| | | | |  | | By Jordan Wolman and Jessie Blaeser | | | | | 
Donald Trump looms over the future success of the Paris Climate Accords. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | HAPPY ANNIVERSARY? — The Paris Climate Accords will be a decade old next year — and as unlikely as it might have seemed at the time the deal was struck, the world could be moving away from its goals of keeping global warming in check. President-elect Donald Trump's imminent return to the White House is likely to swing the world's biggest legacy polluter back toward climate skepticism and back out of the 2015 agreement. And anti-incumbent shifts in other countries this year could help accelerate the backsliding. By its design, Paris is only as good as countries make it, both by staying in it and following through on emissions reduction targets. Trump’s commitment to withdraw from the agreement could give leaders of other countries cover if they choose to walk away. “If we do step back from the process, we can't really think of ourselves as leaders,” said Dirk Forrister, president and CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association, a nonprofit business group, and a former Clinton administration climate adviser. “The energy transition taps into a lot of things we're really good at, on technology, on innovative financing. As a country, it plays to our strengths, and we're walking away from all of those opportunities.” “The fear-mongering around climate policy scares people that they're going to be hit in the pocketbook, and they don't necessarily think through the possibility that their kids might find jobs in these sectors,” he added. “There’s a lot of new business opportunity to be made if we actually embrace the climate transition.”
|  | President Joe Biden last week rolled out a new U.S. climate goal under the Paris agreement to slash pollution by 61 to 66 percent by 2035, a move that will almost certainly be disregarded by Trump. But even with these headwinds, advocates are hoping that increased climate disasters and policy action to reduce pollution have raised public awareness enough to withstand any political onslaught. “The Paris agreement and the whole energy transition has set something in motion that even the right wing and even Trump cannot stop, and that is the rise of renewable energy, of wind and solar, of batteries, of electric cars,” said Niklas Hohne, co-founder of NewClimate Institute, a climate policy nonprofit. “On all of these technologies, we have reached a tipping point. Renewables are very cheap, and they will be installed no matter what.” In the U.S., the effort to counter Trump will look different now than it did in 2017, said Elizabeth Lien, program director for America is All In, a campaign pushing for climate action from subnational governments. For one thing, activists will be able to point to benefits from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is boosting manufacturing in red districts. “We are in a very different place today than we were in 2017,” she said. “I definitely get the sense that our members and partners are very focused on rolling up their sleeves and doing the work. I anticipate that there may be some who are not looking to make hugely public statements, but instead focus their energies on accessing those IRA credits, making sure that investments are flowing to their districts and to their companies. And I think it's going to be very much a battle of investment and taking all opportunities to make sure that things are moving forward.”
| | CLEAN RED — Industry groups representing some of the world’s biggest developers of clean energy technologies have been expanding their outreach to Republicans in hopes of advancing their agenda as the GOP trifecta takes control in Washington next year, Zack Colman reports. The American Clean Power Association and Solar Energy Industries Association both increased donations to Republican candidates and political action committees this past election cycle, according to a POLITICO review. The moves were part of a deliberate effort by the groups to broaden support for clean energy as Trump tries to roll back the Biden administration’s climate policies. “We're going to have a fight on our hands because the national politics are going to drive people back towards their corners,” ACP CEO Jason Grumet said. “But we now have authentic, substantive, subtle, supportive relationships with Republicans as well as Democrats.” The groups are hoping to benefit from the fact that most Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law renewable energy credits and incentives are flowing to Republican districts. “It could be an opportunity to try to depoliticize some of these things that are actually just fundamentally good for the U.S. economy if you can make Republicans not fixate on the fact that they also happen to be beneficial for the climate,” said Emily Fisher, chief strategy officer with the Smart Electric Power Alliance, a group that promotes a transition to a carbon-free energy system. BIDEN'S LEFTOVERS — Even though the outgoing administration has sparked a domestic green energy revolution, it is set to leave a lot of unfinished business to a successor determined to claw back as much of it as possible, Jessie Blaeser, Benjamin Storrow and Kelsey Tamborrino report. The future of Biden's climate agenda remains in peril: Despite some Republicans supporting clean energy projects in their communities, the vast majority remain critical of the spending spree. Solar installations have surged to record levels, but the country is not adding enough zero-carbon electricity to meet Biden’s climate targets. A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household. Bureaucratic haggling, equipment shortages and logistical challenges mean a $7.5 billion effort to install electric vehicle chargers from coast to coast has so far yielded just 47 stations in 15 states. “I think that we’ll look back years from now, and we’ll say that this is when America had the chance to get in the game and lead in one of the biggest and most important economic revolutions in history,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of the national clean energy business group E2, which tracks project announcements. “The question to be answered in the months ahead is, will we do so or will we continue to fall behind and ultimately lose out to other countries?”
