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Politics

It’s Decision Day for the SEC

On the long-awaited climate disclosure rules, El Niño, and Arctic summers

Briefing image.
John Kerry’s Next Move
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Current conditions: Texas’ Smokehouse Creek Fire is now 37% contained • Parts of Oklahoma and Texas could see large hail today • An excessive heat warning is in place for Bangkok where the heat index hit 107 degrees Fahrenheit.

THE TOP FIVE

1. SEC set to vote on corporate climate disclosures

The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to issue a long-awaited, final rule today on what climate-related disclosures public companies have to make to their investors. The rules will cover a company’s greenhouse gas emissions and its exposure to climate-related risks, like extreme weather or future regulations. The SEC’s initial proposal has been the center of a lobbying firestorm. The most contentious aspect asked companies to disclose emissions indirectly related to their business, known as “scope 3” emissions. As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo explained: “That means a company like Amazon wouldn’t just have to report the emissions from its warehouses and delivery trucks, but also an estimate of the emissions associated with producing and using all the products it sells.”

Lobbying groups pushed back hard on this, and probably won: The SEC is expected to drop requirements to report scope 3 emissions in the final rule. But it is also reportedly going to soften rules for disclosing scope 1 and scope 2 emissions, which are greenhouse gases produced directly by the company through its own operations, and through its electricity use, respectively. “The draft rule now under consideration would compel such disclosures only if companies deem they are material,” Reuters reported.

2. Solar accounted for more than half of new electric generating capacity last year

Solar installations in America hit a record-high last year, according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight 2023 Year in Review. The industry added 32.4 gigawatts of electric generating capacity, which is a 51% increase over 2022. Solar accounted for more than half (53%) of all new electric generating capacity, a first for renewable electricity. “If we stay the course with our federal clean energy policies, total solar deployment will quadruple over the next 10 years,” said SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper. The report outlines solar deployment forecasts through 2034 based on different scenarios. Supply chain improvements, lower interest rates, and tax credits could increase installations; supply chain problems and unfavorable economic policies would hurt capacity:

SEIA

3. El Niño is weakening, WMO says

The El Niño weather pattern that has been in place since June of last year peaked in December and is now weakening, the World Meteorological Organization said yesterday. But its warming effects will linger, resulting in above normal temperatures over nearly all land areas through May. “Every month since June 2023 has set a new monthly temperature record – and 2023 was by far the warmest year on record,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “El Niño has contributed to these record temperatures, but heat-trapping greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main culprit.” She continued: “Ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific clearly reflect El Niño. But sea surface temperatures in other parts of the globe have been persistently and unusually high for the past 10 months. The January 2024 sea-surface temperature was by far the highest on record for January. This is worrying and can not be explained by El Niño alone.”

4. Study: Arctic could see ice-free summer by 2035

New research published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment suggests the Arctic could be ice-free during the summer months as soon as 2035 due to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. “This would transform the Arctic into a completely different environment, from a white summer Arctic to a blue Arctic,” said Alexandra Jahn, an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and a lead author of the research. “So even if ice-free conditions are unavoidable, we still need to keep our emissions as low as possible to avoid prolonged ice-free conditions.” But she added that if, in the future, we are able to remove large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reverse warming, “sea ice will come back within a decade.”

5. Not-so-windy Florida moves to ban offshore wind farms

Florida seems very keen on banning things that don’t yet exist. Earlier this week the state Senate approved a bill making it illegal to manufacture or sell lab-grown meat, a product that is still in early stages of development and pretty hard (though not impossible) to find. Now the state legislature is about to pass HB 1645, a bill prohibiting offshore wind turbines in state waters. Florida doesn’t have very strong offshore winds, and hurricanes pose a big risk to turbines, which explains why the state has not a single operational wind farm – offshore or onshore. And legislators want to keep it that way! Joking aside, the rest of the bill is less benign: It would ban transmission cabling in state waters, weaken regulations on natural gas pipelines, and delete most references to climate change in state law.

THE KICKER

The state of Illinois has the busiest EV chargers in the U.S., with one report finding the chargers are in use 26% of the time.

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Politics

The Climate Election You Missed Last Night

While you were watching Florida and Wisconsin, voters in Naperville, Illinois were showing up to fight coal.

Climate voting.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

It’s probably fair to say that not that many people paid close attention to last night’s city council election in Naperville, Illinois. A far western suburb of Chicago, the city is known for its good schools, small-town charm, and lovely brick-paved path along the DuPage River. Its residents tend to vote for Democrats. It’s not what you would consider a national bellwether.

Instead, much of the nation’s attention on Tuesday night focused on the outcomes of races in Wisconsin and Florida — considered the first electoral tests of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s popularity. Outside of the 80,000 or so voters who cast ballots in Naperville, there weren’t likely many outsiders watching the suburb’s returns.

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Exclusive: Trump’s Plans to Build AI Data Centers on Federal Land

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A data center and Nevada land.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

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On trade turbulence, special election results, and HHS cuts

Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Loom
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: A rare wildfire alert has been issued for London this week due to strong winds and unseasonably high temperatures • Schools are closed on the Greek islands of Mykonos and Paros after a storm caused intense flooding • Nearly 50 million people in the central U.S. are at risk of tornadoes, hail, and historic levels of rain today as a severe weather system barrels across the country.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump to roll out broad new tariffs

President Trump today will outline sweeping new tariffs on foreign imports during a “Liberation Day” speech in the White House Rose Garden scheduled for 4 p.m. EST. Details on the levies remain scarce. Trump has floated the idea that they will be “reciprocal” against countries that impose fees on U.S. goods, though the predominant rumor is that he could impose an across-the-board 20% tariff. The tariffs will be in addition to those already announced on Chinese goods, steel and aluminum, energy imports from Canada, and a 25% fee on imported vehicles, the latter of which comes into effect Thursday. “The tariffs are expected to disrupt the global trade in clean technologies, from electric cars to the materials used to build wind turbines,” explained Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief. “And as clean technology becomes more expensive to manufacture in the U.S., other nations – particularly China – are likely to step up to fill in any gaps.” The trade turbulence will also disrupt the U.S. natural gas market, with domestic supply expected to tighten, and utility prices to rise. This could “accelerate the uptake of coal instead of gas, and result in a swell in U.S. power emissions that could accelerate climate change,” Reutersreported.

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