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Climate

The LNG Lawsuit Everyone Saw Coming

On Biden’s big legal challenge, the Ukraine war, and sea levels

Briefing image.
The WMO Just Issued a Climate ‘Red Alert’
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: The air quality in Birmingham, Alabama, is “moderate” due to smoke from planned fires • Tourists in drought-stricken Barcelona are being asked to conserve water • It’s 103 degrees Fahrenheit in South Sudan. Tomorrow will be even hotter.

THE TOP FIVE

1. 16 states sue Biden administration over LNG pause

Sixteen Republican-led states are suing the Biden administration over its pause on approvals for new liquified natural gas export terminals. The White House announced the pause in January, saying it wanted the Energy Department to first study the effect LNG projects have on the climate. The lawsuit claims this move was illegal and that there should have been a regulatory process giving key stakeholders a voice in the final decision. The U.S. is the biggest exporter of LNG in the world. Gas is “cleaner” to burn than coal, but the emissions footprint of transporting LNG is potentially massive, which is why climate activists celebrated the pause. But the decision was slammed by the fossil fuel industry and some advocates who say gas is “crucial for discouraging coal use in developing nations,” Bloombergexplained, adding: “The White House’s move struck at the heart of the debate over the future of energy.”

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  • 2. White House tells Ukraine to stop targeting Russian oil refineries

    Washington has told Ukraine to stop targeting Russia’s energy infrastructure because its attacks could cause global oil prices to rise and push the Kremlin to retaliate, the Financial Times reported. A military intelligence official told the paper that there have been at least 12 attacks on Russian oil refineries since 2022, nine of which occurred this year. There have also been attacks on terminals and storage infrastructure. “Russia remains one of the world’s most important energy exporters despite western sanctions on its oil and gas sector,” the FT said. Gas prices have risen almost 15% already this year, putting pressure on President Biden leading into the November election.

    3. NASA: Sea levels saw ‘relatively large jump’ last year

    The global average sea level rose by about 0.3 inches between 2022 and 2023, according to NASA. This is a “relatively large jump,” the agency said, driven by climate change and El Niño. Since 1993, the global average sea level has risen by 4 inches and the rate of rise is accelerating. In 1993, sea levels rose by about .07 inches per year.

    NASA

    “Current rates of acceleration mean that we are on track to add another 20 centimeters [nearly 8 inches] of global mean sea level by 2050, doubling the amount of change in the next three decades compared to the previous 100 years and increasing the frequency and impacts of floods across the world,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, director for the NASA sea level change team and the ocean physics program in Washington.

    4. Countries pledge to double down on nuclear energy expansion

    A group of 35 countries have pledged to “work to fully unlock the potential of nuclear energy” in the quest for energy security and emissions reductions. The relatively vague commitment, cosigned by the U.S., China, Britain, and Saudi Arabia, emerged from the first-ever Nuclear Energy Summit in Brussels yesterday. It says countries will help extend the lives of existing nuclear reactors, construct new ones, and support deployment of advanced reactors. “Generating electricity using nuclear fission remains a divisive issue that cuts across partisan lines,” wrote Nicole Pollack at Heatmap. Some environmental groups see the risk of nuclear disasters as too high, while others see it as a reliable low-carbon energy resource that’s available to us right now. “Without the support of nuclear power, we have no chance to reach our climate targets on time,” said International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol.

    5. Biden administration to award $6.3 billion for projects to decarbonize heavy industries

    In the coming days, the Biden administration is expected to announce which projects will receive a cut of some $6.3 billion in funding to help decarbonize the U.S. industrial sector, Bloombergreported. Heavy industry contributes nearly one third of the nation’s primary energy-related carbon dioxide, according to the Department of Energy, so slashing emissions here without hurting the economy is a priority. The Industrial Demonstrations Program aims to kickstart the process by focusing on the big emitters, like iron, steel, cement and concrete, chemicals, food and drink, aluminum, and paper products. “We hear every day about industrial companies that are interested in decarbonizing their plants, but the initial costs can be daunting,” Nora Esram, a senior director for research with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy nonprofit, told Bloomberg. “The federal funds are geared to enable them to invest in new technologies to cut emissions while supporting community development.” The announcement could come as soon as Monday.

    THE KICKER

    New York’s JFK airport is getting a large EV charging station that will be open to the public 24/7.

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    Climate

    AM Briefing: Hurricane Erick’s Rapid Intensification

    On storm damage, the Strait of Hormuz, and Volkswagen’s robotaxi

    Hurricane Erick Intensified Really, Really Quickly
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    Current conditions: A dangerous heat dome is forming over central states today and will move progressively eastward over the next week • Wildfire warnings have been issued in London • Typhoon Wutip brought the worst flooding in a century to China’s southern province of Guangdong.

    THE TOP FIVE

    1. Hurricane Erick slams into Mexico after rapid intensification

    Hurricane Erick made landfall as a Category 3 storm on Mexico’s Pacific coast yesterday with maximum sustained winds around 125 mph. Damages are reported in Oaxaca and Guerrero. The storm is dissipating now, but it could drop up to 6 inches of rain in some parts of Mexico and trigger life-threatening flooding and mudslides, according to the National Hurricane Center. Erick is the earliest major hurricane to make landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast, and one of the fastest-intensifying storms on record: It strengthen from a tropical storm to a Category 4 storm in just 24 hours, a pattern of rapid intensification that is becoming more common as the Earth warms due to human-caused climate change. As meteorologist and hurricane expert Michael Lowry noted, Mexico’s Pacific coast was “previously unfamiliar with strong hurricanes” but has been battered by epic storms over the last two years. Acapulco is still recovering from Category 5 Hurricane Otis, which struck in late 2023.

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    Politics

    It’s Chris Wright’s Worldview. They’re Just Legislating It.

    The energy secretary's philosophy is all over the Senate mega-bill.

    Chris Wright.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    As the Senate Finance Committee worked on its version of the reconciliation bill that would, among things, overhaul the Inflation Reduction Act, there was much speculation among observers that there could be a carve out for sources of power like geothermal, hydropower, and nuclear, which provide steady generation and tend to be more popular among Republicans, along the lines of the slightly better treatment received by advanced nuclear in the House bill.

    Instead, the Senate Finance Committee’s text didn’t carve out these “firm” sources of power, it carved out solar and wind, preserving tax credits for everything else through 2035, while sunsetting solar and wind by 2028.

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    Wires and panels.
    Heatmap Illustration | Abbr. Projects

    When I reached out to climate tech investors on Tuesday to gauge their reaction to the Senate’s proposed overhaul of the clean energy tax credits, I thought I might get a standard dose of can-do investor optimism. Though the proposal from the Senate Finance committee would cut tax credits for wind and solar, it would preserve them for other sources of clean energy, such as geothermal, nuclear, and batteries — areas of significant focus and investment for many climate-focused venture firms.

    But the vibe ended up being fairly divided. While many investors expressed cautious optimism about what this latest text could mean for their particular portfolio companies, others worried that by slashing incentives for solar and wind, the bill’s implications for the energy transition at large would be categorically terrible.

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