This is the last edition of Heat Rising. I’ve enjoyed writing this newsletter, but I’m taking on a new position soon that conflicts with journalism. More on that in a minute, but first, why did I choose to leave Heat Rising behind? The most important reason is that
Sales of Battery Electric Vehicles have been so consistently up and to the right over the last few years, that climate boosters – and even car makers – have begun to take for granted the idea that everyone will soon be driving EVs. Incredibly, about 11% of all new car registrations around
A few weeks ago I posited the idea that as China “exports deflation” with super cheap EVs and solar panels, the US will need to choose between building out its green energy base faster with cheap Chinese goods, or protecting its nascent green tech industry with tariffs. Now, we’re
Within days of each other, we were offered two different views of the energy world. In Houston, fossil fuel company leaders gathered earlier this week at the energy conference CERAWorld. There, Amin Nasser, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, declared, “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and
For a decade, Raju Pandit Chhetri has been a leading proponent for the Green Climate Fund, and thus, an expert on climate finance, the leading climate issue today. Chhetri is also the Executive Director of the Prakriti Resources Centre, an environmental justice NGO in Kathmandu, Nepal and a regular Nepali
This week the Energy Information Administration released a very self-explanatory report, United States produces more crude oil than any country, ever. From just about every perspective, the American surge in oil production is breathtaking. It’s hard to remember that just a short time ago American politicians cared about OPEC
Every few months a scientific report emerges that tries to summarize the potential environmental and ecological damage climate change will wreak over time. Last summer the IPCC AR6 report carried the freak out burden. This week Europeans can get their jump scares from the European Environment Agency that reports “Europe
There’s been a certain amount of hype surrounding the increasing power needs of new data centers for AI and crypto mining. A Washington Post story Thursday focused on the growing demands in the Southeast and Northwestern United States, showing a McKinsey projection that data centers in the US will
As an American boy growing up in the 1980’s, I was obsessed with Soviet technology. It seemed to me a strange, bizarro world compared to the tech we had in the US. Their phones were large and clunky, as were their cars and personal computers. I was a computer
I’m going to have to admit, I had some very ambitious ideas about pacing for this newsletter. Putting out two originally reported articles a week on my own is just too much at this point. Perhaps if there were a faster flow of information, but…that’s not happening
The shift from fossil fuels to green tech threatens to upend the world’s energy economy, and although it’s hard to predict exactly who will end up on top of the green tech supply chain, some countries, like Indonesia, fueled by Chinese investors, are working hard to become dominant.
Cuban Ambassador Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta has been one of his country’s lead negotiators on climate issues for decades. This month he is returning to Cuba and stepping down as president of the G77+China coalition and as his country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. As leader
Last week I spoke with Dr. Carola Klöck, an assistant professor of political science at SciencesPo Paris, who researches international climate negotiations and last year edited, “Coalitions in the Climate Change Negotiations”, a collection of scholarly essays on past climate negotiation tactics. Other than actual negotiators, she’s probably one
There’s already some extremely exciting ideas getting kicked around that could be transformative on many levels.
For those watching the U.S. from the outside (and the inside) American presidential politics should be taken seriously, but in conjunction with deep breathing exercises.
From the very start, the main criticism of the fossil fuel phase out language agreed to at COP28 last year was the long list of possible ways signatories could make “deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”. When the draft text was released in Dubai, activists immediately decried
It’s only been seven weeks since COP28 closed in Dubai, but last Friday Simon Stiell, the U.N.’s Climate Change Executive Secretary laid down a marker for what needs to be accomplished at COP29. “$2.4 trillion..is needed every year to invest in renewable energy, adaptation, and
Good Morning from Chicago, It’s been just over three weeks since the end of COP28 and the dust is still settling. Probably the most immediate economic change is that following the collapse of negotiations over carbon trading rules, some international voluntary market carbon prices fell to as low as
Good Morning from Chicago, There’s a theory among COP watchers that there are Big COPs and Little COPs. Big COPs, meetings that result in major agreements, come along every few years, while the intervening Little COPs are mostly about maintenance of previous decisions. Examples would be 2015’s Paris
Good afternoon from Dubai, For the first time ever, a U.N. climate statement includes specific mentions of fossil fuels, urgings to decrease their use, and climate finance dollar targets. After two days of intense diplomatic wrangling the agreement was remarkably approved within the first four minutes of the closing
Good evening from Dubai, Today is the official last day of COP28, but there’s no agreement. So, it looks like we’re headed into an extra day, as we wait for a final negotiated statement. But now it’s late, and we don’t have answers yet. Here’s
Good evening from Dubai, After a long day of waiting and numerous false alerts that something was coming, a draft text on climate mitigation was finally revealed at the end of the day in Dubai. The missing part: The words “phase out”. Almost all of the text on climate mitigation
Good evening from Dubai, You can tell the politics are ramping up because a delegation of U.S. Senators had a press conference here. Negotiations are running out of time, to the point where some issues are simply being jettisoned as delegates focus their energies on preferred topics. Let’s
Good evening from Dubai, There’s a notable increase in tension at COP28, as hope for big changes are starting to give way to political realism. For instance, OPEC has weighed in on the negotiations (more in the Global Stocktake section) – and it was not in favor of change. Still,
Good evening from Dubai, Yesterday was a rest day, so it seemed like so much happened today to make up for it. As a result, I’ve got a super long report. So, buckle in. Also, if you like what you read here, please tell someone. Word of mouth is
Good evening from Dubai, Today’s report is a bit late because the end of the day was just plain crazytown. I explain more below, but everyone was racing to get things done and a ton of events and meetings were jammed in in the last couple hours of the
Good evening from Dubai, Everyone I know here is talking about how much their feet hurt. As I’ve said, the conference area is colossal, which means lots of walking. I’ve yet to have a day with less than 14,000 steps, and I think I’m taking it
Good Evening from Dubai, A lot happened today at COP28, much of it nothing to do with the stated theme of the day, “Climate Finance”. The COP president was caught denying climate science, tech guru turned climate financier Bill Gates said we’re not likely to even stay below 2°
Good evening from Dubai, Everyone began to settle in a bit, as the national leaders left town and the real work of negotiating began in earnest. I got a ton of sleep yesterday and consumed my first bit of caffeine this week (I’m not a regular) to power through
Good evening from Dubai, I spent a good chuck of COP28 Day 3 getting turned away from meeting rooms: “No press allowed!” I also spent about 45 minutes waiting to get into the conference center. With each day, the organizers add ever more baroque curves to the entrance queue, as