James Lawler: [00:00:00] Welcome to Climate News Weekly. I’m here this week with Dina Cappiello. Dina, great to see you again.
Dina Capiello: Great to see you, James.
James Lawler: So Dina, are there any stories that you’re tracking this week?
Dina Capiello: Yeah. Well, so I was recently in Philly at the Society of Environmental Journalists Annual Conference. SEJ is always a great place to kind of get the pulse of what’s happening because it’s where all the energy and environmental reporters are.
So, it was pretty interesting to be there as I am every year.
James Lawler: And at SEJ, there were several announcements of funding. The EPA talked about their $20 billion in green bank funding, which is part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Dina, can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Dina Capiello: Yeah, so this was like a big thing that came out at SEJ.
The EPA Administrator Regan was there and defended it, right? So, once again, we are in a political season. Everything is getting politicized. And, you know, the Republicans [00:01:00] look at this $20 billion as like a slush fund for green groups. And basically what this would do, it’s a green bank program that will finance a variety of projects to create low carbon solutions, including in disadvantaged communities that are most affected by pollution.
And so he got up and defended it and said, this is really, really it’s a competition, you know, they had eight recipients, many of the groups that receive this are working with communities that have experienced, you know, an overburden of environmental issues in the past. And so that’s one thing that we have been tracking, you know, money has not been flowing to these communities in the past to actually address some of the issues.
James Lawler: So the EPA’s $20 billion green bank, this is money that is coming from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. This [00:02:00] is the official name of the program. And it’s modeled off of green banks that operate in many states and on Climate Now we had the head of the Connecticut Green Bank, which has been very successful.
He’s joined us a couple of times to explain how green banks work, but essentially it’s government backed, you know, low cost loans that are dedicated to rooftop solar, improving efficiency of buildings, heat pumps, EV charging, other climate and energy improvement projects. There’s often a focus on low income and disadvantaged communities in the typical green bank structure, which is now being sort of magnified by this massive funding, massive amount of funding.
In this case, the EPA has set this requirement that 70 percent of the capital, that’s more than $14 billion, go towards disadvantaged communities. So it’s a major amount of capital that’s moving through the system there. For those who are interested, Brian Garcia, who’s the president of the Connecticut Green Bank, does a really great [00:03:00] job describing how green banks work in our other episode, that Connecticut green bank is the nation’s first state level green bank and has been very successful in the deployment of capital toward projects that are making a big difference. So, it’s exciting to see that model replicated at scale, and we’ll be tracking how that goes over time.
Dina Capiello: And the next one, which is even more recent, is the $830 million to toughen infrastructure against climate change.
James Lawler: Yeah, that’s Department of Transportation awarding those to how many projects was it?
Dina Capiello: It was 37 states. So it will improve bridges, roads, ports, rail, transit, and other infrastructure across 37 states, and this is not IRA, Inflation Reduction Act. This is actually coming from another bill, another law, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was passed in 2021, but also has a lot of climate benefits. Because as we know, climate change is [00:04:00] starting to impact our infrastructure.
So, for instance, Biden had mentioned California wildfire that affected rail in the state. Flooding in New York City that went into the subway system and affected that. That those are worsening and we have to really adapt our infrastructure to meet the changing climate. So there’s a bunch of money. I think the biggest was $56.4 million for Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to replace the 86 year old Arc of Justice bridge, which is needed to get access for emergency services and flooding events. Its lots of money being doled out.
James Lawler: Another story that caught our eye this week is a story that just broke today. We’re recording this on April 11th.
The story here is that the board and the CEO of the Science Based Targets Initiative, that’s SBTi, were asked to resign after the UN backed group loosened its guidelines for how companies can use carbon [00:05:00] credits to reduce their reported emissions. So I’m quoting from Bloomberg News article from today, April 11: “In a letter sent on Wednesday, SBTi employees said the board of trustees who made the statement failed to adhere to the non profit’s governance structures, and the CEO failed to adequately inform the staff about the board’s decision.
“The staff letter from the heads of several SBTi departments asks for the statement related to carbon cuts to be withdrawn and corrected as it raises serious questions about ‘the future direction and integrity of our organization.'” So again, the concern here is that this allowance from SBTi, which is the sort of standard in terms of what companies aspire to with emissions reduction, is now making a statement that some would see as, you know, permission to continue emitting, essentially, as opposed to emissions reduction.
Others would argue that this is necessary because supply chains in some cases [00:06:00] are impossible to decarbonize. So why not support high quality offsets to reduce net emissions? Any thoughts on that?
