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☆ The world's in a 'polycrisis' — and these countries want to quash it by looking beyond GDP
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( Sam Meredith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Mostly led by women, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership. "Which I think is why we're seeing such growing interest in the well-being economy approach, both here in Scotland and around the world." A post-growth society is one that resists the demand for constant economic growth. Mostly led by women, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership. 'GDP is not a way to measure richness'The push to look beyond economic growth comes at a time of growing calls to end fossil fuel production worldwide.

☆ Once again, the US won't fulfill its promises on climate aid for developing countries. The White House had hoped to quadruple spending.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Congress' sweeping spending bill for next year includes $1 billion for international climate aid. "This really undermines trust in the US," Joe Thwaites, NRDC's international climate finance advocate who conducted the group's analysis, told Insider. But the US commitments on international climate finance just aren't credible." Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate and need at least 60 votes to clear a spending bill. Neither the House and Senate Appropriations committees, nor the White House, returned Insider's request for comment.

☆ Rising climate costs to challenge countries, companies in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Katy Daigle | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Nowhere was this more apparent than at the U.N. climate conference in Egypt, where countries reached a landmark agreement to set up a fund to help poor countries cope with climate-fueled disaster costs. Even Hayhoe and others warning about the dangers of climate change didn't escape censure, with some activists laying into them for flying to conferences or eating meat. As of today, there are 2,176 climate-related lawsuits in play across the world, including 654 filed in U.S. courtrooms, according to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. And scientists and economists are making further advances in calculating exactly how much a country's activity may have contributed to climate change – and to specific disasters. With the new year, expect more public anxiety as climate change continues to escalate – and more worry among companies and governments over liability and risk.

☆ Vanguard's decision to leave the world's biggest climate-finance group could impede Biden's plan to protect Americans' savings from the climate crisis
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Vanguard announced on Wednesday it's pulling out of an initiative to fight climate change. Biden previously proposed a plan to involve the financial sector in reaching net zero carbon emissions. As Insider previously reported, Biden last year released a report that focused on mitigating the financial risks climate change puts on people's retirements, pensions, savings, and more. However, Republicans have plans to increase oversight over Wall Street firms that are assessing climate change and prioritizing environmental, social and governance causes, known as ESG. Still, the world is making some progress toward fighting the financial risks of climate crisis.

☆ U.S. climate envoy Kerry hails holding COP28 conference in OPEC member UAE
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Valerie Volcovici | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry on Wednesday hailed the decision to hold next year’s COP28 climate summit in OPEC member the United Arab Emirates, saying fossil fuel economies should be encouraged to lead the transition to clean energy. If there are going to be new forms of energy they want to be among the providers of it, just as they are today." Kerry touted the announcement of a $20 billion investment of public and private funds to help Indonesia transition away from coal. During the summit, China's top climate diplomat Xie Zhenhua dropped in to a ministerial meeting at Kerry's invitation and outlined China’s broad strategy to cut methane emissions. "I thought he made an important contribution in talking about what China knows it needs to do on methane and we're waiting to see their full program," Kerry said.

The deal to create a "loss and damage" fund was hailed as a breakthrough for developing country negotiators at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt, overcoming years of resistance from wealthy nations in European Union and United States. Morgan, along with Chile's environment minister, led the working group that came up with the U.N. deal on loss and damage. The fund was created on the principle that rich, industrialized nations that are responsible for most of the world's greenhouse emissions should pay developing countries for the damage caused to the climate. But Morgan said the fund needed to go beyond public money from industrialized countries to find innovative funding sources. Climate Envoy John Kerry told Reuters that the United States consulted with COP27 host Egypt and the United Nations on loss and damage, proposing that the fund be created in 2023 rather than 2024.

