Climate on the Ballot in Largest Election Year

The Doomsday Clock, created back in 1947 by J. Robert Oppenheimer, remained at 90 seconds before midnight this week as concerns over war, climate, mass migration, the influence of AI, and other risks grew.?

Adding to these uncertain times, half the world's population in more than 40 countries will elect new leaders in 2024. While no one can predict the future, the outcome of these elections could tip the balance in the global fight against climate change.???

Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall said that 2024 “could be the most consequential voting year in terms of the fate of our planet ” and that “Every vote matters more this year than perhaps any time in history.” She referenced the recent change in Brazil's presidency from Jair Bolsanaro to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to illustrate the immediate impacts - deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon declined 50 percent in 2023 to a five-year low.

From a US perspective, the current favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump, has pledged to reverse many of the current US climate policies - national and international. In the event of another Trump presidency, the “Project 2025 ” document outlines how the administration will reverse clean energy funding and increase oil and gas production .?

While there are many factors that influence voters, a new analysis revealed that climate anxiety gave the Democrats a 3% edge in the 2020 Trump v Biden vote, and that could be enough to swing the 2024 election .

The European Union’s Green Deal also hangs in the balance. The bloc is set to test voters' appetite for climate policies ahead of their June elections with a new goal of reaching a 90% reduction in emissions by 2040 . A recent study of EU polls points to more seats for populist politicians and losses for greens, which the study says “would significantly undermine the EU's Green Deal framework .”?

In Mexico, the opposite is happening. The favorite to win their election is a climate scientist, Claudia Sheinbaum, now the current mayor of Mexico City. She has vowed to meet 50% of the country’s energy demand from renewables by 2030 .

While 2024 will be punctuated by speculation on the influence of politics on climate and many other issues, the one clear message is to get out and VOTE!?

Biden Halts Huge LNG Platform

President Biden announced earlier this week what climate OG Bill McKibben called “the biggest thing a U.S. president has ever done to stand up to the fossil fuel industry .”

In pausing approval of the largest liquid natural gas (LNG) export terminal in the United States, Biden sided with 170 scientists to stop the Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) export facility and other LNG facilities as together they could annually contribute more carbon emissions than the whole of Europe .?

The ruling will apply to an additional 16 other LNG terminals and could spell the end of them, regardless of who gets into the White House later this year .?

Rational Sustainability

BlackRock included ESG scrutiny as a significant risk for the first time in its Q4 results . They are claiming that the politicization of the term could impact returns. As this risk accumulates, investors will increasingly avoid financial instruments associated with ESG.

Has the time come for investors to consider rational sustainability as an alternative ? That is the view of new research from London Business School Professor Alex Edmans .?

Edman's research claims that moving to “rational sustainability” from ESG mitigates the politicization of the term and moves the focus away from labels and toward environmental and social outcomes. To build his argument, he breaks rational sustainability into ten principles, five relating to the sustainable part and five for the rational.

2024: Another Year of Interoperability

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) kicked off 2024 by jointly releasing a new analysis and mapping tool .

The tool indicates areas of interoperability companies should consider when measuring and reporting Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in accordance with GRI 305 (Emissions) and IFRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures).?

More Climate Lawsuits

2024 is already looking like another year of climate action in the courtrooms. A case was brought in the Netherlands against mega-bank ING. This action is from the same group that won a high-profile case against Shell last year - Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie). The group claims that ING is in “breach of its legal societal standard of care by contributing to dangerous climate change ” by financing fossil fuel customers who continue to expand oil, gas, and coal activities without a strong phase-out plan.

In Norway, three fossil fuel permits were invalidated when the Norwegian courts sided with environmentalists and blocked the permits , citing that the full environmental impact of the permits was not assessed.?

On the flip side, US Oil and Gas firm Exxon Mobil is suing two activist investors after they attempted to get a climate proposal through a shareholder vote . Exxon claims the two activist investors, Arjuna Capital and Follow This, abused the power of shareholder voting with proposals that will “diminish the company’s existing business.” A ruling in Exxon's favor could set a legal precedent for future cases.

Carbon Credits Cooked

Another year, another carbon credits scandal. This time, it came from cookstove carbon offsets, which a new study found to be overstated by over 1,000% .?

The research found that many of the ‘clean’ stoves did not meet World Health Organization standards, the use of new stoves was inflated, and new stoves did not benefit forestry, all of which exaggerated the climate benefits of the offsets.?

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Other Notable News:

• EU releases sustainability reporting standards for small companies . The new exposure drafts include standards for mandated reporting for listed SMEs under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and for SMEs that want to voluntarily report. The new standards will also help SMEs get access to sustainable finance for reporting.
• New research from the European Central Bank found that 90% of banks face significant climate transition risks .?
• The EU achieved the lowest fossil fuel emissions in 60 years . The 8% decline in 2023 from 2022 puts the EU on a level of emissions not seen since the 1960s. However, decarbonization will have to accelerate if they are to meet their ambitious goals.?
• To meet the ambitious goal of 90% emission reductions by 2050, the EU has proposed spending $1.5 trillion a year between 2031 and 2050 .?
• The EU postponed the release of Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive reporting standards for specific sectors and non-EU companies . The standards will now be released in 2026, ahead of the non-EU companies reporting deadline in 2028.?
• New York schools are set to put climate on the curriculum . New York State may join a growing number of states integrating climate change into their elementary school learning plans.?
• New research finds that business leaders will up their sustainability spending in 2024 , with 57% of respondents claiming they will make the most of the US Inflation Reduction Act and invest in clean tech.?
• The IEA has predicted that 2024 will be a record-breaking year for nuclear and renewable energy . They predict emissions will fall even as energy demand increases, as clean energy becomes half of global energy capacity by 2030.
• Electric truck deployment grew five times last year . This astonishing growth was driven by companies like Rivian making trucks for large delivery companies like Amazon.
• The beleaguered Net Zero Insurers Alliance, which lost 19 of its 30 members last year, is rebranding to attract some of the members back .
• Former presidential hopeful and climate investor billionaire Tom Steyer is releasing a new climate book in May, “Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War .”
• A conspiracy theorist who accused the government of setting last year's unprecedented Canadian wildfires was convicted of setting 14 of the fires himself, two of which forced the evacuation of 500 people .?
• Opponents of the Chevron Doctrine in the Supreme Court – A 1984 legal principle that says courts should defer to the interpretation of federal agencies when a law is ambiguous, as long as the interpretation is reasonable – are trying to undermine the rule, which could mean judges are left to make technical, environmental decisions.

Notable Podcasts:?

• In this week’s The Climate Question podcast from the BBC host , Grahaig Jackson hosts a climate panel with Akshat Rathi , a climate reporter at Bloomberg, Esme Stallard , a climate reporter from BBC News, and Prof Tamsin Edwards, a climate scientist. Together, they attempt to answer listeners' questions, which range from the environmental impact of war to the carbon footprint of pets.?
• In this week’s episode of the climate tech Keep Cool podcast , host Nick van Osdol is joined by Katie McClain , COO at Energize Capital, a venture fund focused on climate and energy technologies. Together, they discuss what is ‘hot’ right now in climate tech and the 2024 trends for climate tech venture capitalism.