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      Across the World, Diplomats Gird for a Trump Assault on Climate Action

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      Some leaders insist that the global clean energy transition will happen with or without the United States.Climate negotiators from Europe, Latin America and some island nations are bracing for the potential return to the world stage of Donald J. Trump, who withdrew the United States from the fight against global warming during his first term.Nations will press forward without the United States if they must, according to climate negotiators who gathered in New York last week during the United Nations General Assembly. But the first Trump presidency was a setback in the climate fight, and a repeat would slow things down at a critical point when scientists say efforts need to speed up.“I don’t want this to happen, of course,” said Laurence Tubiana, who served as France’s climate ambassador during the creation of the 2015 Paris agreement, referring to a potential Trump victory. “But I think there will be a sentiment that we have to double down on the Paris agreement framework. I think everybody’s preparing for that.”The night before Donald J. Trump won the presidency in 2016, an adviser to developing nations in global climate negotiations declared, “No one believes Trump can win, so no real Plan B here!”After he beat Hillary Clinton to win the White House, Mr. Trump kept the world guessing for months about whether the United States would remain a global partner on climate change. Many leaders reserved early judgment, hopeful that people like Mr. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, would convince him to stay in. They didn’t.Mr. Trump, who has dismissed global warming as a “hoax,” made the United States the first and only country to withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement that calls on countries to cut the pollution from oil, gas and coal that is dangerously heating the planet. The Trump administration also worked with major oil producers like Saudi Arabia to weaken global pledges around fossil fuels. President Biden rejoined the Paris agreement on his first day in office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Texas Power Grid Faces New Strains, Renewables Help Meet Demand

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      Texas, the biggest oil-producing state, has turned to solar power and battery storage to see it through extreme weather. But with demand rising, much more power will be needed.During the scorching summer of 2023, the Texas energy grid wobbled as surging demand for electricity threatened to exceed supply. Several times, officials called on residents to conserve energy to avoid a grid failure.This year it turned out much better — thanks in large part to more renewable energy.The electrical grid in Texas has breezed through a summer in which, despite milder temperatures, the state again reached record levels of energy demand. It did so largely thanks to the substantial expansion of new solar farms.And the grid held strong even during the critical early evening hours — when the sun goes down and the nighttime winds have yet to pick up — with the help of an even newer source of energy in Texas and around the country: batteries.The federal government expects the amount of battery storage capacity across the country, almost nonexistent five years ago, to nearly double by the end of the year. Texas, which has already surpassed California in the amount of power coming from large-scale solar farms, was expected to gain on its West Coast rival in battery storage as well.The swift growth of battery storage as a source of power for the electric grid, along with the continued expansion of large-scale solar farms, could not have come at a better time. Texas, like many other states, is facing a surge in its power needs from data centers, new manufacturing plants, cryptocurrency mines, growing residential demand and increasingly intense summer heat. Officials estimate that Texas, already the nation’s largest electricity consumer, could roughly double its demand in just a few years.“Every state is going to go through this. Texas just happens to be the farthest along because we are growing our energy usage first,” said Michael Lee, the chief executive of Octopus Energy U.S., a subsidiary of the British electricity provider. “We’re seeing this in every other state, and all over the world.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Trump and Harris Talked About Climate Change During the Debate

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      At the tail end of the hottest summer in recorded history, as wildfires tear through California and a hurricane heads toward Louisiana, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump failed to say how they would fight climate change during their debate Tuesday night.It was the final question posed during the 90 minute exchange, about an issue that moderator Linsey Davis of ABC News noted was “important for a number of Americans, in particular younger voters.”The outcome of this presidential election could be critical to determining whether the United States, the world’s biggest historic source of the greenhouse gasses that are dangerously warming the planet, cuts its pollution enough to keep global warming within relatively safe limits. Scientists say the window for action is rapidly closing.Ms. Harris acknowledged the problem, noting “the former president has said that climate change is a hoax and what we know is that it is very real.”“We know that we can actually deal with this issue,” she said, but did not offer any specifics about how she would. Instead, Ms. Harris made a largely economic argument, noting that federal subsidies for clean energy, which includes wind and solar power, have created new jobs and spurred manufacturing.And, in an unusual turn, Ms. Harris boasted that under the Biden administration, gas production has reached record highs. It’s a point that until very recently the administration had been reluctant to emphasize. The burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of climate change and at the United Nations climate talks last year, the United States joined nearly 200 other countries in a pledge to transition away from coal, oil and gas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Britain Awards 10 Contracts for Offshore Wind Projects

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      The successful outcome of the government auction for renewable energy projects may bolster a wind industry battered by rising costs.The British government on Tuesday awarded price support contracts for a series of offshore wind farms as part of a wider package for renewable energy, a reversal from a disappointing auction last year in which there were no takers for offshore wind projects.“The government has shown it takes renewable energy seriously,” Duncan Clark, the head of Britain and Ireland for the Danish wind developer Orsted, which received support for two projects in the auction, said in a statement.Overall the government awarded support for 131 renewable energy projects including onshore wind as well as solar and tidal power. RenewableUK, an industry group, estimates that the installations, if completed, could attract £14 billion, or about $18 billion, in investment and power nearly 11 million homes.The government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer is betting on offshore wind as “the backbone of the clean energy mission” to shift from oil and gas to renewable energy sources in a matter of years.The governing Labour Party realized that if it wanted to retain Britain’s leading position in offshore wind installation, it needed to substantially increase price supports to help developers tackle the estimated 40 percent increase in the costs of building these projects in recent years. Offshore wind is attractive in Britain because of abundant wind and large areas of shallow seabed off the coasts, especially in the North Sea. Investors are also attracted to the profits from these projects, which can cost billions of dollars.Stephen Bull, chief executive of Vargronn, which received support for a floating offshore wind farm off Scotland called Green Volt, said in an interview that the auction may not have reversed the impact of last year’s failure, but the results put Britain “on the right track.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      El cambio climático no es prioritario en la Convención Nacional Republicana

