Taylor Carvalho

Today my last report with The Center for American Progress was published: 3 International Climate Priorities for 2024. This piece highlights the urgent actions the Biden-Harris administration must take to solidify its legacy as a transformative force in climate policy. It emphasizes three key priorities: Deliver on Climate Finance Commitments: The U.S. must fulfill its promise of $11.4 billion per year in climate finance. This funding is crucial for supporting global energy transitions and climate resilience, especially for vulnerable nations facing escalating climate impacts. Lead in Green Trade: The Biden-Harris Administration needs to push for a climate-friendly global trade system. This includes advocating for policies that prioritize low-carbon goods, phase out fossil fuel subsidies, and align trade rules with climate goals. Such reforms are essential to reduce global emissions and foster sustainable economic growth. Set Ambitious Emission Targets: The U.S. must establish a new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to peak emissions by 2025 and achieve a 43% reduction by 2030. This would set a strong example, driving global efforts towards a net-zero future and reinforcing U.S. leadership in the fight against climate change on the international stage. The stakes are high: with a rapidly closing window to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, these actions are not just policy choices but imperatives for a sustainable and resilient future. Read the full piece here, co-authored with Frances A. Colón and Trevor Sutton https://lnkd.in/e84w9SxX

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In honor of Earth Day, I wrote a new piece for Terra.do on rethinking our approach to climate messaging, drawing on lessons learned from a career in political campaigns and environmental advocacy as well as my contributions to a groundbreaking new climate communications report. Here's a snip. Check out the full piece below! "Last year, more than sixty contributors and organizations came together to publish A New Era in Climate Communications. This collaborative paper, an initiative of the non-profit New Zero World, proposed a shift in how we think and communicate about the climate crisis. I was one of the contributors and added my thoughts to four sections of the paper which pull from my 15 years’ experience in U.S. political campaigning, public policy process, the NGO / non-profit sector, and global environmental issue advocacy. Since the launch of A New Era during last year’s NYC Climate Week, the digital knowledge hub has attracted over 80,000 impressions from a global audience spanning 85+ countries. The paper has been presented at the COP28 UN climate conference, the Cannes Lions Festival, and other global events. A new effort was also launched alongside the paper called the Earth Public Information Collaborative (EPIC) “a global media and communications coalition to support direct public engagement in tackling the planetary emergency...[continued]” #EarthDay #EarthDay2024 #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCommunications https://lnkd.in/gDUWjDdF

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What are your thoughts on the complexities of implementing renewable energy solutions in tribal communities? "Capacity development entails not only funding projects but also funding people, especially tribal energy champions, whose boots on the ground are essential for addressing inequities in energy distribution." ▶ Environmental injustices have left a legacy of skepticism towards large projects. ▶ Often, smaller-scale solutions like solar meet the community's needs without the complexities of larger projects. ▶ Essential needs, such as public health infrastructure often take precedence.

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🚀 Calling all adopters of #proptech and #construction tech: real estate developers, builders, and owner-operators, and more! 🌟 Big News! I’m thrilled to announce our partnership with Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), co-administered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, to accelerate cleantech adoption. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative bringing public and private industry together to drive the digitization and decarbonization of the built environment with a focus on the adoption of startup technologies by end customers. I couldn’t be more excited to collaborate closely with IN² and NREL’s incredible teams to build the industry’s first Adoption Playbook, and the impact this program will have to catalyze more sustainable innovation implementation to our built world. Led by Program Manager Sarah Derdowski, NREL's team is backed by world-class research and a history of running successful incubators. 💡 If you're a forward-thinking organization that is seeking to innovate your real estate footprint, apply today. Adopters can receive up to $250,000 in grant funding to pilot cutting-edge technologies, while startups have the chance to scale and engage with major corporations. This groundbreaking program offers incredible opportunities for both adopters and startups to drive sustainability and innovation—and we're kicking it off this month! 🌍 With our team at Overlay Build, we will design the curriculum in partnership with IN² for corporate adopters through their Adoption Playbook. The playbook will prioritize pain points, identify innovation areas, and form peer groups for implementation strategies. Overlay will also develop due diligence criteria, help to determine the top startups for potential pilots, and form internal innovation working committees that will drive change. Additionally, Overlay will build a change management strategy to ensure practical evaluation and implementation of pilot projects, helping companies with significant real estate ownership reduce construction inefficiencies, costs, and carbon footprints. 🔍This initiative addresses the "missing middle" in technology adoption of built environment solutions—let's bridge that gap together. For more information or to discuss how you can get involved, feel free to reach out to me directly. 👉 Join us in shaping the future of the built environment! Adopters, apply here today: https://lnkd.in/eCRHCXfm #Sustainability #Cleantech #Innovation #BuiltEnvironment #IN2 #OverlayCapital #DigitalTransformation #Decarbonization #ESG #NetZero

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FOAK. Sounds offensive if you say it the wrong way. While it's a relatively new term for me, the acronym means First-Of-A-Kind and it represents those really innovative initiatives that are always extremely tough to get off the ground. Yet in terms of climate tech, and particularly hard tech, FOAK is important because many of the solutions we are going to need to address climate adaptation and resilience will depend on financing these risky ideas. FOAK is at the bridge between venture capital (equity) and infrastructure/project financing (debt), neither of which is well equipped to fund these disruptive types of ventures because of the risk profile, the timeline, the perceived low ROI and the complexity. So many concepts that have a scalable and unique value proposition and meaningful impact fall into the "valley of death" before getting traction. Kudos to Prime Coalition and Trellis Climate for filling this gap. The attached Latitude Media article describes it as a private sector version of the federal green bank clean financing program. The goal is to attract capital more efficiently (without gov't in the middle), reduce systemic barriers to funding and encourage community engagement. Hopefully this post helps others understand what the FOAK is going on in climate. Sorry, I couldn't resist. 😉 #climatefinancing #intermediaries #disruptiveinnovation #infrastructure

