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Current conditions: Tropical storm Filipo will make landfall on Mozambique’s coast today • Morel season has begun in parts of the Midwest • It is cold and cloudy in Stockholm, where police forcibly removed climate activst Greta Thunberg from the entrance to parliament.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Climate and energy ‘figure prominently’ in Biden’s budget
President Biden proposed a $7.3 trillion budget yesterday, and his “climate and energy promises figured prominently,” reportedE&E News. Biden requested $17.8 billion for the Interior Department to help with climate resilience, national parks, wildfire management, tribal programs, ecosystem restoration, and water infrastructure in the west. He wants $11 billion for the EPA and $51 billion for the Department of Energy to tackle climate change and help fund the energy transition. The proposal calls for funding toward expanding the “Climate Corps.” Biden also asked Congress to put $500 million into the international Green Climate Fund in 2025, and then more in the following years. And he wants to make this spending mandatory. The budget would also “cut wasteful subsidies to Big Oil and other special interests,” Biden said. As Morning Brewnoted, the budget proposal has “about as much chance of getting passed by Congress as a bill guaranteeing each American a pet unicorn, so it’s mostly a statement of Biden’s priorities.”
2. U.S. EV prices drop 13% year-over-year
EV prices in the U.S. have dropped by about 13% in the last year, according to Kelley Blue Book. The drop “has been led in part by the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, the two most popular EVs in the U.S.,” explained Michelle Lewis at Electrek. However, EVs are still more expensive than “mainstream non-luxury vehicles,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of Industry Insights at Cox Automotive.
3. Report: BYD struggles to ramp up overseas EV sales
Chinese EV maker BYD has reportedly hit a speed bump on the road to international expansion. Having dominated the Chinese market and established itself as the top-selling EV maker in the world, BYD set an internal goal of selling 400,000 cars overseas this year. But a global slowdown in EV sales growth has hampered that effort, reported The Wall Street Journal. “As of the end of last year, more than 10,000 BYD passenger cars were waiting in warehouses in Europe,” the Journal added, “and the certificates authorizing them to be sold in the European Union are set to expire soon, meaning it may not be possible to sell them in Europe.” At the same time, quality control issues have been cropping up in some vehicles, and higher prices in Europe are making it more difficult for the company to compete with better-known brands.
4. U.K. emissions hit 145-year low
Greenhouse gas emissions in the UK fell last year to their lowest level since 1879, according to analysis from Carbon Brief. The decline is attributed mainly to a drop in gas demand thanks to higher electricity imports and warmer temperatures. As recently as 2014, the power sector was the UK’s largest source of emissions, but now it has been eclipsed by transportation, buildings, industry, and agriculture. “Transport emissions have barely changed over the past several decades as more efficient cars have been offset by increased traffic,” Carbon Brief explained. Remarkably, coal use in the country is at its lowest level since the 1730s, “when George II was on the throne.” The emissions drop is good news but “with only one coal-fired power station remaining and the power sector overall now likely only the fifth-largest contributor to UK emissions, the country will need to start cutting into gas power and looking to other sectors” to meet net zero by 2050. Meanwhile, the British government today announced a plan to build new gas plants.
5. Seaside town’s $500K new protective sand dune washes away in 3 days
Residents in Salisbury, Massachusetts, last week finished building a $500,000 sand dune meant to protect their beachside homes from rising tides and repeated storms. Three days later, the barrier, made of 14,000 tons of sand, washed away when a storm brought historic high tides to the seaside town. “We got hit with three storms – two in January, one now – at the highest astronomical tides possible,” said Rick Rigoli, who oversaw the project. The sea level off the Massachusetts coast has risen by 8 inches since 1950, and is now rising by about 1 inch every 8 years.
THE KICKER
On average, installing a heat pump in your home could cut between 2.5 to 4.4 tons of carbon during the equipment’s lifespan, meaning widespread adoption could result in a 5% to 9% drop in national economy-wide emissions.
Current conditions: Rare rainstorms have flooded parts of the Sahara Desert • Storm Kirk is expected to bring flooding to parts of northern France • Wyoming’s 75,000-acre Elk Fire has been burning for nearly two weeks.
THE TOP FIVE
1. Category 5 Hurricane Milton approaches Florida
Hurricane Milton, currently a Category 5 storm, is expected to make landfall this evening near Tampa, Florida, as a Category 4 hurricane with 130 mph winds, according to the National Weather Service. It will bring between 10 and 15 feet of storm surge (possibly more, depending on which forecast you’re following), plus tornadoes. The conditions have already started to deteriorate and will continue to do so throughout the day. “There is no recent precedent for a major hurricane to take this path toward Florida,” said AccuWeather Director of Forecasting Operations Dan DePodwin. “This is an increasing significant risk of devastating, catastrophic impacts to this region.”