Dina Capiello: Yeah, scope three emissions are hugely, hugely difficult to wrap your arms around if you’re a corporation or if you’re even a government trying to regulate them.
James Lawler: Yeah, because it’s a manufacturing supply chain. And so the idea that you’re responsible for that supply chain, while it sounds good, and ideally we could be, is in practice very, very challenging, especially if you’re not a huge customer, or even if you are. The leverage that you have over your suppliers is limited.
It’s hard to imagine that supply chains become simpler to decarbonize without some kind of offsetting structure, because, you know, the complexity of global supply chains won’t go away, like, you know, people make things in different places, and the global [00:07:00] economy is a complicated beast, and so supply chains are not going to get any simpler.
You’ll always have a diversity of customers for any supplier, you know, so the leverage dynamics won’t get any easier to solve over time. You might have better data that shows you exactly what emissions are coming, what the carbon intensity of every single step is, and all of that, that whole data layer and transparency layer probably will improve over time.
But, the processes are going to be really, really hard. You know, these are industrial processes of every different shape and size that we’re talking about. So some amount of offsetting is probably going to be critical, and maybe a lot of it. What the conversation will probably come to is how good are those offsets? What is the MRV profile measurement reporting verification profile of those offsets?
Dina Capiello: Yeah, and we as an organization, RMI, we have a whole group that’s kind of dedicated to try to figure out the [00:08:00] emissions along whole supply chains, right? And, and how difficult and challenging that is. And, and to your point, there’s not one central standard, right?
It’s kind of like, pick and choose the standard that you want to apply, and I think that there’s a whole push by myriad NGOs to kind of make one central standard that actually verifies this.
James Lawler: Yeah. So, we’ll continue to discuss that story as we follow it over the weeks, months, years ahead potentially.
There’s one final story we want to wrap up with. This is sort of a fun one. We noticed this headline in Financial Times, “Wall Street turns to solar grazing sheep in its push to go green.” And I just want to quote from the article because I thought this was so funny. The gist of it is that sheep can eat invasives and eat grass and be helpful to solar installations; keeps the grass down, keeps it clean, and it’s potentially better than lawnmowers in places. That’s all wonderful, but I did think that some of these quotes were funny. So Jonathan Kett, Executive Director of Special [00:09:00] Projects at D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments, said, “We typically sign contracts for what we call vegetation management, which is a fancy way of saying ‘cutting the grass and weeds.'”
And then he helpfully clarifies that D. E. Shaw is “not the ones out there shepherding the sheep around and getting in water and stuff,” end quote. That’s great. I thought, I thought that was so funny.
Dina Capiello: I didn’t even see this. Now I need to look this up. Like, hold on. Grazing sheep, is this like, like, I’m now, I’m gonna really, I’m gonna really date myself.
And, and be, and say, is this like the below the fold quirky story? Remember they used to always have the below the fold. I’m seeing it now. I’m seeing it now.
James Lawler: You saw it. Okay. “Sheep farmers have had to diversify their sources of income to survive. So called solar grazing represents the ‘biggest opportunity the sheep industry has seen in at least a generation or more,’ said Ryan Indhart, who is a fourth-generation rancher from California.”
Very interesting.
Dina Capiello: I love stories like this. I love stories [00:10:00] that take this concept and just like really drill down in it, right. And I love them as a reporter where you just like find that one source that, you know, you can’t make up. The truth is stranger than fiction. And they always make like amazing stories.
And I have to say, all kidding aside, I look at this story and I say, okay, you know, there has been pushback on solar for its use of green space and bravo that we found a solution to have sheep, right. And graze sheep on solar land. And I think that, listen, everything has a trade off, but I believe in like, human ingenuity to find a way, right?
James Lawler: The conclusion of this article is also fun. “Some green energy groups, though, have found that sheep are more trouble than they’re worth.” This is a quote. “‘The sheep did not like to eat the weeds we needed them to eat. Plus, their hair kept getting caught in the inverters, causing equipment damage,’ said the spokesperson for,” unfortunately, “a Florida based renewable energy group who asked not to be named.”
So it didn’t work as [00:11:00] well in Florida, unfortunately.
Dina Capiello: Bummer.
James Lawler: But, you know, others are finding success with it. Well, I think that’s probably all we have time for this week, but Dina, it’s great to have you.
Dina Capiello: Ending on sheep.
James Lawler: We’re ending on a high note.
Dina Capiello: Yes. Happy to be here.
James Lawler: Thank you for joining us again, and we will hopefully see you next week.
Dina Capiello: Talk soon.
James Lawler: That’s it for this week on Climate News Weekly. See you next week.
