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      Biden’s climate bill victory was hard won. Now, the real battle starts

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      Biden’s climate bill victory was hard won. Now, the real battle startsImplementing the $369bn Inflation Reduction Act amid tight deadlines and high-stakes midterm will be a challenge The bitter fight to deliver a climate change bill to Joe Biden’s desk this summer pitted the White House and its Democratic allies against some of America’s most powerful industry lobbies and every Republican in Congress. It may prove to have been the easy part.At the heart of the hard-won Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a $369bn package of climate investments that Biden called the “most significant legislation in history” to tackle the climate crisis. Estimates suggest it could cut US greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030.That monumental potential, however, comes with a monumental to-do list and a series of tight deadlines – not to mention high-stakes political decisions in an election season when Democrats are fighting to keep control of Congress.Implementing the IRA “is a more complex policy challenge and management challenge than any that I’ve seen in my political lifetime”, Felicia Wong, the president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, told the Guardian.Greta Thunberg on the climate delusion: ‘We’ve been greenwashed out of our senses. It’s time to stand our ground’Read moreOne of the first tasks facing the Biden administration is the design and execution of $270bn worth of tax incentives affecting huge swaths of the US economy. At the same time, it must begin distributing close to $100bn in grants and other federal funds to cites, states, tribal nations, companies, non-profits and local communities. It must do so quickly since many programs created or supplemented by the IRA include rigorous timelines, such as a new $27bn greenhouse gas reduction fund, for which money must start going out the door no later than next February and be spent within two years.And the administration must distribute all of this money and roll out all of this policy while simultaneously:
      Coordinating across dozens of different departments and agencies.
      Minimizing waste and fraud.
      Investing in risky and uncertain technologies.
      Smoothing diplomatic wrinkles with international allies who object to the law’s manufacturing and sourcing requirements.
      Meeting the expectations of climate organizations and advocacy groups whose support for the IRA was contingent on promoting environmental justice and protecting workers.
      Seeking to head off the inevitable attacks and investigations of congressional Republicans.
      “It is a massive undertaking,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at the climate thinktank E3G. “It’s a very complex, detailed law. There are so many moving pieces to it.”The person Biden named to take charge of this massive task is the longtime Democratic official John Podesta, one of Washington’s most connected players.“This is just what [Podesta] was made for,” said E3G’s Meyer. “He knows what he’s getting into because he’s been involved in these kinds of things before, so he doesn’t have to learn on the job. He comes in knowing how to move the levers and make things happen and having the relationships with the cabinet secretaries and others that he needs to have.”While often seen as a quintessential insider, Podesta also has a less-remarked-on track record as an outside agitator on climate issues. In May, the New Republic described Podesta as “quietly nurturing the climate movement’s next generation of leaders”, including members of the progressive Sunrise Movement. Ali Zaidi, who is now serving as Biden’s national climate adviser and working closely with Podesta on IRA implementation, said Podesta was “on the cutting edge of connecting the dots between climate action and other critical progressive objectives”.Sam Ricketts, a climate policy advocate and longtime senior adviser to the Washington governor, Jay Inslee, said that Podesta’s outside efforts will be “just as important” in preparing him for his current role. Podesta has been “working in partnership with others throughout the climate community and the public sphere in designing and advocating for these policies he’s now charged with implementing”, Ricketts said. “He now gets a chance to climb inside the government and execute to make it a reality.”‘Like going to the World Series’The gears of government have already begun to turn. Podesta is managing a “core team” in the White House that “is designed to be fairly lean”, a senior administration official told the Guardian. Most of the staff working on the law are part of the agencies, though Podesta’s team includes “a small number of senior policy advisers with really specialized skills”, the official said. One team member who will start soon, for instance, is a marketing specialist hired to help the administration drive awareness of the “consumer-facing provisions in this law”, such as a new tax credit that encourages homeowners to install heat pumps.But before they can take effect, many parts of the IRA require the administration to publish detailed guidance outlining how they will actually work. The administration appears especially focused on rolling out the $270bn worth of clean-energy tax incentives created or expanded by the law. Implementing these provisions, which will be led by the treasury department but require input and expertise from across the federal government, is “a mountain of work that needs to get done fast, and it needs to get done right, and it needs to have the appropriate guardrails so that the money is well spent and not wasted”, Podesta said at a 7 October event hosted by the Roosevelt Institute.In recent weeks Podesta and his team have been “doing calls, looking for feedback, [and] looking for community input on how to design and execute on these tax credits”, Sam Ricketts, the climate policy advocate, said.Republicans plan legal assault on climate disclosure rules for public companiesRead moreThe treasury department has also issued six formal requests for public comment covering a range of tax incentives for consumers and businesses. Last week, the department announced that it would hold a number of meetings and roundtable discussions to share updates and gather external input.