International - Climate Extra

Seeking To Show Leadership At COP30, EU Issues Updated Climate Target

As key national leaders gathering ahead of this year’s international climate summit in Brazil are emphasizing the need to create clear plans to implement climate goals, European officials are issuing an ambitious updated target in an attempt to fill a climate policy leadership void left by the Trump administration. The European Union on Nov. 5 announced a new target to reduce greenhouse gases 90 percent by 2040, though its Paris Agreement target covering actions through 2035 includes a wide emissions...

Despite ‘Headwinds’, Advocates Say Climate Talks Show Continued Effort

Ahead of this year’s international climate negotiations -- which face mounting geopolitical challenges, including a rebuke from Trump administration officials -- some observers are nonetheless projecting optimism about the ongoing global commitment to implementing the Paris Agreement and striving to achieve its goals. “If we come out of COP30 demonstrating that the Paris Agreement is alive and functioning, I think in the current context, that is pretty newsworthy [in and] of itself,” said Kaveh Guilanpour, international climate chief with the...

Groups Tout Improved Carbon Border Accounting Amid Doubts Over Trump

Two energy policy groups are endorsing a greenhouse gas accounting method they argue would help enable implementation by industry of carbon border or other “carbon management” policies, even as backers of such efforts acknowledge the Trump administration remains resistant to embracing such carbon policies despite global pressure to do so. Such a disconnect risks leaving the U.S. on the sidelines of developing the contours of these carbon policies, to its economic detriment, says one carbon pricing proponent who argues that...

Officials Optimistic That State, Local Policy Can Approach Biden GHG Goal

New analysis suggests state and local governments, paired with a renewed federal commitment to climate efforts after the Trump term ends, could still nudge the U.S. toward major greenhouse gas cuts that might even approach a Biden-era Paris target that Trump officials are seeking to undermine. An Oct. 28 report from America Is All In, a coalition of state and local officials dedicated to advancing climate policy, and the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability finds it possible to...

UN Report Seeks To Speed Action On Climate Goals Ahead Of Belém Talks

The United Nations climate office is seeking to hike pressure on countries to commit to additional climate mitigation and adaptation steps ahead of this year’s international climate meeting in Belém, Brazil, finding that nations are not moving quickly enough to limit greenhouse gas emissions to meet global temperature targets. Countries “are bending their combined emission curve further downward, but still not quickly enough,” says an Oct. 28 “synthesis report ” of the combined effect of tougher national climate targets. Countries...

China’s GHG Target Falls Short Of Advocates’ Global Leadership Hopes

Environmentalists say China’s just-announced updated greenhouse gas-reduction target, while a significant step that signals continued development of renewable energy and steps to mitigate climate change, is still modest and falls short of providing the clear global climate leadership some had hoped for amid the Trump administration’s retreat. “China will, by 2035, reduce economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent to 10 percent from peak levels, striving to do better,” China’s President Xi Jinping announced during the Sept. 24 Climate...

In U.N. Address, Trump Urges Allies To Halt Climate Mitigation Efforts

In an address to the United Nations, President Donald Trump called climate change a major “con job” and jabbed wind energy as expensive and ineffective -- bringing the administration’s anti-renewable and pro-fossil fuel agenda to the global stage. He urged allied nations to follow his lead to abandon carbon reduction goals and expand use of traditional energy -- building on comments from administration officials encouraging countries to buy United States oil and gas exports, and abandon Russian fuel. Climate change...

EU Promises To Ease Carbon Border Program’s Harms On U.S. Industry

European officials as part of a broader trade framework are pledging to ease harms from their carbon border program on small U.S. businesses, a move that runs counter to calls from a top Senate Democrat for the European Union to strictly enforce that program as a way to build support among domestic industry for tougher climate policies. However, the extent of the EU’s flexibility on its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is not clear, even as observers say it represents...

Renewables Sector Says Tariffs, FEOC Requirements Will Stymie Projects

Renewable energy industry leaders are underscoring that the Trump administration’s ongoing tariff policy, especially when coupled with the GOP tax law’s new incentive restrictions for projects linked to certain “foreign entities of concern” (FEOC), will spur a sharp decline in domestic clean energy manufacturing. The administration is imposing an “enormous” and “potentially manufacture-killing” tariff burden on imported equipment and components like cooper, said Vanessa Sciarra, vice president of trade and international competitiveness at the American Clean Power Association, during a...

OMB Urges Congress To Rescind Appropriated International Climate Funds

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is urging Congress to rescind already-appropriated funds for the State Department to implement international climate programs, though the White House’s $9.4 billion rescission package appears to omit EPA funding. The May 28 rescission request , which the White House sent to Capitol Hill on June 3, would rescind funds for voluntary contributions to the Montreal Protocol that limits releases of climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons and ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, as well as various international aid...

