Current conditions: A California wildfire burned some 400 acres near the site of the Hell’s Kitchen Lithium Extraction Project • Storm Bert in the U.K. killed at least five people and triggered 150 flood warnings • Many parts of the U.S. could see their coldest weather of the sea … | Continue reading

As the 118th Congress prepares to clear the way for a new set of legislators who will be responsible for confirming cabinet picks, passing tax legislation, and whatever else the President-reelect throws at them, it is also quietly working on bills to ease the development path for … | Continue reading

President-elect Donald Trump spent the Friday evening before Thanksgiving filling out nearly the rest of his Cabinet. He plans for his Treasury secretary to be a hedge fund manager who’s called the Inflation Reduction Act “the Doomsday machine for the deficit”; he’s named a vacci … | Continue reading

Before it even began, the 29th annual United Nations climate conference, or COP29, was deemed the “Finance COP.” While the name is fitting, it’s also a little absurd. It’s called the Finance COP because the main item on the agenda at this year’s conference, held in Baku, Azerbaij … | Continue reading

Donald Trump ended weeks of Billions-esque drama on Wall Street and Palm Beach by finally settling late Friday on a nominee for Secretary of the Treasury, hedge fund manager Scott Bessent. In contrast to the quick and instinctive picks for major posts like secretary of defense, s … | Continue reading

When Democrats in Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, the legislation promised to unleash a wave of funding for electric vehicles, zero-carbon electricity, clean manufacturing, and more across the United States. It signaled the return of industrial policy and the … | Continue reading

As the annual United Nations climate change conference reaches the end of its scheduled programming, this could represent the last time for at least the next four years that the U.S. will bring a strong delegation with substantial negotiating power to the meetings. That’s because … | Continue reading

Whenever projections of future electric vehicle demand come up, the conversation will inevitably turn to battery recycling. And for good reason: It takes a lot of expensive, difficult-to-acquire metals and materials to make the big lithium-ion batteries that power EVs, making it … | Continue reading

Current conditions: A heat wave is baking southeast Australia, bringing temperatures that are 20 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the seasonal average • There have been 363 brush fires in New York City in November alone • It is 65 degrees and sunny in Baku for the last official day … | Continue reading

Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, passed on a party line vote by the narrowest of margins — 50 Democratic votes in the Senate (with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie) and 220 in the House of Representatives. With tense tax negotiations loomin … | Continue reading

A sprawling multi-state carbon pipeline appears easier to permit and build than wind and solar farms in red states, despite comments the president-elect or his team may have said on the campaign trail. And the answer has to do with more than just the potential benefits for oil an … | Continue reading

1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – The Biden administration is rushing to finish permitting Ocean Winds’ Southcoast Wind project, a joint venture between EDP Renewables and Engie, before Donald Trump returns to the White House. Questions remain as to whether it can be done. Sin … | Continue reading

Trump’s energy direction – We’re far enough into the Trump 2.0 transition that I can offer a few specific insights having covered him the first go-around. Trump’s pick for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum indicates any form of energy or resource extraction prevalent in his state of … | Continue reading

Today we’re chatting with Ryan Murphy, executive director of the labor-enviro coalition group Climate Jobs Massachusetts. Last week his group along with labor organizations in Rhode Island and Connecticut released a report detailing how they envision the offshore wind industry mo … | Continue reading

Current conditions: A severe heat wave warning has been issued for most of Australia • Schools are closed across parts of Great Britain due to snow and ice from Storm Bert • The atmospheric river pummeling Northern California will reach peak intensity today. THE TOP FIVE 1. New C … | Continue reading

Within days of stepping into the White House in 2021, President Biden introduced his “whole of government” approach to tackling climate change. Now, months out from Trump’s inauguration, it's looking like the returning president may emulate that whole of government strategy for h … | Continue reading

Nobody quite knows where Donald Trump stands on electric vehicles these days. While he’s reportedly coming for the $7,500 consumer EV tax credit and previously characterized the switch to EVs as a “transition to hell,” once Elon Musk threw his support behind Trump, the once and f … | Continue reading

Georgia is going to need a lot more electricity than it once thought. Again. In a filing last week with the state’s utility regulator, Georgia Power disclosed that its projected load growth for the next decade from “economic development projects” has gone up by over 12,000 megawa … | Continue reading

Maybe you’ve seen them, the white or deep cerulean signs, often backdropped by an empty lot, roadblock, or excavation. The text on them reads PROJECT FUNDED BY President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Law, or maybe President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s … | Continue reading

Current conditions: The northern Plains states could experience blizzard conditions this evening • A brush fire disrupted traffic in Upper Manhattan yesterday • It is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit and very windy in the Italian village of Ollolai, which is offering cheap houses to A … | Continue reading