“They have a lot of guidance to put out, and they need to put it out quickly to maximize the impact” of the tax provisions, Sarah Ladislaw, who heads the US program at the climate thinktank RMI, said. The fact that the treasury department set a 4 November deadline for submitting comments “shows that they’re moving quite expeditiously and trying to provide guidance as quickly as possible”, Ladislaw said.Behind the scenes in the treasury department, Biden administration appointees and non-partisan civil servants are working around the clock. Shelley Leonard, a deputy tax legislative counsel, described the rollout as a “sprint” made particularly complex “because of the number of other agencies involved and because of the high-profile nature of everything that we’re trying to do all at once”.The internal complexity is matched by external interest in how the guidance will take shape. Leonard recounted leading a recent webinar on some of the new law’s tax rules. She expected an audience of 40 people; in the end, some 1,600 people signed up.“For tax nerds like us at treasury, implementing something as far-reaching and impactful as the IRA is like going to the World Series,” Lily Batchelder, the treasury’s assistant secretary for tax policy, said in a statement.A ‘three-legged stool’ of oversightOverseeing this frenzy of activity alongside Podesta’s team are agency inspectors general, who are responsible for investigating waste, fraud and misconduct in federal agencies, and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Together, they are taking what the senior administration official described as a “three-legged stool approach” to executive branch oversight.Podesta’s implementation team is responsible for setting a tone for accountability and “send[ing] a very clear signal to the agencies” that they are expected to coordinate closely with their inspectors general “at the front end”, the official said. Meanwhile, OMB “will be the one supporting the tracking of resources and conducting oversight to make sure the agencies are both in shape to execute according to plan, and then delivering on that plan over time”, Jason Miller, OMB’s deputy director for management, said.Asked how the White House was approaching oversight of IRA funding, Miller said that while the administration will watch where money goes – information agencies are already required to report publicly – it is particularly focused on tracking how the money is actually used. Oversight “is not just, ‘I’ve handed the dollars to somebody’”, Miller explained. “How are they spending those dollars? When are they spending those dollars? What are the outcomes that they’re getting?”‘Transformational’: could America’s new green bank be a climate gamechanger?Read moreThe administration wants to embed detailed reporting requirements into IRA programs and formalize those requirements before money is distributed. Miller said that this approach, outlined in two recent OMB memos centered on the rollout of the American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure law, reflects a lesson that the Biden team learned from the first Covid-19 package approved under the Trump administration: “It is very hard once those dollars go out the door to ask recipients to implement reporting requirements and provide data that you did not ask for upfront.”‘An endless educational curve’Successful implementation will require Podesta and the Biden team to balance spending the money quickly while also spending it effectively and equitably.“One of the biggest tensions here is actually going to be speed because there’ll be many incentives to get the money out the door quickly,” said the Roosevelt Institute’s Felicia Wong. But “if speed is your only criteria, then you’re going to end up probably deeply shortchanging the democracy element of all of this because speed and input are often at odds”, Wong said.“It is an uncomfortable tension to sit in,” Dana Johnson, the senior director of strategy and federal policy of We Act for Environmental Justice, said. “And in some ways it’s not really aligned with environmental justice, which says that … we move at the speed of trust” in communities. Because of the aggressive timelines included in the law, “the time that it takes to build trust is not there.”Johnson’s comments reflect the fact that the greater existence of federal resources does not automatically translate into greater on-the-ground impact. Ozawa Bineshi Albert, a co-executive director of the Climate Justice Alliance, pointed to IRA provisions that invest in rural electricity and provide support for coal miners with black lung disease as examples of the types of programs that need to be locally targeted to achieve their potential.“There’s some implementation that can happen uniformly, and then there’s some implementation that needs to happen very specific to the needs of certain communities,” Albert said. “Indigenous communities have a much different way of engaging with the government. What does that look like? What does it look like for communities who are experiencing land loss and displacement because of sea level rise? They can’t afford to not be consulted or have their experience shape the solution.”Can Biden’s climate bill undo the fossil fuel industry’s decades of harm?Read moreThe outreach challenge is exacerbated by the fact that significant portions of IRA money, such as $5bn in new grants to reduce climate pollution, will end up at the disposal of state governments. Some are controlled by Republican governors who might choose to reject the funding “instead of redistributing it to communities of color or low-income communities”, as Maria Lopez-Nuñez, deputy director of the New Jersey-based Ironbound Community Corporation, put it.Moreover, discovering funding opportunities, applying for them and meeting their reporting requirements – the same requirements that help the government track whether money is being used as intended – can be complicated and resource-intensive. Working to take advantage of these opportunities “is almost an endless educational curve”, Lopez-Nuñez said. There is a risk that “programs don’t become dispersed based on need, they become dispersed on who … can afford the most skillful consultant to write the grant for them.”In that case, the IRA could end up reinforcing, rather than disrupting, existing economic and racial disparities. Underlying this fear are the provisions of the law that extend federal support for fossil fuels, including provisions that offer new oil and gas leasing opportunities on public lands.“Much of what is being built” through oil and gas permitting, or even through investments in new technologies like carbon capture and storage, “could be built on top of existing fossil-fuel infrastructure”, explained Roosevelt’s Felicia Wong. “The argument is that if environmental justice groups and if communities of color are always the ones who are harmed the worst by existing fossil-fuel infrastructure, this does nothing to change that power dynamic.”‘You’ve got a product that is going to impact … millions of people’Despite the complexity of the task ahead, for many in the climate movement the IRA’s passage has sparked an all-too-rare feeling: hope.“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I have never seen more energy policy in one piece of legislation,” said RMI’s Sarah Ladislaw. “If you take the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Chips and Science Act, it is the most comprehensive energy policy delivered in legislative form that I’ve ever seen.”The law “could really transform the politics of climate change over the next several years as these huge programs roll out across the economy”, said Alden Meyer of E3G. “These programs are going to be so popular and so supported by both Republicans and Democrats that it will be hard to take them away.”This enthusiasm is reflected within the ranks of the Biden administration. “You’re putting in a lot of hard, long nights,” said Krishna Vallabhaneni, the treasury department’s tax legislative counsel, who recently found himself sending an email about IRA tax provisions at 3.13 am. “It can be draining at times. But at the end of the day, you’ve got a product that is going to impact – and, you hope, in a positive way – [the] lives of millions of people.”TopicsClimate financeUS politicsBiden administrationfeaturesReuse this content More

