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<p><font size="+2"><font face="Calibri"><i><b>December 14</b></i></font></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>, 2023</b></i></font></p>
<i>[ Best summary of COP28 - "massive shift" ]<br>
</i><b>WHY THE COP FAILS Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty Chair,
Tzeporah Berman</b><br>
Nick Breeze ClimateGenn<br>
Dec 13. 2023 ClimateGenn #podcast produced by Nick Breeze<br>
Listen to Tzepora Berman explain why over 30years of COPs, emissions
continue to rise and the problem gets worse. Also why we need civil
society to demand a plan for rapid decarbonisation right now!<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJRNnI5pT1I">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJRNnI5pT1I</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ She spoke in November ]</i><br>
<b>Quitting Fossil Fuels with Tzeporah Berman</b><br>
GreenBiz<br>
Nov 28, 2023<br>
Addressing climate change isn’t just about deploying climate tech.
We also need to stop expanding and wind down our fossil fuel
production and use. In this talk Tzeporah Berman, an award winning
strategist, policy expert and climate activist who has also worked
with oil companies on climate policy, takes a sober look at our
progress in phasing out fossil fuel use and what is needed to get on
track for climate progress. <br>
<br>
This session was held at GreenBiz Group’s, VERGE 23 - the leading
climate tech event accelerating solutions to the most pressing
challenges of our time. Learn more about the event here: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://buff.ly/3slOXZ6">https://buff.ly/3slOXZ6</a><br>
GreenBiz links:<br>
Website: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.greenbiz.com/">https://www.greenbiz.com/</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KshaYZkRWbU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KshaYZkRWbU</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ IM = Influence Map - an important web site ]</i><br>
<b>An independent think tank producing data-driven analysis on how
business and finance are impacting the climate crisis</b><br>
Latest Reports<br>
The Corporate Sector and Biodiversity Policy December, 2023<br>
Corporate Advocacy on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) December,
2023<br>
“Net Zero Greenwash”: The Gap Between Corporate Commitments and
their Policy Engagement November 2023<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://influencemap.org/">https://influencemap.org/</a><br>
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<p><i>[ Great positive news on battery innovation ]</i> <br>
<b>Panasonic’s New Powder-Powered Batteries Will Supercharge EVs</b><br>
A company working with Tesla’s main US battery supplier has
silicon-based tech that could soon give electric cars 500-mile
ranges and charge refills in just 10 minutes.<br>
</p>
<p>Sila, a Californian company cofounded in 2011 by Tesla’s seventh
staffer, is going to supply Panasonic with a US-made silicon
powder for EV batteries that could banish range anxiety, slash
charge times, and even reduce reliance on China.<br>
<br>
Panasonic’s main US customer is Tesla, and produces around 10
percent of EV batteries globally. Last year, Sila signed a supply
agreement with Mercedes-Benz for its new long-range G-class
electric SUV, expected to debut in 2025. (The German automaker led
Sila’s Series E funding round in 2019.)...<br>
</p>
<p>Sila’s Titan Silicon anode powder consists of micrometer-sized
particles of nano-structured silicon and replaces graphite in
traditional lithium-ion batteries. This switch-out for EVs could
soon enable 500-mile nonstop trips and 10-minute recharges. What’s
more, the anode swap doesn’t require new manufacturing techniques.
The black powder already powers the five-day battery life of the
latest Whoop activity-tracking wearable.<br>
<br>
“It took us 12 years and 80,000 iterations to get to this point,”
said Sila’s cofounder and CEO, Gene Berdichevsky. “It’s
sophisticated science.” Berdichevsky started his career at Tesla,
becoming the seventh employee in 2004. He was the lead for Tesla’s
Roadster battery system, leaving when the company had about 300
employees. After further study, he cofounded Sila with Tesla
colleague Alex Jacobs and Gleb Yushin, a materials science
professor at Georgia Tech.<br>
<br>
Swell New Battery Tech<br>
Compared to graphite, silicon stores up to 10 times more energy,
so using silicon instead of graphite for anodes—the part that
releases electrons during discharge—can significantly improve a
battery’s energy density. However, the material swells during
repeated charging, with the resulting cracks radically reducing
battery life.<br>
<br>
Sila’s technology allows for this expansion by using nanoscale
carbon “scaffolding” to keep the silicon in check. “Titan Silicon
is a nanocomposite material,” says Berdichevsky. “It’s like raisin
bread, where the raisins are the silicon, and there’s the squishy
matrix around the raisins with a big outer rind on the particle
itself. The rind holds the space, and the bread moves aside when
the raisins expand. The scaffold is not holding the silicon—it’s
accommodating the expansion.”<br>
<br>
The patented scaffolding process involves silicon-derived silane
gas infiltrating custom carbon lattices. The resulting micron
scale powder is shipped to battery makers.<br>
</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.wired.com/story/panasonic-powder-powered-silicone-ev-batteries/">https://www.wired.com/story/panasonic-powder-powered-silicone-ev-batteries/</a><br>
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</i></p>
<i>[ wind news -- big changes offshore ]</i><br>
<b>What's going on with offshore wind?</b><br>
A conversation with industry analyst Samantha Woodworth.<br>
DAVID ROBERTS<br>
DEC 13, 2023<br>
Last week, for the first time ever, an offshore wind farm delivered
power to the US grid. It was an important milestone — and also the
rare bit of good news for an otherwise beleaguered industry.
