James Lawler

A New Report  Highlights Potential Strategies to Dramatically Reduce Carbon Emissions for the United States and Canada Aluminum Industry The Aluminum Association has released a groundbreaking roadmap detailing pathways to achieve significant carbon emission reductions in alignment with the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Net Zero by 2050 goals. Key findings and strategies include: Significant Head Start: North America's aluminum products have a carbon footprint approximately 50% lower than the global average, thanks to the use of low carbon primary aluminum, increased recycling, and voluntary emission reduction efforts. Aggressive Targets: Achieving net zero by 2050 will require aluminum production emissions to decline by: 24% by 2030 63% by 2040 92% by 2050 (compared to 2021 levels) Projected Growth: Aluminum output is expected to increase by 80% to meet the growing demand for sustainable metal across various sectors. Key Pathways: Technology and Efficiency: Innovations like inert anode smelting and energy efficiency improvements. Alternative Fuels and Carbon Capture: Transition to green hydrogen and electrification of furnaces. Grid Decarbonization: Use of clean energy technologies supported by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Enhanced Recycling: Optimizing scrap utilization to cut emissions significantly. Investment Needed: Achieving these goals will require substantial investment—estimated at $60 billion for North America alone—to meet global net-zero climate targets in the primary aluminum production segment. Charles Johnson, president & CEO of the Aluminum Association, emphasizes the industry's vital role in the clean energy transition, noting, “Achieving these ambitious targets by mid-century will require an all-of-society approach to decarbonization. The aluminum industry won’t be able to do this alone.” This research underscores the necessity of decarbonizing the energy sector to ensure broader industrial decarbonization. The North American aluminum industry is positioned to lead globally, but collaborative efforts and significant investments are critical to meeting the net-zero targets by 2050. https://lnkd.in/e_h_5q_5 #aluminium‍ #CLEANENERGY

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For some there is "climate quitting"... but that's not the only way to bring climate concerns to your company. Check out the article, then be sure to look up Wawa Gatheru for a hopeful view of what the upcoming generation can offer. #Climatechange #climatecrisis #climatequitting #Drawdown #GenZ

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As large swathes of America sizzle through record temperatures this week, the Energy Institute published its annual statistical review of world energy: it makes for grim reading for people hoping to see rapid progress on the energy transition... Amanda Chu has the story Countries burnt record amounts of oil and coal last year, sending global fossil fuel consumption and emissions to all-time highs, the Energy Institute reported. Oil demand grew 2.6 per cent, surpassing 100mn barrels per day for the first time. Meanwhile, the share of fossil fuels in the energy mix declined slightly by half a percentage point, but still made up more than 81 per cent of consumption.  While EI’s estimates are largely in line with the International Energy Agency’s, its authors offer a more sombre view of the pace of the energy transition compared with the Paris-based watchdog. “Today’s new data provides little encouragement in terms of global climate change mitigation,” said Nick Wayth, chief executive of EI. “Arguably, the transition has not even started.”  Financial Times Energy Institute

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Dear CSOs, think of SBTi as the GPS for your company’s climate strategy 🌍🧭 …. CSOs are often navigating a complex landscape of confusing climate standards and initiatives. To clarify what the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is and how it can be instrumental in your sustainability efforts, here’s a handy analogy to think of it as your professional GPS: 🔍 Finding Your Route: Just like a GPS helps you find the best route to your destination, the SBTi guides your company in setting realistic and science-backed goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It ensures you're on the right path to meet global climate targets, specifically those outlined in the Paris Agreement. 🎯 Setting Milestones: Imagine you're on a road trip with several stops along the way. The SBTi helps you set clear milestones for your emissions reductions, ensuring you're making steady progress. These targets aren't just pulled out of thin air—they're grounded in the latest climate science. 🏆 Achieving the Destination: Ultimately, the SBTi aims to help you reach a 'climate safe' destination. This means your company is doing its part to keep global warming in check, ideally below 1.5°C. The SBTi framework supports you in making this journey with precision and accountability, ensuring your efforts are both ambitious and credible. 🔗 Complementing Other Standards: You might have heard of other frameworks like VCMI. Think of these like different maps or tools you can use on your trip. While VCMI focuses on the integrity of carbon credits and how to use them as part of your carbon footprint reduction strategy , SBTi is about your emissions reduction path. They can complement each other, but SBTi is your primary guide for setting and achieving science-based targets. By utilizing the SBTi, you can navigate the complexities of corporate climate action with confidence and clarity. It offers a well-defined route to achieving substantial and credible emissions reductions. For a deeper dive into setting science-based targets, I recommend downloading the SBTi’s comprehensive guide. It's an essential resource for steering your sustainability efforts in the right direction. 👇 https://lnkd.in/dJnFDhYB

