Green groups sue Biden admin over approval of Alaska Willow oil project

15.03.23

News

US: Green groups sue Biden admin over approval of Alaska Willow oil project

Coverage of the US government’s move to approve the controversial Willow oil-and-gas project in Alaska continues. Six environmental groups have filed a lawsuit over the project, which they claim “could be a stepping stone to more development in an ecologically sensitive region”, according to Reuters. The suit claims that the administration failed to consider the cumulative effects of Willow and “essentially ignored elements of its new climate consideration guidelines for reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, despite claiming to incorporate them”, it continues. Politico says that the “uproar” among environmental groups has come despite the Bureau of Land Management approving a smaller version of the project than oil company ConocoPhillips had originally sought. An analysis piece in the Guardian says the decision to greenlight Willow shows the “inconsistency of [the] US’s first ‘climate president’”. It says, despite Joe Biden’s “positive record” on climate change, “the approval of the project is consistent with an administration that has approved nearly 100 more oil and gas drilling leases than Donald Trump had at the same point in his presidency”. An Independent article cites environmental groups and Biden’s fellow Democrats stating that the decision on Willow risked “jeopardising his climate legacy”. CNN has an article titled: “Inside the Biden administration’s fraught decision to green-light the controversial Willow Project.” It states that “Willow’s approval was largely a political and legal decision, they suggested – not a decision about the environment or climate crisis”. According to Bloomberg, ConocoPhillips has “wasted no time” on the project, starting to build ice roads inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to enable the movement of heavy equipment “within hours” of the approval being granted.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that US liquified natural gas (LNG) output is “on track for a massive expansion in the coming years” and will become the world’s largest LNG exporter this year. The Hill reports that House Republicans have introduced a “sprawling energy package aimed at boosting fossil fuels and mining and limiting environmental reviews for infrastructure projects”. It notes that while the bill is “highly partisan and is unlikely to pass through a divided Congress” it does outline where the party’s goals and positions lie.

Finally, the New York Times has an article about the multibillion-dollar oil drilling and East African Crude Oil Pipeline projects, which are displacing thousands of people in Uganda and Tanzania.

EU assesses new electricity plan in wake of energy crisis

Associated Press

The European Commission has proposed a “thorough reform” of the EU’s electricity market to help protect citizens from price spikes, accelerate the rollout of renewable energy and make the bloc more independent from foreign energy imports, the Associated Press reports. The plans will now be assessed by the EU parliament and the member states before they can be turned into laws, a process which is set to take several months, it continues. Bloomberg says the proposed changes to the EU’s common electricity market are part of a broader EU plan to “bolster competitiveness while shifting to a greener economy”. The changes suggested by the commission stopped short of the revision some countries had hoped for at the height of last year’s price spikes, according to Reuters. It adds that they leave in place the existing system of setting energy prices in Europe’s wholesale markets, which helped to prevent shortages during last year’s energy crisis, according to the commission. However, the newswire adds that the plan contained measures to protect customers from short-term price spikes, including preventing suppliers from cutting off vulnerable consumers who cannot pay their electricity bills. According to the Financial Times, the EU’s energy commissioner Kadri Simson has warned Germany against a cap on electricity costs for industry, which she said would harm Europe’s single market. Instead, she “advocated the European Commission’s alternative proposals to stabilise the market through the use of long term contracts”.

The Financial Times reports that EU commissioners are at loggerheads over plans to include nuclear power in new funding rules that are aimed at boosting low-carbon industries in the bloc, which are set to be released this week. Nuclear power was included as a “strategic net-zero industry” in an early draft of the law, meaning new plants would be allowed fast-tracked permitting, the newspaper continues. It adds that officials said commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was “pushing a compromise that would include small modular reactors, but not larger nuclear plants”.

In more EU news, the European Parliament has given its final approval to tougher national targets to cut emissions in some sectors and expand natural ecosystems such as forests to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), Reuters reports. This is part of the EU’s major climate package to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030 and will be voted on by member states before becoming law. However, EU countries and lawmakers agreed on the details last year so these final votes typically approve laws with no changes, the article notes. The European Parliament has also approved a law aimed at lowering households’ energy bills and weaning EU countries off Russian gas faster, another Reuters story adds.

Spring budget: Chancellor touts plans to make UK a ‘science and tech superpower’

BusinessGreen

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to showcase the government’s plans to “harness British ingenuity to make us a science and tech superpower” and ramp up clean-energy investment in today’s spring budget announcement, BusinessGreen reports. It says that “central to the new plans will be a series of measures designed to catalyse billions of pounds of green infrastructure investment and respond to the competitive threat posed by the US government’s Inflation Reduction Act green subsidy programme”. The announcement is set to include more details of the £20bn of funding for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and a new competition to deliver the UK’s first small modular reactor, it continues. The Financial Times reports that shadow climate minister Ed Miliband has accused the government of complacency over its response to the Inflation Reduction Act. “Where is Britain? The runners are running around and Britain can’t tie its shoelaces, it’s crying foul saying ‘We don’t like the rules’,” Miliband tells the newspaper.