Everywhere else, costs are up, contracts are being renegotiated, and
projects are getting canceled. It all sounds pretty bad, especially
for a sector that barely even exists yet.<br>
<br>
What’s going on? How much of this turmoil is temporary and how much
reflects lasting structural changes? Is the US offshore wind
industry going to die before it even leaves its crib?<br>
To gain a little clarity on these questions, I contacted Samantha
Woodworth, a senior wind industry analyst at Wood Mackenzie. We
talked about the converging difficulties facing the industry right
now, efforts to renegotiate contracts that were signed in the Before
Times, the odd role that ships play in the whole mess, and the
industry's prospects in coming years and decades.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-going-on-with-offshore-wind?utm_source=podcast-email%2Csubstack&publication_id=193024&post_id=139457588&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_medium=email&r=e3p5r">https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-going-on-with-offshore-wind?utm_source=podcast-email%2Csubstack&publication_id=193024&post_id=139457588&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_medium=email&r=e3p5r</a><br>
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<i>[ Opinion published in the NYTimes - clips ]</i><br>
<b>What It Really Takes to Fix a Monstrosity Like Climate Change</b><br>
Dec. 12, 2023<br>
By Auden Schendler - author of the forthcoming book “Terrible
Beauty: Reckoning With Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our
Soul.”<br>
- -<br>
As the global climate summit in Dubai has unspooled, I’ve read
inexplicably cheerful social media posts from colleagues and
friends, climate leaders I admire and total unknowns at COP28, the
Conference of the Parties — which I’ve come to call the party at the
end of the world. These “Look, Ma!” posts strike me as forced, naïve
at best, trending toward willful blindness and delusion...<br>
One “breakthrough” being lauded includes a purely voluntary
commitment by fossil fuel companies to better capture methane, a
potent greenhouse gas we absolutely must contain.<br>
<br>
I know this issue intimately. The one man in America who fully
understood the obscure problem of methane leaking from coal mines —
Tom Vessels, a former oil and gas executive — partnered with me and
others a decade ago to capture the gas to generate electricity. The
project was a first in the nation, and while it was worthy of and
received praise, it was also the only such project — because no
federal policy existed to ensure the capture or mitigation of this
super-warming agent.<br>
<br>
For fossil fuel companies, committing to containing methane leaking
from their pipelines and wellheads is a way for those businesses to
appear beneficent while continuing to traffic in oil and gas. It is
that very trafficking that causes the leakage that must be
regulated, even as scientists tell us the essential action required
to control warming is to stop burning coal, oil and gas.<br>
<br>
A few years ago, I visited Tom in Denver as he was dying from
mesothelioma, the result of home remodels done in his youth, when no
regulations existed around asbestos. He was rail thin and ghost
white. We sat on the couch drinking cans of seltzer. I told him:
“You lived a good life. You did a good thing, and you were ahead of
your time.” He died a few weeks later. Future generations won’t
suffer his fate, thanks to strict asbestos laws. On methane, so far,
future generations are mostly unprotected from its pernicious
warming power.<br>
In the missives I’ve seen from COP28, there are bad ideas pitched as
magical solutions, such as the Rube Goldberg-like plan that John
Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy, doubled down on. According to the
investigative outlet The Lever, which reported on a leaked memo
outlining discussion issues for the conference, the U.S. plan was to
build “on existing voluntary carbon market standards for the
international carbon market, as opposed to establishing a new robust
framework with stringent standards.” This approach is undermining
the United Nations’ effort to solidify an internationally regulated
carbon market.<br>
<br>
If we’re going to use these markets to reduce emissions, governments
must administer and enforce them to make sure the reductions for
which one polluter is paying another in the carbon market — the
so-called offsets — are real.<br>
<br>
At the same time, there were glimmers of hope. As the climate
conference began, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced
comprehensive new rules to regulate methane in the United States, at
least. There are also plans to create a fund to help vulnerable
nations hit by climate disasters, and to set a goal of tripling the
amount of renewable power worldwide by 2030 (if high interest rates
don’t derail that objective). There were also calls for a full
fossil fuel phaseout.<br>
<br>
But that proposed phaseout rattled the conference hosts in Dubai,
the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, one of the
world’s leading oil producers. It is ramping up oil production. The
idea was quickly scuttled. The head of the OPEC cartel called on its
members to reject any plan that would threaten the production and
sale of oil, gas and coal. And it was no idle threat: All 198
participating nations must consent to any agreement. So much for
what the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, said would be a
major benchmark of success for the summit.<br>
<br>
Let’s be real, though. The summit’s proposals for voluntary
commitments — on methane, on renewables, on phasing out fossil fuels
— were theater. Imagine if in the 1960s Americans had responded to