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      La plataforma del partido no hace ninguna mención del cambio climático, en cambio, fomenta una mayor producción de petróleo, gas y carbón, que aumentan las temperaturas globales.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Este verano, Estados Unidos está experimentando niveles históricos de un calor intenso a causa del cambio climático. Las altas temperaturas han provocado decenas de muertes en el oeste del país, mientras millones de personas sudan debido a los avisos de calor extremo y casi tres cuartas partes de los estadounidenses dicen que el gobierno debe priorizar el calentamiento global.Sin embargo, aunque en el horario estelar del lunes por la noche la energía fue el tema con el que el Partido Republicano inauguró su convención nacional en Milwaukee, el partido no tiene ningún plan para abordar el cambio climático.A pesar de que algunos republicanos ya no niegan el abrumador consenso científico según el cual el planeta se está calentando a causa de la actividad humana, los líderes del partido no lo consideran como un problema que se deba enfrentar.“No sé si hay una estrategia republicana para enfrentar el cambio climático a nivel de organización”, comentó Thomas J. Pyle, presidente de la American Energy Alliance, un grupo de investigación conservador enfocado en la energía. “No creo que el presidente Trump considere imperativo reducir los gases de efecto invernadero por medio del gobierno”.Cuando el expresidente Donald Trump menciona el cambio climático, lo hace en tono de burla.“¿Se imaginan? Este tipo dice que el calentamiento global es la mayor amenaza para nuestro país”, dijo Trump, para referirse al presidente Joe Biden en un mitin en Chesapeake, Virginia, el mes pasado que fue el junio más caluroso que se haya registrado en todo el mundo. “El calentamiento global está bien. De hecho, he oído que hoy va a hacer mucho calor. Está bien”.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Climate and the Republican Convention

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      Here’s where the party stands on global warming, energy and the environment.It’s official: Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for the presidential election this November, and Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio is his running mate.The long-awaited announcement of the vice-presidential candidate came as the Republican National Convention opened in Milwaukee on Monday and Trump made his first public appearance since the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on Saturday.Climate change was not on the agenda. But the convention’s first day, which was focused on the economy, offered fresh signs of what a new Trump presidency might look like in terms of climate policy.Today, I want to share with you some of the reporting my colleague Lisa Friedman has been doing on the Republican ticket and what to expect when it comes to climate and the environment. Lisa has covered environmental policy from Washington for more than a decade.For Republican leaders, it’s all about energyJune was the Earth’s 13th consecutive month to break a global heat record and more than a third of Americans are facing dangerous levels of heat. But climate change is unlikely to be a major theme at the Republican convention, which runs through Thursday. It was not mentioned in any of the main speeches on Monday, which instead focused on inflation and the economy.(The closest thing to a mention of global warming Monday night came from Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who derided what she called the “Green New Scam,” saying it was destroying small business.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Creates High-Tech Global Supply Chains to Blunt Risks Tied to China

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      The Biden administration is trying to get foreign companies to invest in chip-making in the United States and more countries to set up factories to do final assembly and packaging.If the Biden administration had its way, far more electronic chips would be made in factories in, say, Texas or Arizona.They would then be shipped to partner countries, like Costa Rica or Vietnam or Kenya, for final assembly and sent out into the world to run everything from refrigerators to supercomputers.Those places may not be the first that come to mind when people think of semiconductors. But administration officials are trying to transform the world’s chip supply chain and are negotiating intensely to do so.The core elements of the plan include getting foreign companies to invest in chip-making in the United States and finding other countries to set up factories to finish the work. Officials and researchers in Washington call it part of the new “chip diplomacy.”The Biden administration argues that producing more of the tiny brains of electronic devices in the United States will help make the country more prosperous and secure. President Biden boasted about his efforts in his interview on Friday with ABC News, during which he said he had gotten South Korea to invest billions of dollars in chip-making in the United States.But a key part of the strategy is unfolding outside America’s borders, where the administration is trying to work with partners to ensure that investments in the United States are more durable.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Electric Car Batteries Might Aid the Grid (and Win Over Drivers)

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      Automakers are exploring energy storage as a way to help utilities and save customers money, turning an expensive component into an industry asset.Electric cars are more expensive than gasoline models largely because batteries cost so much. But new technology could turn those pricey devices into an asset, giving owners benefits like reduced utility bills, lower lease payments or free parking.Ford Motor, General Motors, BMW and other automakers are exploring how electric-car batteries could be used to store excess renewable energy to help utilities deal with fluctuations in supply and demand for power. Automakers would make money by serving as intermediaries between car owners and power suppliers.Millions of cars could be thought of as a huge energy system that, for the first time, will be connected to another enormous energy system, the electrical grid, said Matthias Preindl, an associate professor of power electronic systems at Columbia University.“We’re just at the starting point,” Dr. Preindl said. “They will interact more in the future, and they can potentially support one another — or stress one another.”A large flat screen on the wall of the Munich offices of the Mobility House, a firm whose investors include Mercedes-Benz and Renault, illustrates one way that carmakers could profit while helping to stabilize the grid.The graphs and numbers on the screen provide a real-time picture of a European energy market where investors and utilities buy and sell electricity. The price changes from minute to minute as supply and demand surge or ebb.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More