Prague threatened with lawsuits as EU capitals struggle to fund green transition
https://www.ft.com/content/f5d55ab9-e343-4bdc-b390-02466221c376

Investors are threatening to sue the Czech government over planned cuts to solar power subsidies, the latest dispute highlighting how Europe’s cash-strapped governments are struggling to finance the bloc’s green transition.

Three solar developers have warned Prague about possible lawsuits if the government goes ahead with plans to retroactively lower subsidies for photovoltaic installations connected to the power grid as far back as 2009

Climate startups button up for a post-election freeze
https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/climate-startups-election-trump-inflation-reduction-act

For the climate tech startups now navigating this stage, it’s going to be a rough six months. As the industry adjusts to a new energy policy regime under President-elect Donald Trump, there’ll be a chill in the air for project financing and major fundraising for companies in the line of fire.

Potentially on the chopping block are key provisions of the US Inflation Reduction Act, the budget of the Department of Energy and Treasury guidelines on tax credits. Offshore wind and hydrogen projects are two areas that are thought by VCs to be especially precarious.

And despite Trump’s cozy relationship with Tesla founder Elon Musk, the transition team is already planning to scrap a $7,500 EV tax credit for American consumers, according to Reuters.

“It’s going to be challenging,” said Abe Yokell, managing partner at Congruent Ventures. “My general advice is, make sure you aren’t raising right now.”

...

In the eight years since Trump’s first victory, early-stage investing in climate tech has become mainstream, as specialists like Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital made their names on Sand Hill Road, bringing generalists along with them into climate rounds.

Huge amounts of capital have flowed into infrastructure funds dedicated to the energy transition, driven by pressure from pension holders and students as well as a belief that the energy transition is a lucrative investment.

“Most new infrastructure is clean infrastructure now,” said Yokell. Energy transition infrastructure funds raised $33.5 billion in 2024, compared to $9.5 billion for non-energy transition infrastructure funds, according to PitchBook research.

Institutional investors think in decades, not in single election cycles.

Plus, much of the climate policy cemented by the Biden administration has bipartisan support: namely, creating more resilient supply chains, nearshoring critical minerals production and creating clean-energy jobs in battleground states.

Trump’s calls to deregulate and reduce permitting roadblocks may help clean energy projects in the long run, especially for new nuclear technologies that have been bogged down in red tape.

For Yokell, there’s a strong case to stay bullish on climate-friendly projects:

“There will be some collateral damage environmentally, which I’m not excited about, but the lack of regulations will in fact allow for a lot of clean infrastructure to be built.”

How a carbon central bank can turn Europe into a CO2 “eater” — Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/how-a-carbon-central-bank-can-turn-europe-into-a-co2-201ceater201d

Edenhofer proposes so-called clean-up certificates as a core instrument. They give the right to emit one tonne of CO2 in combination with the obligation to take back one tonne of CO2 at a specific future date. So far, the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) only offers simple emission rights, which are reduced year by year and, according to current legislation, will fall to zero in 2039. Adding clean-up certificates makes the climate transition cheaper and more flexible: CO2 emissions would not have to be avoided at all costs, even as permits become scarcer, if it is more cost-effective to emit now and remove later. The price of these certificates would reflect expected future cost reductions in carbon removal technologies. The financial risk of the climate transition would then be borne not by the state, but by the economy, which is, after all, obliged to make the removals.

...

To ensure that the idea does not fail due to physical inadequacies or corporate tricks, Edenhofer argues that it should be implemented by a strong and credible institution, and makes the case for a future “European Carbon Central Bank”. By issuing the certificates, it could oversee the quantity control of net emissions, keeping this matter out of day-to-day party politics – just as the European Central Bank does with interest rates. This important new EU authority could also correctly reflect the economic value of non-permanent removals, such as afforestation or storing CO2 in building materials, in the clean-up certificates. And to ensure that companies do not undermine their carbon removal obligation through strategic bankruptcy, they would have to deposit financial collateral with the Carbon Central Bank.

#transition

There are now more electric cars than gas cars on Norway's roads | Electrek
https://electrek.co/2024/09/14/there-are-now-more-electric-cars-than-gas-cars-on-norways-roads/

But EVs are growing, and growing more rapidly than diesel ever did. And both petrol-only – which EVs just advanced ahead of – and diesel-only vehicles are dropping in popularity. “Peak diesel” was reached in 2017, though today they make up 35% of Norway’s cars. Peak petrol-car sales were reached in Norway in 2005.
...
And the installed-base of diesel and petrol vehicles don’t get driven as often as newer, more efficient EVs do, so the disparate travel distances have resulted in an outsized effect on motor fuel sales in the country. Last year, Electrek did an analysis of how Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil.

ROGER_WILCO: souhlas, short term nejaky degrowth smysl dava. Ale mame nejakou bazalni provozni pptrebu civilizace (jidlo, healthcare, ...) a je otazka priorit, ceho se chceme vzdat.