the civil rights movement not with legislation but with calls to
please treat one another nicely...<br>
That is one of the reasons that when I read optimistically pithy
social media posts from colleagues visiting a petrostate hosting a
climate conference led by an oil executive, I begin to feel the
creeping tendrils of despair. The climate problem is complex and
enormous, and the progress to rein it in has been slow. Meanwhile,
carbon emissions continue to rise in what is expected to be the
hottest year in recorded history.<br>
<br>
And still, I make my coffee, holding it in my hands as I look out
into my yard, thinking how good I have it. I am reminded of the
biologist E.O. Wilson’s defining idea, “biophilia,” our innate love
of life and nature.<br>
<br>
I see even in Dubai, as the conference comes to a close, the
outlines of a human inclination to protect, to hold on and to
persevere.<br>
<br>
These are mostly good people, after all, who convened to reduce
carbon emissions worldwide, with the focus on this issue alone, for
two weeks. Many are driven by the idea that we can’t let this unique
and beautiful existence, on a spinning globe in the big empty, go
down in literal flames. Sure, the event has been co-opted. At least
1,300 oil, gas and coal lobbyists were granted access to the
conference. But there are also powerful forces pushing for success.<br>
<br>
Thomas Keating, a Catholic priest who helped start St. Benedict’s, a
now-closed monastic community near my house, lived among turkeys and
deer like the ones I see from my windows. “Whether we walk down the
street or drink a cup of soup,” he wrote, “divine life is pouring
into the world.”<br>
Can we really let it go?<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/opinion/oil-dubai-climate-change.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Fk0.wt_j.gmC_gC2RK3TS&smid=url-share">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/opinion/oil-dubai-climate-change.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Fk0.wt_j.gmC_gC2RK3TS&smid=url-share</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ From the Conversation ]</i><br>
<b>Most investors aren’t paying attention to climate risks – the
financial system needs to change</b><br>
Published: December 11, 2023 <br>
<br>
Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather
events. For example, extreme sea-level events, where large storm
surges and high tides temporarily push the sea much higher than
normal, currently occur once a century. However, they are projected
to strike coastal areas every decade, if not yearly, by 2040.<br>
<br>
Events like these have significant consequences for the global
financial system, such as depressing economic growth. According to
research, a once-in-a-hundred year cyclone is linked to an average
income loss across all countries of nearly 15% per person,
surpassing the 9% average income reduction typically observed in the
aftermath of a financial crisis.<br>
<br>
The extensive damage that extreme weather inflicts on
infrastructure, homes and the economy could also lead to debt that a
country may struggle to repay, potentially making it harder for it
to borrow money in the future. Research I carried out with
colleagues found that, by 2030, climate change should result in 59
countries seeing a deterioration in their ability to repay their
debts, and a subsequent increase in their cost of borrowing...<br>
<br>
However, it appears that investors (fund managers in charge of large
amounts of investments) are not paying attention to these risks. A
recent article in the Financial Times revealed that oil and gas
firms are facing virtually no additional borrowing costs, despite
the fact that the future of the entire industry is at risk from the
shift towards clean energy and global efforts to reduce carbon
emissions.<br>
<br>
Research has also found that, while investors expressed some concern
about the risks associated with climate policy, the direct risks
from extreme weather itself had no impact on the price of US stocks
between 2000 and 2018.<br>
<br>
Why are investors responding in this way? Not having access to the
right information is only part of the equation. Investors also need
to believe that climate change will actually have material
consequences for financial markets...<br>
<br>
Access to information<br>
If a country seeks to borrow from financial markets for investments
in public infrastructure, its credit rating will determine the cost
of borrowing. The credit rating influences the interest the
government will pay, akin to how an individual’s credit rating
affects their mortgage repayments.<br>
<br>
However, credit rating agencies do not consistently incorporate
climate risks into their assessments. Government debt simply does
not have the right climate metrics for investors to make informed
decisions.<br>
<br>
But, when investors are given the right information, they do
generally make appropriate decisions. For example, research
published in May 2023 explored the impact of exposure to sea-level
rise on municipal bond yields in the US. (When an investor buys a
municipal bond, they loan money to the local government in exchange
for a number of interest payments over a defined period.)<br>
<br>
Once presented with worst-case sea-level rise projections, investors
adjusted their required rate of return on municipal bonds in coastal
communities. In fact, a one-standard-deviation increase in exposure
to rising sea levels resulted in a 7% to 10% increase in the cost of
borrowing.<br>
<br>
The availability of information on the financial risks associated
with climate change is improving. However, much of this information
is not brought together into a single place that helps financial
