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On CEO compensation, Climework’s next move, and Dubai floods
Current conditions: It was 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit in Mumbai yesterday, the warmest April day recorded in a decade • Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology declared El Niño over • It will be rainy today in Washington, D.C., where negotiators will be pushing for more climate investment at the IMF and World Bank spring meetings.
Tesla shareholders will get a second chance to approve CEO Elon Musk’s pay package at the company’s upcoming June 13 annual meeting. In January, a Delaware court voided Musk’s 2018 pay deal, which was originally approved by 73% of shareholders and could have seen Musk’s stock award soar to $55 billion based on meeting financial targets (which he subsequently met). The judge said the approval process for that package had been “deeply flawed” and rife with conflicts of interests. “The company’s board is effectively asking shareholders, now armed with all of the information that was revealed about the negotiations in court, to make the court’s ruling moot,” The New York Timesexplained, adding that the vote will no doubt raise tensions between investors and governance experts. The company also said it will let shareholders vote on the plan to move the incorporation from Delaware to Texas.
Climeworks, the Swiss startup that became the first company to launch a commercial-scale facility that sucks carbon out of the air and buries it deep underground, is getting into carbon trading with the launch of an offshoot called Climeworks Solutions, reported Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo. Under the new banner, Climeworks will purchase carbon removal credits from other providers, package them into portfolios that include its own direct air capture credits, and sell the bundles to buyers looking for “high quality” carbon removal. Adrian Siegrist, the company’s vice president of climate solutions, said the credits will have “the stamp of Climeworks quality.”
There are already more than half a dozen companies promising to source only the highest quality carbon removal credits for buyers, and Climeworks is relying on its name as a trusted brand to set itself apart. Siegrist said Climeworks is already in talks with more than 50 other companies interested in working with them. “But it’s unclear where all of this carbon removal is going to come from,” Pontecorvo wrote. “The company’s direct air capture credits are already sold out through 2027.”
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The White House yesterday announced the creation of a new Climate and Trade Task Force aimed at reining in emissions from global trade. Speaking at the Columbia Global Energy Summit in New York, White House climate adviser John Podesta said the lack of widespread standards for tracking embodied emissions from traded goods – aka the emissions that come from their production – has led to a global “race to the bottom” to set up supply chains in countries with low emissions standards. “If the global trade of goods was its own country, it would be the second-largest carbon polluter in the world after [China],” Podesta said. The new task force will focus on developing a policy toolkit on climate and trade, measuring emissions to help inform and enforce climate-smart trade policies, and supporting producers to clean up their manufacturing processes.
A massive storm this week dropped unprecedented amounts of rain on the United Arab Emirates, turning streets into rivers and causing widespread chaos. The government described the event as the largest amount of rainfall seen in the last 75 years. In Dubai, at least 6 inches fell over 24 hours on Tuesday, which is about two years worth of rain. Flash floods inundated highways and halted flights. In neighboring Oman, flooding has killed at least 18 people. There’s some debate over how big of a role the UAE’s cloud seeding practices (which are an attempt to induce rain by dispersing tiny particles into clouds) played in worsening the storm. Bloombergreported that the state’s National Center of Meteorology dispatched seeding planes on Monday and Tuesday.
Christopher Pike/Getty Images
Team Japan unveiled its official uniforms for the upcoming Paris Olympics today, and said the clothing items would include a stamp that shows their carbon footprint. “By figuring out the carbon footprint of each item and labeling it on the products, we hope to boost transparency as well as raise awareness among athletes towards the environment,” said Makoto Ohori, manager of Asics’ apparel and equipment development. The company said it had cut the overall emissions needed to produce the uniforms by 34% since the Tokyo Games by switching to renewable energy and working with recycled and lighter material. The Paris Games aim to have half the carbon footprint of the typical Summer Olympics.
“Finance is the golden thread through all climate action.” –Rachel Kyte, professor in practice of climate policy at Oxford University
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Through the wrong eyes, an electric truck can look like an ideal weapon.
Law enforcement is still investigating whether any connection exists between the deadly New Year’s attacks in Las Vegas and New Orleans, but among the eerie similarities is one curious factor in common: electric vehicles.
In New Orleans, officials say a suspect now identified as 42-year-old veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in a Ford F-150 Lightning, the electric version of the popular pickup truck, killing at least 14 and injuring many more. He had rented the truck in Houston using the peer-to-peer app Turo, which allows anyone to post their own vehicle for someone else to borrow.
In Las Vegas, the bed of a Tesla Cybertruck — also rented from Turo — exploded outside of the Trump Hotel, killing the driver and injuring seven. The EV truck, which was loaded down with fireworks, gasoline, and camping fuel, was reportedly driven by an active-duty member of U.S. Army Special Operations.
