| On Tuesday, the Arcata Planning Commission passed the Gateway Plan, an ambitious zoning plan aiming to reshape the city into a denser community with significantly more housing to the city council for final approval. The Gateway Area Plan – which would rezone Arcata’s Creamery District into several zones with varying levels of housing density, including some that allow up to eight-story buildings – and General Plan are now in the city council’s hands, and will likely see approval in the next few months. |
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Alternative to the gas tax? California officials are still trying to figure out how to pay for road repairs and maintenance in the not-so-distant future, when electric vehicles dominate the roadways and gas tax revenue dries up. So they’re offering drivers up to $400 to test a couple of alternatives for six months, starting in August. The pilot program is open to drivers of all vehicle types, gasoline-powered or otherwise.
Florida eliminates “climate change.” Florida, perhaps the most vulnerable state to sea-level rise and extreme weather, is on the verge of repealing what’s left of a 16-year-old law that lists climate change as a priority when making energy policy decisions. Instead, the state would make energy affordability and availability its main focus. A bill waiting to be signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis would strip the term “climate change” from much of state law and reverse a policy then-Gov. Charlie Crist championed as he built a reputation for being a rare Republican fighting to promote green energy over fossil fuels.
Federal regulators on Monday approved sweeping changes to how America’s electric grids are planned and funded, in a move that supporters hope could spur thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines and make it easier to add more wind and solar energy.
The new rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate electricity transmission, is the most significant attempt in years to upgrade and expand the country’s creaking electricity network. The overhaul comes as it has become harder and more expensive for America’s electric utilities to deliver power to the country’s homes and businesses. The new federal rule requires grid operators around the country to identify needs 20 years into the future, taking into account factors like changes in the energy mix, the growing number of states that require wind and solar power and the risks of extreme weather.. [This intro is followed by an interview with a Washington Post reporter.
Bank financing for fossil fuels dips second year in a row
Could the world’s biggest banks finally be getting their act together on climate? A new report indicates that might just be starting to happen as global bank lending and underwriting for fossil fuels fell 9.4% in 2023, the second year in a row that has seen a dip. Eugene Ellmen reports that the world’s biggest banks have poured trillions of dollars in financing into the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement was struck and still issued more than $700 billion in financing for oil, gas and coal in 2023 – with a large chunk of that going toward gas pipelines and terminals. But a dip is a dip and we’ll take it for now.
| A California university professor calls on developers to site utility-scale solar installations on contaminated sites, old mines, unusable farmlands (selenium contamination) and parking lots instead of on pristine public lands. (Mercury News) [The interview features more diverse solutions than in the headline.] |
San Diego partners with a private firm to install electric vehicle chargers at every city building, library, beach and recreation center within five years. (San Diego Union-Tribune) AND…
The Biden administration awards California nearly $64 million to continue to build out its electric vehicle charging network. (KRON 4)
Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It. Sentient, December 2023. “The meat industry has long worked to downplay the connection between meat and climate change and, at least so far, it’s working. 66 percent of Americans either don’t understand that eating meat is bad for climate change, or believe it has no impact at all.” [This is included now because Tyson Foods introduced “Brazen Beef” that is labeled “Climate Friendly” even though it only claims to reduce 10% and all the methods and data are considered trade secrets.]
Elected leaders have been unwilling to wade into the tricky but necessary task of weaning the world off planet-roasting meat and dairy. But one solution proposed by the World Bank last week would see high-income countries simply redirect the subsidies they send to the red meat and dairy industries toward lower-carbon alternatives. In the United States, the government provides US$38 billion a year in subsidies to meat and dairy.
The Surprising Force Stalling Climate Progress: California Restaurants When Berkeley became the first US city to ban natural gas in new buildings, the California Restaurant Association fought back, and won. Now gas companies are planning to leverage that victory nationally. It turns out the Restaurant Association has a long history of regressive action, going back to opposing smoking bans.
The insurance turmoil caused by climate change — which had been concentrated in Florida, California and Louisiana — is fast becoming a contagion, spreading to states like Iowa, Arkansas, Ohio, Utah and Washington. Even in the Northeast, where homeowners insurance was still generally profitable last year, the trends are worsening. As the former state insurance commissioner of California put it, “I believe we’re marching toward an uninsureable future.” [From Bill McKibbens’ newsletter.]
Billions of federal and state dollars go into supporting the ethanol industry. A recent study by Renew Wisconsin showed that, comparing the use of farmland for ethanol or solar, as measured in the potential for EV vs combustion vehicle mileage, showed that “…ethanol used in internal combustion engines requires about 85 times the amount of land to power the same amount of driving as solar-charged electric vehicles.”
No new coal on public lands. The Interior Department issued plans Thursday to throttle future coal mining in the nation’s largest coal-producing region. The Bureau of Land Management proposal would end new federal coal leases in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, which dominates U.S. coal production. The plans, released with no fanfare by BLM, would reverse two Trump administration land use decisions, stopping new leases for coal development projects. But they do not end coal production in the basin, with BLM determining that existing coal mines will continue operating for decades.The election-year moves illustrate the stark contrast between the Biden administration’s climate-driven priorities compared with former President Donald Trump’s embrace of fossil fuel production on federal lands
Biden puts high tariffs on cheap green technology from China that is flooding the world’s markets. President Biden announced this week that he planned to sharply increase the taxes America imposes on electric vehicles, solar cells, advanced batteries and other climate technologies imported from China. Labor groups cheered him on, unsurprisingly: Those tariffs would make Chinese green technology more expensive for Americans, which could protect American jobs in the clean energy sector. “There’s one way of looking at this week’s announcements that highlights the trade-offs between accelerating the clean energy transition as quickly as possible and protecting union jobs,” he said. “Another way to think about it is to say the best climate strategy is one that can maintain domestic political support.”
Donald Trump has vowed to immediately halt offshore wind energy projects “on day one” of a new term as US president, in his most explicit threat yet to the industry and the latest in a series of promises to undo key aspects of the transition to cleaner energy. Trump repeated false accusations about wind projects as being lethal to whales during a rally on Saturday in Wildwood, a resort city on New Jersey’s coast, promising to stamp out an industry that has been enthusiastically backed by Joe Biden.
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Bonus podcast recommendation: Akshat Rathi hosts the Zero podcast. Listen now, and subscribe on Apple or Spotify to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday. Rathi is whipsmart and has access to world climate leaders as guests on the show.