Rikal jsem tu nekolikrat, ze bychom se meli v prvni rade vzdat toho nepotrebneho a delat tak z vlastniho uvazeni, ne z narizeni, napr. bitcoin, entertainment, dalkovy turismus, destruction derby atd atd.

Jenze to je spis diskuze o utilizaci resources vuci stanovenym cilum. Je uplne jedno, jestli v absolutnich cislech HDP poroste, nebo ne, pac pokud budou resources na max utilizovane na bazalni provoz & transition, tak jdeme tim nejlepsim moznym scenarem pro zachovani minima otepleni.

YMLADRIS: 'nejde nic udelat' je cesta do pekel, pac vzdycky musi probehnout zmena (hodnot, zpusobu zivota...whatever) u konkretnich lidi a to je to o cem mluvim. Tahle transition bude dlouha a zacina u komunikace.

Takze pak odsuzovat (fosilni) korporace, nebo statni aparat (ktery jsou rizeni lidmi), a neapelovat na zmenu individualnich hodnot mi prijde jako konflikt, kterej vlastne rika, mame problem, ale neresme ho, pac chcem mit pohodu - on to nekdo jinej (snad) vyresi za nas.

ale zase buďme fér, není AI jako AI

“Just like mining for Bitcoin, servers and processors are guzzling up energy with our everyday digital needs, but AI will 100% improve our transition to clean energy. By using algorithms to predict our energy usage patterns and forecast the availability of renewable energy, AI can efficiently manage the charge and discharge of batteries and perform load-shifting to optimise our energy use. The real question is, is the extra energy required for AI processing less than the energy it will save? Absolutely yes.”

Will AI help or hinder the energy transition? - Power Technology
https://www.power-technology.com/features/will-ai-help-or-hinder-the-energy-transition/?cf-view

názor

Is private capital the missing piece in $125 trillion energy-transition puzzle?
https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/is-private-capital-the-missing-piece-in-125-trillion-energy-transition-puzzle

The UK is almost a microcosm of a worldwide energy transition quandary—where the amount of investment needed, globally, is closer to $125 trillion. While each market faces its unique set of circumstances and advantages, the same structural trends and questions remain: Where do we get the money?

That dilemma can be seen in two ways. First, there’s the question of how to fund new sources of renewable energy and build the accompanying storage infrastructure to support those new sources. Second, the world must modernize power grids to handle more demand stemming from things like the proliferation of electric vehicle charging networks and power-hungry data centers fueling digitalization and AI adoption.

...

Private capital has already honed in on the world’s growing energy need, with several of the largest managers launching strategies targeting energy infrastructure. For example, KKR is currently in the market with a $7 billion fund targeting energy transition investments. As of April, Blackstone had raised $1 billion for its latest energy transition vehicle.

While fundraising activity has dipped in the past year, infrastructure investors are sitting on about $334 billion of dry powder. PitchBook data shows that the total capital raised by infrastructure funds reached a peak in 2022 with about $138.5 billion raised across 122 globally. The previous year, 2021, saw a peak in the total number of fund closes, with 146 closing on $132.7 billion.

...

Two of the largest fundraising hauls came at the end of the 2023, with Brookfield Asset Management gathering $28 billion for its fifth infrastructure fund in December. Around the same time, the United Arab Emirates announced $30 billion vehicle with the backing of BlackRock, TPG and Brookfield.

...

“Society depends on a digital economy and it wants very clearly an economy where energy is abundant and cleaner, and this creates great investment opportunities,” he said. “The private capital sector is extremely well positioned to meet those demands and the government’s role is not to fund it, but to put the right playing field in place.”

A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked
https://skepticalscience.com/climate-pollution-maybe-peaked.html

Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion.

According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same period in 2023. Many experts believe that the clean energy transition has reached the point where emissions will stabilize and then begin to decline. The critical milestone of peak climate pollution might be happening right now.

TADEAS:

Savory Institute


Denmark recently became the first country in the world to put a tax on livestock emissions. The tax will go into effect in 2030, and after a 60% tax break is applied, farmers will end up paying 120 krone ($17) per tonne of CO2-equivalent coming from their livestock, which will eventually rise to 300 krone ($43) per tonne in 2035.

This move comes on the heels of other measures the Danish government has implemented in recent years to reduce emissions and meet climate goals and, given that agriculture is one of Denmark’s largest sources of emissions — with pork and dairy being their largest industries — this is an opportunity to make some headway towards those goals.

We at Savory are particularly disappointed in this tax given that our new Savory Foundation — which focuses on funding large-scale grassland regeneration projects around the world — is based in Denmark, but more than that, we have serious concerns with regards to how this new tax makes no effort to incentivize a transition towards carbon-sequestering forms of regenerative grazing.

Yes, our global agricultural system is massively flawed and contributes significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but this is a blanket tax on ALL forms of livestock management that makes no differentiation between land-degrading carbon-emitting forms of production or land-regenerating carbon-sequestering forms of livestock production.

