Where's my dog? Don't do it, Abdul. And why cleantech won the wacky debate.
Where's my dog? Don't do it, Abdul. And why cleantech won the wacky debate.
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Someday climate change will rate more than a throwaway question in the last few minutes of U.S. presidential debates, but that didn’t stop clean tech investors this week from seizing the day after the Harris/Trump slugfest to drive one of the better rallies in renewable stocks this year.
While Vice President Kamala Harris claimed victory and former President Donald Trump grumbled about being triple-teamed by Harris and the two moderators, the internet feasted on wild comments from Trump about immigrants eating people’s pets in Ohio and doctors executing babies after they were born.
One story in which he recounted personally telling the then-head of the Taliban, Abdul Ghani Baradar, “don’t do it, Abdul,” and threatened his house over potential aggressions on U.S. interests in Afghanistan, was particularly tossed about.
But for climate investors, it was enough that Harris was perceived the winner. A powerful rally Wednesday in solar and clean energy stocks, such as First Solar FSLR 0.00%↑, Enphase Energy ENPH 0.00%↑ and Albemarle Corp. ALB 0.00%↑ — all small parts of our cleantech portfolio — laid the groundwork for analysts to forecast what might happen if actually she wins on Election Night on Nov. 5. Stocks were mixed to higher on Thursday.
The rally was notable in that Harris hardly mentioned clean energy, other than as part of a diverse energy group she said was needed alongside fracking and oil to help keep America free from dependence on foreign oil interests. A specific question on how to fight climate change by the moderators, asked near the end of the two-hour debate, was deflected by Harris, who touted President Joe Biden’s track record, and completely ignored by Trump.
The moderators, who managed to fact check the statements about eating pets and killing babies, didn’t bother to follow up on climate change and instead went on to final words. As a Category 2 hurricane bore down on Louisiana and people near Los Angeles are evacuating their homes in the path of a raging wildfire, we suppose it’s something that climate change is now routinely mentioned in these debates.
But until it becomes more of a priority both sides care about, it will be up to investors to look for clues where they can get them.
Don’t forget to contact me directly if you have suggestions or ideas dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.
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Special report: Climate progress, hanging in a year of global elections, comes down to the wire in U.S.
. . . . Remember how at the beginning of 2024 we looked out at a year of an unprecedented 27 global elections to come and wondered how they would change the world? Well, with 26 down and only one more big one coming up in the U.S. in November, climate investors have a lot to digest in terms of progress and expectations. In a special report for Callaway Climate Insights, Kai Peters analyzes the most important 12 elections of the 27 this year, and rates which countries advanced, which fell back, and which are still at a hopeful stage on fighting global warming. The one constant is that almost everything comes down to what happens on Election Night between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Because of the importance of this one, we’ve made it free for all of our audience . . . .
Thursday’s subscriber insights
We’re joining The Independent for a special event for climate investors and advocates later this month at New York Climate Week in Manhattan. We’ll be unveiling a Climate 100 List of the most passionate climate advocates from business, entertainment, academia, fashion, and travel, among other industries, and many of Callaway Climate Insights’ top sources will be on the list. The event, which you can register online here to watch for free, will feature former British Prime Minister Theresa May, interviewed by Independent Editor Geordie Greig. For more info or to register for free, click here.
COP29, in a play for relevancy, seeks show-stopping commitments
. . . . With just two weeks left until New York City Climate Week and the UN global leaders meeting at its Summit of the Future, it might seem a bit early to start thinking about this year’s annual climate summit, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan. But officials there will be out in force in NY seeking to line up major commitments from the U.S. and other big polluters.
A meeting last week in China between U.S. climate envoy John Podesta and his Chinese counterparts was reportedly focused on lining up a big emissions reduction cut from China that the U.S. could match and make headlines in Baku.
Given China’s declining economy, and the U.S. election in November which could blow up everything, it seems a bit early to be making commitments such as this. But Baku is only one week after the election so we guess everyone feels they might as well go on as if nothing is going to change from the U.S. perspective.
For COP29, it’s part of a general struggle for relevance as it fights criticism that these annual summits have been completely taken over by oil interests. If it’s anything like the past two summits, very little will be forthcoming from China, India, the U.S., or any of the other major polluters.
Still, we’ll be in New York and watching closely for any signs of new deals. . . .
Amazon’s $10.5 billion data center deal in UK a vote for Labour cleantech plan
. . . . Amazon’s decision this week to dramatically expand its investment in the UK by building new data centers over the next five years is a major show of support for the nascent Labour government’s clean energy plan.
Amazon AMZN 0.00%↑ and Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves didn’t specify what type of energy will power the new data centers, which could create up to 14,000 new jobs, but Amazon said this past spring that all of its existing data centers were operating on renewable energy.
Big tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft MSFT 0.00%↑ , Salesforce CRM 0.00%↑ and Alphabet GOOGL 0.00%↑ have all been scouring the world for new sources of clean energy to power more data centers, which they all need to handle the expected explosion in Generative AI.
Labour’s energy plans, a major part of its platform, call for it to develop a Great British Energy Co., with public and private investment, to help it transition off of oil and gas to renewable energy. We can imagine this might be the first of several new data center deals in Europe from Big Tech, but for the moment the UK has leaped to the lead in the AI data race in Europe.
Editor’s picks: Tribe celebrates dam removal; plus, world’s biggest wind turbine - so far
Watch the video: For more than a century, dams have blocked fish migration on California’s second-largest river. Voice of America’s Matt Dibble takes us to the removal of the last of four dams on the Klamath River, a major victory for Native Americans who depend on the river along the Oregon-California border.
Biggest wind turbine yet
The largest offshore wind turbine yet has just gone into service in China’s Hainan province, in the South China Sea. The turbine, made by Mingyang Smart Energy, can generate power up to 20 MW, depending on the wind conditions, reports EcoNews. The turbine reportedly has the largest rotor diameter, ranging from 853 to 958 feet, resulting in a massive sweep area equal to nine football fields. It’s designed for medium to high wind-speed regions, especially for typhoon-prone areas, and has an anti-typhoon system built to handle Category 17 typhoons, according to the report.
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
Climate migration is more than just numbers
Understanding the impact of climate change on human migration is critical for policymakers, yet climate change can both incentivize people to migrate and reduce their ability to move. This makes its effect on human migration theoretically ambiguous, write the authors of new research titled Global Climate Migration is a Story of Who, Not Just How Many. Existing empirical estimates of weather-related migration vary widely in both magnitude and sign. From the abstract: The authors propose a new approach that combines causal inference methods with cross-validation techniques to reliably estimate effects of weather on migration within and across borders. … Projections based on their empirical estimates indicate that the effects of climate change on future cross-border migration will differ substantially across demographic groups. Effects at the group level are an order of magnitude larger for most demographics than the average effect, but responses of different groups largely offset one another.” Authors: Helene Benveniste, Stanford School of Sustainability; Peter Huybers, Harvard University; Jonathan Proctor, University of British Columbia.
More of the latest research:
Words to live by . . . .
“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. president.