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Sparks

Dubai Is a Crappy Place to Have a Climate Protest

Demonstrators at COP28 have found their options severely limited.

Protesters at COP28.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Political protests are a staple of COP summits. Thousands of climate activists descend on the event each year to call for stronger global commitments to building renewables and quitting fossil fuels.

But at COP28, United Arab Emirates laws restricting speech and banning most forms of public protest have constrained where and how people can speak out. Demonstrations are only permitted in areas managed by the UN, known as the “blue zone,” and have to be approved before they can take place.

“We have to say how loud we’re going to be, what’s going to be written on the banners. We’re not allowed to name countries and corporations. So it’s really a very sanitized space,” Lise Masson, an organizer at Friends of the Earth International, told the Associated Press last week.

Pre-approved rallies went on throughout last week. But as negotiations intensified over the weekend, the demonstrations did, too. Activists declared Saturday a day of protest, the AP said. A group of about 25 people called for the release of pro-democracy prisoners staged what Reuters called a “very rare” UAE protest, while 500 people urged a ceasefire in Gaza. That’s not to say those demonstrations were unrestrained, however. Pro-democracy protesters were not allowed to display detainees’ names, and ceasefire demonstrators were barred from naming Israel or Hamas.

Also on Saturday, a small number of climate activists staged a brief sit-in at OPEC’s pavilion after the oil cartel allegedly directed its members to reject any agreement involving phasing out fossil fuels, The New York Times reported. And as anger simmered over Monday’s watered-down global stocktake draft — which does not mention a fossil fuel phase-out — climate activists continued to chafe against the restrictions on their ability to protest during the summit’s final hours.

Ahead of the draft release, a line of silent activists held signs pushing countries to “hold the line” on the phaseout. One protester, however, refused to follow the pre-approved plan. Licypriya Kangujam, a 12-year-old climate activist from India, ran onto the stage after the “hold the line” protest on Monday, shouting and brandishing a sign that read, “End fossil fuel. Save our planet and our future.” Kangujam was detained and eventually removed from the summit, according to posts from her account on X.

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Sparks

This Natural Gas Plant Is a Poster Child for America’s Grid Weirdness

Elgin Energy Center is back from the dead.

A gas plant.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

At least one natural gas plant in America’s biggest energy market that was scheduled to shut down is staying open. Elgin Energy Center, an approximately 500 megawatt plant in Illinois approximately 40 miles northwest of downtown Chicago was scheduled to shut down next June, according to filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and officials from PJM Interconnection, the country’s largest regional transmission organization, which governs the relevant portion of the U.S. grid. Elgin’s parent company “no longer intends to deactivate and retire all four units ... at the Elgin Energy Center,” according to a letter dated September 4 and posted to PJM’s website Wednesday.

The Illinois plant is something of a poster child for PJM’s past few years. In 2022, it was one of many natural gas plants to shut down during Winter Storm Elliott as the natural gas distribution seized up. Its then-parent company, Lincoln Power — owned by Cogentrix, the Carlyle Group’s vehicle for its power business — filed for bankruptcy the following year, after PJM assessed almost $40 million in penalties for failing to operate during the storm. In June, a bankruptcy court approved the acquisition of the Elgin plant, along with one other, by Middle River Power, a generation business backed by Avenue Capital, a $12 billion investment firm, in a deal that was closed in December.

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Trump’s Odd Attack on German Energy Policy

What’s a “normal energy plant”?

Donald Trump.
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In the closing minutes of the first presidential debate tonight, Donald Trump’s attacks on Kamala Harris took an odd, highly specific, and highly Teutonic turn. It might not have made sense to many viewers, but it fit into the overall debate’s unusually substantive focus on energy policy.

“You believe in things that the American people don’t believe in,” he said, addressing Harris. “You believe in things like, we’re not gonna frack. We’re not gonna take fossil fuel. We’re not gonna do — things that are going to make this country strong, whether you like it or not.”

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Sparks

What Would Trump Do About Climate Change? Something About the Mayor of Moscow’s Wife.

Hunter Biden also made an appearance in Trump’s answer to the debate’s one climate question.

Donald Trump.
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Well, it happened — over an hour into the debate, but it happened: the presidential candidates were asked directly about climate change. ABC News anchor Linsey Davis put the question to Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, and their respective answers were both surprising and totally not.

Harris responded to the question by laying out the successes of Biden’s energy policy and in particular, the Inflation Reduction Act (though she didn’tmention it by name). “I am proud that as vice president, over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy,” Harris noted.

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