Category Energy & Environment

Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, formerly a giant coal-burning empire, became a “Clean energy superpower.”

At least that is the promise of Keir Starmer, who is running to become the next prime minister. His Labour Party is projected to win parliamentary elections on Thursday, ending the Conservative Party’s 14-year rule.

The Labour Party had made big promises on climate change in its election campaign. But now how these promises will be fulfilled will not only affect the daily lives of the people of Britain but will also affect the country’s position in the world.

The UK is one of history’s leading climate polluters. It was here that the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, giving rise to a global economy powered by coal, oil and gas, and with it emissions of greenhouse gases that warm the planet. So the pace and scale of the UK’s energy transition is likely to be closely watched by other industrialised countries and emerging economies alike.

The UK likes to see itself as a global climate leader. In 2008, it became the first of the major industrialised nations to pass a global convention on climate change. Climate change legislationIts emissions have fallen dramatically since then. In 2021, its government set a legally binding target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 78 percent by 2035Relative to 1990 levels, it is one of the world’s most ambitious climate laws.

Getting there, however, is a tough job. The new government will face a cost-of-living crisis at home, geopolitical turmoil abroad, and extreme weather events fueled by rising fossil fuel emissions.

There are three things that need to be kept in mind when the new government begins its work.

What would it take to move away from fossil fuels?

Mr Starmer’s campaign manifesto promised “zero carbon electricity by 2030”.

Luckily for them, the country is already moving in that direction.

It is no longer dependent on coal for its electricity. The last coal-burning power plant is set to shut down in September. According to a report, coal-fired electricity supply has fallen from 40 per cent in 2012 to almost zero today. Analysis by Carbon BriefAn independent climate news site.

The challenge now is to reduce reliance on gas. In 2023, it will supply just over 30 per cent of the UK’s electricity. The government must get this to zero by 2030, or find ways to capture and bury the greenhouse gases produced by gas plants.

Labor leaders have also said they would double wind power capacity on land, quadruple wind power capacity on the sea and triple solar power.

José Garman, executive director of the European Climate Foundation, called the zero-carbon-electricity promise a “broad target” that would require changes to laws approving wind and solar projects.

What is the future of North Sea oil?

Oil extraction in the North Sea There was a steady decline The largest decline has occurred in the last 20 years and is expected to continue until mid-century.

Nevertheless, the question of oil and gas licences in the North Sea remains politically important.

Last year, the current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the Conservative Party said that Britain should make maximum use of oil and gas from the North Sea. He introduced a system Issue of new licencesAfter which the former Energy Minister had to resign, who said that this would Causing “future harm.”

Mr Starmer’s party has said it would respect existing licences but would refrain from issuing new ones.

Oil and gas companies already face a 75 percent tax in Britain. The incoming Labour government has said it will raise this slightly to 78 percent.

There’s another catch, and that’s Scotland.

Scottish nationalists have pushed for greater control over North Sea oil and gas, as it is in Scottish waters. A drop in production is likely to hit communities on Scotland’s northeastern coast first and foremost, which depend on the industry for jobs.

Will climate action remain polarised?

Unlike the United States, there was broad political consensus in Britain about the need to tackle climate change. In fact, climate action was a favourite of the Conservatives.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expressed concern over climate change. theresa maywho is also a Conservative prime minister, led the campaign for a net-zero target by 2050, meaning that Britain must, by law, take the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere as the country puts into it by mid-century. In 2021, Boris Johnson’s government pledged to reduce emissions by 78 percent by 2035.

Recently, this target has changed. Mr Sunak described the green transition as too expensive. For example, a plan to ban new petroleum and diesel-powered cars by 2030 was delayed until 2035.

Mr Starmer is likely to reinstate the ban to 2030. He has also promised to double funding for energy efficiency programmes and create a new national energy company, which he says will help reduce the cost of energy Cut down on energy bills,

There is also pressure from the right-wing Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, to Abandoning the net-zero target by 2050 All in all, exit polls show Mr Farage’s party will make a surprisingly large gain in parliament, reflecting the rise of the far right across Europe.

The Supreme Court on Friday reduced the authority of executive agencies, overturning a longstanding legal tradition that required courts to acknowledge the expertise of federal administrators in enforcing laws passed by Congress.