markets analyse it.<br>
<br>
Financial markets also require new tools to help them understand
this new information. Part of the problem is that finance simply
lacks the skills to understand environmental data.<br>
<br>
Processing it differently<br>
Access to the right information is, however, only one part of the
problem. Even when investors do have access to this information,
they process it differently to one another.<br>
<br>
The same study suggests that investors in “less worried” (according
to a survey of climate opinions) locations ignore sea-level
projections completely. In the US state of North Carolina, for
example, lawmakers have removed the requirement for long-term sea
level rise projections to be included in planning applications.<br>
<br>
The effect of sea level projections (information) on municipal bonds
thus appears to be conditional on investors’ prior beliefs about
climate change. The findings revealed that the projected increase in
the interest rate associated with rising sea levels was only present
in “more worried” locations.<br>
<br>
What’s the solution?<br>
Having financial data that accounts for the risks posed by climate
change is a necessary requirement for incorporating these risks into
asset prices. It should not be surprising that oil and gas firms
maintain low borrowing costs with high credit ratings when these
ratings do not consider climate risks.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, access to financial indicators that are adjusted for
climate risks is only one aspect of the challenge. Before this new
data is integrated into the decisions that investors make, the
investors must be convinced that climate change actually holds
significant consequences for financial markets.<br>
<br>
In this sense, encouraging investors to recognise the impact of
climate change may ultimately pose more of a sociological challenge
than an economic one.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://theconversation.com/most-investors-arent-paying-attention-to-climate-risks-the-financial-system-needs-to-change-219070">https://theconversation.com/most-investors-arent-paying-attention-to-climate-risks-the-financial-system-needs-to-change-219070</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<font face="Calibri"> <i>[The news archive - malicious fiction from
Crichton and Murdoch ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>December 14, 2006 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> December 14, 2006: MSNBC's Keith
Olbermann condemns the latest sleazy action by overrated novelist
and climate-change denier Michael Crichton:<br>
"In his last novel, he dismissed global warming. So a political
columnist for the 'New Republic' who went to Yale named Michael
Crowley ripped him for it. Now Crichton's got a new book out, in
which he’s created a minor character who is a child rapist, and
described as a political columnist who went to Yale, and who’s named
Mick Crowley. Crichton’s publisher, Harper Collins, is owned by
Rupert Murdoch. <br>
<br>
"The real Michael Crowley is understandably upset that Crichton gave
his name to a child rapist, but look, Mr. Crowley, it could have
been worse; Crichton could have used your name for a character based
on himself. Author Michael 'Vengeance is Mine' Crichton, today's
Worst Person in the World."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIdoaaYklJ8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIdoaaYklJ8</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><font face="Calibri"> <br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><br>
=== Other climate news sources
===========================================<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><b>*Inside Climate News</b><br>
Newsletters<br>
We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every
day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the web’s
top headlines deliver the full story, for free.<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://insideclimatenews.org/">https://insideclimatenews.org/</a><br>
--------------------------------------- <br>
*<b>Climate Nexus</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://climatenexus.org/hot-news/*">https://climatenexus.org/hot-news/*</a>
<br>
Delivered straight to your inbox every morning, Hot News
summarizes the most important climate and energy news of the
day, delivering an unmatched aggregation of timely, relevant
reporting. It also provides original reporting and commentary on
climate denial and pro-polluter activity that would otherwise
remain largely unexposed. 5 weekday <br>
================================= <br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><b class="moz-txt-star"><span
class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>Carbon Brief Daily </b><span
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href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/newsletter-sign-up">https://www.carbonbrief.org/newsletter-sign-up</a></span><b
class="moz-txt-star"><span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b> <br>
Every weekday morning, in time for your morning coffee, Carbon
Brief sends out a free email known as the “Daily Briefing” to
thousands of subscribers around the world. The email is a digest
of the past 24 hours of media coverage related to climate change
and energy, as well as our pick of the key studies published in
the peer-reviewed journals. <br>
more at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.getrevue.co/publisher/carbon-brief">https://www.getrevue.co/publisher/carbon-brief</a>
<br>
================================== <br>
*T<b>he Daily Climate </b>Subscribe <a
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