BBC News reports that the government will extend the existing energy price guarantee to keep bills at current levels for a further three months in the budget. “Typical household energy bills in Britain had been due to rise to £3,000 a year from April, but instead will be kept at £2,500 until the end of June,” it states. The story appears on the frontpage of the Times, along with a one-year extension to the 5p cut in fuel duty.

In an “exclusive” story, City AM says the government is weighing up a “price floor” for the windfall tax on oil-and-gas companies amid fears that oil firm Equinor could pull out of the proposed Rosebank oil-and-gas project. The article states: “The Norwegian energy giant is concerned about the lack of stability in the tax regime compared to its home market, which has higher taxes but an established investment allowance and a calmer political climate.” Another City AM story reports that UK oil producer Harbour Energy has laid out its plans for carbon capture and storage (CCS).

British Gas firm Centrica to extend life of two nuclear power stations

The Independent

British Gas parent firm Centrica has announced that it will extend the lives of two UK nuclear power stations out to March 2026, two years later than originally planned, the Independent reports. The extension of the Heysham 1 and Hartlepool nuclear power stations “will give the nuclear industry more time to settle on a revival plan for the sector with the current fleet set for decommission over the next two decades”, according to City AM. Chris O’Shea, chief executive of Centrica, said he was pleased to be able to help “strengthen the UK’s energy security” by extending the lifetime of the plants, the news website says. The Lex column in the Financial Times says the extension shows the “need for new capacity” in the UK. “Nuclear remains the least-worst solution for baseload power – until someone comes up with a safer low-carbon source”, it concludes.

Separately, BusinessGreen covers a new analysis by the trade body RenewableUK that shows renewables and nuclear power saved British consumers more than £15bn in energy costs over the winter period by shielding them from expensive fossil gas imports.

Climate change likely fuelled rain that led to New Zealand floods

Bloomberg

Scientists with the World Weather Attribution project have concluded that the extreme rains that hit New Zealand during Cyclone Gabrielle were likely made worse by climate change, according to Bloomberg. They arrived at this conclusion after “running data from local weather stations through statistical analysis to simulate the rainfall in February with and without the 1.2C of global warming that the planet has experienced”, it continues. The New Zealand Herald says that the scientists concluded that big deluges have become up to four times more common, dropping up to 30% more rain, in the east coast regions of the nation that Gabrielle hit hardest. It notes that the destructive power of the cyclone, which killed 11 people and caused billions of dollars of damage, was also related to “the vulnerability of those communities that bore its brunt”. Carbon Brief has also covered the findings.

Meanwhile, in Malawi, Reuters reports that Storm Freddy continues to cause huge destruction, with the death toll reaching at least 190 people so far. The event is “one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the southern hemisphere” and has also left a trail of destruction in Mozambique. BBC News says the government has declared a state of disaster in the 10 southern districts of Malawi that have been hardest-hit by the storm. Malawi newspaper the Nation has a frontpage that simply reads: “Damn you, Freddy!”

Similarly, in California, the Guardian reports that the governor has declared a state of emergency for 21 counties. “An impending atmospheric river and rapidly melting snow has put communities across California on high alert for flash flooding, mudslides and rockslides as the subtropical storm surge moves over the state,” the newspaper reports. (See this Carbon Brief guest post on atmospheric rivers for more information.)

BBC News reports that a rare “triple dip”, three-year long La Niña event, which has “brought upheaval to weather systems around the world”, has ended, according to scientists.

China stands almost alone in expanding its coal power fleet

Bloomberg

China “rapidly accelerated plans for new coal power plants” in the second half of last year, “increasing its pipeline by 45% to 250GW (gigawatts), writes Bloomberg, citing a report by the climate thinktank E3G. Meanwhile, the outlet adds, “planned power plants in the rest of the world shrank by 10GW”, leaving China accounting for “72% of the world’s future projects”, with India, Turkey and Indonesia following. It says that China’s “push for more coal capacity” is its “response to a series of recent power shortages that have made energy security buzzwords for the nation’s top officials”, adding that it has “continued the breakneck speed at which it’s installing new renewable power, which will likely make many of the new coal plants expensive backups and potentially stranded assets down the line”. The outlet continues: “China’s coal boom risks creating a diverging world energy landscape, locking in significant newly operational coal capacity and construction starts for the next five years, just as the rest of the world increasingly recognizes the economic jeopardy of new coal,” citing E3G. Climate Home News also covers the report, quoting Leo Roberts from E3G, saying China’s coal expansion is a “direct threat” to the Paris Agreement goal. He adds that it looks as if the Chinese government is claim that its new building coal capacity to support peak demand is being used as a cover to push through projects…The reality is that most of the permits handed to new coal power stations would allow them to provide baseload power, which slows down the transition from coal-to-clean.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg columnist David Fickling has a comment piece, saying that for all that commodities markets were “disappointed” by China’s relatively “subdued” 5% growth target set out at the National People’s Congress, the “dirtiest end” of the sector “found reason to take cheer”. He adds, “lifting” the GDP target to 5%, it is “reasonable to expect that pollution will come roaring back”.