Example, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense CouncilIt is one of the most cited cases in American law. There have been 70 Supreme Court decisions based on Chevron, and 17,000 lower court decisions.

The decision threatens regulation in countless areas, including the environment, health care, and consumer safety.

The vote was by a ratio of 6 to 3, divided along ideological lines.

The conservative legal movement and business groups have long objected to the Chevron decision, based in part on a general hostility to government regulation and in part on the separation of powers-based belief that agencies should have only as much power as Congress has explicitly given them.

Supporters of the doctrine say it allows specialized agencies to fill in gaps in ambiguous laws by establishing uniform rules in their areas of expertise, a practice they say was contemplated by Congress.

Opponents say it is the role of courts, not executive branch officials, to determine the meaning of laws. They also say agencies’ interpretations could change with a new administration and tip the scales in favor of the government in lawsuits, even if it is a party to the case.

The Court decided two nearly identical cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, No. 22-451, and Relentless v. Department of Commerce, No. 22-1219. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was recused from the first case because she participated in it as a federal appeals court judge.

Both cases involved a 1976 federal law that requires herring boats to carry federal observers to collect data to prevent overfishing. Under a 2020 regulation interpreting the law, boat owners were not only required to carry observers, but also pay $700 a day for their monitoring.

Fishermen from New Jersey and Rhode Island sued, arguing that a 1976 law did not authorize the relevant agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service, to impose the fees.

Two appeals courts – one in Washington, the other in Boston – ruled that the deference required by the Chevron decision required a ruling by the government. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, Government The agency’s interpretation of the 1976 law “to allow industry-funded surveillance was reasonable,” the First Circuit in Boston said. Said that “at a minimum” the agency’s interpretation of the 1976 law was “certainly reasonable.”

Fishermen were represented Cause of Action Institutewhich says its mission is to “limit the power of the administrative state”, and New Civil Liberties AllianceWhich says its purpose is “to defend constitutional liberties from infringement by the administrative state.” Both groups have financial ties to the network of foundations and advocacy organizations funded by Charles Koch, a billionaire who has long supported conservative and libertarian causes.

Forty years ago, when Chevron was ruled on by a unanimous but slimmer six-member Supreme Court, with three justices recusing themselves, it was generally viewed as a victory for conservatives. In response to a challenge from environmental groups, the justices upheld a Reagan-era interpretation of the Clean Air Act that loosened regulation of emissions, saying the Environmental Protection Agency’s reading of the statute was “a reasonable construction” that was “worthy of deference.”

Last year, the Supreme Court imposed tight restrictions on the federal government’s ability to limit pollution in small rivers, which are dry most of the year and fill only after rain or snowmelt.

Now, a new study finds that these bodies, called ephemeral streams, are even more important to the nation’s waterways than often realized.

This research was published in the Science journal on Thursday.It is estimated that 55 percent of the water flowing through U.S. river basins is sourced by millions of ephemeral streams that flow only periodically. The findings suggest that the Supreme Court ruling, which rolled back protections for those streams, could leave large bodies of water vulnerable to pollution.

“Right now, we regulate large waterways like the Hudson River, but a significant portion of that water is coming upstream from places that can no longer be controlled,” said Craig Brinkerhoff, a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who led the study.

For years, politicians, industry groups and environmentalists have debated which water bodies in the United States should fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act, a sweeping law passed in 1972 that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to limit water pollution. While there is consensus that the law applies to major rivers and lakes, there is debate over whether federal protections should apply elsewhere, such as nearby wetlands or streams that go dry for part of the year.

Environmentalists favor broader protection, arguing that these other water bodies are also important; homebuilders, some industry groups, and conservatives oppose it, as they see it as regulatory overreach.

In May 2023, the Supreme Court The vote was 5 to 4 to limit the scope. The majority of the Clean Water Act decided that the law should apply only to “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water,” as well as wetlands that have a “continuous surface connection” to those waters.

The decision effectively ended federal protections for up to 4.9 million miles of streams that flow only when it rains, according to EPA officials. which was announced in August He will follow the guidance of the court.

These temporary streams are often overlooked because they look like dry ditches most of the year, said Judd Harvey, senior research hydrologist with the United States Geological Survey. wrote a separate comment “But when it rains, these streams bring a lot of water” that ends up in rivers and lakes, he said of the Science study.

