Also: TikTok silences dissenters, YouTube union layoffs, Malaysia's chip boom. 
Good morning.
One of the great challenges facing businesses in the modern era is that they must undergo two revolutions—a technology revolution and an energy revolution—at the same time. The two interact in complex ways. On the downside, AI is quickly becoming a massive energy suck—as this recent story in the Washington Post documents. But on the upside, data technologies are opening up new opportunities to track and reduce climate-damaging emissions.
Last week’s SpaceX launch of a satellite dedicated to tracking methane emissions is a landmark example of the second. At COP28 in December, some 50 oil and gas companies agreed to dramatically cut methane leaks in their systems by 2030. The new satellite will give the world the data it needs to hold them to that pledge.
I spoke Friday with Fred Krupp, long-time head of the Environmental Defense Fund, which developed the satellite plan. Krupp believes the methane agreement is:
“…the single most important thing that’s ever been announced at any COP in terms of the effect it’s going to have in lowering the temperature rise that we would otherwise see in the next 10 years.”
“Carbon dioxide is the gas everyone knows about and has been talking about for the longest time. But it turns out that in 2020, anthropogenic releases of methane will warm the planet over the next 10 years about as much as all the carbon dioxide from burning all the fossil fuels on the entire planet. That’s how important methane is to the short term…”
“A lot of the oil and gas methane emissions are from little chronic leaks that are 24/7. But they’re all fixable for a very reasonable cost.”
MethaneSAT will spot those leaks…and make them public.
Separately, Krupp, who is the most practically-minded leader of a major environmental group, said the SEC climate disclosure rule released last week is an “important step forward” even though it didn’t address the critical issue of companies’ so-called “Scope 3” emissions from suppliers and customers.
“I understand that it’s harder to report on Scope 3. So I do think the SEC deserves a lot of credit for moving forward and on what they did move forward on. And in terms of the parts they took out, we can come back to those.”
Other news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
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Don’t criticize TikTok
Former and current employees who criticize TikTok could risk losing their shares if they speak out. Lawyers say the arrangement is unusual but not illegal so long as employees aren’t punished for speaking to federal agencies. Congress is currently considering a law that would force TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance to divest the social media app—or have it be banned in the U.S. Fortune
Union busting?
YouTube Music workers are accusing Cognizant and Alphabet of laying them off in the middle of testimony over unfair labor practices. Last week, contract workers told the Austin City Council that the two companies—their “joint employers," according to the National Labor Relations Board—were refusing to negotiate with their union, only to discover mid-hearing that they had lost their jobs. Cognizant disputes the characterization of the decision as a layoff, instead saying it merely ended its contract with the workers in question. Fortune
Neutral ground in the U.S.-China chip war
Malaysia is emerging as a chip hotspot as both Western and Chinese companies try to leverage the Southeast Asian country’s decades-long experience with semiconductors. The Malaysian state of Penang, a chipmaking hub, received $12.8 billion in foreign direct investment in 2023, more than what it received between 2013 to 2020 combined. Financial Times
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2024: A New Era for Consumer Products While price increases during the height of inflation were granted some sympathy, Deloitte’s 2024 Consumer Product Outlook explains that as price-taking runs its course, the industry may turn to profitable volume. Read more.
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Brainstorm AI London convenes April 15-16 Join Fortune in London as policymakers, academics, and business leaders discuss how new regulatory frameworks could impact AI development, and how risks to security and labor by AI can be mitigated. Learn more here |
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