If Denmark really wanted to incentivize a transition towards a more sustainable livestock industry — which we agree is needed — they could create a sliding scale for this tax so that regenerative farmers who are improving soil health and sequestering carbon aren’t penalized. This could be accomplished either through soil samples analyzed in a lab — even though that would be costly to producers so ideally would be subsidized by the government — or modeling based on the latest research of what’s possible, not just average emissions of the typical producer which is the basis for this tax.

Still, even if we were to expand the conversation from just emissions to one that also includes drawdown, the focus on greenhouse gases is a reductionist view that misses the forest for the trees. The climate crisis is intrinsically tied to our global loss of biodiversity, our broken water cycles that amplify droughts and flooding, and our impoverished soils, rural communities, food systems, and everything in between.

At the intersection of all these issues is ecosystem function, so why do we only ever hear about carbon? The global narrative surrounding climate change would be best served by a shift towards restoring ecosystem function. Imagine an alternate world where Denmark's new tax was one that took a more holistic look at ecosystem function — assessing not just carbon but also biodiversity and water-holding capacity — and rather than penalizing everyone involved it paid farmers who demonstrated positive improvements to their ecosystem processes?

Fostering Effective Energy Transition 2024
https://www.weforum.org/publications/fostering-effective-energy-transition-2024/

In the 14th edition of the Fostering Effective Energy Transition report, the WEF noted that its benchmarks for 107 of the 120 countries surveyed indicated they had made advances in their transitions towards clean and sustainable energy systems over the last decade.

But it said that the slowdown in the pace of the global energy transition, first identified in its 2022 data, had intensified in the past year. The survey found that more than 80% of countries had moved backwards compared to the previous report in at least one of the three main energy system performance dimensions it benchmarks, namely security, equity (meaning equitable energy distribution, access and cost) and sustainability.

...

the WEF reports that the gap in overall scores has narrowed between advanced and developing economies and says that the “centre of gravity” of the transition is shifting towards developing countries. Nevertheless, developed countries and China have attracted almost 90% of the growth in clean energy investment since 2021.

collapse as usual


Farmer confidence at an all-time low, NFU data reveals | The Grocer
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/sourcing/farmer-confidence-at-an-all-time-low-nfu-data-reveals/691014.article

with 82% of 797 respondents saying their farm businesses had suffered fairly negatively (52%) or very negatively (30%), with mixed farms, arable farms and dairy farms taking the biggest hits.

The survey was taken in November and December 2023 and with the months of rain that have followed it is likely results would be “even worse”, the NFU said.

It is calling for the government to recognise the extraordinary nature of what has been the wettest 18 months since 1836.

Farm business profitability had also decreased, with 65% of respondents saying profits are declining or their business may not survive.

“These figures paint a really stark picture,” said NFU president Tom Bradshaw. “Confidence has collapsed after months of devastating flooding, unsustainably high production costs and low market returns, and against a backdrop of reduced farm support as we transition to a new Domestic Agriculture Policy and associated farm support.”

PAN_SPRCHA: No hele, to je na dlouhou debatu, ja bych do ni rad sel, ale nemam tedka na to silu ani cas. Zajimalo me, jestli ses opiral o nejakej zdroj nebo o svuj dojem. Ja si dokazu predstavit dost sirokou skalu moznosti, prekvapilo me to, protoze si nevybavuju, ze bych nekde cetl takovy cisla.
Ale aspon rychle: tedka jsem se rychle jenom koukal teda na nejakej prvni report od McKinsey... Oni ty absolutni cisla vypadaj desive, ale kdyz to porovnas, kolik se vydava na tu infrastrukturu ted, plus velkou cast infrastruktury musi obmenovat tak nebo tak (konec zivotnovsi), zaroven fosilni paliva maj giganticky externality (zivotni prostredi, zdravi, klima zmena etc), taky jsou fosilni paliva globalne jedny z nejdotovanejsich odvetvi. kdyz se to poscita, tak to zas tak sileny neni, kdyz to kompenzujes hospodarskym rustem, tak imho vubec k zadnymu propadu prijmu dojit nemusi.

Six characteristics that define net zero | McKinsey
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/six-characteristics-define-the-net-zero-transition

Ono urcite uz budou existovat priklady, kde se da kouknout, jak to vypada v praxi. Par zemi uz existuje, kteyr net-zero jsou, ale predpokldam, ze to jsou predevsim ty, kde byly dobry podminky, tak asi nejsou uplne vhodny.

Nicmene treba Finsko chce bejt uhlikove neutralni do roku 2035 a potom dokonce carbon negative. Zatim cile celkem zvladaj a zivotni uroven nejen, ze neklesa, ale roste...
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/06/finland-carbon-neutral-2035-goals/

Finland: disposable income per capita | Statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1273185/disposable-income-per-capita-finland/