Green Lights June 28: Top stories this week
Don't miss a single story of the best from Callaway Climate Insights.
. . . . Welcome back to Green Lights. Here’s our weekly roundup of the best of Callaway Climate Insights. This week, David Callaway says that as deadly heat waves and wildfires hit the U.S. hard this summer, climate risks are a lost topic in the presidential debate. And Mark Hulbert notes that the shareholder voting programs at large fund managers have fallen short. Note: Everyone should vote. Have a safe summer weekend. For more great climate finance journalism, please support us and subscribe.
. . . . We expect President Joe Biden to mention climate change at least a few times in tonight’s debate, particularly the irony that conservative red states are benefitting the most from renewable energy, David Callaway writes. Former President Donald Trump will almost certainly echo the oil line that more drilling and carbon tech advances are the American business ingenuity way around the problem. While it may not be the most important topic this week, climate change will be the economic stage from which the next four years will have to be governed.
. . . . When large fund managers such as BlackRock, Schwab, State Street, and Vanguard launched voter choice programs two years ago to allow customers to vote their own preferences on corporate resolutions for the companies they hold, it was billed as a way to let shareholders have more of a say on issues such as climate change, writes Mark Hulbert. But most of these programs have only attracted a fraction of the voting attention they had promoted, raising speculation they merely diluted shareholder influence while getting the fund managers off the hook from climate critics. The only big losers have been climate resolutions. . . .
. . . . Artificial intelligence and satellites are helping to lead the climate change fight in Latin America, writes Michael Molinski. New data and ways of managing it are boosting efforts to police deforestation and also to respond to disasters, such as recent unprecedented flooding.
. . . . Our Children’s Trust scored another legal win last week when a lawsuit by young climate plaintiffs was settled by the state of Hawaii. The settlement calls for Hawaii to make more progress in decarbonizing its transportation sector, which is responsible for almost half the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
. . . . It’s tempting to think Volkswagen’s $5 billion investment in Rivian this week is a precursor to an acquisition a few years down the line. After all, one of the things keeping Lucid Motors going is the fact that the Saudis own a majority stake. But maybe there’s another angle.
. . . . Escape the heat. Plan a summer adventure at one or more of the 429 national parks in the U.S. And the National Park Service has everything you need to plan the trip, whether it’s to Alaska to watch bears (above), or to catch the 4th of July fireworks show next week in Washington, D.C.
More greenery . . . .
Our last summer?: Scorching summer temps are killing the beach vacation (Bloomberg)
Hot summer nights: World’s sleep being chipped away by hotter nights, global warming (ABC News)
Deep breath: Supreme Court blocks EPA’s “good neighbor” rule aimed at combating air pollution (CBS News)
Public art: Little Amal team launch climate change puppet project (BBC)
What’s that smell?: Climate change, sea level rise pose big problems for city sewer systems (Phys.org)
Follow the money: Treasury Secretary Yellen stresses priority of global climate change financing (UPI)