Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

Can an Advertising Blitz Teach Americans What’s In Biden’s Climate Law?

No one knows what’s in the Inflation Reduction Act — but maybe $80 million can help.

President Biden.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A climate advocacy group is planning to spend $80 million on advertising in an effort to boost President Biden’s environmental bona fides ahead of next year’s election, The New York Timesreports. Climate Power will use television and digital ads to remind — or, in many cases, educate — voters of Biden’s green credentials. “There is a huge swath of people who just don’t know anything,” Climate Power’s executive director, Lori Lodes, told the Times. “We need to make sure that the Biden coalition, the folks who got him into office in 2020, sees that he’s delivered on his promises. And he has.”

The assertion that many voters “just don’t know anything” on the issue squares with results from Heatmap’s own polling from earlier this year, which reveal that a majority of American adults — including 53% of Democrats and a whopping 73% of self-identified independents — know “not much” or “nothing at all” about the Inflation Reduction Act, the signature legislative and environmental achievement of Biden’s presidency.

Similarly, while 70 percent of respondents to a July Washington Postpoll said that the next president should use the powers of government to combat climate change, 57 percent disapproved of Biden’s handling of the environment.

Some young voters are angry at Biden’s approval of the $8 billion Willow oil drilling project, but Lodes sounds unconcerned. “Climate activists are going to push and push,” she told the Times. “And you know what? The Biden administration need[s] to be pushed to do more and to go further. But at the end of the day, the reality is that he has done more than any other president in American history on climate.” And, of course, no matter how disappointed in Biden those activists might be, when it comes to climate, the likely alternative would be utterly disastrous.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

Don’t Look Now, But China Is Importing Less Coal

Add it to the evidence that China’s greenhouse gas emissions may be peaking, if they haven’t already.

A Chinese coal worker.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Exactly where China is in its energy transition remains somewhat fuzzy. Has the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases already hit peak emissions? Will it in 2025? That remains to be seen. But its import data for this year suggests an economy that’s in a rapid transition.

According to government trade data, in the first fourth months of this year, China imported $12.1 billion of coal, $100.4 billion of crude oil, and $18 billion of natural gas. In terms of value, that’s a 27% year over year decline in coal, a 8.5% decline in oil, and a 15.7% decline in natural gas. In terms of volume, it was a 5.3% decline, a slight 0.5% increase, and a 9.2% decline, respectively.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Sparks

Rewiring America Slashes Staff Due to Trump Funding Freeze

The nonprofit laid off 36 employees, or 28% of its headcount.

Surprised outlets.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration’s funding freeze has hit the leading electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, which announced Thursday that it will be cutting its workforce by 28%, or 36 employees. In a letter to the team, the organization’s cofounder and CEO Ari Matusiak placed the blame squarely on the Trump administration’s attempts to claw back billions in funding allocated through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

“The volatility we face is not something we created: it is being directed at us,” Matusiak wrote in his public letter to employees. Along with a group of four other housing, climate, and community organizations, collectively known as Power Forward Communities, Rewiring America was the recipient of a $2 billion GGRF grant last April to help decarbonize American homes.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Sparks

Sunrun Tells Investors That a Recession Could Be Just Fine, Actually

The company managed to put a positive spin on tariffs.

A house with solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Sunrun, Getty Images

The residential solar company Sunrun is, like much of the rest of the clean energy business, getting hit by tariffs. The company told investors in its first quarter earnings report Tuesday that about half its supply of solar modules comes from overseas, and thus is subject to import taxes. It’s trying to secure more modules domestically “as availability increases,” Sunrun said, but “costs are higher and availability limited near-term.”

“We do not directly import any solar equipment from China, although producers in China are important for various upstream components used by our suppliers,” Sunrun chief executive Mary Powell said on the call, indicating that having an entirely-China-free supply chain is likely impossible in the renewable energy industry.

Hardware makes up about a third of the company’s costs, according to Powell. “This cost will increase from tariffs,” she said, although some advance purchasing done before the end of last year will help mitigate that. All told, tariffs could lower the company’s cash generation by $100 million to $200 million, chief financial officer Danny Abajian said.

Keep reading...Show less
Green