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TAI INVOKES CHINA IN TALKS WITH EUROPE: As the U.S.-EU trade dispute over electric vehicle subsidies intensifies, trade representative Katherine Tai is testing a new strategy to allay Europe’s frustrations: make it about China.
Tai, who has been in Europe to take part in an inaugural meeting of the US-EU Task Force on the Inflation Reduction Act (the stink is big enough to warrant a task force), is playing down the consequences to European automakers of the new, more protectionist EV tax credit Democrats passed in the Inflation Reduction Act and playing up the subsidies as an opportunity to counter “the economic competitive challenge from China.”
Tai, in an interview yesterday with the Financial Times, said the EU should craft its own subsidies in line with the new U.S. EV credit. She also sought to reframe the EV credit and leverage a growing awareness among Western leaders of the negative security implications of relying excessively on China for green energy technologies.
Tai said the administration supports industrial policy focused on weaning the U.S. and allies off of “dependencies and concentrations that have proven to be so economically harmful,” a policy “that isn’t just about us.”
The Europeans haven’t seen it that way.
The IRA’s revised EV credit regime was crafted at the demand of Sen. Joe Manchin, who opposed earlier versions of the Democratic reconciliation package explicitly because he thought that an EV credit without language supportive of domestic industry would be a handout to China.
Whatever benefit that may provide in the eyes of Europe’s China hawks, leaders seem to think it is outweighed by the economic disadvantage that the credit presents to Europe’s industrial and manufacturing sectors, which are already being smothered by high energy costs.
The revised EV credit qualifications impose strict eligibility requirements for battery production, component sourcing, and vehicle assembly that will be impossible for foreign manufacturers to meet without overseeing drastic operational reorganization.
The North American assembly requirement alone immediately excludes all but four electric models made by European manufacturers.
Biden administration officials have been backed into a corner on this, if recent comments about implementation of the credit from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s are any indication. She offered the rhetorical version of throwing your hands up: “The legislation is what it is,” she said.
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CONSERVATIVE CLIMATE CAUCUS MAKING RETURN TO COP: House Republicans in the Conservative Climate Caucus are making the trek down to Egypt next week for the U.N.’s 27th Conference of the Parties, the caucus announced yesterday.
CCC Chair John Curtis and at least four other members, including Reps. Debbie Lesko and Tim Walberg, plan to promote their “all of the above” energy strategy at the climate conference, members said.
“House Republicans have been hard at work to support all-of-the-above energy solutions without sacrificing our energy security, affordability, and reliability,” Lesko said.
The delegation is privately sponsored by the Conservative Climate Foundation, a nonprofit created by conservative energy policy groups Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions and ClearPath. The climate foundation funded members’ trip to Glasgow last year, too.
The members will be in Sharm El-Sheikh from Nov. 10 to 14 and are sure to be outliers at the conference, which is typically dominated by government officials and activists who want to phase out fossil fuels.
House Republicans’ Energy, Climate, and Conservation Task Force, headed up by CCC member Garret Graves, has been promoting the extraction of more oil and gas at home as a solution to global climate change, the argument being that U.S.-produced fossil fuels have lower levels of associated emissions than products of other major producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Bonus: Senate Democrats, several of whom attended the Glasgow conference, are planning their own delegation to Sharm El-Sheikh, a source told Jeremy, although no formal announcement has been made. Sen. Ben Cardin will lead the delegation.
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers signed on to a letter yesterday urging the Biden administration to raise the “record of egregious human rights violations,” including the detainment of political prisoners, by host state Egypt during the trip.
RUSSIAN SHELLING FORCES ZAPORIZHZHIA TO RUN ON LIMITED BACKUP FUEL: Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was knocked offline today by a barrage of Russian shelling that damaged its transition lines, officials said, forcing the massive nuclear facility to run solely on backup generators and a very limited amount of diesel fuel in order to stay online.
In a statement, Ukrainian nuclear operators said Zaporizhzhia has just 15 days worth of fuel left to run the 20 diesel generators that had been activated in the aftermath of the strikes, and said two of its units were being switched to a “cold shutdown mode.”
“The countdown has begun,” Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company, Energoatom said in a statement. It said that Russia needs to return the plant back to Ukrainian control, a move it described as critical “for the sake of the safety of the whole world[.]”
The fast-depleting fuel situation only heightens the urgency for Ukrainian and Russian officials to reach an agreement on safely operating the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility, which was seized by Russian troops shortly after the start of the war.
Energoatom also accused Russia today of attempting to sever Zaporizhzhia from Ukraine’s power grid and reconnect it to Russia’s grid instead.
“In the near future, they [Russia] will try to repair and connect the communication lines of the ZNPP in the direction of temporarily occupied Crimea and Donbas,” Energoatom said.
Moscow carried out missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure in recent weeks, causing sustained power outages in many parts of the country. Officials said today that the strikes have damaged roughly 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
EUROPE FASTEST-WARMING REGION IN PAST 30 YEARS: Temperatures in Europe have risen twice as fast as the rest of the globe during the past 30 years, according to a new State of the Climate in Europe report— helping explain the summer heat wave that scorched Europe and brought crippling drought to many parts of the continent, as well as Europe’s warmer-than-expected autumn, which saw temperatures as high as 35 degrees above seasonal averages.
According to the report from the World Meteorological Organization and the EU’s Copernicus climate Change Service (C3S), temperatures have risen for the last 30 years at a rate of 0.5 Celsius per decade.
The warm weather is also correlated to a spike in extreme weather events, researchers found—including drought, destructive floods, and wildfires, the latter of which have nearly quadrupled so far this year compared to the15-year average.
“Europe presents a live picture of a warming world and reminds us that even well-prepared societies are not safe from impacts of extreme weather events,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. In total, the report found that more than half a million people were “directly affected” by major weather and change events, which caused economic damages exceeding $50 billion.
The study comes just days before world leaders convene in Egypt for this year’s U.N. COP27 summit, and is likely to add to pressure on world leaders to adopt more stringent climate goals.
MACRON PUSHES TO REDUCE NUCLEAR PLANT CONSTRUCTION TIMES: French President Emmanuel Macron introduced draft legislation that will accelerate the construction of new nuclear projects, seeking to bring new facilities online as France grapples with its aging nuclear fleet and a looming winter energy crisis.
The draft bill, which was presented yesterday to the French parliament, seeks to reduce the overall construction time for new facilities by more than two years—largely through streamlining certain bureaucratic processes and reducing the amount of red tape needed to bring new projects online.
If approved, it would allow French nuclear plant owner EDF to begin preparatory earthworks and the construction of other buildings as it awaits government approval to begin constructing core nuclear facilities.
Why it matters: In recent months, more than half of the country’s 56 reactors have been shut down due to corrosion, as well as maintenance and technical problems—sending France’s nuclear power generation plummeting to a 30-year low and raising fears about one of Europe’s key sources of power as it braces for its first winter without Russian fossil fuels.
France relies on its reactors to generate 70% of its electricity annually. Macron also announced plans earlier this year to bring six new reactors online, making nuclear power generation center to France’s push to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
The Rundown
E&E News How a GOP governor could derail New York’s climate law
Bloomberg Not just oil: Understanding US-Saudi relations in five charts
CNBC A submerged buoy-like device is harnessing the sea’s ‘epic amounts of energy’ in Scottish trial
Financial Times Coca-Cola increased plastic use ahead of COP27 summit it is sponsoring
Calendar
THURSDAY | NOVEMBER 3
11:00 a.m. The National Science Foundation holds a meeting of the Advisory Committee for Geosciences. Learn more and register here.