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While reducing carbon emissions is crucial — it’s not a silver bullet. And the myopic emphasis on decarbonization is leading to carbon tunnel vision, as we risk overlooking other critical sustainability measures, such as biodiversity, water conservation, and resource scarcity. In my latest Third Nature Investments blog, I discuss the need to widen the aperture in assessing the myriad ways we can work to protect the planet, and offer a few examples of what businesses can do to meaningfully reduce their ecological footprint. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/eMNDr5-U #systemicinvesting #impactinvesting #earthsystemsinvesting #climatechange #decarbonization

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This is an important intervention by Libby Blanchard PhD, Bill Anderegg and 32 other scientists and one I hope SBTi takes very seriously. Whilst we await more detail from SBTi in July, it is worth having in mind that the use of carbon credits for compensation efforts/claims is fraught with risk and there are very few carbon credits that we can be confident result in a tonne of carbon being removed (and fewer still that remove and sequester carbon for the 1000+ year timescale that fossil fuel-carbon lives in the atmosphere). That doesn't mean organisations should not use carbon credits or fund vital climate (and biodiversity!) projects, but doing so using SBTi's BVCM ("Above and Beyond") frameworks, particularly following a contribution approach, is lower risk and in my view likely to lead to far better outcomes for the planet.

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Thank you Greg Miller, PhD, and Gailin Pease of Singularity Energy for taking the time to chat about grid decarbonization on the new episode of the #Carbonsations pod! I learned a lot about the specifics of emissions tracking in this sector, which is critical to meeting sustainability goals and creating a greener future. Check out the full episode in the links below 👇

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📢 Last week The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) confirmed that both Verra's Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) program met the rigorous Core Carbon Principles (#CCPs). Proud to be one of the members of the group that helped create these principles, can’t wait to see more and more standards to be aligned with them. This is a significant achievement for the voluntary carbon market, marking a major step towards ensuring the highest levels of integrity and transparency in carbon credits. So who will be next? Thoughts? #CarbonMarket #VCM #CarbonCredits https://lnkd.in/ecYWpexc

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In 2023, the largest segments in the climate tech vertical were low-carbon mobility, industry, grid infrastructure, intermittent renewable energy sources (solar and wind). 50 VC deals for climate tech companies in 2023 exceeded $150 million, and of these, nine exceeded $500 million. Companies that need a lot of capital to execute on a big vision can succeed today. #climatetech #climateVC #climate

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Green Party Manifesto touts carbon tax and ambitious renewable energy targets The Party is the third to launch its manifesto for next month’s general election, after the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. Labour’s manifesto is expected on Thursday (13 June). Mainstream media coverage has largely focused on the Party’s approach to taxation. A Green government would, for example, implement a 1% wealth tax on individuals with assets exceeding £10m. An enhanced rate of 2% would apply to those with assets exceeding £1bn. National Insurance would also go up for those earning significantly over the national average. The Party claims its changes would impact around 15% of people while benefiting the many. Another key inclusion, perhaps of more interest to those working in the green economy, is the promise of a carbon tax of £120 per tonne, initially to be applied to sectors such as fossil fuels and heavy industry. The tax would be expanded to other sectors over time and gradually increased, over a decade, to £500 per tonne. edie

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Yesterday the US Federal Government endorsed the voluntary carbon market. What a great moment for the climate!   Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, Environmental Defense Fund and Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), the White House has shared a set of integrity principles. Building on existing efforts in the market, such as those of the The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and VCMI, these principles reaffirm the importance of high-quality carbon credits in meeting our global climate goals.   Such high-level backing is extremely positive. It shows that these solutions are growing more mainstream and are increasingly recognised as viable, scalable solutions to the climate and nature crises. The voluntary carbon market CAN support the sustainable transition the world so desperately needs.   Read Natasha White's coverage in Bloomberg News here: https://lnkd.in/edZM9C3N #VoluntaryCarbonMarket #CarbonCredits

