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It was a typical New York City Climate Week. Traffic gridlocked as police shut streets for global leaders; a bomb threat evacuated a midtown building; protests flared and flailed. Even a few subway lines shut down on the East Side one morning as President Donald Trump’s motorcade made its way to the United Nations from Trump Tower, wary of bombs below.
As chaos reigned, more than 100,000 people shuffled their way around Manhattan as best they could, attending climate events and announcing energy deals in a continuous coffee-and-cocktail circuit.
But amid the dire warnings about AI, energy security and new extreme weather threats, few things changed from last year. Little action got done; pretty much none at the UN level where it mattered. If anything, the pro-data center forces began to erect a coherent rebuttal to the environmental backlash that has seized the American people this election season. The battle is joined.
These types of meetings do serve a purpose. People coming together over a specific challenge or two tend to leave with renewed vigor and enthusiasm for their cause. The logistical obstacles just make it more exciting. Shared purpose is revitalizing.
The problem is that now the climate calendar ticks toward COP 31 in Turkey, a full two months away. “My fear about these meetings is that we delay action until the meetings,” David Miliband, a former British politician and head of the International Rescue Committee said at a climate event organized by The Independent, with Callaway Climate Insights. “We need action today.”
At least this week, that didn’t happen.
If you have ideas or suggestions for us, contact me directly at dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.
Zeus: Octopus Energy’s Greg Jackson and the “primordial soup” of free energy for all
. . . . Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson likens the emergence of cheaper renewable energy to the days just before the iPhone changed wireless Internet technology 20 years ago, writes David Callaway in his weekly Zeus column. Comparing the Apple invention to “primordial soup and then the spark hit and life began,” he argued that green energy innovation will lead to an era of free electricity that will ultimately transition the world from the industrial age of oil and gas to a new paradigm. The only problem: entrenched fossil fuel interests, utility monopolies and governments that support them.
Thursday’s subscriber insights
Despite Trump and AI focus, renewables are soaring outside of China
. . . . The AI frenzy and President Trump may have sucked up most of the oxygen here in New York City this week but the thousands of climate participants still have good reason to feel hopeful as the climate calendar turns toward COP31 in Turkey later this year.
Renewable energy investment outside of China was up more than 15% at $247 billion in the first half of this year, approaching last year’s record, according to BloombergNEF.
More than 70% of that growth came from investment in new solar capacity and in battery storage.
But don’t write off wind energy. The Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island, which the White House has twice tried to stop, just completed installation of its 65th and last offshore turbine, meaning it will be generating at full capacity later this year sometime.
The gains come as the, forgive the pun, rising tide of data center demand and excessive heat this year boost the need for more power, wherever it can come from. They also mean that in the investment world the game is shifting to companies working to solve distribution bottlenecks with utilities and other generators.
Something to keep in mind as the market works through concerns about inflation and higher interest rates.
Editor’s picks: California state of emergency; plus, record prices for diesel
Watch this video: California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that he is declaring a state of emergency ahead of what could be the strongest El Niño weather phenomenon on record. KTLA’s Hailey Winslow reports.
Record prices for diesel fuel
U.S. retail diesel prices have topped $6 a gallon for the first time on record this month. Reuters reports. Diesel futures in Europe also closed at an all-time high last week, more than double their level at the beginning of the year, after supply disruptions spread to the Red Sea, where Saudi Arabia loads most of its diesel. War in the Middle East and Ukraine have damaged oil refineries in the region, the report notes, and refineries elsewhere are working hard to make fuels. The International Energy Agency reported this week that in the U.S. refineries operated at the highest level in eight years as of late last month. “A key issue is that many refineries around the world are already stretched to capacity,” the IEA said in a newsletter on Monday. “This leaves few available options to prevent a further tightening of supplies and higher prices in the coming months.”
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
Longer allergy season
A warmer autumn and a later freeze means a longer allergy season. And that’s bad news for the 50 million people in the U.S. with allergies to ragweed pollen in the late summer and early fall, reports Climate Central. “Our warming climate results in more freeze-free days each year — giving plants more time to grow and release allergy-inducing pollen earlier in spring and later into fall,” the report says. Climate Central’s analysis found that fall warming since 1970 has extended ragweed’s freeze-free growing season in 88% of 202 U.S. cities analyzed — by 11 days on average. Cities in all U.S. climate regions have seen their freeze-free fall seasons lengthen — led by the Northwest, with an average of 14 more days compared to the early 1970s.
Words to live by . . . .
“Silence isn’t neutral, it’s dangerous. Silence enables inaction, and inaction leads to more climate change. More flooding, more fires, more empty supermarket shelves, more pollution, more uninsurable homes.” — Helen Clarkson, CEO of the Climate Group, speaking at New York Climate Week.