☆ G7 makes new $15 billion offer to Vietnam to cut coal use -sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Francesco Guarascio | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HANOI, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations has made a new $15 billion offer to Vietnam to agree during a summit next week on funding to speed up its transition away from coal, three people familiar with the talks told Reuters. The offer has gradually expanded from an initial pledge of just $2 billion in public funds with undefined additional private support. It remains unclear whether Vietnam would be prepared to accept the increased offer, because its main concerns do not appear to have been addressed. One of the sources said there was a "50/50" chance of a deal next week. Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; additional reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by Ed DaviesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Why Silicon Valley is so hot on nuclear energy and what it means for the industry
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

Pallava Bagla | Corbis News | Getty ImagesVenture capitalists in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are investing money in nuclear energy for the first time in history. This surge of private investment will be a positive for the industry, agrees John Parsons, an economist and lecturer at MIT. Nuclear energy is "a very complex science, and it's been supported by the federal government and at these national labs. In the 1960s and 1970s, large conglomerates constructed big nuclear power plants, and those projects often ran over budget. New generations of nuclear reactors will have different sizes, different coolants and different fuels, explained Matt Crozat, senior director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

☆ Qatar promised a carbon-neutral World Cup. Climate advocates call that pledge misleading.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

World Cup organizers will buy carbon offsets to help cancel out greenhouse gas emissions. Qatar moved the World Cup to winter for the first time to protect attendees from blistering heat. Qatar World Cup organizers jumped into one of the most hotly debated climate issues when it announced the tournament would be "carbon neutral." Elgendy said some of the emissions associated with building them should be attributed to the World Cup — but not all. He doubted that the US, Mexico, and Canada, which will jointly host the 2026 World Cup across 16 cities, would strive for the same goal.

☆ American Arrested in Dubai at Risk of Deportation to Egypt
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Stephen Kalin | Chao Deng | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

DUBAI—An American citizen arrested recently on a visit to the United Arab Emirates faces possible extradition to his native Egypt after criticizing Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and calling on Egyptians to protest in videos he made while living in the U.S.Sherif Osman, 46, an Egyptian-American dual national, was one of a handful of Egyptians abroad urging people to organize demonstrations during a United Nations climate summit in November held in the Egyptian beach city of Sharm El Sheikh and attended by world leaders including President Biden.

☆ Island nation Vanuatu sends climate resolution to UN for court opinion
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Valerie Volcovici | Moushumi Basu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The island nation Vanuatu and 17 other countries on Wednesday published a draft resolution asking the world's top court to clarify what responsibilities governments around the world have to protect future generations from climate change. ICJ advisory proceedings involve a series of hearings, which give a platform to all countries to provide evidence. An advisory opinion would not request compensation or reparations, the Vanuatu government said. A vote at the U.N. General Assembly to request the ICJ advisory opinion would only require a majority to proceed. An opinion by the ICJ could bring about greater climate action, campaigners said.

The Amazon Fund, started under leftist Lula's first administration from 2003-2010, bankrolled conservation projects and counts Norway and Germany as its biggest donors. Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro froze the fund, citing unspecified spending irregularities among fund-backed projects run by nongovernmental organizations, without providing evidence. The British embassy said its government was studying the invitation to join the Amazon Fund. Izabella Teixeira, Lula's former environment minister and current climate change adviser, told Reuters she had met with Norwegian and German officials on Monday about restarting the fund. Deforestation soared to a 15-year high under Bolsonaro, who called for more farming and mining in the Amazon region.

☆ Lula seen tapping Haddad for Brazil finance minister in coming days -sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Lisandra Paraguassu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BRASILIA, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to tap former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad in coming days to be his finance minister, people familiar with the deliberations told Reuters on Tuesday. The sources, who requested anonymity to share private talks, said Haddad's appointment to a working group on economic issues within Lula's transition team added to expectations, reported by Reuters this month, that he was the leading candidate for Lula's finance minister. According to one of the sources, Lula insisted on having Haddad in Brasilia, as he did on a trip the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, although he has not explicitly spoken with Haddad about his possible indication. On Monday night, Haddad told reporters that Lula had asked him to join meetings of the transition team's economic policy group, which includes economists Nelson Barbosa, Guilherme Mello, Persio Arida and Andre Lara Resende. Haddad's relationship with Lula was bolstered by his 2018 presidential campaign, which he lost to outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro.