It could turn out to be a coincidence that both horrendous incidents were carried out with electric vehicles. For now, though, it’s easy to wonder whether this was a deliberate choice — if the perpetrators of what might turn out to be acts of terrorism chose EVs on purpose to cause maximum damage, especially knowing that both trucks were rented specifically for these insidious ends.
One undeniable fact is that EV pickups such as the F-150 Lightning and Cybertruck are big, heavy, and powerful. The Ford has a curb weight exceeding 6,000 pounds, with the enormous battery needed to power it making the EV heavier than the gas-powered version of the best-selling truck. The Tesla also tips the scale at more than 3 tons.
The ever-growing girth of the American car is already a known public safety hazard. The big trucks and SUVs that dominate our roads are increasingly dangerous to pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles given their weight and a driver’s difficulty in monitoring their surroundings.
The electrification movement has complicated this issue even more, since putting a big battery in a big vehicle makes it even heavier. Plus, EVs are remarkably powerful. All of their torque is available from a standstill, as opposed to combustion vehicles, which need time to rev up. This is what allows EVs to accelerate so quickly from a stop.
To put it in stark terms, an electric pickup truck has exactly the attributes that would appeal to someone who wanted to launch a terrorist attack on a crowd of people.
The other much-discussed safety issue for EVs is whether their batteries are a hazard because of potential fire danger. As InsideEVsnotes, EV blazes are statistically rarer than those involving ordinary gas vehicles — they just seem more common because they get more sensationalized news coverage — however they can also be more difficult to extinguish because of the energy released when a lithium-ion battery ignites.
This problem seems pertinent in light of the Cybertruck attack in Vegas, where the driver reportedly loaded down the truck with incendiary material in the apparent hope of creating an out-of-control blaze. For what it’s worth, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the blast was caused by the incendiary material loaded into the Cybertruck and not anything to do with the vehicle itself, and argued the EV’s stainless steel frame helped contain the explosion.
Then there are the increasingly weird politics of EVs. It’s impossible not to look at a Tesla detonating outside Donald Trump’s casino and see some kind of statement about Musk’s support for the president-elect (and growing influence over the American government). Where once EVs were the car of choice for the climate-aware, now we have a big metal electric truck that communicates a right-wing worldview as it barrels around town.
“It’s a Tesla truck, and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and it’s the Trump Tower,” Kevin McMahill, sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, told reporters. “So, there’s obviously things to be concerned about there, and that’s something we continue to look at.”
We’ve covered at length some of the things EVs can do that gas cars can’t. They can use the energy in their batteries to back up your home in case of power outage, or air-condition your dog while you run into the store. But as EVs become more prevalent around the country, it seems we now have to worry about whether their downsides will be used in the worst ways imaginable.
That said, the U.S. EV maker also reported record fourth-quarter deliveries.
Tesla reported today that it had delivered 495,570 cars in the last three months of the year, and 1,789,226 in 2024 as a whole. That represents a decline in annual sales from 2023 — Tesla’s first annual decline in more than 10 years, back when the company’s deliveries were counted in the hundreds or single-digit thousands — although the fourth quarter figure is a record for quarterly deliveries.
Analysts polled by Bloomberg expected 510,400 deliveries for the fourth quarter, while Tesla had forecast around 515,000 deliveries to meet its “slight growth” goals. The company had cited “sustained macroeconomic headwinds” weighing on the broader electric vehicle market in its most recent investor letter, and again referred to “ongoing macroeconomic conditions” to explain the miss on deliveries. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Tesla deliveries stood at 484,507, with 1,808,581 for the year as a whole.
Going forward, Tesla buyers in the United States are likely to lose out on up to $7,500 in federal subsidies as the incoming Trump administration puts its stamp on energy and environmental policy. Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has supported ditching EV credits.
The below-expectations deliveries dragged on the stock, which traded down more than 4.5% in early trading Thursday. Tesla shares have otherwise been on a tear, rising around 75% in the last six months before today, with especially torrid performance following the 2024 United States presidential election.
The Chinese car company BYD is in a virtual tie with Tesla for annual battery electric vehicle sales, with 1,764,992 delivered in 2024, the company announced Wednesday. While Tesla’s 2024 sales confirm that the U.S. company maintains a narrow lead over BYD, the Chinese automaker’s sales are growing at a rapid clip — electric sales increased by over 12% for the year, compared to the slight fall in Tesla sales from 2023 to 2024.