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The Payne Institute for Public Policy Sustainable Finance Lab May '24 newsletter has dropped! See our latest work in #criticalminerals (including on investment in #lithium facilitated by reporting) and on #carboncredits (a commercial advisory primer and using them to pay carbon taxes). #vcm #methaneemissions #carbonmarkets #oilandgas https://lnkd.in/e6FBR8Qs

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Congrats to Center for American Progress International Climate Senior Policy Analyst Courtney Federico for the release of our new report: The Road to Baku, Belém, and Beyond: A 5 Year Outlook for U.S. International Climate Finance.    The report recommends: -Leveraging international climate leadership to advance an ambitious NCQG at COP29. -Developing a cross-government plan through an interagency process to ensure timely delivery of new climate finance commitments, including strategic bilateral climate finance investments for the next five years, under the NCQG. -Capitalizing on the upcoming congressional reauthorizations of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and Export-Import Bank to stop new financing of fossil fuel projects abroad in keeping with the United States’ international commitments.        As the world looks ahead to COP29 and beyond for bold, necessary climate action, the Biden administration must leverage this opportunity to communicate a clear plan to meet the United States’ international climate finance commitments and lead developed countries in establishing an ambitious climate finance target to support Global South countries’ climate action.   

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Is the IRA really driving new clean energy investment? How are corporate and government climate commitments reshaping technology markets? Where does the climate movement go from here? Join us next Tuesday for a discussion with leaders from the U.S. Navy and Microsoft on the future of climate tech.

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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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As we scale climate tech solutions, we need to carefully consider the impact to local communities. Thanks Evan Halper for a great front page article in today's The Washington Post that highlights this issue with a proposed CO2 storage plan in Montana. Injecting and storing CO2 in porous geological formations sounds scary, particularly given the negative side effects of fracking. I think the concerned ranchers in Montana are completely justified. But, we need to solve the climate crisis, and CO2 removal is an important part of the solution. This issue will continue as more and more first-of-a-kind (FOAK) projects break ground and expand. Early, frequent, and transparent community engagement is critical. #climatechange #climatesolutions #climateaction

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The $7 billion federal #Solar4All competition is set to make an unprecedented investment in improving access to #solar and associated energy storage and efficiency for low-to-moderate income and disadvantaged communities across the United States.    While the program is poised to address and alleviate financial barriers that have inhibited the deployment of solar and associated energy storage and efficiency in underserved communities, other regulatory, permitting, grid infrastructure, and utility data access issues persist.    Join me TODAY to explore how regulators and Public Utility Commissions can play a meaningful role in addressing many of these potential barriers to leveraging the full potential of the Solar for All program.    Register: https://lnkd.in/e4y2yryf 

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Methane matters – a LOT. It's a critical lever for reducing short-term warming, and doesn't receive nearly enough of the attention it needs. Really enjoyed working with the Sightline Climate (CTVC) team to characterize the methane MRV landscape for a broad audience, building off research we've conducted here at ACCELR8. Methane is high-priority for us, along with other highly-important and less-addressed GHGs (NOx, HFCs), and we're always on the lookout for innovative methane mitigation solutions – MRV and beyond. https://lnkd.in/eD5psKeq If you're keen to learn more about why methane matters, I highly recommend starting with this article from the phenomenal Spark Climate Solutions team: https://lnkd.in/eeYhpVmp Deep gratitude to David Mann, Erika Reinhardt, Paige Brocidiacono, Doc Brown, Daniel Matross, Sarah Ann Smith, Ryan D. Taylor, Lauren Singer, Daniel Zimmerle, and the many other folks that helped me advance my learning in the space.

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How has the IRA impacted US utilities so far? What are recent trends in utility resource plans? Which utilities are experiencing the most load growth, how are they responding, and is the response aligned with climate success? MSCI Inc. podcast released today, featuring myself, Uday Varadarajan, and Mathew Lee.

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Efforts to change the energy we use in our homes are ramping up, with policies ranging from incentivizing heat pumps to banning new gas hookups. But what is the current state of residential electrification? Where are households relying on fossil fuels and who are these households? In my latest Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies blog post, I analyze the U.S. Energy Information Administration's 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey data to set the stage of residential electrification for space heating, water heating, and cooking. You can explore the data using two (very cool) interactive charts, one of which is previewed below. Big thanks to Carlos Martin for guiding this work! https://lnkd.in/ecjk_VUm

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Fully supportive of this move by the Science Based Targets initiative to open a path for companies to do more for the climate through high-integrity carbon credits. #Carbonmarkets are our best tool for accelerating climate action - which we need if we hope to stay under 1.5C of climate change.

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Nice overview of the work we do to advance community-oriented CDR approaches at ClimateWorks Foundation.

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I am so excited to announce that the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technology Office funded report titled the National Wind Workforce Assessment: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Needs has been released! As development increases to meet U.S. wind energy deployment goals, it is important to have enough properly trained workers to meet industry needs. This analysis has estimated that under a business-as-usual scenario there will likely be a significant shortage of wind energy workers in the coming decades. However, impactful opportunities such as connecting classrooms to careers, fostering future talent, creating clear career pathways, and prioritizing inclusivity exist to close the wind energy workforce gap. If interested, you can find more information below. https://lnkd.in/eeU2ZNnf. Additionally, I want to thank Jeremy Stefek, Chloe Constant, Laura (Ferguson) Hastings, Alexsandra Lemke, Jen Grieco and so many others that made this report possible! 🎉

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