High Seas Treaty Is Live, Wind Wins, & A Sportswashing Protest

Welcome to The Climate Roundup newsletter. Your weekly edit of the climate and environmental stories shaping our planet and our culture and how the two are deeply connected. We live in a global ecosystem shaped by human decisions. Let’s make good ones.

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Love Notes:

I don’t know about you, but last week I was really feeling the weight from the plethora of unsavory human activity these first couple weeks of this year. The year started pleasant and then boom, the rush of insanity was back. One morning last week, I found myself taking a different route home from my usual bakery run, just to change the energy. It worked. I was noticing new things, including some pleasantly loud songbirds wishing me good morning as they perched in the trees along the city street. I stopped to look up at them and listen, and a huge smile spread across my face. Sometimes all we need to lift the mood is a slight change in scenery and perspective.

The perspective came too. I spoke with some of our Gen E nonprofit partners last week and was reminded of the fact that while we are indeed living through very trying times where so many decisions are being made that are counter to basic common sense intelligence, we can find comfort in knowing that there are several entire organizations (some small, some large, some formal, some grassroots) out there who are watching every move. It is their chosen mission and job to fight back and to fight for the good of our planet. Rest assured that these organizations have a playbook for each attack, and they are doing what needs to be done. The process may be slow and quiet at times, but these Earth champions are always there working to right the ship and undo the harms. And we are here to support and cheer them along. As the week comes to a close and begins again, I’m noticing more wins and signs of hope in the news cycle this round. A conscious shift in energy lifts all boats. Here’s to noticing the positives, and keeping that momentum going.

An Action To Take:

🚗 EDF has a quick way to add a public comment telling the Department of Transportation that we do not want our national fuel economy standards weakened. Because who in their right mind would say yes, let’s change the rules so that we get much less for the same price, therefore making all fuel-based trips more expensive!?

Environmental News:

🌊 As of yesterday, the UN High Seas Treaty is officially in effect. Decades in the making, and ratified by 81 countries (though not the US), now two-thirds of our wild ocean that exists beyond country borders has the ability to be protected. These protections will still take time and they do require cooperation across several stakeholders, but this is progress. Our ocean-dwelling friends need help in protecting them from the human activity that is threatening their existence and right to a prosperous life.

🌬️ Two US offshore wind projects have been granted the right to resume work after last month’s stop-work order from Trump. They are New York’s Empire Wind project (60% complete, will power 500K homes) and Rhode Island and Connecticut’s Revolution Wind project (90% complete, will power 350K homes). Can’t stop, won’t stop the power of wind!

🎉 And in Britain, the government just awarded contracts for 12M homes-worth of clean offshore wind energy to be built, thanks to an electricity price guarantee that should make investors happy.

📉 The use of coal to generate power fell last year in both China and India for the first time in over 50 years. These are the world’s biggest coal consumers, and a downward trend in burning this major air polluter is a positive trend for us all.

🤯 Two more mindblowing plans were announced this week from our country’s laughably-named Environmental Protection Agency. Under this admin, that agency name is up there with “Truth Social” and “Be Best”. Definitions of hypocrisy. Here’s what the EPA wants to do. 1) It wants to strip back state and tribal rights under the Clean Water Act, which currently gives these groups the final say on federal energy projects that have potential to pollute their waterways (think oil pipelines built through Great Lakes). An EPA spokesperson essentially said the reason is to quickly build power for data centers and to make sure they move forward with certainty (meaning environmental considerations be damned, and anything for AI!). 2) In a major break from decades of precedent, the EPA announced it will stop factoring in the cost benefit of lives saved and health harms avoided when setting clean air rules, choosing instead to weigh only the financial burden placed on companies required to cut pollution from two of the most dangerous air pollutants.

👨‍⚖️ But then here’s a win. You may recall one of last year’s many cancellations of Biden-era clean energy and climate-related grants that appeared to target blue states. Well, a group of the ‘victims’ got together to sue, and won! Last week a judge ruled that the cancellation of 7 specific grants was unlawful and violated the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection of the laws. Dirty trick: denied.

💰 This article in the New York Times by David Gelles is a great, easy-to-read account of the story of Wall Street’s whiplash from all-in on financially addressing the climate crisis in 2021 to complete reversal by 2024 due to an orchestrated Republican effort to stop it. We need The Money to move with speed towards clean energy and out of planet-warming fossil fuels. We were so close.

Climate Meets Culture:

🪧 Sport needs to cancel oil sponsors and their enablers. The term “sportswashing” is used to label the practice by companies, or any individual or entity, to distract from their bad behavior by attaching themselves to a beloved cultural pastime: sports. Examples include Dodger Stadium sponsor Phillips 66, and the Mets’ Citi Field, where a fossil fuel project funding bank put its name on the building (come to think of it, Citibike is uber ‘washy’). To draw attention and to pressure teams to ultimately drop these planet-warming sponsors, there will be a day of protests next month. Join one here. Give me a shout if anyone has interest in joining the NYC one. As a Phillies fan, I sure don’t hate protesting @ Mets!