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"When we talk about removing carbon from the atmosphere, many journalists, investors and policymakers seem to focus on one particular carbon removal pathway: Direct air capture (DAC) paired with geologic storage. While DAC to geologic storage will be a crucial tool in our carbon removal toolbox, it’s currently sucking oxygen away from other essential removal technologies. What’s more, geologic storage treats CO2 as waste that belongs in an expensive landfill a mile underground. Another solution merits our attention — one that embraces the virtue of recycling, not just for aluminum, paper and plastics, but for CO2 as well. Carbon utilization puts captured CO2 to work as an input for a wide range of products, including garments, vodka, jet fuel and concrete." #CarbonRemoval #CarbonUtilization #Concrete

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Congratulations to Elemental Excelerator on the release of their report "Traversing the Climate Technology Scale Gap"! This report highlights the need to close the $150 billion scale gap that is making it difficult for new climate technology to be funded, deployed, and scaled. Read this report for insights from experts from different industries on what we can do to unlock funding for climate tech that can advance opportunity. https://lnkd.in/d7f8ZjV8

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I've been covering climate disinformation for a very long time and something that's been stuck in my craw the past couple of years is the fact that people often talk about it as something that happened in the past. But with so many of the climate "solutions" the fossil fuel industry proposes, the exact same issues are continuing to play out: they know these aren't really solutions, they know that they will never scale, and that is why they push them. It's part of the "discourses of delay" that social scientists talk about, or what Alex Steffen calls "predatory delay." The industry spends billions of dollars a year to fund university research, lobbying, advertising, and PR campaigns that create the illusion that its preferred "solutions" will work, even as its own scientists and technologists are telling it they won't. They hire management consultancies to draw up charts and graphs that lend credibility to these "solutions" too, and then those consultancies can throw up their hands and say "we just did the analysis they asked for, we didn't know they were going to use it to obstruct climate action!" Over the course of this summer we'll be running a new investigative series at Drilled Media digging into these efforts. Loads of both web and audio stories coming your way, but first up, a deep dive from me and Andy Rowell on how U.S. LNG producers are trying to position liquefied natural gas—a fossil fuel—as a climate solution, and use that "green" cred to lobby both EU and US politicians on increasing U.S. LNG exports to Europe. https://lnkd.in/gbFWNpcb

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In the cover feature from the EOS at Federated Hermes Q1 Public Engagement Report, engagers Michael Benedict Yamoah and Shoa Hirosato weigh up the pros and cons of carbon capture, utilisation and storage, which hard-to-abate sectors are likely to rely on to get to net-zero emissions. #climatechange #stewardship #ESG https://bit.ly/4aVTliA

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I've been in #Iceland this week at Climeworks, the newest, largest direct air capture #carbon removal plant in the world. The technology is fascinating, but the speed to scale is the real story here. The co-CEO, Jan Wurzbacher, told me that while the plant can operate for up to 25 years, he'd rather it not because R&D is already outdoing itself, making the next plant more efficient and cheaper. Climeworks is now in the U.S. working on a plant in Louisiana. Soon DAC will pop up all over the nation, making it potentially as common as #wind and #solar farms. CNBC Orka náttúrunnar / ON Power Carbfix Lisa Rizzolo Sanfuentes #climate #climatechange #climatecrisis #carbonremoval #directaircapture #DAC

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ARTICLE: At its core, the electrification theme revolves around the increasing role of electricity in various sectors. Electricity demand, which has been flat for a long time, is poised for sustainable growth over the next few decades. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, electricity demand is expected to rise 27 percent from 2022 to 2050. And, notably, projections over shorter time horizons are trending higher. For instance, grid planners forecast nationwide electricity demand to increase 4.7 percent over the five-year period ending 2028, while estimates from the same report a year earlier called for 2.6 percent growth.

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Nice mention of our peaking report in Climate Forward from the New York Times - even more signs pointing to the fact emissions may finally start falling this year! This is some rare good news in the climate world and a reminder that things can change for the better - as we are seeing with the rapid rollout of wind and solar in particular. As we pass the emissions peak and head down to net zero, we must take our hands off the breaks and stop investing in fossil fuels.

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