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      US voters hit hardest by climate crisis: ‘I need politicians to care about this’

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      US voters hit hardest by climate crisis: ‘I need politicians to care about this’The devastating effects of climate change are motivating how voters cast their ballots in the midterm elections Across the US, temperature records tumbled in a summer of heatwaves, enormous floods drowned entire towns and, in the west, an ongoing drought is now so severe that corpses are being uncovered in rapidly drying reservoirs.Despite these increasingly ominous signs, the climate crisis has struggled to gain much visibility in the lead-up to next week’s midterm elections. “Many voters are more focused on things like inflation, understandably, because people are struggling to get by in this economy,” said Geoffrey Henderson, an expert in climate policy at Duke University.Republican candidates on climate: ‘fake science’ to ‘carbon is healthy’Read moreBut, Henderson added, this will still be a “very high-stakes election for climate change”, with probable Republican control of at least one chamber of Congress likely to result in the gumming up of Joe Biden’s climate agenda. While the president managed to get a huge climate bill passed in the summer, any further legislation or even moves to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, will face obstruction. We spoke to six voters to ask what the climate crisis means for them ahead of the midterms.Wendy Johnson, Phoenix, ArizonaJohnson, 62, is the executive director of the Justa Center – a non-profit organization supporting homeless seniors in Phoenix, America’s hottest city, where it’s getting hotter, drier and deadlier. Returning to live in her home town five years ago after several decades, it’s become clear to Johnson that the climate crisis is hitting Phoenix hard, yet still isn’t a top priority for most voters or elected officials.“It’s obviously hotter in Phoenix than in the 1980s, but there are still too many people who deny climate change and keep voting for their pocketbooks. I see the effects everywhere: at work, elderly homeless people have come in with first and second degree burns from the asphalt or cement which is 30 degrees hotter than the just bearable 105F ambient temperature,” she said.She also described helping elderly people with dehydration, young kids collapsing while playing football or at band practice, and electricity bills doubling. “Climate change is everywhere but it’s still a peripheral issue for most people in the midterm elections.”Inflation hit 13% in Phoenix earlier this year – a record for any US city according to data going back 20 years – exacerbating the climate and homelessness crises driving heat deaths which have almost doubled since 2019.Johnson, who describes herself as a conservative Democrat, has looked into the climate credentials of all the candidates including the down-ticket races, which include the unintended consequences of some seemingly progressive climate pledges, like the displacement of families by a proposed light rail service. But Johnson fears that she’s in the minority.“Election deniers are the same people who still deny climate change, and if we can’t move them despite the proven facts, then for many election integrity is the most important thing.”Alyssa Quintyne, Fairbanks, AlaskaQuintyne is a community organiser in Fairbanks, a city with some of the worst air pollution in the country. This summer, as a record number of blazes enveloped the state after a record-breaking dry spell in the Fairbanks region, Quintyne said she had to really grapple with the meaning of climate crisis. The air had always been bad in her town due to wood-burning stoves and wildfires, but this year was unprecedented. “Things get worse and worse, year after year. And it can happen subtly until it catches you off guard.”Quintyne, 28, has a heart condition that has been linked to air pollution, as well as respiratory issues. “It’s ridiculous that climate change has become such a partisan issue, when really, this is really about are you able to breathe,” she said.In recent years, Quintyne has also seen severe winter storms damage her home and the homes of neighbors and family members; she has seen friends who don’t have the same health issues she does struggle with breathing difficulties as heatwaves and wildfire, fueled by global heating, exacerbate pollution.Of the independent and Democratic candidates for governor, Quintyne said she was still deciding who will strike the right balance between helping uplift and transition the state’s economy – which remains heavily dependent on oil and gas extraction – and prioritizing environmental justice. “I’m still teetering,” she said. “I’m still asking questions.”But above all, in a state that until recently has elected mostly conservative and moderate politicians, she’s looking for candidates who are open to working with environmental activists. “Having a candidate that is at least listening to you to understand where you are coming from, that’s incredibly important,” she said.Edith Tapia, El Paso, TexasLiving in the border city of El Paso, Tapia has noticed several environmental changes in recent years: the change of seasons has felt delayed and unpredictable, and the warmer weather has felt more prominent. Then, there’s the storms. “Every couple of years, [there are] these big snowstorms – or freezes – that shut everything down,” Tapia said. Because El Paso is on a separate electrical grid from the rest of Texas, the city was largely spared power outages during the freeze of 2021. “But Juárez [wasn’t],” said Tapia, referring to the Mexican city across the border from El Paso.Tapia works on both sides of the US-Mexico border as a technical adviser for a humanitarian organization, and saw up close what a freeze can do. Colleagues in Juárez were left without water or gas for multiple days. Additionally, she’s