AccuWeather
2. Studies link Helene and Milton to climate change
Climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels almost certainly made Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene a lot worse, according to two new rapid attribution studies by World Weather Attribution and Climate Central. A storm like Hurricane Helene is about two-and-a-half times more likely in the region today compared to what would be expected in a “cooler pre-industrial climate,” WWA found. That means Helene, the kind of storm one would expect to see once every 130 years on average, is now expected to develop at a rate of about once every 53 years. Separately, Climate Central looked at Hurricane Milton, which already has the distinction of being the fifth strongest Atlantic storm on record. The nonprofit’s findings show that Milton’s rapid intensification — one of the fastest and most powerful instances of the phenomenon in history — is primarily due to high sea surface temperatures in the weeks before Milton developed, which was made at least 400 times more likely by climate change and up to 800 times more likely.
“While hurricane seasons eventually end, global temperatures haven’t stopped going up,” wrote Heatmap’s Jeva Lange. “That, perhaps, is the more terrifying subtext of the attribution studies: There will be more Miltons and Helenes.”
3. IEA: Renewable capacity growth not enough to triple by 2030
There are several big energy reports out this week, and taken together, their findings tell a nuanced story of an energy transition that’s well underway, but still moving too slowly. Let’s start with the big one: The International Energy Agency’s Renewables 2024 report, published this morning. It says that the world is on track to add 5,500 gigawatts of new clean energy capacity by 2030, 80% of which will come from solar PV alone. That means renewables will account for half of global electricity generation by the end of the decade.
IEA
While this is huge progress (the report notes that 5,500 GW is roughly equal the power capacity of China, the European Union, India, and the U.S. combined), it is not enough to meet the COP28 goal of tripling renewable capacity by 2030. But! The IEA stresses that it is “entirely possible” to meet this target if governments can get their acts together, set bold new emission reduction targets in the coming months, and work together to lower the energy transition costs for poorer countries. “The market can deliver on renewables, and now governments need to prioritize investing in storage, grids, and other forms of clean flexibility to enable this transformation,” said Dave Jones, director of global insights at energy think tank Ember. “The next half decade is going to be one heck of a ride.”
So, that’s renewables. Let’s look at what all this means for emissions and, most importantly, warming.
4. Rhodium and DNV forecast 2100 warming levels
An energy transition report published this morning from Norwegian risk management company DNV concludes, rather remarkably, that energy-related emissions are set to peak this year and begin a steady decline thanks to the plummeting costs of solar and batteries, especially in China. “Emissions peaking is a milestone for humanity,” said Remi Eriksen, group president and CEO of DNV. However, the projected rate of emission reduction is only enough to limit warming to 2.2 degrees Celsius by 2100. “We must now focus on how quickly emissions decline and use the available tools to accelerate the energy transition,” Eriksen added.
The Rhodium Climate Outlook 2024 report, out yesterday, concluded that there is a less than 7% chance of the world limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius “if current trends in policy and technology development continue.” In fact, it projected a “very likely” increase between 2 degrees Celsius and *gulp* 3.7 degrees Celsius by century’s end. However, odds of limiting warming to 2 degrees jump to 96% if all countries can get to net-zero emissions by 2070. To date, 149 countries (representing 88% of global emissions) have made net-zero or carbon neutrality commitments, though it remains to be seen if and when they’ll meet those goals.
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5. Study suggests green hydrogen will remain ‘prohibitively expensive’
The cost of “green” hydrogen – that which is produced with clean energy – is likely to remain “prohibitively expensive,” according to a new study published yesterday in the journal Joule. The fuel is seen as key to curbing emissions from hard-to-abate sectors (industry, for example), and many are banking on the price of production falling. But the researchers say the high storage and distribution costs are often overlooked. Taking those costs into consideration, carbon capture and storage is cheaper than green hydrogen when it comes to curbing emissions, the researchers found. “Even if production costs decrease in line with predictions, storage and distribution costs will prevent hydrogen being cost-competitive in many sectors,” said lead author Roxana Shafiee, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment. “Our results challenge a growing idea that hydrogen will be the ‘Swiss army knife of decarbonization’ and suggest that the opportunities for hydrogen may be narrower than previously thought.”
THE KICKER
“After 40 years in a career, hopefully, I get a little leeway from the folks who are accustomed to seeing me cool as a cucumber. But the truth is that with climate-driven extremes putting us in a place that we haven’t been before, it’s very difficult to stay cool, calm, and collected.” –Meteorologist John Morales on his emotional on-air reaction to Hurricane Milton’s rapid intensification.
How can you fight climate change in your daily life? Last month, Heatmap published our attempt at answering that question: Called Decarbonize Your Life, it’s a series of stories and guides to help you make better, smarter decisions to nudge the energy system away from fossil fuels. We consulted studies, ran our own analysis (with a little help from some friends), and used our expert judgment to arrive at six big, high-leverage actions you can take to fight climate change and cut carbon pollution.