In other China news, the Financial Times has an article, titled: “China casts itself as Middle East peacemaker with global ambition.” It highlights that Beijing has “acted as a primarily economic partner in the Middle East”, adding that its energy procurements have “ballooned from 3% of the region’s oil exports to 30% over the past 30 years, and it is the biggest buyer of Saudi and Iranian crude oil”. Xinhua, the state-controlled newswire, reports that China’s “leading” bus maker Golden Dragon will ship “94 new energy buses from Xiamen in east China’s Fujian province to Norway and Denmark”. It adds that “many Chinese automakers like Golden Dragon are accelerating their pace in exploring more overseas markets”. Tokyo-based Nikkei Asia writes that countries “accelerated [their] adoption” of renewable energy last year, citing data from the International Energy Agency, as the war in Ukraine “underscored the advantages of electricity sources that do not rely on imported fuel”. China contributed the “largest share” of last year’s increase in renewables, adding as much as “roughly 180GW – an annual total that exceeds Japan’s entire installed capacity”. Finally, Fox News in the US runs an article under the headline: “[US energy secretary Jennifer] Granholm pressed to explain ‘CCP propaganda’ comments that US can learn from China on climate change.”

Volkswagen plans almost $200bn in investment focusing on EVs, new tech

The Wall Street Journal

Volkswagen is planning a “spending spree of close to $200bn” over the next five years in a bid to fix its struggling business in China and “try to hoist the German car maker out of its niche as an also-ran in the US”, according to the Wall Street Journal. Specifically, the car maker has announced it will spend about $131bn of that investment on the development of electric vehicles and new digital technology, the newspaper reports.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the Financial Times reports that ill-fated electric-car battery start-up Britishvolt owed up to £160m to unsecured creditors when it collapsed in January.

Comment

It’s time to bring in climate change when talking about terrorism

Editorial, The National

An editorial in United Arab Emirates (UAE) newspaper the National looks at the role of climate change in driving terrorist activities. “One of the most alarming aspects of climate change is the pervasive nature of the crisis. There is nothing that global warming doesn’t touch, from the economy and agriculture to migration and disease. A report released this week includes another issue where ecological damage is exerting its malign influence – terrorism,” it states. It reflects on the Sahel region in Africa, where deaths related to extremist violence constituted 43% of the global total last year and where a new report has described global warming as a “threat multiplier”. It continues: “What climate changes does is exacerbate economic and societal problems. Heatwaves and a lack of water can undermine the agriculture that provides food and employment for millions of people. When this collapses, the salaries offered by terrorist groups in the Sahel to their fighters can become an enticing proposition.” The article concludes that now climate change is “top of the global agenda” there is an opportunity to explore “how the damage it causes can drive desperate people towards the siren song of extremism”.

Biden just betrayed the planet – and his own campaign vows

The Guardian

In her column for the Guardian, writer Rebecca Solnit takes aim at US president Joe Biden and his decision to approve the controversial Willow project in Alaska. “Like the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden seems to think that if we do some good things for the climate we can also do some very bad things and somehow it will all even out”, she writes. Solnit recalls that Biden was elected “in no small part” by young voters who backed his climate policies and as a candidate he promised: “And by the way, no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.” She concludes: “Adding this carbon bomb to the total makes it worse – both for the actual damage to the climate and for the signal the US is sending to the world. The Biden administration has made a colossal mistake.”

In her newsletter for the New York Times, titled “Big Oil gets its mojo back”, climate reporter Lisa Friedman writes: “Confidence is high in the oil and gas world. That’s very different from where we were just a couple of years ago and it has important implications for the global transition to cleaner energy.”

Science

Bottom marine heatwaves along the continental shelves of North America

Nature Communications

While research has primarily focused on marine heatwaves in surface waters, a new study investigates bottom marine heatwaves (BMHW) along the continental shelves of North America. Using high-resolution (~8 km) ocean reanalysis data, the researchers find that BMHW “intensity and duration varies strongly with bottom depth, with typical intensities ranging from ~0.5-3C”. They also find that BMHWs can be more intense and persist longer than marine heatwaves at the surface, and while the two can co-occur, BMHWs “can also exist” without a surface event.