seen power outages in El Paso during extremely hot summer months. Despite the prevalence of environmental and climate issues facing the border region, and Texas more broadly, Tapia hasn’t seen any candidates campaigning on taking bolder climate action. “No candidate, at least that I’ve heard [of], is using this information as a major selling point,” said Tapia.In 2020, a mayoral candidate ran on the issue of fighting climate change in El Paso. “I thought she was excellent,” said Tapia, although the candidate ultimately lost. In general, Tapia notes that climate is on the minds of voters and candidates alike, but not always at first glance. “It is [there], but you have to dig a little deeper,” she said.Shelley Hunter, Quincy, CaliforniaIn the aftermath of the Dixie Fire, Hunter’s hotel, the Quincy Featherbed Inn, was first frequented by fatigued firefighters and now has been filled by construction workers and displaced neighbors. “We have turned to hopefulness instead of being victimized,” she said. But it hasn’t been easy. “Quincy is just trying to survive,” she added.Many of the restaurants have shuttered. Residents are moving away. Tourists that fuel the town’s economy are in shorter supply. “It is not just the fire – it is the pandemic and inflation and the lack of labor is just a perfect storm to impact everyone.”A lifelong Democrat, Hunter is now exploring a political shift in response to the change in circumstances she’s experienced. With increasing threats posed by the climate crisis, which have made water more scarce, spurred the rise in megafires like the Dixie, and spiked temperatures, Hunter fears for her both livelihood and her life. That, she said, has made voting more complicated.“It feels like it is one extreme to the other,” she said of the Democrats and Republicans, who she feels split messaging between climate consciousness and small business support respectively. “Climate change is real. It is happening and it is going to affect everybody,” she said. “And, it’s getting harder and harder to stay in business.”As an early voter who was vocal about her support of the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, Hunter cast votes for Republicans down-ballot for the first time this year. It helped that former president Trump wasn’t on the ballot, she said, noting her refusal to vote for candidates supportive of him. But her belief that conservatives will help her small business survive the bumpy road ahead is a complicated one. She’s looking for moderates who can address a multitude of concerns in the face of escalating catastrophes.“It is a shift for me,” she said. But anybody who denies climate change I am not voting for – let’s get real here.Sophie Swope, Bethel, AlaskaSwope is a city councilmember in Bethel, a western Alaskan city in a region that has been warming three to four times faster than the lower 48 states. Melting permafrost and storms have wreaked havoc on infrastructure, and the ground under Swope has literally cracked and shifted. In recent years, Swope, who is Yupik and a member of the Orutsararmiut tribe, has seen erosion and flooding displace homes, schools and even entire villages surrounding Bethel. “Climate change is happening before our eyes,” she said.Swope, 24, said she was looking for candidates who possess an understanding of how the climate crisis is affecting rural and tribal communities, their livelihood and their survival. She’s especially excited to vote for Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate for Alaska’s sole seat in the US House of Representatives. This summer, Peltola, who is also Yupik and from Bethel, became the first Alaska Native to be elected to Congress. “She has fished in our rivers for the majority of her life,” Swope said. “She understands how precious all of our natural resources are.”Swope founded a non-profit to oppose the development of the Donlin Gold mine – which if completed would be the largest open pit goldmine in the world. In a state where the economy is enmeshed with extractive industries, and where the people live at the Arctic edge of the climate crisis, Swope is also wary of candidates who prioritize development over the health of communities and ecosystems. “I understand that there is a need for mining and extraction at some level,” she said. “But we have to keep in mind how in Alaska every piece of land is precious.”Stuart Palley, Orange county, CaliforniaPhotographer Stuart Palley has been on the frontline of disasters for nearly a decade, capturing the devastation and escalation of wildfires in the west from behind his camera. For Palley, a lifelong Californian, the crisis is also personal. He’s watched as lands he loves turned to moonscapes, seen infernos swallow whole towns and lamented the loss of thousands-year-old trees that succumbed to firestorms. A self-described progressive, bearing witness to countless catastrophes has brought the climate crisis into sharper focus for Palley and the issue is now central to how he vets candidates from either party.“It is important to me that a candidate actually has a plan,” he said, emphasizing that that includes a greater acknowledgment of the intersectionality between climate action and equity and inclusion. “I tend to vote Democrat but there are independents and even the Green party that have better platforms,” he added, noting that his home district’s distinctly purple hue has at times skewed his support blue.“Our district is such a purple district and such a swing district for Congress and the county board of supervisors that the margin is down to a few thousand votes.”But even beyond the scope of his work, he’s worried about California’s treasured landscapes and ecosystems, including Joshua Tree national park near his home, bear the brunt of a warming world. “A lot of these areas are under threat,” he said, adding “I need politicians to care about this.” So, Palley plans to cast his votes with an eye toward the escalating threats looming now and in the future – with full knowledge of what’s at stake.“What’s the point of anything else if we don’t have a livable planet?”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Climate crisisUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      After the flood: inside the 4 November Guardian Weekly

