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| | | | | |  | | By Lorraine Woellert and Catherine Boudreau | | | | ADIOS! — Good riddance to 2021, a dumpster fire of a year that featured extreme weather, the endless pandemic, rising inequality, supply chain disasters and political violence. This year has got to be better, right? Here are some positives to look forward to.
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| The number of electric vehicle models that will be available for sale in the U.S. in 2022, up from 62 last year, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit research group. Americans are warming to the idea of owning an EV, too. A Morning Consult survey found that 51 percent would consider buying an EV in the next decade, up from 39 percent at the start of 2021. | 
| The amount of money that will start flowing into states and cities this year under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that President Joe Biden signed into law in November. In addition to historic levels of funding available for roads, transit, rail and more, states and cities that share the administration’s priorities on climate resilience, safe streets and social equity will be well-positioned to benefit.
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| The number of S&P 100 companies that disclose, or have committed to disclose, workforce diversity data to the public. That’s a sixfold increase from July 2020, when New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer launched a shareholder campaign for greater transparency. Companies with more than 100 employees are already required to disclose the race, ethnicity and gender of their workforce to the federal government, but that information typically isn’t made public.
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| The share of U.S. electricity that will be generated by renewable sources in 2022, including wind and solar, according to the Energy Information Administration. Yes, that’s a long way from the White House goal of 100 percent carbon-free power by 2030. But let’s call it a glass half-full. It would mark the biggest use of renewables to date. That’s not to say the energy transition is linear. Globally, greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector reached an all-time high in 2021 as recovering economies relied on coal and natural gas to meet demand. Still, clean energy is expected to account for 90 percent of new capacity in the coming years.
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| On average, 77 percent of adults across 33 countries are optimistic that 2022 will be better than 2021, according to a survey from market research firm Ipsos Group. That’s despite expectations of fast-rising prices and extreme weather. In the U.S., the outlook is slightly less positive, with about 71 percent upbeat about 2022. Only in Japan, Belgium, Turkey, France and Germany are people more pessimistic. By contrast, 94 percent of people in China are wearing rose-tinted glasses.
| | | Fun fact: Almost a third of people in India expect aliens to visit Earth this year, Ipsos found. Lorraine thinks they won’t get here before 2025. Catherine thinks we might need new habitable worlds if we don’t get climate change under control (Too bleak?). Send your deep-space thoughts to lwoellert@politico.com and cboudreau@politico.com. Find us on Twitter @ceboudreau and @Woellert. FOMO? Sign up for The Long Game. Thanks to Shayna Greene, Gavin Bade and Hans Von Der Burchard for the help this week.
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Jan. 6, 2021. | John Minchillo/AP Photo | VALUES INVESTING — On Jan. 4, 2021, executives at Mastercard, Lyft, Macy’s, the WNBA and other companies and business groups urged Congress to certify the results of the 2020 election. That remarkable moment — Corporate America calling on politicians to defend democracy — was lost in the violence that followed two days later, when hundreds of people, nearly all supporters of then-President Donald Trump, rioted at the Capitol and nearly 140 Republican lawmakers voted against certification of Biden’s win. Companies and trade groups rushed to suspend or abandon political giving. Now a survey from the Conference Board, a corporate think tank, finds that government affairs shops used that time to rethink their criteria for political giving. Companies are going beyond policy and considering whether candidates will trigger unflattering headlines, employee walkouts and other ESG pressures. A politician’s thinking on trade, intellectual property or government spending still matters, but so does their stance on diversity, abortion and voting rights. “Those weren’t necessarily the considerations that you had in mind when you made contributions to those folks in the past,” Paul Washington, executive director of the Conference Board’s ESG center, said in an interview. Respondents at 120 companies all said they recalibrated their campaign giving after Jan. 6. The survey isn’t comprehensive, but it captures the mood at America’s largest corporations across sectors, Washington said. He predicts companies will draw “red lines” against racism, gender inequality and violence going forward. But they’ll have to draw those red lines to have an impact — and avoid being judged in the court of public opinion. Nearly half of companies surveyed also said they’re teaching their biggest stakeholders — employees — why political contributions are necessary and how they work. “This isn’t about getting employees to drink the Kool-Aid,” Washington said. “It’s about helping them understand how the company’s political activities tie to a corporate purpose and a broader societal purpose.” Executives and other stakeholders also can’t expect a company’s values will fully align with those of elected officials. “No one is going to be 100 percent match,” Washington said. Corporations can be a moderating influence on partisanship. They contribute to Democrats and Republicans alike and generally are more concerned about practical impact than inflammatory rhetoric. Investors called out company giving in 2021 . More than 83 percent of institutional shareholders voted in favor of more disclosure on political spending. That’s up from less than 76 percent in 2020, and the number is expected to rise again this year, according to the nonprofit Center for Political Accountability, which publishes a model code of conduct for corporate disclosure. BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard, two of the world’s largest investment managers, backed the center’s disclosure model last year for the first time.
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The future of U.S. industrial policy? | Raymond McCrea Jones/POLITICO | SOLAR, STATESIDE — Venture to the far corner of an industrial park in north Georgia and you’ll find what might be the future of American industrial policy. At Hanwha Q Cells, 700 workers churn out more than 10,000 solar panels a day. It’s the largest operation of its kind on the continent. The factory was hailed as a renaissance for domestic manufacturing when it opened in 2019, partially in response to then-President Trump’s trade policies. It is a place where employees without advanced degrees have the opportunity to earn a living wage while they make a product essential to the American economy. If Biden has his way, Q Cells will be a harbinger of America’s economic future . The U.S. will need more than 100 assembly plants of similar size to produce enough panels to power the administration’s energy goal of increasing the country’s reliance on solar by tenfold.
| | | NUCLEAR, GAS PASS A GREEN TEST — The European Union wants some nuclear power and natural gas plants to count as sustainable investments under a draft proposal unveiled Jan. 1 . Nuclear would qualify toward the bloc’s climate goals until 2045 as long as countries can safely dispose of radioactive waste. Gas would be considered a transitional clean power source if it replaces fossil fuels with higher emissions. Germany has said nein, danke, calling nuclear power too dangerous. It’s awkward timing for Germany’s new coalition government, though, which just last week admitted that it would miss its climate targets in 2022 and 2023. Other EU countries, especially France, are skeptical of Germany’s decision to cut emissions without nuclear power. What’s next: Any plan requires approval by a majority of EU member countries. | | | — Failure to launch. The Energy Department has spent $1.1 billion since 2009 trying to demonstrate that carbon capture and storage can work, but most projects failed to get off the ground according to a federal watchdog. The Government Accountability Office recommended more oversight and better site selection. — Rice for plastic. An innovative takeback effort is under way in Bali, where a nonprofit group is offering rice for plastic trash that is sold to a recycling company. Indonesia is the world's second-biggest contributor of plastic pollutants in the oceans. Reuters has the details.
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