Category: ECONOMICS_CN Politics_International_CN

World Bank President David Malpass came under heavy criticism on Wednesday after he declined to say whether he accepts the scientific consensus on global warming, rekindling concerns about the bank’s lack of a deadline to stop funding fossil fuels.

At over 700 pages, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a dense piece of legislation. At the same time, its impact on the energy sector can be summarized succinctly: clean energy economics just got a whole lot better.

The legislation achieves this through a spate of incentives. There are enhancements to the existing production tax credit (PTC) and investment tax credit (ITC), which are now available to new solar and energy storage facilities, respectively; before the IRA, the ITC for solar was being phased down to a terminal level of 10% for facilities beginning construction from 2024 onward, and solar plants that were placed in service after 2006 were eligible for the PTC. Starting in 2025, there are new versions

Yvon Chouinard no longer owns Patagonia. Nearly 50 years after founding the enormously successful apparel company, now worth around $3 billion, the 83-year-old came up with an unusual solution to ensure that it continues in a way that aligns with his values and funds important environmental conservation work.

Natural gas prices have doubled in the past year, putting pressure on American companies and consumers, a sign of U.S. vulnerability to international price fluctuations.
After a decade of marginal or negative returns, U.S. drillers are using profits from higher gas prices to pay back debt and award shareholders — as demanded by investors — instead of spending on more drilling. As a result, prices continued to rise through the summer, and higher prices are expected into 2022.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced on Monday that Yue Chen would be the agency’s chief climate risk officer. Dr. Chen will focus on developing a new system to assess climate-driven risks to banks, and figure out how to monitor and manage them, the agency said in a statement.

When shockwaves ripple across global oil and gas markets, local communities in oil- and gas-producing regions of the United States feel pronounced economic repercussions. While Russia’s war in Ukraine is currently stimulating public interest in global oil and gas production, it is clear that the long-term transformation of energy systems worldwide will continue.

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund provides $27bn in funding for projects aimed at lowering America’s planet-heating emissions. Some of those funds, roughly $7bn, will be dedicated to clean energy deployment in low-income communities – but the vast majority of the funds will be used to create America’s first national green bank, an initiative long championed by climate activists. Those activists hope that the national green bank, which will provide financial assistance to expand the use of clean energy across the country, will accelerate America’s transition away from fossil fuels.

From drought to floods and sea level rise, the cost of damage caused by climate change will only get higher as the world warms, sparking concerns from both top officials and activists about how to pay for it.
“Loss and damage from the climate crisis is not a future event. It is happening now, all around us,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on a visit to Pakistan, which recently suffered from devastating floods that displaced hundreds of thousands of people and left over a thousand dead.

A peer-reviewed analysis by two dozen experts more than triples – from $51 per ton of carbon dioxide to $185 per ton – the federal government’s estimate of the “social cost of carbon” (SCC)…

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen praised Biden administration’s economic policies Thursday during a speech at a Ford Motor Company electric vehicle plant in Michigan.