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Presented by Clean Fuels Alliance America: Your guide to the political forces shaping the energy transformation | | | | |  | | By Arianna Skibell | Presented by Clean Fuels Alliance America | |  Attendees photograph one another outside COP 27 in Egypt. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images | International climate talks in Egypt are headed into overtime. The COP 27 summit was slated to end today, but the U.N. scheduled a plenary session for Saturday after negotiations broke down over financing mechanisms and fossil fuel use. While an extended time frame is not unusual for global negotiations of such magnitude, this year’s summit has proved notably divisive. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres flew to Egypt on Thursday to try to ease tensions, urging countries to rise to the greatest challenge humanity is facing. “The world is watching and has a simple message to all of us: Stand and deliver,” he said from one of the plenary halls. The talks took a turn after the European Union issued a surprise proposal to send financial aid to vulnerable nations by getting countries like China and the U.S. to pay up, POLITICO reporters Sara Schonhardt and Karl Mathiesen write from the conference. That set off a power struggle among the world’s top three economies — Europe, the U.S. and China — which are also the top three greenhouse gas producers. China, the world's second-largest economy and biggest current contributor to global carbon emissions, insists on being treated as a developing country, relying on a 1992 designation, while the United States has so far remained silent on the financing proposal. The issue of wealthy nations, which have produced the most planet-warming pollution, paying climate reparations to developing nations, which have contributed little to the climate crisis but bear the brunt of associated heat and weather disasters, has been a major flashpoint in talks this week. Developing nations insist any agreement coming out of the COP 27 summit must include climate reparations, while wealthier nations like the United States have been reluctant to commit. The U.S., led by climate envoy John Kerry (who has tested positive for Covid), now faces a tough decision on whether to play savior or spoiler, as a team of POLITICO reporters notes. Weaning the world off burning fossil fuels for energy, the main source of human-caused climate change, has also proved contentious. Draft text released today largely reflected agreements made at last year’s climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, by reiterating a call to phase out coal consumption and adjust fossil fuel subsidies rather than ax them altogether. That has angered some countries and environmental groups, which argue that the world should agree to phase out the burning of all fossil fuels, a move climate scientists agree is necessary to prevent catastrophic warming.
| | | Thank goodness it's Friday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@eenews.net.
| | | Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: Alex Guillén breaks down the backstory of a troubled oil refinery on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and how the Environmental Protection Agency decided to shut it down.
| | | |  Leaders from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and the European Union turn a wheel to symbolically start the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images | When pipe dreams become nightmares
On Nov. 8, 2011, German and Russian officials jubilantly unveiled a groundbreaking 746-mile natural gas pipeline. Nord Stream 1 would go on to deliver up to 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to the EU every year, write Charlie Cooper and Louis Westendarp. The announcement was made just north of Lubmin on Germany’s Baltic coast. Once a site of promise, the tiny German town is now ground zero for Europe's unfolding energy crisis.
| | | | A message from Clean Fuels Alliance America: Clean fuels such as biodiesel, renewable diesel, and sustainable aviation fuel are good for our farmers, our rural and urban communities, our economy, our country, and our planet. Representing fuel and feedstock producers and other members, Clean Fuels Alliance America is moving the industry onward to an even brighter future. Learn more at cleanfuels.org. | | | | | | |  An oil rig extracts crude in Taft, Calif. | David McNew/Getty Images | Fossil fuel bonanza bill
House Republican leaders said the party is preparing an energy package that could emerge in January as one of the first pieces of major legislation passed by the GOP-controlled chamber, writes Jeremy Dillon. The measure would seek to unleash domestic fossil fuel production along with critical mineral mining. The bill reads as a list of Republican gripes against the alleged slow-walking of fossil fuel project approvals by the Biden administration. Winter grid risks
The nation's grid monitor is warning that Texas, the Midwest and New England are at risk of having insufficient electric power supplies in a “worst-case” extreme winter storm, writes Peter Behr. The three regions face an "unacceptable" level of risk should an extended blizzard like Winter Storm Uri — which decimated Texas in February 2021— occur, leading to emergency power shortages. Sabotage at sea
The mysterious blasts that shut down the largest-capacity natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe in September were caused by “gross sabotage,” a Swedish prosecutor said, writes Tristan Fiedler. The prosecutor said that "traces of explosives" were found during the investigation into the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which exploded under the Baltic Sea, causing massive leaks.
| | | |  A hiker walks among channels carved by the melting Longyearbreen glacier in Norway. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images | Messy melt: ‘Vast’ masses of microbes are being released by melting glaciers. Let's talk: Coping with climate change — advice for kids ... from kids.
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|  People walk through floodwaters in Hadejia, Nigeria, in September. | AP | Global warming made the catastrophic floods in Nigeria this summer — which killed hundreds and displaced more than a million people — 80 times more probable. America's largest automaker, General Motors, says that its electric vehicles will turn a profit within three years, in large part thanks to new federal subsidies. Freeport LNG, a major supplier of U.S. natural gas to Europe, says it expects to resume shipments next month after an accident forced it to shut down earlier this year. That's it for today, folks. Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
| | | | A message from Clean Fuels Alliance America: Clean fuels such as biodiesel, renewable diesel, and sustainable aviation fuel are good for our farmers, our rural and urban communities, our economy, our country, and our planet. In fact, the economic impacts of the clean fuels industry are significant. As of 2021, the clean fuels industry contributed a total U.S. economic impact (direct, indirect, induced) of $23.2 billion; supported 75,200 U.S. jobs throughout the economy/country; and paid $3.6 billion in wages. Representing fuel and feedstock producers and other members, Clean Fuels Alliance America is moving the industry onward to an even brighter future. Learn more at cleanfuels.org. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
