| | | | |  | | By Debra Kahn and Catherine Boudreau | Presented by Ball Corporation | | | | | 
Is tree planting to combat climate change all it's cracked up to be? | (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo) | OFFSETS, INTERRUPTED – Most corporate pledges to zero out greenhouse gas emissions have one thing in common: Offsets. Paying to plant trees, cap methane wells or fund other green activities can be easier (and cheaper?) than actually reducing pollution, and demand for these emissions offsets is exploding. So are the questions. In December, shareholder activist group As You Sow took issue with a Williams-Sonoma Inc. plan to buy offsets to compensate for its emissions. As You Sow asked the retailer to describe its offsets and how they're used. Williams-Sonoma said OK. The company isn't currently buying offsets and is focused instead on reducing its own emissions. It promised to disclose the size and type of offsets it buys in the future, and said it would report on how they factor into its climate goals. The company has vowed to reduce emissions from its own operations by 50 percent and from its downstream effects by 14 percent by 2030 without offsetting, spokesperson Kendall Coleman said, and it participates in voluntary standard-setting and disclosure regimes such as the Science Based Targets initiative. Satisfied, As You Sow withdrew its proposal this month. "They're basically going down the whole list of everything in our resolution that we asked for, so it worked out great," said As You Sow climate initiative manager David Shugar. Debate, deferred. The Williams-Sonoma shareholder resolution was resolved amicably, but it stands as an early salvo in the debate over carbon markets, which are largely unregulated. Companies that have promised to go net zero have no obligation to share details about the quality, size or source of their offsets, and most don't. Shareholders are starting to demand accountability. If shareholders were looking for a fight, they might have thrown a punch somewhere else. Williams-Sonoma is at the vanguard of climate reporting. The retailer has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2025 and has disclosed the entire scope of its emissions, including those generated by its vast materials suppliers and end users of the furniture, kitchen gadgets and other products it sells. An As You Sow analysis of 55 net-zero pledges found that only 11 companies had disclosed their carbon offset purchases, a description of those projects and their verification status. That might change. The Securities and Exchange Commission, responding to shareholder demands, wants companies to disclose their carbon offset purchases. But the agency isn't a climate regulator, and a draft proposal released last week stops short of requiring companies to detail how offsets factor into carbon-neutrality goals. The Science-Based Targets initiative — a standard widely used by businesses seeking to align with Paris Agreement goals — says offsets should be used only as a last resort. "One of the big challenges in carbon markets is lack of transparency, including where credits come from and whether they are a substitute for corporate climate action," said Mark Kenber, co-executive director for external affairs at the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, a U.N.-backed group. "Disclosure will make companies think properly about how they do it, because the public can scrutinize them," Kenber said. "If two companies say they will be net-zero, it will be easier to compare them."
| | | | A message from Ball Corporation: The U.S. recycles just 38% of aluminum cans back into cans. Our economy needs aluminum, but most cans end up in landfills. New research shows reaching a 90% recycling rate would be enough aluminum to not only improve America's domestic supply chain but add $1.6 billion to our economy, create 103,000 jobs and raise wages by billions in related industries. Better still, recycled aluminum takes 92% less energy to produce and--unlike plastic--aluminum is infinitely recyclable. ball.com/realcircularity | | | | | | Is anyone still buying carbon offsets for their air travel? Let us know: Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott, deputy editor Debra Kahn, reporters Lorraine Woellert and Catherine Boudreau, and digital producer Jordan Wolman. Reach them at gmott@politico.com, dkahn@politico.com, lwoellert@politico.com, cboudreau@politico.com and jwolman@politico.com. Want more? Don't we all. Sign up for the Long Game. Four days a week and still free!
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The U.S. solar industry could be entering a dark period. | (Esteban Felix/AP Photo) | SOLAR ECLIPSE — The Commerce Department's decision yesterday to investigate whether to put anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar panels could freeze the U.S. solar industry, David Iaconangelo reports for POLITICO's E&E News. The investigation was prompted by a February petition from U.S. solar manufacturer Auxin Solar Inc., which asked Commerce to study whether Chinese companies were skirting existing tariffs by setting up factories in Southeast Asia. Approximately 80 percent of the solar panels installed in the U.S. last year came from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, according to industry trade groups. Solar and utility trade groups alike are warning that the chilling effects from the investigation alone would send solar costs soaring, jeopardizing the Biden administration's climate goals. The industry has already been grappling with inflation, supply chain hiccups, and confiscations of imports by customs guards suspecting ties to forced labor in China. Solar Energy Industries Association CEO Abby Ross Hopper said new tariffs could reduce new solar installations by 14 gigawatts, the equivalent of two-thirds of all solar installed in the U.S. last year. "This misstep will have a devastating impact on the U.S. solar market at a time when solar prices are climbing, and project delays and cancellations are adding up," she said in a statement. ClearView Energy Partners LLC said in a research note that the Commerce Department's "protectionist leanings suggest to us favorable prospects" for the success of Auxin's petition. A preliminary decision on the investigation is due within 150 days, but the full investigation could take a year. Read more from David here.