| | TAX THE FRIENDLY SKIES — A European Union proposal to boost taxes on airlines as part of an effort to slash planet-warming emissions is meeting resistance from industry and countries concerned about the impact on tourism, Tommaso Lecca reports. EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra is floating the controversial idea as part of a broader effort to reduce transportation sector emissions 90 percent by 2050 under the bloc’s Green Deal. “I do think it is fair that the logic of ‘polluter pays’ is at the heart of many of our policies,” the Dutch commissioner said in a POLITICO interview. “And if I look at the domain of aviation, there clearly is a step we can take.” Airlines are set to lose a long-standing exemption from paying for emissions permits through the EU’s system by 2026. Hoekstra plans to introduce a tax on fossil jet fuel and flights originating outside of Europe. Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association airline lobby, said the proposed tax is simply a way to raise revenue, questioning whether it will have any environmental impact. “For a politician to say we’re doing this in the interest of the environment … that’s complete bullshit. That’s lying,” Walsh said in an interview. The tax plan has also drawn sharp criticism from tourism-reliant countries in the bloc, whose support would be needed because EU tax reforms require unanimous agreement.
| | NOTHING BUT SUNSHINE — Advocates for using solar geoengineering to help fight global warming are trying to rebrand technologies that seem like science fiction to make them appear less scary. Some scientists see solar geoengineering, technologies designed to blunt the sun’s impact, as a way to fight climate change in response to insufficient progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, even as others warn that it poses real risks, Chelsea Harvey reports. Jessica Seddon, who leads Yale University’s Deitz Family Initiative on Environment and Global Affairs, said concerns about potential misuse of geoengineering aren’t unfounded, but added they also represent “a failure of imagination” and “very lopsided pessimism about humans." Seddon’s comments came during a panel discussion in Washington earlier this month held alongside the American Geophysical Union conference, the world’s largest gathering of Earth scientists, in which advocates sought to frame geoengineering as a “climate intervention.” Still, critics are wary of pressure to greenlight geoengineering projects given the threat of countries going rogue. European Union scientific advisers recommended earlier this month that the bloc temporarily prohibit geoengineering and push for a global pause until an international agreement can be reached. “The pressure is going to increase on climate intervention before I think a lot of the policy frameworks are in place, and people are going to take action,” said Bruce Hewitson, the South Africa National Research Chair on Climate Change and director of the Climate System Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town. “I foresee increased polarization around that.”
| | GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. Join us every Tuesday as we keep you in the loop on the world of sustainability. Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott and reporter Jordan Wolman. Reach us at gmott@politico.com and jwolman@politico.com. Sign up for the Long Game. It's free!
| | | | You read POLITICO for trusted reporting. Now follow every twist of the lame duck session with Inside Congress. We track the committee meetings, hallway conversations, and leadership signals that show where crucial year-end deals are heading. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | | | — Meteorologists are being forced to rethink their modeling after missing badly on some Pacific Ocean forecasts, the Financial Times reports. — Wells Fargo has become the latest financial firm to announce that it is walking away from a global climate alliance. Bloomberg has that story. — Bloomberg Opinion, meanwhile, offers a look at some of the best climate news you may have missed this year.
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