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      After the flood: inside the 4 November Guardian WeeklyCop27’s climate prospects. Plus: Can the Democrats rescue the US midterms?Get the Guardian Weekly delivered to your home address For readers of the Guardian Weekly magazine’s North American edition this week, the cover focuses on the Democrats’ precarious hopes in the midterm elections. Elsewhere, the spotlight shines on the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt.Cautious optimism followed the last Cop conference in Glasgow, where an international roadmap was agreed to keep the world within 1.5C of global heating. On the eve of this year’s summit, however, a slew of alarming reports have shown that carbon emissions are still rising.Further carbon cuts therefore ought to be a priority, argue scientists. However, Cop27 is likely to be dominated by debate about compensation that poorer nations feel richer countries should be paying for climate damage. Observer science and environment editor Robin McKie sets the scene for a summit that seems engulfed in a storm of its own. And there’s a fascinating report by Mark Townsend on the Just Stop Oil protests, as debate stirs among activists about whether direct action tactics are effective in changing attitudes.The US midterm elections next week could see a Republican party still dominated by Donald Trump gain control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. David Smith asks whether an intervention by former president Barack Obama could give a late kickstart to the Democrats’ hopes.Jubilation and relief accompanied Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s narrow election victory in Brazil, ending Jair Bolsonaro’s era of Amazon destruction. Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips reports on a much-needed moment of hope for the region and the world, but Andrew Downie warns that difficult challenges await the returning president-elect.On the culture front there’s an interview by Simon Hattenstone with the actor Damian Lewis, who talks about life after the death of his wife, Helen McCrory. And Jonathan Jones meets the artist David Shrigley, for whom a move to the countryside has not exactly mellowed his anxiety-laden brand of pop art.Get the Guardian Weekly delivered to your home addressTopicsCop27Inside Guardian WeeklyClimate crisisUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsRepublicansUS politicsBrazilReuse this content More

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      The Guardian view on climate diplomacy: it’s crunch time – again | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on climate diplomacy: it’s crunch time – againEditorialFreezing relations between the US and China threaten this year’s crucial Cop27 summit Less than two weeks before Cop27 opens in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, an outline of what to expect from the negotiations is becoming more distinct. The issue of loss and damage is expected to dominate – as it should. Wealthy countries have broken the promise made in 2009 at Cop15 in Copenhagen. An annual climate finance budget of $100bn was agreed then to help the countries most dangerously exposed to global heating to adapt. But contributions have fallen short. The group of countries known as the V20, which includes the Philippines and several small island states, are justifiably angry and determined to ensure that past failures are confronted.So is Pakistan, which is not part of V20 but suffered catastrophic losses during recent floods. With one-third of its landmass under water and valuable crops destroyed by what one senator, writing in the Guardian, called a “monster monsoon”, the country now faces an immediate crisis as well as a longer-term, existential threat from melting glaciers. Pakistan, with its population of around 220 million people, is responsible for just 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, G20 countries between them produce 80%.“People are enjoying their lives in the west, but someone here is paying the price,” said one government minister, Ahsan Iqbal. Such views have been echoed by other leaders. At Cop26, Madagascar’s environment minister, Baomiavotse Vahinala Raharinirina, told the Guardian she believed that some short-haul flights should be banned. “You have to make a choice or have to make a sacrifice,” she said, pointing to the climate-induced famine in her country as the price being paid for western consumption habits.But while lifestyle changes such as reducing meat-eating and car use are increasingly recognised as an important element of emissions-cutting plans, it is governments that must step up in Egypt. A bilateral agreement between the US and China was among the most encouraging developments at Cop26. Then, the US’s climate envoy, John Kerry, spoke of global heating as an issue of “math and physics” rather than politics. His Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, said “there is more agreement between China and the United States than divergence”.Eleven months on, relations between the two superpowers have chilled. Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in the summer angered Chinese leaders. A recently unveiled US national security strategy described China as “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge”. It was swiftly followed by new export controls on microchips, intended to hamper Chinese ambitions. The question is whether climate negotiations can be forced back on track despite this. While Mr Kerry used an interview in the Guardian on Tuesday to appeal for renewed cooperation, the war in Ukraine, combined with the China-US standoff, have significantly raised tensions and lowered expectations.The hope is that once leaders gather in Egypt, the scale of the threat from rising temperatures will focus minds. In asking for international support with loss and damage, the global south countries have right on their side – as rich countries knew when they agreed to the original climate finance package. Governments left Glasgow last year knowing that they had fallen short of what is required if humanitarian disasters of unimaginable severity are to be prevented. The window of opportunity for policies that will deliver on the headline commitment to keep global temperature rises below 1.5C gets smaller every year.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.TopicsCop27OpinionClimate crisisJohn KerryChinaUS politicsExtreme weatherGreenhouse gas emissionseditorialsReuse this content More

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      US lawmakers call for more measures to protect against toxic lead in tap water

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      US lawmakers call for more measures to protect against toxic lead in tap waterSenators make appeal to EPA after series of Guardian articles revealed that communities of color often face high lead levels US legislators are calling for increased measures to protect American residents from toxic lead in their tap water.A group of up to 15 US senators asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to lower the levels of lead allowable in drinking water, require all lead pipes to be replaced in the next decade and ensure that low-income neighborhoods can benefit equally from the remediation efforts.TopicsUS newsAmerica’s dirty divideWaterUS politicsUS Environmental Protection AgencynewsReuse this content More

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      A California measure would tax the rich to fund electric vehicles. Why is the governor against it?

