Summer is coming. It's bringing brutal heat.

Your guide to the political forces shaping the energy transformation

May 29, 2024 View in browser   By Arianna Skibell Illustration by Derek Abella for POLITICO Rising heat is a crisis for the world. For the unhoused, it can be a death sentence. That has become abundantly clear in Phoenix, where heat mortalities have increased 1,000 percent over the past decade as climate change turbocharges summer temperatures. Punishing heat led to a record 645 deaths last year in Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest metropolitan area, and almost half the victims were homeless. Officials are trying to reduce this year's death count — no small feat amid a dearth of funding for heat waves, writes Ariel Wittenberg. Phoenix will rely on temporary pandemic relief funding to establish more cooling centers that remain open overnight. But the plan is a stopgap solution for a long-term crisis threatening cities across the country as a changing climate continues to bake the planet. Global heat waves are happening more frequently and moving 20 percent more slowly than they were 45 years ago, according to a recent study in Science Advances. That means people are staying hotter longer. This year is already on track to be among the hottest in history. In India, record-breaking temperatures are hindering turnout for the country’s general elections. And the increasing odds of a heat wave during this summer’s Olympics in Paris are beginning to worry athletes — whose lodging at the games won’t have air conditioning. In Phoenix, America’s hottest city, the crisis is compounded by soaring eviction rates. The number of unhoused people in Maricopa County has doubled since 2017. Around the time the U.S. Supreme Court ended a pandemic-era eviction moratorium, heat deaths in the county began to surge. Heat is now the second-biggest killer of homeless people there, behind drug overdoses. Phoenix, like a growing number of cities, has employed a “chief heat officer” to help prepare and adapt to increasingly brutal summers — but with scarce resources, the task is challenging. (Some states, meanwhile, have prohibited local governments from mandating heat protections, such as water breaks for workers). David Hondula, Phoenix’s director of heat response and mitigation, told Ariel the lack of federal funding is ludicrous. “Every winter in New England, are the churches trying to raise money to buy the snow plow? And then that’s the only snow plow the community has? I’m guessing not,” he said.   It's Wednesday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@eenews.net. Listen to today’s POLITICO Energy podcast Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: Alex Guillén breaks down the muted reaction to the Biden administration's decision to stop new lease sales in the nation’s leading coal mining basin. Power Centers A K Street street sign is pictured. | Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images | Getty Critical mineral craze hits K Street The national scramble for critical minerals needed to build clean energy technology like electric vehicle batteries is compelling a growing number of major and junior mining companies to enlist Washington veterans' lobbying expertise, writes Hannah Northey. Dozens of former congressional staffers, administration officials and federal agency staffers are helping companies navigate a difficult regulatory landscape and tap into tax credits flowing from the Biden administration’s climate law. Pension funds can't let oil go One of the nation’s most powerful public pension funds drew attention earlier this year for divesting from fossil fuels — sort of, writes Avery Ellfeldt. The New York State Common Retirement Fund said in February it would yank millions of dollars out of eight oil and gas companies, but the fund included a caveat to secure investment returns. So while the fund did divest $25 million from Exxon Mobil, for instance, it still holds nearly $580 million in the oil giant’s shares. Former oil CEO blasts FTC over collusion allegations Former oil CEO Scott Sheffield fired back on the Federal Trade Commission’s allegations that he had colluded with OPEC to boost fuel prices — contending the agency “unjustly smeared” him, write Ben Lefebvre and Josh Sisco. Lawyers for Sheffield, the former CEO of Texas-based Pioneer Natural Resources, filed paperwork demanding that the FTC drop a recent settlement agreement in which the agency had aired the accusations. In Other News Speaking of heat: Climate change added a month’s worth of extra-hot days in the past year. Eroding shorelines: Another North Carolina beach house just fell into the ocean. Others may follow. Politics: Inside former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s growing alliance. Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. The Treasury Department building in Washington on Oct. 18, 2018. | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images The Biden administration has proposed new tax rules to give big breaks to clean energy projects built in 2025 and potentially decades into the future. The Interior Department is advancing an offshore lease in the Gulf of Maine that could lead to the first floating wind project on the East Coast. Rich countries met a long-standing commitment to deliver more than $100 billion in climate aid to developing countries for the first time in 2022 — two years late. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.   Follow us on Twitter Arianna Skibell @ariannaskibell   Follow us

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