☆ Climate Change Summit Leaves Hope for Limiting Global Warming
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Matthew Dalton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

PARIS—Governments left the United Nations climate summit this month with new doubts that global temperature increases can be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels—but also with hope that a more realistic goal, 1.7 degrees, is within reach. The target of 1.5 degrees Celsius—or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit—has been the north star of U.N. climate negotiations since it was enshrined in the 2015 Paris accord. The deal calls for governments to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to levels that climate scientists estimate can limit warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, with the ambition of keeping it below 1.5 degrees.

☆ The Science for Determining Climate-Change Damage Is Unsettled
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Eric Niiler | Stacy Meichtry | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Flooding in Pakistan was cited in an agreement to set up a fund for nations harmed by the effects of climate change. Delegates at the recent COP27 climate summit in Egypt agreed to set up a fund to compensate poorer nations harmed by the effects of climate change. But figuring out the extent to which climate change causes the harm, and to which countries, is testing the limits of a new field known as attribution science. The United Nations loss-and-damage fund aims to transfer money from wealthy nations to poor nations deemed especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Some analysts expect the annual financing needs of the countries to reach $290 billion to $580 billion by 2030.

☆ $1 Trillion Plan to Help Developing Nations Take On Climate Change Gains Momentum
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Yuka Hayashi | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has pushed the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to expand lending to low and mid-income countries. WASHINGTON—Global leaders are pushing the World Bank and other international development banks to revamp their lending practices to help poorer nations address climate change and soaring debt burdens. The effort, which comes as poor nations suffer economic difficulties amplified by the war in Ukraine, gained momentum during the COP 27 climate summit this month. Nations agreed there to set up a fund that would pay for climate-related damage in countries deemed particularly vulnerable.

☆ No place for flowers: El Salvador's biggest lake swamped by trash
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Jose Cabezas | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LAKE SUCHITLAN, El Salvador, Nov 24 (Reuters) - A horse wades through a sea of plastic bottles, tin cans and green sludge that fills El Salvador's largest freshwater lake, stark images showing how a key drinking water source goes neglected even as global environmental concerns are on the rise. Known locally as Suchitlan, meaning "place of flowers" in the indigenous Nahuatl language, the Cerron Grande reservoir's ecosystem is home to native fish, waterbirds and mammals such as cougars and ocelots. [1/5] Members of "Piedra del Idioma" (Language Stone), a cooperative of fishermen and farmers, clean the the El Cerron Grande reservoir in Potonico, El Salvador September 14, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas 1 2 3 4 5The reservoir's mounting trash comes from the Lempa River, which flows from the Guatemalan highlands via neighboring Honduras, before settling in Cerron Grande, located at the foot of El Salvador's biggest hydroelectric dam. El Salvador is one of Latin America's poorest nations.

Magnitsky sanctions aim to punish those accused of corruption or enabling human rights abuses. The U.S. Treasury Department, which is responsible for Magnitsky sanctions, declined to comment. U.S. officials in Brazil and the United States have already begun the process of identifying and investigating specific targets, the source said, with potential punishments ranging from visa blacklists to Global Magnitsky sanctions. It is unclear when or if the United States could sanction specific targets, as the investigations can take a while. Targeting environmental criminals with Global Magnitsky sanctions is unusual but not unprecedented.

☆ Young people just got a louder voice on global climate issues — here’s what that means
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Sophie Kiderlin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

COP27 was another milestone for young climate activists as they became official climate policy stakeholders under the ACE Action Plan. Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesYoung people have long been at the forefront of discussions and activism around climate change. Improving education and awareness around climate change by making research easily accessible is one of its aims. This year's COP27 also saw the first ever official youth representative, Omnia El Omrani, fight for the inclusion of young people's voices, the launch of a climate youth negotiator program that aims to empower young climate activists from the global south, and the inaugural youth climate forum. Her and her colleagues also hope to change the way older generations see climate change and its urgency.