U.S. Skirts Decades-Old U.N. Deadline For Submitting Annual GHG Report

The U.S. in an unprecedented move appears to have missed an April 15 deadline to submit its latest annual greenhouse gas emissions inventory to the United Nations, pursuant to a treaty requirement dating to the mid-1990s, offering the latest manifestation of the Trump administration’s repudiation of climate change policies. “Every presidential administration for the past three decades (including the first Trump administration) has fulfilled this treaty obligation,” Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) said in an April 14 note to the press...

Foreign Policy Group Seeks Officials’ Focus On 3-Degree Warming Scenario

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is highlighting arguments that U.S. policymakers should plan for a scenario in which the globe experiences 3 degrees Celsius of warming from pre-industrial levels, arguing this would be part of a “pragmatic” response to the limits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while still protecting U.S. interests. The group’s multi-year effort, known as the Climate Realism Initiative, seeks to “confront the threat of climate change, compete in the shifting global energy landscape and build a...

Evading Trump, Officials Say New 2035 GHG Goal Requires No Federal Steps

The Biden administration is releasing a new national greenhouse gas target under the Paris Agreement that calls for a 61-66 percent cut in emissions by 2035 from 2005 levels, with officials arguing the country can meet the lower end of this target without any new federal action. That argument is important as the incoming Trump administration is expected to quickly drop U.S. efforts under the Paris deal and scale back a variety of federal climate policies. “I believe that with...

GOP Senators Float Revised Carbon Border Fee With Fewer Affected Sectors

Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are floating a revised version of their proposed “foreign pollution fee” on carbon-intensive imports, including fewer targeted industries, in a prelude to a debate next year that supporters say could be a component of Republicans’ planned tax legislation. The discussion draft of the legislation released Dec. 11 comes as the incoming Trump administration is planning aggressive trade policies against nations such as China, with the advocacy for the pollution fee measure seeking...

Long-Sought Carbon Market Rules Could Boost GHG Ambition, Backers Say

Countries at this year’s international climate talks have approved long-pending rules to implement provisions of the Paris Agreement governing the use of global carbon markets, a move that U.S. and other supporters say will bolster efforts to use carbon emissions cuts facilitated by such markets to help meet broader goals in the Paris deal. The markets provision, known as Article 6, “can now help countries aspire to higher ambition in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions due in 2025...

Officials Near Agreement On Climate Finance Goal For Developing Nations

Negotiators at this year’s international climate conference in Azerbaijan are coalescing around an annual target of around $250 billion to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change, an amount observers say is a meaningful increase from current goals yet still far from the levels poorer countries need for climate efforts. “The key question is whether there is enough money on the table from richer countries, and whether there is enough assurance on the quality of that finance,” said...

Negotiators’ Climate Finance Proposal Highlights Struggle To Reach Deal

The latest proposal for reaching a new international climate finance target for developing countries is highlighting negotiators’ struggle to reach a deal on the topic at the ongoing United Nations climate conference, even as European countries and some others are striving to craft ambitious climate mitigation goals ahead of scaled-back U.S. policies. Observers say the latest proposal released Nov. 21 for the climate finance target -- dubbed the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) -- fails to bridge divides between developed...

House GOP Pledges To Use Energy Costs As Screen For IRA Repeal Efforts

As Republicans prepare for full control of Congress in January, GOP lawmakers at this year’s United Nations climate talks are pledging to reconsider any Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions that fail to align with their mission to lower domestic energy costs. Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), who lead a House delegation to the conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, said during a Nov. 16 press conference that President-elect Donald Trump won the Nov. 5 election due to historic inflation in recent years and...

G20 Broadly Reaffirms Paris Goals But Omits Explicit Fossil Fuel Pledge

The Group of 20 major economies is declining to explicitly re-affirm last year’s global call to transition away from fossil fuels, even as the countries responsible for the bulk of global emissions are renewing broad support for international climate goals and supporting ongoing efforts at this year’s climate talks to agree on a new climate finance target. The conclusion of the G20’s Nov. 18-19 meeting in Brazil comes just days ahead of the scheduled end of United Nations climate negotiations...

Rhodium Floats U.S. Target Aiming For Nearly Two-Thirds GHG Cut By 2035

An analysis from the energy consulting firm Rhodium Group is suggesting that the U.S. would have to set a new Paris Agreement goal of curbing GHGs by nearly two thirds by 2035, to keep the country on track for deep decarbonization by 2050. The assessment could help set expectations for a new Paris goal that the Biden administration has pledged to issue in the coming weeks, even as the incoming Trump administration is expected to quickly jettison such a target...

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