agenda on Thursday.

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Energy

AM Briefing: Power Hungry

On the IEAs latest report, flooding in LA, and Bill Gates’ bad news

Global Electricity Use Is Expected to Soar
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms tomorrow could spawn tornadoes in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama • A massive wildfire on a biodiverse island in the Indian Ocean has been burning for nearly a month, threatening wildlife • Tropical Cyclone Zelia has made landfall in Western Australia with winds up to 180mph.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Breakthrough Energy to slash climate grantmaking budget

Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham has learned. Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.

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Climate Tech

Breakthrough Energy Is Slashing Its Climate Grantmaking Budget

Grantees told Heatmap they were informed that Bill Gates’ climate funding organization would not renew its support.

Bill Gates.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap has learned.

Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.

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Spotlight

Anti-Wind Activists Have a Big Ask for the Big Man

The Trump administration is now being lobbied to nix offshore wind projects already under construction.

Trump and offshore wind.
Getty Images / Heatmap Illustration

Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap.

Representatives of conservative think tanks and legal nonprofits — including the Caesar Rodney Institute, the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT — sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dated February 11 requesting that the Trump administration “immediately revoke” letters from NOAA to 11 offshore wind projects authorizing “incidental takes,” a term of regulatory art referencing accidental and permissible harassment, injury, or potential deaths under federal endangered species and mammal protection laws. The letter lays out a number of perceived issues with how those approvals have historically been issued for offshore wind companies and claims the government has improperly analyzed the cumulative effects of adding offshore wind to the ocean’s existing industrialization. NOAA oversees marine species protection.

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