COP30 summit returns to oil wars as finance teams avoid Brazil
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Rio AI City is a massive data center campus project under development in Rio de Janeiro, led by Elea Data Centers. It combines urban revitalization with a large AI data hub. Image: Elea Data Centers/Hyphen.
With global leaders already having left Brazil and most of Wall Street avoiding the annual United Nations climate summit this year, debate at COP30 returned to its traditional attack on fossil fuel companies this week.
Despite new evidence from the International Energy Agency that fossil fuels will be prevalent at least through 2050, climate advocates lined up behind Brazil President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s attempt to resurrect efforts to halt fossil fuel consumption after two years of backsliding.
With cheerleading from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the only prominent American politician to attend, Lula began to gather supporters for a plan to deliver some sort of set of guideposts to eventually stopping fossil fuels. He received tepid support from countries such as Germany, France and some African countries, according to reports.
While laudable, in the absence of the U.S., and with no public support from China or India, any agreement without the three largest polluters will lack teeth.
The renewable energy rally in global markets is tied to the theme that the growth of AI will demand energy from all channels, including oil and gas and even including new areas of energy development in nuclear.
Better to focus international efforts on financing climate mitigation in poorer countries at summits like this, and exploring new solutions, than reviving some grand global bargain that has little chance of happening in the next generation.
Remember the Paris Agreement, after all.
Don’t forget to contact me directly if you have suggestions or ideas at dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.
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Here’s how many Teslas Elon Musk would have sold without the politics
. . . . It’s no secret that Elon Musk’s dalliance with global politics earlier this year hit Tesla (TSLA) sales hard in Europe and the U.S. but a new study quantifies just how much, writes Mark Hulbert. According to the study, titled The Musk Partisan Effect on Tesla sales, vehicles sold would have been as much as 87% higher had he stayed out of politics. That’s more than 1.2 million vehicles. Until now, investors have only been able to guess, and while that hit Tesla’s share price earlier this year, his loyalists have largely given him a pass as renewable energy stocks have rebounded. The study provides valuable insight for CEOs struggling to determine whether they should promote their political leanings as part of their corporate messaging, Hulbert writes.
Thursday’s subscriber insights
. . . . One of the milestones that marks the United Nations’ COP30 climate summit in Brazil this month is the establishment of a new world order in renewable energy generation, with China leading the charge.
The absence of the U.S. in light of the Trump Administration’s political hostility to green energy shuffles the deck and is leading to some surprising new pretenders to the throne. Among them is Canada, which has suddenly become the country for carbon removal and storage, as the White House has either cut U.S programs or made them too costly to continue.
But the biggest shakeup might be in offshore wind energy. The U.S has always lagged Europe and China but as the White House has basically eliminated any new offshore projects going forward the U.S. has simply dropped off the charts of projected wind energy leaders a decade from now.
A new study from RenewableUK finds that global floating wind capacity rose more than 13% in the past year to 277 megawatts, led by Norway, China and the UK. While Norway leads now, China and the UK are expected to take over by 2030, as capacity grows another tenfold, according to the report. Norway, France and Japan will round out the top five, the report says.
This places huge pressure on the UK and Keir Starmer’s Labour government to find the funds to keep the investment going, but the implications are clear. The American withdrawal is the UK’s opportunity.
Editor’s picks: Iceland on alert amid Atlantic Ocean current’s possible collapse; plus, drought conflicts
Watch the video: Iceland has designated the potential collapse of a major Atlantic Ocean current system a national security concern and an existential threat, the country’s climate minister told Reuters. Vanesse Chan explains what it means if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, collapses.
Caribbean has super-hurricane problem
Caribbean nations face an increasing threat from super hurricanes, which can cost a significant fraction of their GDP. Climate change is expected to make the strongest hurricanes stronger, writes Jeff Masters for Yale Climate Connections. More than 30 of the most expensive hurricanes to affect each nation/territory/island in the Atlantic resulted in a storm costing more than 5% of GDP, and 13 have seen losses of at least 100% of GDP. The large majority of these extreme losses were from super hurricanes like Irma (2017). “Such massive hits to a poor nation’s economy can take over a decade to recover from. With climate change expected to make the strongest hurricanes stronger, we should expect poor Caribbean nations to start taking massive hits from super hurricanes before full recovery from the previous one. This will fundamentally threaten the viability of living in some of these places, unless some serious adaptation efforts are undertaken to prepare for the coming superstorms,” Masters writes.
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
Crowd at the water hole
Clashes between humans and wildlife — especially carnivores — increased after extended dry spells, according to a paper published Friday in Science Advances. ABC News reports that researchers in California found evidence of the impact of climate change within the state. Climate-exacerbated drought increased human-wildlife conflict. An analysis of about 32,000 reports of human-wildlife interactions made to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife between 2017 and 2023 included reports of depredation (animal damage to property), reports of anticipation of conflict or general sightings and reports of animal nuisance that did not result in property damage. More than 60 animal species were named in the reports. While drought is normal for California’s climate, conditions are becoming even worse due to human-induced climate change, according to the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard.
Words to live by . . . .
“We can choose to lead, or be led to ruin. Too many corporations are making record profits from climate devastation, with billions spent on lobbying, deceiving the public and obstructing progress, and too many leaders remain captive to these entrenched interests.” — UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking at COP30.