The Case of the Missing Climate Money

Current conditions: Parts of southwest France are flooded after heavy rains • Sydney’s Bondi Beach is closed because lumps of toxic tar are washing ashore • A winter storm warning is in effect for parts of Montana.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Report: Large chunk of World Bank climate funds unaccounted for

Nearly 40% of the climate finance funds that have been distributed by the World Bank over the last seven years are unaccounted for due to poor record keeping, according to a new report from Oxfam International. That’s up to $41 billion that is untraceable. “There is no clear public record showing where this money went or how it was used, which makes any assessment of its impacts impossible,” the report said. “It also remains unclear whether these funds were even spent on climate-related initiatives intended to help low- and middle-income countries protect people from the impacts of the climate crisis and invest in clean energy.”

The World Bank is the largest multilateral provider of climate finance, and has a goal of directing 45% of its total financing toward climate projects by 2025. The report noted that climate finance will be a key issue at the upcoming COP29, where countries will put forward a new global climate finance goal. “The lack of traceable spending could undermine trust in global climate finance efforts at this critical juncture,” Oxfam said.

2. Trump pressed on climate change during Univision town hall

During a town hall event hosted by Univision last night, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was asked by a veteran construction worker – who had seen first-hand “the devastating impacts of climate change” – if he still believed global warming was a “hoax.” In his response, Trump claimed to be an environmentalist, saying he’d won “many awards over the years” for the way he’d constructed his buildings, “the way I used the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand.” But, he said, “we can’t destroy our country” for the sake of saving the climate. He said the U.S. is competing against China, which “doesn’t spend anything on climate change.” According to the International Energy Agency, last year China alone accounted for one-third of the world’s clean energy investments.

Needless to say, Trump didn’t really answer the question about whether he thought climate change was real, but he did cast doubt on sea level rise and claimed “the real global warming we have to worry about is nuclear.”

I’ll just take this opportunity to remind you that Heatmap’s Jeva Lange put together an exhaustive fact-check on Trump’s climate and weather claims going back to 2001.

3. SCOTUS says Biden’s power plant rules can stay — for now

The Supreme Court yesterday allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to move forward with its rule restricting climate pollution from power plants, meaning that one of the Biden administration’s key climate policies can stay in place. For now. The high court’s decision will allow the EPA to defend the rule in a lower court over the next 10 months. Whether the Biden administration’s new attempt at regulating climate pollution will survive depends on the outcome of next month’s election. The Trump campaign has said that it will overturn the EPA’s new climate rules. Should Harris win, the rule will still have to survive the lower court challenge. That case is scheduled to be heard in front of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this term.

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4. DOE announces loans for sustainable aviation fuel

The Department of Energy yesterday announced its first two loans for sustainable aviation fuel. The roughly $3 billion in funding will go to two companies:

• Montana Renewables – which makes biofuels from vegetable oils and discarded animal fats – would use the money to expand its facilities and produce 315 million gallons of biofuels per year. Canary Media noted this is “nearly eight times the country’s total SAF production capacity” last year.
• Gevo – which makes biofuels from corn ethanol – would put the funding toward building a new refinery called Net-Zero 1 in South Dakota. Each year the facility would produce up to 60 million galls of SAF, and Gevo plans to capture the carbon produced and transport it to storage via the yet-to-be-constructed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline.

“As the aviation sector aims to meet its decarbonization goals, SAF will become increasingly vital,” the DOE said in a statement. “SAF is the only viable near-term option to decarbonize the airline industry.”

5. Canadian court to rule on youth climate lawsuit

A Canadian court’s ruling on a climate lawsuit today could influence similar cases in Canada and other countries. Seven young people are suing the Ontario government over its emissions targets, which they say are inadequate and violate their human rights. If the case heads to Canada’s Supreme Court, and the plaintiffs win, that would “dramatically open the door to new litigation,” constitutional law expert Emmett Macfarlane told Reuters. “That would be explosive. It would have immediate ramifications for all governments.”

THE KICKER

The University of California, San Diego, is the first major public university to require all its undergraduate students to complete a climate change course.