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Presented by Bank of America: | | | | | |  | | By Lorraine Woellert | | | | | | | 
Navigating floodwater after Typhoon Vamco in Rizal province, Philippines, in November. | Ezra Acayan/Getty Images | “HUMANITY IS DOOMED” — Climate change is taking a toll on the mental health of teenagers and young adults in a way that could be broadly damaging to society and even democratic institutions. That’s among the findings in a first-of-its-kind survey of people aged 16 to 25 conducted by researchers at The University of Bath, NYU Langone Health, Stanford Medicine Center and other institutions. The peer-reviewed paper, which was accepted for publication Monday by Lancet Planetary Health, surveyed 10,000 young adults in 10 countries. “As bad as the storms are outside, the storms inside are even worse,” report co-author Lise van Susteren said in an interview. “Children don’t live in a cave. They’re more media savvy than we are. They know it’s not some campfire gone awry on the West Coast.” The numbers: 83 percent said people have failed to care for the planet; 75 percent called the future frightening; 39 percent said they’re hesitant to have children. Most worrisome in the big picture was a widespread mistrust of government. Among U.S. respondents, only 21 percent said government could be trusted, the worst showing of any country. In India, nearly 3 in 4 teens and young adults said humanity is doomed. In Brazil, 78 percent said the government lies. Ninety-two percent of Filipinos called the future frightening. “Climate anxiety in children and young people should not be seen as simply caused by ecological disaster; it is also caused by more powerful ‘others’ (adults and governments) failing to act on the threats being faced,” researchers wrote. That failing could amount to a form of child abuse, the report found, saying “the distress of climate anxiety could be regarded as cruel, inhuman, degrading or torturous.” We’ve heard this story before. Teen activist Greta Thunberg took on former President Donald Trump. Teenagers are marching in the streets. Young adults are suing the U.S. government in a case that could go to trial next year. Large employers say they’ve been forced into climate action in part by demands from their young workers. But the survey is the first time climate anxiety has been quantified and documented in young people. “You needed the proof? OK. Here's the fricking paperwork,” said van Susteren, a forensic psychologist. “The era of denial and disconnecting is over.”
| | | Things are heating up (figuratively and literally). Climate Week NYC begins Sept. 20 and the U.N. General Assembly gathers today. What do you want us to watch so you don’t have to? Have news? Send it our way at lwoellert@politico.com and cboudreau@politico.com. Check us out on Twitter @ceboudreau and @Woellert. FOMO? Sign up for The Long Game. | | | | A message from Bank of America: $1 trillion invested in sustainability by 2030: That’s Bank of America’s new target in its Environmental Business Initiative in order to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable economy. Here’s how it will drive innovation to address climate change. | | | | | | | 
Cargo ships at the Port of Long Beach, Calif. | Reed Saxon/AP Photo | GRIDLOCK – Shipping costs have jumped as much as fivefold since 2019. On Monday, thousands of agricultural exporters declared a crisis. In a letter to President Joe Biden, the National Chicken Council, U.S. Apple Association and dozens of other ag groups said the problem will get worse. The upshot: Lower profits, inflation, shortages and higher costs to ship presents come Christmas. How bad is it? We’ve all heard about the semiconductor shortage hitting automakers. But supply chain woes have spared no one. Discount retailer Dollar Tree last month blamed lower earnings on rising freight costs. Restoration Hardware Holdings Inc. has delayed catalog mailings and postponed the debut of its contemporary furniture line. The Kellogg Co. warned of a hit to profits and will raise prices to consumers. Walmart Inc. and The Home Depot Inc. are reserving their own ships. That’s unheard of. BTW: Amazon Inc. saw this coming years ago and has been building its own in-house delivery system. Why is this happening? People are buying more stuff. The pandemic keeps shutting down ports. Vietnam closed factories in July when coronavirus cases surged, and they aren't likely to reopen until October. The containership Ever Given took a six-day pit stop in the middle of the Suez Canal. Typhoons are scrambling schedules. There’s a shortage of containers, ships and labor. Airport cargo bays are so backed up that some companies are stealing their own freight. Here’s the easy fix: Just kidding. There isn’t one.
| | | DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD — Brazil-based investment bank BTG Pactual S.A . has partnered with The Nature Conservancy to assess the climate, water and biodiversity health of 530,000 acres of U.S. timberland. The conservation initiative will cover an area 35 times the size of Manhattan in 11 states: Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. BTG’s Timberland Investment Group and the Nature Conservancy will set climate and conservation targets that are expected to help maintain or improve the land’s financial performance, BTG Chief Sustainability Officer Mark Wishnie said in an interview. The nonprofit Nature Conservancy, for a fee, will provide scientific expertise and its green imprimatur. The goal is to extract climate and biodiversity benefits from BTG’s timberland. “We’re starting to see investors look for ways to mobilize investments in ways that eliminate the carbon impact of their portfolios,” Wishnie said. “One of the things TNC will give us is credibility.” Let’s step back. Deals like this often are framed as feel-good initiatives. But in the big picture, we’re going to need private capital to step up if we want to stop climate change and reverse biodiversity loss, said Charlotte Kaiser, managing director of NatureVest, the Nature Conservancy’s in-house investing team. What’s in it for BTG? Neither BTG nor the Nature Conservancy would tell us the value of the contract. BTG is betting that forests managed to maximize sustainability and other ecological goals could, to put it bluntly, be more profitable. Sustainable timberland could increase demand from institutional investors, for example. Its timber could be sold at a premium price. The land could be used to generate carbon offsets. Acreage could be put under conservation easements to lower BTG’s tax bills. In short, it’s kind of a diversification play to boost the company’s bottom line while helping the planet.
