Current conditions: Streets turned into rivers and at least 30 people were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo after torrential rain • A month’s worth of snow is expected to fall over just two days in Moscow this week • Warm temperatures in Central Florida could break heat records Monday.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Global markets nosedive on Trump tariffs
Financial markets in Asia and Europe plummeted this morning in response to President Trump’s tariffs. U.S. markets are also expected to tumble, with the S&P 500 approaching a 20% decline into a bear market. On the energy front, the fallout hasn’t spared domestic U.S. battery makers who will need to source affordable construction materials if they want to scale their operations. Bay Area-based lithium-sulfur battery producer Lyten told Heatmap’s Katie Brigham that the company needs to build a lot of infrastructure, and tariffs on building materials like steel, aluminum, cement, and drywall will likely make doing so much more expensive. “The building of physical factories, those materials, the infrastructure to do that, the equipment to do that, a lot of that is coming through international trade,” said Lyten’s CEO Keith Norman. And as Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported, the tariffs could scramble Trump’s plans to expand liquefied natural gas exports, with rising costs threatening to derail contracts for LNG export terminals. “The tariffs (not to mention the uncertainty about how long they’ll last) could also turn off potential buyers from signing long-term contracts with the U.S.,” Pontecorvo said. “They may begin to look elsewhere, or impose retaliatory tariffs, as China has already done.”
Meanwhile the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act hangs in the balance as Congress works on its joint budget resolution. Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada told Gabby Birenbaum from The Nevada Independent that preserving the 45X advanced manufacturing production credit and the 30D new clean vehicle tax credit is a red line for him. Birenbaum says Amodei is “the first Republican to take that stance.”
2. Severe storms bring devastating flooding to multiple states
At least 18 people have died in violent storms that began last week and endured through the weekend, bringing tornadoes and severe flooding to states across the Midwest and South. Days of relentless rain caused rivers to overflow their banks in Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. More than a foot of rain was reported in parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. The storm systems rolled through at a time when the Trump administration has been cutting jobs within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. According to The Associated Press, the National Weather Service’s forecast offices are currently critically understaffed, making it harder to issue storm warnings and survey damage.
Flooding in Missouri.Scott Olson/Getty Images
3. DOE considers eliminating Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
The Trump administration is considering closing the Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Bloomberg reported. The OCED was created in 2021 under the Biden administration and is aimed at testing and scaling clean energy technologies including carbon capture, advanced nuclear, long-duration storage, and clean hydrogen. The proposed plan, according to Bloomberg, would see the agency’s staff and funding slashed significantly. Whatever remains will be rolled into the DOE. The administration has already been considering cutting funding for some of the OCED’s seven hydrogen hubs scattered across the country, something lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pushed back against. Also up for elimination is a Texas direct air capture project run by Occidental Petroleum’s subsidiary 1PointFive that was selected to receive a slice of $1.2 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
4. Report: Power demand from AI data centers likely to be ‘modest’
Resources for the Future published its annual energy outlook Monday. The analysis collates and compares 13 possible scenarios from seven recent energy outlooks published by various companies and organizations like the International Energy Agency, BloombergNEF, and oil giants BP and OPEC. This year’s report forecasts significant headwinds for the energy transition as nations move to prioritize energy security over emissions reduction, the United States shifts its energy policies dramatically, and a surge in global electricity demand looms.
Across all 13 scenarios RFF examined, fossil fuel energy generation stays flat or declines through 2050, “but the degree of decline and share of generation in 2050 depends on the scale of climate ambition.” Solar and wind power grow substantially to account for up to 74% percent of global generation by 2050 in all scenarios. And while everyone is worried about how AI and data centers will spike electricity demand, the RFF report notes that “data center growth is only a small part of total growth in U.S. electricity needs” through 2050, and says the impact from data centers is assumed to be “modest relative to other sectors.” Thanks to improvements in energy efficiency, global energy demand grows slowly or even declines in all scenarios. The carbon intensity of energy falls, as well, which RFF notes marks “a change from the last several decades.”
But what does this all mean for emissions? The report finds that while emissions are expected to decline over the next 25 years, governments’ current efforts are not going to be enough to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. Just four of the scenarios have us reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. The wide range of emissions projections “highlights the gap between existing efforts and the goals articulated by countries” in their published climate plans.
RFF
5. Tesla’s stock woes continue
Tesla’s shares are falling this morning after Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, described as “one of Wall Street’s biggest fans of Tesla Inc.,” cut his price target for the company by 43% from $550 to $315. In a note to clients on Sunday, Ives indicated that new tariffs and growing backlash against CEO Elon Musk’s role within the Trump administration are both bad for business. “This situation is not sustainable and the brand of Tesla is suffering by the day as a political symbol,” Ives wrote. “Our longstanding bull view of Tesla remains, but there is no denying this is a pivotal moment of truth for Musk to turn things around … or darker days are ahead.” Tesla’s stock is down more than 10% in early trading today. The company’s share price rose on the back of President Trump’s election as it became clear Musk would be one of his key advisors, but that post-election bump has since vaporized. There have been recent rumors that Musk will soon step away from his role leading the Department of Government Efficiency.
THE KICKER
The Department of Homeland Security subjected Cameron Hamilton, currently the acting administrator of FEMA, to a lie detector test to figure out whether he leaked information about meetings in which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem discussed curbing FEMA’s abilities to respond to natural disasters. Hamilton passed.
Flooding in Missouri.Scott Olson/Getty Images
RFF
