| | | | | | | Presented By League of Conservation Voters | | | | Axios Generate | | By Ben Geman and Andrew Freedman · Sep 13, 2022 | | 🍩 Good morning! Today's newsletter has a Smart Brevity count of 1,177 words, 4.5 minutes. 🗓️ Join Andrew on Wednesday at 12:30pm ET for a virtual event exploring what the new climate law means for corporate policies. - Guests include Project Drawdown's Jonathan Foley and Allbirds' Hana Kajimura. Register.
🎶 On this date in 1989 the great Boston rockers Aerosmith released the album "Pump," which provides today's intro tune... | | | | | | 1 big thing: Climate Alpha and the adaptation race |  | | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios | | | | A new climate software firm that's announcing itself to the world today says it has a competitive edge that other companies lack, Andrew writes. The big picture: Climate Alpha, which just raised a $4 million seed round, uses AI and machine learning to tell customers where to invest and move to in light of climate change and other factors. - Other firms focus on where to avoid, says its founder and CEO, Parag Khanna.
Driving the news: Climate impacts like sea level rise and extreme weather events will interact with socioeconomic trends and other developments to make places more or less desirable places to live. Zoom in: Climate Alpha uses software to consider as many drivers as possible that could affect real estate values in a warming world. - The result, Khanna told Axios, is to be a guide to where businesses, governments, individual homeowners and others should invest for a more resilient future.
- Other companies right now are focused on identifying climate risk, rather than adaptation opportunities, he said.
- Climate Alpha's customers and partners include the homebuilder Lennar and asset manager BentallGreenOak.
Between the lines: Climate Alpha's models include all U.S. ZIP codes, with different algorithms for each property type. - The company forecasts real estate values for every year out to 2040 under various climate scenarios.
- Through a partnership with Mastercard, cities may use Climate Alpha's "Resilience Index" platform to prioritize where to spend resilience grants and funds for public housing, Khanna said.
Of note: The company began as research for Khanna's latest book, "Move: The Forces Uprooting Us," and spun out of another of his ventures, FutureMap. What they're saying: "The climate analytics industry has been focused on telling people where they'll need to sell, but not where they should buy," Khanna told Axios via email. - One advantage to his company's approach, he says, is that it incorporates factors far afield from climate.
- "Risk analytics alone don't predict consumer behavior, otherwise nobody would move to Miami or Phoenix," he said. Its models include other relocation influences, such as affordability and tax rates.
Yes, but: Climate Alpha is predicated on a bet that proactive relocation can keep Americans a step ahead of the climate. - However, this rests in part on the rate of global warming being manageable.
- Nasty surprises, such as tipping points, lurk within the climate and are difficult to model.
- In addition, growing inequality could limit America's resilience.
|     | | | | | | 2. Mapping the future of stranded fossil fuels |  Data: The Breakthrough Institute; Note: Data for Alaska not finalized at the time of publishing; Map: Kavya Beheraj/Axios The Breakthrough Institute is out with analysis and a nifty interactive map that weighs how decarbonizing the global economy will affect the viability of oil-and-gas production in specific regions, Ben writes. Why it matters: The environmental think tank's analysis can help policymakers and local stakeholders plan for diversifying their economies and aiding workers. "For communities characterized by less-competitive production, climate policies and clean energy technologies will initiate local economic transitions sooner than many planners realize," it states. The big picture: The effects are unevenly distributed. The report also delves into how different policy and emissions-cutting pathways affect development. - It looks at four scenarios, including what's visible above — the International Energy Agency's "sustainable development scenario" that models policies robust enough to meet Paris Agreement goals.
- "While the global oil and gas industry is unlikely to disappear completely by 2050, oil and gas production in many U.S. counties may become uneconomic due to regional differences in cost-competitiveness and infrastructure."
- U.S. crude production declines much more than gas in decarbonization scenarios.