Mr. Brinkerhoff and his colleagues identified millions of temporary streams across the country and used detailed modeling to estimate how much water flows through them.

The study found that in the West, ephemeral streams flow on average only four to 46 days per year but contribute up to 79 percent of river flow. Ephemeral streams contribute about 55 percent of flow on average in river basins across the United States.

Mr. Harvey said he was surprised by the amount of water released from ephemeral streams. “But this is a rigorous and detailed investigation using the best data available in the United States,” he said of the study.

Because so much water passes through these streams, it matters little whether they are polluted or not, the study says. Sediment or excess phosphorus from fertilizer runoff from fields can accumulate in dry streams until heavy rains stir up the pollutants and flush them into larger waterways.

Mr. Brinkerhoff said the study did not try to measure how much pollution is actually passing through these streams. That is a topic for future research. But, he said these streams have a huge impact on water quality.

Even though the EPA can no longer regulate pollution in ephemeral streams, some states still try to do so, said Ciaran Harman, an associate professor of landscape hydrology at Johns Hopkins University. For example, farmers can let grass and other vegetation grow around ephemeral streams to limit erosion and prevent pollutants from flowing into waterways after storms. Yet state plans can vary widely, and it can often be difficult for states to coordinate on water regulation.

John Devine, who leads the federal water policy team at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said that in the past, the EPA often used new scientific research to update and sometimes expand the scope of water regulations. “Regulators will look at whether different bodies of water contribute to downstream water quality, and if so, whether they should be protected,” he said. “Ultimately this is a scientific inquiry.”

But Mr. Devine said that after the Supreme Court’s decision, the EPA’s ability to modify those rules has been significantly curtailed. “You would really need congressional intervention,” he said.

German automaker Volkswagen said on Tuesday it would invest up to $5 billion in Rivian, an electric truck maker that has struggled to turn a profit. The two companies will also collaborate on software for electric vehicles.

The deal creates an unusual alliance between the world’s second-largest carmaker and an electric vehicle start-up that has struggled to live up to investor expectations that it would achieve the kind of success that made Tesla the world’s most valuable automaker.

If successful, the partnership would address weaknesses in both companies. It would give Volkswagen the software expertise that auto analysts say it lacks. And Rivian would benefit, in addition to cash, from the manufacturing expertise of an automaker that makes about 10 million vehicles a year from factories around the world.

Volkswagen said it would initially invest $1 billion in Rivian and increase it to $5 billion over time. The investment represents a major vote of confidence in Rivian, which is Thousands of dollars in damage on each vehicle sold.

Rivian’s pickups and sport utility vehicles have received rave reviews in the automotive press, but the company has struggled to grow its sales. Manufacturing in our own factory in Normal, Illinois

Rivian’s shares rose 35 percent in extended trading on Tuesday after the deal was announced.

The electric vehicle market is divided between companies like Tesla and Rivian, which make only battery-powered cars, and established carmakers like Volkswagen, General Motors and Toyota, which often struggle to master new technology.

Except for Tesla, no new American carmaker specializing in electric vehicles has gained significant market share. Fisker And Lordstown Motorshas ceased production and filed for bankruptcy protection.

Auto analysts have long considered Rivian one of the most promising electric vehicle start-ups, partly because it has raised billions of dollars in investment. Amazon is one of its largest shareholders and a major customer for the company’s delivery vans.

Ford Motor was once a large shareholder in Rivian, and the two companies once said they would build SUVs together. But that plan never came to fruition, and Ford sold most of its Rivian shares.

Rivian has been trying to cut costs lately — in March it indefinitely postponed plans to build $5 billion factory near Atlanta — in an effort to stay alive long enough to retrieve his $45,000 SUV.

The cheapest vehicle the company currently sells, the R1T pickup, starts at around $70,000, a price that has limited its sales to only wealthy early adopters. Its SUV, the R1S, starts at $75,000. Even at these prices, Rivian lost $39,000 per vehicle sold in the first three months of the year.

Volkswagen said vehicles using software developed by the new joint venture would go on sale in the second half of the decade. The two companies will continue to market their vehicles separately.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.