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      A California measure would tax the rich to fund electric vehicles. Why is the governor against it?Proposition 30 would raise up to $5bn annually to help buy zero-emission cars, trucks and buses; Newsom calls it a ‘Trojan horse’ Two years ago, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, issued an executive order banning the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.This year, he’s opposing a ballot measure to fund the transition to electric vehicles – siding with Republicans and against fellow Democrats, environmental groups, firefighters and labor unions.The governor’s counterintuitive position could be a political gambit. It may also doom the measure; support for it appears to have dropped starkly after Newsom cut an ad against it.California wants everyone to drive EVs. How will low-income people afford them?Read moreThe measure, Proposition 30, would hike taxes by 1.75% on those earning $2m or more annually, raising between $3bn and $5bn annually to subsidize households, businesses and schools; buy zero-emission cars, trucks and buses; fund infrastructure to charge electric vehicles; and bolster wildfire prevention efforts.Proponents of the measure, including the coalition of environmental and labor groups that developed it, say the tax would provide urgently needed funds to hasten the transition to zero-emission vehicles, and reduce the disproportionate burden of pollution on low-income, minority communities across the state. According to the American Lung Association, which has endorsed Prop 30, the US could save 110,000 lives and $1.2tn in public health costs by 2050 if it swaps gas-powered vehicles for zero-emissions cars.Newsom, and the proposition’s opponents, claim it is a corporate carve-out for Lyft, the ride-hailing company that has backed the measure and helped fund its campaign.“Prop 30 is being advertised as a climate initiative,” Newsom says in an advertisement against Prop 30. “But in reality, it was devised by a single corporation to funnel state income taxes to benefit their company. Put simply, Prop 30 is a Trojan horse that puts corporate welfare above the fiscal welfare of our entire state.”The message left some of the organizers and activists who helped write the measure stunned.“It’s just false,” said Denny Zane, the founder and policy director at Move LA, a public transit advocacy group that helped develop the proposition. Lyft joined the effort to promote the proposition after environmental groups and policymakers came up with the idea, he said, but the company did not “devise” the proposition.Overhauling the transportation infrastructureLyft has given more than $15m to support the measure and funded signature-gathering to get it on the November ballot. Though it wouldn’t benefit directly from the proposition, it and other rideshare companies face a 2030 regulatory deadline to transition the majority of their fleets to EVs. Prop 30 could help Lyft drivers, who are responsible for providing their own cars, purchase zero-emission vehicles.“It’s absurd to say we’re granting some sort of carve-out specifically for Lyft,” said Bill Magavern, the policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, a statewide organization focused on air pollution issues.Proponents of the funding measure point out that the $10bn that Newsom’s budget has already allocated to EV subsidies and infrastructure would help Lyft drivers in the same way. And funds from Prop 30 would ultimately be funneled to the California Air Resources Board, the California Energy Commission and Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, which would allocate the money to various programs.Newsom argues that California’s tax revenues are “famously volatile”, and the measure would make the state’s finances even more unstable. A wealth tax, the governor says, wouldn’t be the best way to fund the programs Prop 30 seeks to support. Moreover, he has noted that the state has already budgeted $10bn for electric vehicles specifically, and $54bn toward climate adaptation broadly.But environmental and transportation experts say even such massive investments won’t be enough to transition the state’s transportation infrastructure.Magavern and other environmental advocates instead see the governor’s stance on the proposition as a capitulation to wealthy donors. “You’ve got billionaires and their allies who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes,” Magavern said.Among the biggest donors to the “No on 30” campaign are William Fisher, hedge fund manager and Gap Inc director, and billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz, according to public records. Investment firm founder Mark Heising, who contributed the maximum allowable amount to Newsom’s 2022 re-election campaign, also contributed $1m to oppose Prop 30.Joining these donors, Newsom, and anti-tax Republican politicians is the California Teachers Association, which opposed the measure because it circumvents a 1998 mandate that a minimum of 40% of the state’s budget goes to public education.Opinion columnists and political experts have conjectured that Newsom’s siding with teachers and his traditional enemies – the Republicans – could help bolster the governor’s political future. Though Newsom has repeatedly denied he has any intention of running for president, his recent national-facing campaign ads have stirred up speculation to the contrary. Newsom’s position on Prop 30 could easily fit into a presidential pitch that he walks the line between California progressivism and nationally appealing moderation, those columnists and experts have argued, and that he doesn’t blindly side with his own party and sometimes works with Republicans and business interests. The governor’s campaign did not respond to detailed questions regarding the political implications of this opposition to the proposition. “Prop 30 is fiscally irresponsible and puts the profits of a single corporation ahead of the welfare of the entire state,” the governor said in a statement.Meeting the state’s zero-emission goalsCalifornia will have to make major investments if it wants to live up to its clean energy goals.As more electric vehicles hit the road, the state has set targets to build an additional 170,000 public charging stations over the next three years. And California would need to invest in fortifying its already shaky electrical grid system.