🔍 Breakthrough's Seaver Wang, via Twitter, provides a tour of the findings. | | | | | | | | 3. A key VC player makes its European move |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | Energy Impact Partners, a prominent climate tech VC player, this morning announced its first European fund at roughly $396 million with backers including Microsoft and Norway's state climate investment firm, Ben writes. Why it matters: A big goal of the new fund is helping Europe-based startups expand into the North American market, said EIP, which has already invested in multiple European companies. Go deeper. Elsewhere on our tech finance radar... 🔌 BP is buying the Texas-based retail power and gas provider EDF Energy Services in the latest sign of oil majors' growing expansion into wider energy services. - The announcement, which did not provide financial terms, notes that EDF is a major supplier to commercial and industrial clients across the U.S. Bloomberg has more.
🥬 Gotham Greens, the Brooklyn-based greenhouse-grown produce company, raised a $310m Series E led by BMO Impact Investment Fund and Ares Management. TechCrunch has more. | | | | | | | | A message from League of Conservation Voters | | President Biden just delivered a huge climate victory | | |  | | | | Now it's time to move forward with a supercharged transition to clean energy. ConocoPhillips' dirty and dangerous Willow project in America's Arctic threatens to take us backward. President Biden needs to say no to Willow and keep moving us forward. Learn more. | | | | | | 4. 🏃🏽♀️Catch up fast on policy: banks, Congress, oil | | 🏦 A key federal banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, has hired Yue (Nina) Chen as "chief climate risk officer," who will report directly to the agency's head, Ben writes. Why it matters: The appointment signals how federal financial regulators are increasingly moving to assess climate-related financial risks and push Wall Street into more robust planning. Chen, a chemical engineer by training, was executive deputy superintendent of the climate division at New York State's Department of Financial Services. The NYT has more. Elsewhere on our policy radar... 📝 Congress: "Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is enlisting the help of energy-industry executives to marshal Republican support for his plan to speed up the process of getting federal approvals for energy projects." (Bloomberg) 🛢️ Agencies: "The Biden administration said Monday it would revise safety requirements for offshore oil and gas producers, reversing some of former President Donald Trump's moves to pare back regulations on the industry that were imposed after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster." (Wall Street Journal) | | | | | | | | 5. Coal's market turnaround |  Data: FactSet; Chart: Axios Visuals Coal prices are soaring as the global energy crisis forces power providers worldwide to boost usage of the carbon-laden mineral, Axios' Matt Phillips reports. Why it matters: A renewed embrace of coal represents a turnabout from the previous global focus on cutting emissions. Driving the news: Coal prices around the world have reached new highs in recent weeks. The Ukraine war and a global drought are providing an unexpected boost. Zoom in: Europe's benchmark coal futures price is up roughly 90% from last year to over $320 per metric ton. Read the whole story. | | | | | | | | 6. Key agencies team up on critical minerals ESG |  | | | Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios | | | | The International Energy Agency and the OECD are jointly trying to ensure extraction of critical minerals does not worsen human rights, conflict and other problems, Ben writes. Driving the news: The collaboration is revealed in a new commentary on environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks alongside the mining of lithium, cobalt, graphite and more. - IEA brings expertise in energy security, ESG, and supply and demand analysis, it states.
- The OECD has experience working with companies and governments on responsible business standards and supply chain tracking.
Why it matters: The transition to more renewables, electric cars and other cleantech will require massive production growth of these materials. - But mining projects carry risks of human rights abuses like child labor, biodiversity harms, corruption and more.
- Failure by governments and companies to manage these risks is obviously bad, and can erode public support for projects, deter investment and ultimately limit supply, they said.
| | | | | | | | A message from League of Conservation Voters | | President Biden just delivered a huge climate victory | | | | | | | | Now it's time to move forward with a supercharged transition to clean energy. ConocoPhillips' dirty and dangerous Willow project in America's Arctic threatens to take us backward. President Biden needs to say no to Willow and keep moving us forward. Learn more. | | | | 📬 Did a friend send you this newsletter? Welcome, please sign up. Thanks to Mickey Meece and David Nather for edits to today's newsletter. We'll see you back here tomorrow! |  | | Why stop here? Let's go Pro. | | | | | | Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here.
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