While Tesla’s car business appears to have stalled to some extent — though it was buoyed by the release of a new model, the Cybertruck, which is already the third best-selling electric vehicle in the United States — the company’s energy storage business is another story. The company said that in the fourth quarter of last year it had deployed 11 gigawatt-hours of storage, and 31.4 gigawatt-hours in the year as a whole. If Tesla’s deployment rate in 2025 merely matched its fourth quarter rate, it would mean 40% annual growth.
On weather projections, deadly EV attacks, and hydrogen tax credits
Current conditions: A series of Arctic blasts hitting the U.S. could make for the coldest January since 2011 • Power has been restored in Puerto Rico after a massive New Year’s Eve blackout • Temperatures will get down to about 43 degrees Fahrenheit tonight in Barcelona, where gas-powered patio heaters are officially banned due to their carbon emissions.
Authorities are investigating whether yesterday’s deadly truck attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas may be linked. Both incidents involved electric pickups. In New Orleans, a man drove a Ford F-150 Lightning into a crowd in the French Quarter, killing 15 people and injuring dozens of others. In Vegas, a Tesla Cybertruck packed with explosives detonated outside the Trump International Hotel, killing the driver and injuring seven others. Both vehicles were rented through a budget app called Turo. Electric vehicles tend to be heavier than their internal combustion counterparts, mostly due to their battery packs. This can make them particularly deadly in collisions with smaller vehicles and, of course, pedestrians. Ford’s 2024 F-150 Lightning has a curb weight ranging from 6,000 to nearly 7,000 pounds; the Cybertruck starts at 6,600 pounds, about 2,000 pounds heavier than the average new vehicle weight.
In the Las Vegas explosion, Sheriff Kevin McMahill indicated the Cybertruck actually “limited the damage that occurred.” The vehicle’s exterior appeared to remain intact. In a post on X, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said: “The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack.”
The Biden administration plans to release guidance for hydrogen production tax credits this week, likely on Friday, two sources toldReuters. The guidance will “provide a pathway” for tax credits for hydrogen producers that use nuclear power, the outlet reported. Back in October, Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Heatmap the rules would be out by the end of 2024. As Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer explained, the Treasury Department’s must decide how hydrogen producers who use electrolysis — sending electricity through water to split its molecules — should deal with the indirect carbon emissions associated with drawing power from the grid. “Finalizing rules that will help scale the clean hydrogen industry while implementing the environmental safeguards established in the law remains a top priority for Treasury,” spokesperson Michael Martinez told Reuters. “In that process, we are carefully considering the numerous comments we have received on the proposed regulations.” In his conversation with Heatmap, Adeyemo acknowledged that the final rules were unlikely to please everyone.
Climate change meant that there were about 41 more “extreme heat” days in 2024, according to the World Weather Attribution’s annual extreme weather report. Climate change contributed to at least 3,700 deaths, but “it’s likely the total number of people killed in extreme weather events intensified by climate change [in 2024] is in the tens, or hundreds of thousands,” the group said. While the El Niño weather pattern contributed to global trends, climate change played a bigger role in fueling extreme weather. “As the planet warms, the influence of climate change increasingly overrides other natural phenomena affecting the weather,” the report added.
World Weather Attribution
China’s weather agency also reported that 2024 was the country’s warmest year on record, and that “the top four warmest years ever were the past four years, with all top 10 warmest years since 1961 occurring in the 21st century.” And a report from the National Institute for Space Research concluded that Brazil’s Amazon rainforest experienced 140,328 fires last year, the highest number in 17 years. In a New Year’s message, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said we are in an era of real-time climate breakdown.
The UK’s Met Office projected that global temperatures will remain high in 2025 despite the shift to La Niña, averaging between 2.3 and 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the pre-industrial average. “Years such as 2025, which aren’t dominated by the warming influence of El Niño, should be cooler,” said Professor Adam Scaife, who leads the team behind the Met Office’s global forecast. “2016 was an El Niño year and at the time it was the warmest year on record for global temperature. In comparison to our forecast for 2025 though, 2016 is now looking decidedly cool.”
Met Office
In case you missed it: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a new bill into law that allows the state to fine fossil fuel companies for climate damages. The law could see the companies incur charges of up to $75 billion over the next 25 years – though many are expected to file legal challenges. Firms will be fined based on their emissions between 2000 and 2018. The money will go into a Climate Superfund and be put toward mitigation and adaptation measures. Vermont implemented a similar law last summer. “New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: The companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable,” New York Sen. Liz Krueger said in a statement.
“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” –The late President Jimmy Carter, upon installing solar panels on the roof of the West Wing of the White House in 1979. Ronald Reagan had the panels removed seven years later. Carter died on Sunday at the age of 100.