“The governor did support record levels of investment in this year’s budget, which is great news, it’s what’s needed,” said Don Anair, an expert in zero-emission transportation technologies and infrastructure at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which supports Prop 30.But it’s unclear how much will be invested in electric and zero-emission vehicles in subsequent yearly budgets, including after Newsom leaves office, Anair said. “We need a long-term, large-scale source of revenue to meet the state’s goals.”The need for investment now is urgent, Anair added. Even if the state phases out gas-powered vehicles by 2035, the cars, buses and freight vehicles already on the road now, or bought over the next few years will remain on the road for decades unless California incentivizes and subsidizes the purchase of zero-emission options.One limitation of the proposition is that it doesn’t specify subsidies for e-bikes and other programs to steer commuters away from cars altogether. Even electric cars are far less efficient than walking, biking and public transportation – they are energy and resource-intensive to build, and encourage urban sprawl. The mining of cobalt, lithium and other rare elements required to build EVs has raised environmental and human rights concerns.In coming years, even more investments in public transit and urban infrastructure, as well as improvements in how EVs are made, will be required in order to truly address the climate crisis.The proposition “is not going to solve all our transportation problems”, Anair said. But for now, transportation remains the largest source of greenhouse emissions in California. “So zero-emission transportation is critically important,” Anair said. “Climate change is already having impacts and the sooner we can start reducing our emissions, the better.”TopicsCaliforniaGavin NewsomElectric, hybrid and low-emission carsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The American EV boom is about to begin. Does the US have the power to charge it?

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      The American EV boom is about to begin. Does the US have the power to charge it? States have plans to ban gas-powered cars and the White House wants chargers along highways, but implementation is a challengeSpeaking in front of a line of the latest electric vehicles (EVs) at this month’s North American International Auto Show, President Joe Biden declared: “The great American road trip is going to be fully electrified.”Most vehicles on the road are still gas guzzlers, but Washington is betting big on change, hoping that major federal investment will help reach a target set by the White House for 50% of new cars to be electric by 2030. But there are roadblocks – specifically when it comes to charging them all. “Range anxiety,” or how far one can travel before needing to charge, is still cited as a major deterrent for potential EV buyers.The auto industry recently passed the 5% mark of EV market share – a watershed moment, analysts say, before rapid growth. New policies at the state and local level could very well spur that growth: the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed this summer, offers tax credits of $4,000 to purchase a used EV and up to $7,500 for certain new ones. In August, California, the nation’s largest state and economy, announced rules that would ban all new gas-powered cars by 2035. New York plans to follow.So now, the race is on to provide chargers to power all those new EVs.The administration’s target of 500,000 public charging units by 2030 is a far cry from the current count of nearly 50,000, according to the Department of Energy’s estimate. And those new chargers will have to be fast – what’s known as Level 2 or 3 charging – and functional in order to create a truly reliable system. Today, many are not.Last week, the White House approved plans for all 50 states, along with Washington DC, and Puerto Rico, to set up chargers along highways, unlocking $1.5bn in federal funding to that end. The money comes from the landmark infrastructure bill passed last year, which invests $7.5bn for EV charging in total.Electric vehicle charging stations get green light across USRead moreBut how much of that money is spent is largely going to be determined at the local level. “It’s a difference between policy and practice,” said Drew Lipsher, the chief development officer at Volta, an EV charging provider. “Now that the federal government has these policies, the question becomes, OK, how does this actually get implemented?” The practice, he said, is up to states and municipalities.As EV demand spikes, a growing number of cities are adopting policies for EV charging construction. In July, the city of Columbus passed an “EV readiness” ordinance, which will require new parking structures to host charging stations proportionate to the number of total parking spots, with at least one that is ADA-accessible. Honolulu and Atlanta have passed similar measures.One major challenge is creating a distribution model that can meet a diversity of needs.At the moment, most EV owners charge their cars at home with a built-in unit, which governments can help subsidize. But for apartment dwellers or those living in multi-family homes, that’s less feasible. “When we’re thinking about the largest pieces of the population, that’s where we need to really be focusing our attention. This is a major equity issue,” said Alexia Melendez Martineau, the policy manager at Plug-In America, an EV consumer advocacy group.Bringing power to people is one such solution. In Hoboken, New Jersey, Volta is working with the city to create a streetside charging network. “The network will be within a five-minute walk of every resident,” said Lipsher. “Hopefully this is a way for us to really import it to cities who believe public EV charging infrastructure on the street is important.” Similarly, in parts of Los Angeles – as in Berlin and London – drivers can get a charge from a street lamp.And there may be new technologies that could help, exciting experts and EV enthusiasts alike. That could include the roads themselves charging EVs through a magnetizable concrete technology being piloted in Indiana and Detroit. And bidirectional charging, where, similar to solar panels, drivers can put their electricity back into the grid – or perhaps even to another EV, through what’s known as electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). Nissan approved the technology for their Leaf model this month.Prochazka said he imagined a future where cities rely on excess EV charge when energy demand spikes, rather than polluting peaker plants that are currently turned on to boost supply. “We haven’t even scratched the surface on the opportunities that are gonna exist once we get bidirectional happening,” said Prochazka.Experts hope these advances will help bridge the gap in historically disconnected areas, such as rural communities and communities of color. But first, planners have to listen: although extensive community engagement trials have been praised in states such as Arizona, the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter in Indiana accused the state’s draft plan of excluding Black communities.