December 3, 2022

Weekend Reads: USPS Goes Electric; The RE Revolution in America's Heartland

It's the weekend! Kick back and catch up with these must-read articles from around the web.

New Energy and Climate Scenario Shows a Path to Stay on Track for Paris Agreement Goals (BloombergNEF) Plausible pathways still exist to get on track for well below two degrees Celsius of global warming, if governments and companies take determined action to transition to low-carbon energy technologies, according to the 2022 New Energy Outlook, by research company BloombergNEF (BNEF). The report comes in the wake of the COP27 UN climate change conference, which delivered no meaningful increase in ambition in the fight against global warming.

There’s a renewable energy revolution occurring in America’s heartland (Fast Company) Ask the average American what the renewable energy revolution looks like, and they might describe towering mirrors concentrating solar power or wind farms stretching to the horizon. They’re less likely to suggest rows of solar panels harvesting photons amidst the cornfields of Indiana while bees and butterflies flit amongst the wildflowers growing below. But that’s the reality of the Mammoth Solar farm spread across 13,000 acres in the northwest corner of the state, equal to a thousand high school football fields. At full buildout, the array will produce enough clean electricity annually (1.3 GW) to power 275,000 households across Indiana and the Midwest.

Who gets to keep burning fossil fuels as the planet heats up? (Vox) The COP27 climate change negotiations that wrapped in Egypt this month broke a critical impasse on paying for the consequences of climate change. But language in the concluding agreement around the cause — burning fossil fuels — was once again vague and weak. It calls for a “phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies,” rather than a stronger, more explicit commitment to end all fossil fuel consumption as some countries and activists wanted. The watered-down final text was due in large part to pressure from the major oil exporters. But some delegates from developing countries were making the case that they deserve financing and support to use fossil fuels in order to escape poverty, to improve their standards of living, and to cope with the consequences of climate change already underway.

Biden’s zero-emission government fleet starts with USPS (The Washington Post) The grandest experiment of the government’s sprint to electrify its vehicle fleet is happening here, a 1 million-square-foot warehouse leased by the U.S. Postal Service in the outer reaches of Atlanta. As the White House pushes public agencies and big business to slash greenhouse gas emissions, it is leaning on the Postal Service to step up the pace to meet President Biden’s directive to ensure all new government-owned vehicles are EVs by 2035. And, after a hard-won $3 billion infusion from Congress to jump-start its transition, the first of the agency’s 34,000 zero-emission mail trucks will begin rolling out next year.

Why the Demand for Carbon Credits Is Bright (Visual Capitalist) More than ever, carbon credits are playing a critical role in tackling climate change. Based on demand projections for carbon credits, the voluntary carbon market could grow up to 25-fold by 2050. Voluntary carbon markets are where carbon credits can be purchased by those that voluntarily want to offset their emissions. In this graphic sponsored by Carbon Streaming Corporation, we show two demand scenarios in voluntary carbon markets: First, one gigaton is equal to one billion metric tons of CO₂— or one trillion kilograms. According to the forecast from McKinsey, annual global demand for carbon credits could reach up to 1.5 to 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2030 and up to 7 to 13 billion metric tons by midcentury.

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