On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Jesse and Rob speak with Heatmap’s deputy editor Jillian Goodman and founding staff writer Emily Pontecorvo about what those six big actions are, how the guide came together, and why big choices matter so much more than small ones. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.
Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation:
Jesse Jenkins: So it’s more than just the carbon impact which is the key here, right? This systemic leverage point that you’re trying to make is that you’re trying to think about — beyond just reducing emissions, which is important — how is that actually having some kind of systemic impact on reorienting the global capitalist system, right? That we all live in, towards where we want to go, towards what a net zero emissions lifestyle and society looks like.
Robinson Meyer: And instead of every dollar you spend going to the task of taking oil out of the ground, and the task of building more internal combustion cars, it’s going to the task of building more EVs and harvesting electricity. Anyway, Jillian, I interrupted you.
Jillian Goodman: I was just going to add — and again, I’m just paraphrasing you — every time you drive, it’s a marginal impact. Every single time you use the device. Not only are you emitting less in the short term, you’re emitting less in the long term. And as the grid gets cleaner, every time you drive your EV, your EV will get cleaner, as well.
Emily Pontecorvo: One other thing that we were thinking about a little bit is thinking about these actions in terms of, which ones are you, as an individual, you’re literally the one who’s burning the fossil fuels. When you drive your car, you are burning the gas. When you’re lighting your stove, you’re burning natural gas. And not to put it all on the individual, but you’re the one who has the power to say, Okay, I’m not gonna burn fossil fuels in my home anymore. And whereas with a few other actions — like with rooftop solar, with efficiency improvements — those are extremely important, and those are very high on our list for other reasons. But they’re more indirect.
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Contrary to recent rumor, the U.S. government cannot direct major hurricanes like Helene and Milton toward red states. According to two new rapid attribution studies by World Weather Attribution and Climate Central, however, human actors almost certainly made the storms a lot worse through the burning of fossil fuels.
A storm like Hurricane Helene, which has killed at least 227 people so far and caused close to $50 billion in estimated property losses across the southeast, is about two-and-a-half times more likely in the region today compared to what would be expected in a “cooler pre-industrial climate,” WWA found. That means Helene, the kind of storm one would expect to see once every 130 years on average, is now expected to develop at a rate of about once every 53 years. Additionally, WWA researchers determined that extreme rainfall from Helene was 70% more likely and 10% heavier in the Appalachians and about 40% more likely in the southern Appalachian region, where many of the deaths occurred, due to climate change.
“Americans shouldn’t have to fear hurricanes more violent than Helene — we have all the knowledge and technology needed to lower demand and replace oil, gas, and coal with renewable energy,” Friederike Otto, the lead of WWA and a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London, said in a statement. “But vitally, we need the political will.” Alarmingly, the attribution study found that storms could drop an additional 10% or more rain on average as soon as the 2050s if warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius.
WWA’s study is not the first to be released on Hurricane Helene, but it was still produced incredibly quickly and has not been peer reviewed. Just a few weeks ago, the group issued a correction on a report estimating the contribution of climate change to recent flooding in Europe.
Separately, Climate Central looked at Hurricane Milton, which already has the distinction of being the fifth strongest Atlantic storm on record. The nonprofit’s findings show that Milton’s rapid intensification — one of the fastest and most powerful instances of the phenomenon in history — is primarily due to high sea surface temperatures in the weeks before Milton developed, which was made at least 400 times more likely by climate change and up to 800 times more likely. (WWA relied on Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index for oceans for its research, but found “climate change made the unusually hot sea surface temperature about 200-500 times more likely.”)
Attribution science is incredibly tricky, especially for a storm system like a hurricane that has variables ranging from wind shear to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation to ocean temperatures and jet stream variations. When I spoke to a member of the WWA team earlier this year, I was told the organization specifically avoids attributing the intensification of any individual hurricane — in theory, one of the more straightforward relationships — to climate change because of the relatively limited historical modeling available. Even something like rainfall “is not necessarily correlated to the magnitude of the floods that you see because there are other factors,” WWA’s Clair Barnes previously told me — for example, the steep-sided mountains and hollows of western North Carolina, which served as funnels for rainfall to an especially devastating effect.
But regarding the relationship between hurricanes and climate change more generally, “We’re relatively confident that storms will get more intense” in a warming world, Gabriel Vecchi, a Princeton geoscientist, explained on a recent episode of Heatmap’s Shift Key podcast. “And we’re really confident that storms will get wetter.”
Helene and Milton hammer that point home: once-in-a-generation storms can now arrive on back-to-back weekends. You can almost understand the impulse to devise a zany explanation as to why. Only, the truth is far simpler than cloud seeding or space lasers: a warmer atmosphere makes for warmer oceans, which make for wetter, more intense storms. And while hurricane seasons eventually end, global temperatures haven’t stopped going up. That, perhaps, is the more terrifying subtext of the attribution studies: There will be more Miltons and Helenes.
AccuWeather
IEA
