The Greens Go to Court

Current conditions: New Orleans is experiencing another arctic blast, with wind chills near 20 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday • Continued warm, dry conditions in India threaten the country’s wheat crop • Heavy rain in Botswana has caused widespread flooding.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Big Greens’ first lawsuit of Trump 2.0

Environmental groups filed their first lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday, challenging Trump’s moves to open up public lands and waters to oil and gas drilling. Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Oceana, among others, are contesting the president’s executive order revoking Joe Biden’s protections of parts of the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans from oil and gas leasing. The groups claim that the president has the authority to create these protections but not to withdraw them — a right reserved for Congress — and notes that a federal court confirmed this after Trump attempted to undo similar Obama-era protections during his first term.

2. Trump declares checkmate on congestion pricing

President Trump made his move to kill New York City’s congestion pricing program on Wednesday. In a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he was reversing the Department of Transportation’s approval of the scheme, citing the impacts on drivers and claiming the program violated federal statute. Trump declared it “DEAD” in a Truth Social post, where he also proclaimed that New York had been “SAVED” and closed with “LONG LIVE THE KING.” The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs the program and relies on funding from it, immediately challenged the decision in a federal court and said it would continue to operate the program “unless and until a court orders otherwise.”

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3. The climate and clean energy ups and downs of 2024

A sweeping annual report from BloombergNEF and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy has a number of hopeful and concerning stats about what happened in America’s energy transition last year.

The Good:

• Solar and energy storage deployments continued to break records
• Corporate procurements of clean power nearly doubled, with 183 deals signed, including new investments in nuclear plants
• EV sales grew by 6.5% year on year, and legacy automakers finally started to show up for the party

Chart courtesy of the Business Council on Sustainable Energy

The Bad:

• Emissions ticked up slightly, by 0.5%, with industrial emissions accounting for most of that growth due to rising natural gas use
• Demand for natural gas reached a record high of 99.7 billion cubic feet per day, which includes LNG exports, and investment in natural gas infrastructure increased from $32 billion in 2023 to $49 billion
• Onshore wind power additions declined for the fourth consecutive year

4. Hydrogen and carbon capture lagging

The same BNEF report also paints a lackluster picture of clean hydrogen and carbon capture development, two technologies that should benefit from generous federal subsidies. The U.S. had just 79 megawatts of “green” hydrogen production capacity by the end of 2024, with plans to build 34.7 gigawatts in the coming years.

The hydrogen industry was in limbo last year as it awaited final rules for claiming the production tax credit. Green hydrogen is made from carbon-free electricity and water. But most hydrogen announcements in 2024 — some 77% — were for “blue” hydrogen, which is made from natural gas using carbon capture. And while there’s a growing pipeline of carbon capture projects, with plans to deploy the tech in new sectors like ammonia and chemical production, U.S. carbon capture capacity has remained unchanged since 2020.

5. Kaine and Heinrich go after Trump’s “energy emergency”

In a press conference on Wednesday, Senators Tim Kaine of Virginia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico detailed their plan to invalidate President Trump’s declaration of an energy emergency. In early February, the two introduced what’s called a “privileged joint resolution” to terminate the emergency declaration, a type of legislation that the Senate is required to vote on. “We’re going to force a vote, force everybody to declare where they are on this sham emergency declaration,” Kaine said. Kaine and Heinrich made the case that the U.S. produced more oil and gas last year than at any point in history, and discussed the many domestic manufacturing projects and jobs that President Trump’s war on clean energy has put under threat. The vote is expected next week.

THE KICKER

Sweden’s Supreme Court threw out a class action lawsuit brought by Greta Thunberg and other activists against the nation for not doing enough to stop climate change.