☆ Column: Key African nations set off on energy & emissions growth paths
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Gavin Maguire | Thomson Reuters | Gavin Maguire Is The Global Energy Transition Columnist. He Was Previously Asia Commodities | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

However, the power mix varies greatly by country depending on locally available power sources, legacy power production infrastructure, and proximity to energy exporters. Electricity generation by source in key African economiesThis wide variance in power mix is clear when comparing the electricity source profiles of Africa's two largest electricity producers, South Africa and Egypt. In contrast, Egypt uses natural gas for 77% of its electricity, and uses no coal in electricity generation at all. The two countries' electricity systems have starkly divergent emissions footprints as a result of their different primary fuels. Across Northern Africa, natural gas is making rapid inroads into energy systems, primarily from the abundant local supplies in Algeria and Egypt.

[1/2] Saudi Arabia Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud arrives to attend the APEC Leader's Informal Dialogue with Guests during the APEC 2022 in Bangkok, Thailand, 18 November 2022. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday the immunity decision did not speak to a review of Washington's relationship with Saudi Arabia, which was ongoing. HISTORIC LOWSaudi ties with the United States and the wider West are still at a historic low point. When Saudi Arabia consequently took its security into its own hands with its war in Yemen, it saw Western criticism as hypocritical. Saudi Arabia would likely still prefer to have a U.S. security umbrella.

☆ Rich countries driving the climate crisis have agreed to pay developing nations for damage. But collecting the money will be tough.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Developing nations won creation of a "loss and damage" fund for climate disasters. Climate diplomats left Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with a historic deal — 30 years in the making — for rich countries to pay developing nations for the damages they are already facing from a warming planet. But the negotiators who gathered in the resort city along the Red Sea failed to hammer out a more aggressive plan to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the crisis. The agreement follows a decades-long push by a coalition of developing nations known as the G77+ China. That country, despite being the world's largest polluter, is considered a developing country by international institutions and therefore isn't obligated to contribute to climate finance.

☆ Some Companies Band Together to Support Nascent Low-Carbon Products
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Dieter Holger | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

Global companies are combining their purchasing power to help commercialize low-carbon technologies as part of their efforts to meet net-zero commitments. One of the biggest corporate spending plans announced at the United Nations climate conference, known as COP27, was the First Movers Coalition. Its 65 member companies promise to collectively purchase $12 billion of nascent low-carbon products and services by 2030 to help suppliers develop their offerings and scale up. Once commitments are made, companies and suppliers meet regularly to share progress and work together. “Microsoft did not join [the First Movers Coalition] in Glasgow last year.

[1/10] Delegates applaud as COP27 President Sameh Shoukry delivers a statement during the closing plenary at the COP27 climate summit in Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 20, 2022. "We had to fight relentlessly to hold the line of Glasgow," a visibly frustrated Alok Sharma, architect of the Glasgow deal, told the summit. He listed off a number of ambition-boosting measures that were stymied in the negotiations for the final COP27 deal in Egypt: "Emissions peaking before 2025 as the science tells us is necessary? Another section of the COP27 deal dropped the idea of annual target renewal in favour of returning to a longer five-year cycle set out in the Paris pact. "I recognise the progress we made in COP27" with the loss and damage fund, Aminath Shauna told the plenary.

☆ Lula to start job interviews for Petrobras overhaul, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Sabrina Valle | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Lula, who takes office on Jan. 1, has already signaled plans for a dramatic overhaul of Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4.SA), as the company is formally known. Into the dustbin, according to Lula and his advisers: the company's privatization. To pull off that reboot of Petrobras strategy, Lula plans for sweeping turnover in the company's first- and second-tier management ranks, said people familiar with his thinking. SHORT LISTAs of last week, Lula had not had any direct conversations with candidates for the top Petrobras job, according to people familiar with the matter, although a short list has taken shape. Lula's advisers also say Petrobras should steer more of its profits into investments rather than its generous recent dividends.

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