| | | | A message from Bank of America:   | | | | | | | CONCORDIA SUMMIT: The 2021 Concordia Summit, the leading nonpartisan forum alongside the U.N. General Assembly, will take place in New York City during the week of Sept. 20. The annual summit will convene the top global movers and shakers—including global C-suite executives, politicians, nonprofit leaders and entrepreneurs—to spark dialogue, catalyze collaboration and collectively pave the path toward a more equitable, sustainable future. POLITICO s can sign up with a 20% discount here using the code POLITICO@Summit. Don’t miss out. | | | | | | | | 60 IN 60 — Mike Bloomberg, the New York billionaire and U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Ambition and Solutions, has kicked off a series of 60 events in the 60 days leading up to Nov. 1, when the U.N. COP26 climate summit kicks off in Glasgow, Scottland. It’s not feel-good dog-and-pony shows. Mike (he likes to be called Mike) and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres are worried that nations will bring too little to the climate negotiating table, so they’re rattling some cages. “We’re seeing a lack of ambition and a lack of climate finance,” Antha Williams, who leads the environment program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, told The Long Game. “Those two things combined have really led the secretary-general to push hard and think about how the U.N. can use all the tools at its disposal.” Will COP26 be irrelevant? “We still really need the COP process,” Williams said. “It’s a race. We’ve got to not see COP as a finish line, but maybe a midpoint in the race. Maybe it’s the water station.”
| | | The upcoming COP26 summit has triggered a flood of new data and reports all shouting a common message: Climate change is here and it’s bad. Here are a couple of numbers that caught our eye. | 
Source: World Bank Group | Climate change could force 216 million people to move within their own countries by 2050. Hot spots of internal climate migration could emerge as early as 2030, the World Bank reported Monday. Sub-Saharan Africa could see as many as 86 million internal climate migrants by 2050; East Asia and the Pacific, 49 million; South Asia, 40 million; North Africa, 19 million; Latin America, 17 million; and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 5 million, the bank found. The report — the second in a series — doesn’t include the wealthy nations of Europe and North America, so its findings are likely to be conservative. The top-line recommendation: Cut emissions.
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Source: Industry Tracker | Europe’s largest steel companies will burn through their emissions budgets by 2035 unless they quickly deploy new technologies, according to a report from nonprofit watchdog group Industry Tracker. Emissions from steel — primarily from blast furnaces — account for as much as 9 percent of all global emissions and demand for the metal is on the rise, the group said. Blast furnaces are expensive and have a long life cycle, meaning there’s little financial incentive to replace them. Seven of the 10 companies Industry Tracker examined are working on hydrogen production, including ArcelorMittal S.A., SSAB AB, and Thyssenkrupp A.G. The kicker: “The current balance sheets and cash flows of these steel companies are not sufficient to support the cost of the transition.” Public funding and investment capital will be needed. While we’re here: Steel prices are skyrocketing.
| | | “WAS IT ALL BULLSHIT?” — Green groups backing a $3.5 trillion federal spending package are aiming their fury at one of the bill’s most powerful opponents: corporations that claim to support climate action. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers support a much smaller bipartisan infrastructure bill championed by the Biden White House, which includes tens of billions of dollars for responding to climate disasters and promoting green power. The business groups have taken a hard line against the $3.5 trillion plan from Democrats, which would raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations, while tackling causes such as health care, child care and racial equity. “It’s a really a hard test for corporations: Was it all bullshit?”said Lori Lodes, executive director of the liberal nonprofit Climate Power. Get the full story from POLITICO’s Zack Colman and Anthony Adragna. FLYING WITHOUT JET FUEL — The Biden administration is aiming to boost production of sustainable aviation fuel — stuff made from forest and crop waste — and reduce airline industry emissions 20 percent by 2030. Airlines already are on board. United Airlines last week said it will purchase 1.5 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel. Delta Air Lines will replace 10 percent of its conventional jet fuel by 2030. American Airlines will purchase 10 million gallons of the clean fuel by 2025. | | | | A message from Bank of America: Building on Bank of America's longstanding support for the Paris Climate Agreement and commitment to advancing the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, the company announced a goal of deploying and mobilizing $1 trillion by 2030 in its Environmental Business Initiative in order to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable economy.
“The private sector is well-positioned to ensure that the capital needed – at the scale it is needed – can drive the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable economy,” said Bank of America Vice Chairman, Anne Finucane, who leads the company’s ESG, sustainable finance, and public policy efforts. “Our Environmental Business Initiative works in tandem with our efforts to address racial equality and economic opportunity.”
See how Bank of America’s commitment is accelerating the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable economy. | | | | | | ENERGY COMPANIES ARE GOING BANKRUPT — The pandemic triggered a spike in energy bankruptcy filings. A report from Fitch Ratings found that the April 2020 plunge in oil prices led to a cash crunch at some companies, which then prompted production shortfalls. There was less demand for gas and jet fuel. Bills came due that couldn’t be paid. The good news: Default rates are closer to normal this year.
| | | — Cities are making animals bigger. Mammals in cities grew larger regardless of temperature, suggesting urbanization rivals or exceeds climate in driving body size. Communications Biology has the research. — Seriously? Homes sold by the Department of Housing and Urban Development are disproportionately located in flood-prone places, and the agency doesn’t fully disclose the potential costs and dangers of living in harm's way, NPR reports. — A swarm of autonomous robots could be sent to mine the moon.
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