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Bitcoin miners are raising concern by reviving fossil fuel plants like this one in Dresden, N.Y. | (Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo) | BRUNE VS. BITCOIN — Former Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune has a new project: making bitcoin mining more energy efficient. Brune is coordinating the campaign to change the code underlying the cryptocurrency with Environmental Working Group, Greenpeace USA and local environmental groups concerned about the environmental impact of bitcoin mining, which is estimated to consume more energy annually than Norway. "This is increasing carbon pollution at a time when we need to be racing to decarbonize the entire economy," Brune told Corbin Hiar of POLITICO's E&E News ahead of today's campaign launch. "It's bonkers that this is actually happening." Brune wants bitcoin to switch from an energy-intensive proof-of-work system, in which transactions are verified by computers competing to answer increasingly harder math problems, to a lower-emissions proof-of-stake method in which investors are randomly selected to do the bitcoin-generating work of verification. Through advertising and advocacy, the campaign will pressure Twitter Inc. founder Jack Dorsey, Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk and other bitcoin bros to back a code change. It also will explore legal and regulatory options. Ripple Lab Inc. co-founder Chris Larsen is behind the campaign's initial $5 million in funding. Federal regulators have accused Larsen and his privately held company of raising over $1.3 billion in unregistered securities offerings via Ripple's XRP cryptocurrency. A win for environmentalists could bolster Larsen and Ripple, cryptocurrency experts say. An SEC lawsuit against Larsen, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and the company is pending. Read more from Corbin here.
| | | BUDGET TIME — President Joe Biden's proposed fiscal 2023 budget unveiled yesterday would devote billions of dollars to preparing for climate change, POLITICO's Zack Colman reports. Firefighting capacity, flood mapping, public housing upgrades and a Civilian Climate Corps would be among the beneficiaries of the administration's proposed $18 billion for climate adaptation. He's also proposing $11 billion to help finance clean energy and climate adaptation projects in other nations. The proposed budget that Congress will now consider also calls for hundreds of billions in domestic clean energy investments to help displace fossil fuels. But it's still nowhere near the $550 billion in climate measures that would have come from Democrats' defunct Build Back Better bill. Read more from Zack here. BOTH SIDES NOW — At the same time, green groups are expressing concern about Biden's pledge to help Europe cut its reliance on Russian natural gas, as Carlos Anchondo and Mike Soraghan report for POLITICO's E&E News. Biden and the European Commission drew plaudits from oil and gas trade groups and dismay from environmentalists with their Friday announcement that the U.S. would try to supplant about one-third of the E.U.'s gas imports from Russia by 2030 through increased exports of liquefied natural gas. Analysts predicted the move would indeed increase confidence in a long-term market for LNG. "European buyers should now feel more confident and encouraged by this renewed level of political support to enter into long-term contracts to purchase U.S. LNG," said Alex Munton, principal analyst for Americas LNG research at Wood Mackenzie. "[T]hat alone will lead to more investment in new capacity." Read more from Carlos and Mike here.
| | | | A message from Ball Corporation:   | | | | | | GRAB THE POPCORN — Shareholder climate resolutions are set for votes at Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of Montreal and TD Bank. Investors want banks to wind down financing of fossil fuel development. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley had asked the SEC for permission to omit the proposals from proxy ballots, but were rebuffed. JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America are the world's largest fossil fuel bankers. All have committed to net-zero financed emissions by 2050. "We should know whether the banks' lending and underwriting policies are consistent with their net-zero commitments," Kate Monahan of Trillium Asset Management said in a written statement. For your calendar: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup hold their annual meetings April 26. Goldman Sachs meets two days later. Meetings at JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are TBA.
| | | | A message from Ball Corporation: Aluminum cans are the only commonly used beverage containers that can be infinitely recycled. Recycled aluminum also uses 92% less energy. Increasing the U.S. recycling rate for aluminum cans to 90% would help reduce aluminum imports and would give a real boost to struggling American businesses and workers. New research shows how recycling aluminum cans is good for business, since a 90% recycling rate would:
● Raise wages in recycling industries from $2.1B to $5B
● Create 103,000 jobs
● Grow the U.S. economy by $1.6 billion
A 90% recycling rate would also be a giant leap forward for U.S. sustainability:
● Keeping 1.3M tons of material out of landfills each year
● Cut emissions by the equivalent of taking 2.6 million cars off the road
● Save enough energy to power 1.5 million homes for an entire year
Learn how your state would benefit from recycled aluminum at ball.com/realcircularity | | | | | | — A Dutch study of 22 healthy people detected microplastics in the blood of 17 of them. — Perpetual climate block Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has been working on behalf of a coal-fired power plant for decades. — Bloomberg is looking at Leonardo DiCaprio's new investment fund for climate-friendly consumer companies.
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