Current conditions: The northern Plains states could experience blizzard conditions this evening • A brush fire disrupted traffic in Upper Manhattan yesterday • It is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit and very windy in the Italian village of Ollolai, which is offering cheap houses to A … | Continue reading

Here’s the bad news: The world is almost certainly going to miss the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The needed emissions cuts are too large and the direction of policy too slow to lead to an … | Continue reading

Donald Trump first took the office of the president in January 2017, having called climate change a Chinese-invented hoax and promising to “end the war on coal.” He quickly went to work reversing the climate policy of the previous administration, withdrawing from the Paris Agreem … | Continue reading

Current conditions: Ecuador has declared a 60-day state of emergency to battle wildfires • Londoners were treated to rare snow flurries this morning • Storm Sara, having caused deadly flooding in Honduras, is set to drench the Gulf Coast. THE TOP FIVE 1. West Coast to get soaked … | Continue reading

When the American people elected Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States earlier this month, a large portion of climate world went into a tailspin. In the groggy reckoning of Wednesday morning, MIT Technology Review deemed the outcome a “tragic loss for climate pr … | Continue reading

The optimistic case for the Inflation Reduction Act — even under a Trump presidency, even with a Republican trifecta in Washington — rests on a “public investment first” view of climate policy. Public investment in the clean energy economy is not merely a second-best policy optio … | Continue reading

Current conditions: Super Typhoon Man-yi made two landfalls across the Philippines over the weekend, becoming the country’s fourth typhoon in 10 days • Parts of Europe are bracing for a cold snap • The Jennings Creek Wildfire along the New York-New Jersey border is 90% contained. … | Continue reading

Donald Trump has selected another stalwart of the fossil fuel industry to lead the Department of Energy. On Saturday, the president-elect put forward Chris Wright, CEO of the oilfield services firm Liberty Energy and a major Republican donor, for the job. Wright “has worked in Nu … | Continue reading

On Wednesday, Heatmap readers gathered in Washington, D.C., to hear Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado and former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Neil Chaterjee discuss the impacts of the election on climate and energy policy. Although the subject matter w … | Continue reading

Donald Trump does not care much about climate change. By which I mean not just that he does not believe the warming of the planet is a problem, but also that the entire subject is far from the top of his priority list. Unfortunately, that makes his incoming administration even mo … | Continue reading

Trump 2.0 may sound the death knell for climate tech — not the concept, of course, but the phrase. “Climate tech” became ubiquitous during the Biden era, attached to companies pitching anything vaguely related to either climate change or technology, as well as the specialized and … | Continue reading

A moment of profound uncertainty for many of America’s environmental laws has just become even more uncertain-er. This week, as President-elect Donald Trump considers how to revise or repeal the country’s bedrock climate laws, one of the country’s oldest environmental laws has be … | Continue reading

Current conditions: The Philippines issued its highest storm alert ahead of Super Typhoon Usagi • Pakistan declared a health emergency in Punjab as toxic smog worsened • Tropical Storm Sara is not expected to pose a major threat to Florida. THE TOP FIVE 1. Leading climate advocat … | Continue reading

Berkeley, California and Washington State put the transition to all-electric buildings on the ballot last week, and in both cases, it seemed to fail the test. Voters in Berkeley overwhelmingly rejected a proposed tax on natural gas that would raise money for electrification proje … | Continue reading

The Trump administration is hoping to kill the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicle buyers, according to a Reuters report citing two anonymous sources within the Trump transition team. That aspiration isn’t totally unexpected — President-elect Donald Trump flirted with ending t … | Continue reading

We’ve got a high-speed charging problem. Without readily available high-speed charging, people will never let go of their range anxiety fears and buy electric; but unless you have people in EVs willing to pay to charge their cars, there’s no reason to build the chargers. The Bide … | Continue reading

This week we’re talking to Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado who joined me yesterday at Heatmap’s Election Post-Game event in Washington, D.C., for a spirited chat about the 2024 election, permitting, and support for renewable energy in a Trump 2.0 era. We also talked about b … | Continue reading

1. Forget about the IRA – As the dust has settled post-election, it’s becoming clearer far more than the IRA is at stake in the coming Trump 2.0 administration – namely, whether what people expect in the normal course of governing will resume at all. Case in point: Massachusetts … | Continue reading

1. Magic Valley, Idaho – Sen. Jim Risch, one of the state’s loudest opponents of the Lava Ridge wind farm, said he believes Donald Trump will stop the project on Day 1. In a newly-aired interview with TV outlet KTVB, Risch said the matter has been presented to the incoming presid … | Continue reading

Current conditions: Smog in India has obscured views of the towering Taj Mahal • Thousands of people have evacuated Málaga, Spain, due to extreme flooding • Most of the U.S. will experience higher-than-average temperatures through the end of the week. THE TOP FIVE 1. Economists s … | Continue reading