“The more the community has input on where these chargers go, how they’re used and how they’re designed,” said Melendez Martineau, “the better they’re going to serve the community.”Still, the US seems significantly more poised to electrify now than it did six months ago, says Dale Hall, a senior researcher who focuses on EVs at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).He says that the private sector, which is behind much of the charging infrastructure, is moving ahead with clear signals of support from the public sector. Stronger local policies or cutting-edge technology will only help dictate the speed of that transition, Hall added.He thinks the Biden administration’s goal for chargers is achievable. “The business case is just going to keep getting better.”TopicsElectric, hybrid and low-emission carsBiden administrationUS politicsClimate crisisAutomotive industrynewsReuse this content More

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      ‘A powerful solution’: activists push to make ecocide an international crime

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      ‘A powerful solution’: activists push to make ecocide an international crimeMovement aims to make the mass damage and destruction of ecosystems a prosecutable, international crime against peace California winemaker Julia Jackson has long grasped the threats posed by the ongoing global climate change crisis, from more intense wildfires and hurricanes to rising sea levels. But for her, those ideas crossed over from the abstract to the tangible when her home was razed by the Kincade wildfire that devastated her native Sonoma county in 2019.“I lost everything – all my belongings,” Jackson said. “It shook me to my core.”But Jackson didn’t just use the resources she’s accumulated through her second-generation proprietorship of the US’s ninth-largest wine company, Jackson Family Wines, to rebuild her life following that disaster. She’s since signed on to lead the US chapter of a global movement to make the mass damage and destruction of ecosystems a prosecutable, international crime against peace known as ecocide.Jackson and her compatriots in Stop Ecocide spent the last week in New York City, meeting with dignitaries participating in Climate Week events as well as the United Nations’ General Assembly. They also marched from Foley Square to Battery Park in Manhattan in one of 450 strike demonstrations planned worldwide on 23 September as part of the Fridays for Future movement, which demands climate reparations and justice.Among other things, they urged voters to cast ballots in the US’s upcoming midterm elections in favor of candidates who are against things like deforestation and want to limit greenhouse gas emissions, which are some of the factors contributing to global warming and its effects: longer-lasting wildfires, more potent hurricanes and coastal erosion.Yet topping the group’s list of demands was for countries across the world to recognize ecocide as an offense against peace – carrying fines and even prison time – through the UN’s international criminal court.Jackson was quick to point out recently that Stop Ecocide doesn’t want to see every day, working class car drivers or frequent airline passengers be charged as international criminals and hauled into the same court which prosecutes genocide and wartime atrocities. They just want an ecocide charge to be an arrow in the quiver of those trying to rein in government-level policymakers whose agendas are exacerbating the climate crisis.As others have done over the years, Jackson – who also leads the climate-focused nonprofit Grounded – singled out the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro as an ideal candidate to be prosecuted for ecocide because of the accelerated rate at which the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed under his administration.Bolsonaro, among other things, has eliminated environmental protection programs meant to shield the Amazon, which absorbs greenhouse gases and is an important line of defense against global warming. He has also sought to open indigenous reservations – along with other protected lands – to mining and agricultural business ventures, exacerbating harmful emissions.“It’s not chopping down one tree” that ecocide would aim to criminalize, Jackson said. “It’s severe mass destruction of the earth.”There are hurdles, including procedural ones, for the movement to overcome. Two-thirds of the countries recognizing the UN’s international criminal court would need to approve adding ecocide as an offense.That translates to a total of more than 80 countries whose approval is required, and even then nations opposed to ratifying it could limit its enforcement over their territories and citizens.Nonetheless, Jackson estimates about two dozen countries at this point have expressed a recorded interest in the concept of classifying ecocide as an international crime, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Iceland, France, Mexico and Chile.She hopes the movement’s momentum only continues building from there, especially after the last week.As the executive director of the global Stop Ecocide movement, Jojo Mehta, put it in a statement: “We have to … prevent mass damage and destruction of the living world … by recognizing it as the crime we all know it to be.“Ecocide law is a powerful solution to protect nature, climate and our future while providing a guiding legal framework for positive change.”TopicsEnvironmentUnited NationsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More