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| | | | | |  | | By Catherine Boudreau |
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The Trans-Alaska pipeline and pump station north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Climate experts are urging oil and gas companies and policymakers to curb methane emissions from leaky pipelines and other industries. | Al Grillo/AP Photo | SCIENTISTS BRING THE HEAT — There is no sugarcoating it. The headlines from the United Nations’ sweeping new review of climate science are grim. The world will likely surpass a crucial warming threshold up to a decade sooner than previously predicted, with virtually no scenarios that avoid it. It is “unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” the strongest statement yet from scientists (who don’t typically express 100 percent certainty) in the sixth assessment by the International Panel on Climate Change . For the first time, they also definitively linked greenhouse gas emissions to the disasters unfolding around the globe, from wildfires to flooding to extreme heat. The litany of doom might make you feel like crawling into bed. So The Long Game asked experts for some dashes of hope; solutions that policymakers and corporations can take on now, or any other promising signs. Targeting methane. The IPCC report has a new chapter on "short-lived air pollutants,” including methane. Slashing methane emissions from industries such as oil, gas, coal agriculture and waste is one of the most effective strategies to combat climate change because, unlike carbon dioxide, it hangs around in the atmosphere for only about a decade. Methane also is more potent, so curbing emissions could slow down global warming faster. | 
Source: IPCC | The tools are available to reduce methane emissions by as much as 45 percent this decade, including by capping leaky oil wells and capturing the gas from commercial, residential and agricultural waste streams. The Biden administration is working on it. “There has been an incredible, largely behind-the-scenes effort to move faster on methane domestically, and at the same time it is a diplomatic imperative,” said Rick Duke, senior director and White House liaison for climate envoy John Kerry, during a call with reporters on Monday. We can expect a whole-of-government methane reduction strategy from the administration “imminently,” he added, that will span the fossil fuel and agriculture sectors. Reexamining offsets. The earth’s land and oceans have limits to how much carbon dioxide they can absorb. And even though natural land and ocean carbon sinks are expected to suck up a larger amount of CO2 over time, they also will become less effective, according to the IPCC. That finding may have one silver lining: moving countries and corporations away from relying on carbon offsets, and turning their focus to reducing emissions at the source, said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “The idea of offsetting pollution is unstable,” he said, referring to credits created by planting trees, preserving mangroves, buying renewable energy and improving agricultural soils that can be sold to polluters. “We shouldn’t be relying on them to get out of the climate crisis.” | 
Source: IPCC | Getting carbon accounting in order. If you can’t measure emissions, you can’t manage them, said Tim Mohin, executive vice president and chief sustainability officer at Persefoni, a company that helps companies track their carbon footprints. He raised concerns about the global finance sector, which will be key to mobilizing an estimated $7 trillion a year in infrastructure investment needed to meet Paris Climate Agreement goals. Mohin said he is encouraged by initiatives such as the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials , which has 146 members around the world and has developed a standardized approach to reporting the carbon footprints of loan and investment portfolios. Tracking where the money is flowing can help hold banks accountable to their climate promises, Mohin said, noting that the largest institutions still invested trillions in fossil fuels after the Paris pact was signed in 2016. “We haven’t been able to measure financial flows into the low-carbon economy until PCAF,” Mohin said. Raising COP26 ambitions. Alok Sharma, the British politician who will preside over the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, used the new report as a call to action for countries ahead of the November meeting. “If ever there was going to be a wake-up call to the world when it comes to climate change, this report is it,” Sharma said. “But the future is not yet written. The very worst of climate change is still avoidable. “This must be the COP that consigns coal to history,” Sharma added, in a not-so-subtle nod to China, the biggest producer and consumer of coal. At a G-20 meeting in July, the world’s largest economies failed to agree on an end date for coal development. POLITICO’s Zack Colman and Karl Mathiesen have more key takeaways.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | |
| | | What did we miss from the IPCC report? Send us tips at cboudreau@politico.com and lwoellert@politico.com. We’re on Twitter, too: @ceboudreau and @Woellert. FOMO? Sign up for the Long Game. | | | HEAT DOMES AT HOME — It is “virtually certain” that hot-weather extremes, including heat waves, have become more frequent and intense since the 1950s, the IPCC said. Heat waves of a magnitude that previously occurred only twice a century would instead hit about every six years if global temperatures rise 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a threshold global climate leaders want to avoid under the Paris Agreement. Look no further than the U.S., where heat advisories have been issued from the central Plains and Mississippi Valley to the Lower Great Lakes and the Northeast. Numerous record temperatures are possible in the second half of this week, the National Weather Service said Tuesday. About 25 million people will be living and working in temperatures that eclipse 100 degrees Fahrenheit. | 
Flames from the Dixie Fire consume a home on Highway 89 south of Greenville on Aug. 5 in Plumas County, Calif. | Noah Berger/AP Photo | The heat is combining with drought in the West, fueling wildfires such as the Dixie Fire that California officials said is now the second-largest blaze in state history. Thwarting the next disaster: The White House on Monday announced nearly $5 billion in grants for communities in fiscal 2021 to help them prepare for extreme weather and recover faster when disaster strikes. | | | CLIMATE BUDGET — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday promised that the $3.5 trillion budget package Democrats are pursuing “will do more to combat climate change” than any previous legislation. (This would be in addition to the bipartisan infrastructure deal that the Senate passed today, which excludes many of Biden’s major climate promises). A memo sent the same day to Senate committees overseeing climate, energy and environmental justice programs outlined a number of investments they should target. While there isn’t a specific pot of money identified for electric vehicles, some lawmakers are calling for $85 billion after the infrastructure deal set aside only $7.5 billion for charging stations. That amount won’t be enough to support Biden’s goal announced last week for zero-emission vehicles to be half of all vehicle sales by 2030. The memo also included tax incentives for clean energy, manufacturing and transportation that could be paid for by a carbon border adjustment fee slapped on imports from countries with less stringent climate regulations than the U.S. Related news from up North: Canada is also considering a carbon border tax. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government on Friday said it will develop its own policy. Less than a month ago, the European Union presented its own version, which still needs to be agreed upon by member countries and wouldn’t apply until 2026.
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| | | HIDDEN ESG RISKS — Popular investment strategies come with surprisingly high levels of environmental, social and governance risks, including weighting portfolios with renewable energy, according to a recent analysis by Morningstar. “Many investors might not be aware that clean energy markets will be carbon-intensive, because a lot of companies are involved in both clean energy solutions and fossil fuels,” Dan Lefkovitz, a strategist at Morningstar Indexes and the author of the report, said in an interview last week. The finished products of companies such as Tesla or Sunrun might be emissions-free, but manufacturing electric cars and solar panels are carbon-intensive processes, Lefkovitz added. Dividend portfolios ― those made up of companies that share profits with shareholders ― also come with nearly 20 percent more ESG risk compared with the overall market because they tend to include utilities and energy and industrial materials companies. And even though portfolios tilted toward value stocks — which are low in price relative to company earnings or sales — tend to outperform the overall market, they also have higher exposure to ESG risks. Why it matters: ESG funds are one of the fastest-growing segments of financial markets, but the rules of the road are in their early stages. Investors have little ability to compare how companies and industries are performing on their sustainability promises, prompting financial regulators in Europe to mandate corporate disclosures on climate change and other ESG issues. The U.S. is headed that direction. SEC Chair Gary Gensler recently said that mandatory climate disclosure could be in place by the end of the year. | | | — Fifteen years into a historic oil boom, contamination from the tanks holding the chemical-laced water produced by fracking has forced Republican North Dakotans to weigh their individual property rights against the pro-industry policies their state embraces. Tom Haines has this feature for POLITICO Magazine. — Phillips 66 on Monday announced it acquired a 16 percent stake in a company that supplies raw materials for lithium ion batteries as the Houston-based oil refiner shifts into the electric vehicle and energy storage markets. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
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