Inside the Infrastructure Bill, "Tales of Two Planets," & COP26 is broken
A newsletter for independent thinkers on carbon and climate.
Issue No. 97
Welcome to the latest issue of Carbon Creed - a curated newsletter for independent thinkers on carbon and climate.
The $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill is passed.
Once signed by President Biden, the new law will reach virtually every corner of the country — a historic investment that has been compared with the building of the transcontinental railroad and Interstate Highway System. The White House is projecting that the investments will add about 2 million jobs per year over the coming decade.
Here’s a breakdown of the major sections of the bill (Mary Clare Jalonick, AP):
ROADS AND BRIDGES
The bill would provide $110 billion to repair the nation’s aging highways, bridges and roads. According to the White House, 173,000 total miles of America’s highways and major roads and 45,000 bridges are in poor condition. And the almost $40 billion for bridges is the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system.
PUBLIC TRANSIT
The $39 billion for public transit in the legislation would expand transportation systems, improve accessibility for people with disabilities and provide dollars to state and local governments to buy zero-emission and low-emission buses. The Department of Transportation estimates that the current repair backlog is more than 24,000 buses, 5,000 rail cars, 200 stations and thousands of miles of track and power systems.
PASSENGER AND FREIGHT RAIL
To reduce Amtrak’s maintenance backlog, which has worsened since Superstorm Sandy nine years ago, the bill would provide $66 billion to improve the rail service’s 457-mile-long Northeast Corridor as well as other routes. It’s less than the $80 billion Biden originally asked for, but it would be the largest federal investment in passenger rail service since Amtrak was founded 50 years ago.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
The bill would spend $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations, which the administration says are critical to accelerating the use of electric vehicles to curb climate change. It would also provide $5 billion for the purchase of electric school buses and hybrids, reducing reliance on school buses that run on diesel fuel.
INTERNET ACCESS
The legislation’s $65 billion for broadband access would aim to improve internet services for rural areas, low-income families and tribal communities. Most of the money would be made available through grants to states.
MODERNIZING THE ELECTRIC GRID
To protect against the widespread power outages that have become more frequent in recent years, the bill would spend $65 billion to improve the reliability and resiliency of the nation’s power grid. It would also boost carbon capture technologies and more environmentally-friendly electricity sources like clean hydrogen.
AIRPORTS
The bill would spend $25 billion to improve runways, gates and taxiways at airports and to improve terminals. It would also improve aging infrastructure at air traffic control towers.
WATER AND WASTEWATER
To improve the safety of the nation’s drinking water, the legislation would spend $55 billion on water and wastewater infrastructure. The bill would include $15 billion to replace lead pipes and $10 billion to address water contamination from polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — chemicals that were used in the production of Teflon and have also been used in firefighting foam, water-repellent clothing and many other items.
PAYING FOR IT
The five-year spending package would be paid for by tapping $210 billion in unspent COVID-19 relief aid and $53 billion in unemployment insurance aid some states have halted, along with an array of other smaller pots of money, like petroleum reserve sales and spectrum auctions for 5G services.
We’ll keep you posted on the latest carbon policy and market insights as they happen.
If you have an opinion on any topic covered in this newsletter, please feel free to send me an email at mcleodwl@carboncreed.com.
Thank you for your viewpoint and the value of your time.
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QUOTES
Words that will inspire…
“Our islands are slowly being eaten by the sea, one by one. If we do not reverse this trend, the Maldives will cease to exist by the end of the century.” - Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, President of the Maldives (COP26)
“Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change. It’s one minute to midnight on that Doomsday clock and we need to act now.” - U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson (COP26)
“There is a form of clean energy, renewable and absolutely free that too often underestimate: human warmth.” - Corina Abdulahm-Negura (Writer)
BOOKS
(source: Amazon)
WHEN THE INTRODUCTION has more content and brilliance than most books, you know you are in for a treat in the remaining pages.
Climate change is the most urgent crisis now facing humanity. But as Author John Freeman (Dictionary of the Undoing, 2019, etc.) notes in his introduction, “large numbers of the world’s most powerful residents cannot grasp what it means.” Assembling the creative work of respected writers from both the developed and developing world, Freeman offers a sobering meditation on the future challenges that everyone will face.
In her bleakly stark poem “Tracking the Rain,” Margaret Atwood reflects on how extreme drought is making itself felt in rich countries like her native Canada and how predictive technologies have been rendered useless by the randomness associated with climate change. In “Machandiz,” Edwidge Danticat takes up the theme of planetary overheating. With the devastating clarity that has become her literary hallmark, she observes the struggle of people from her native Haiti to survive political and economic problems now compounded by the brutal onslaughts of nature. “The Well,” a short story by Indonesian novelist Eka Kurniawan, tells the tragic story of how drought and floods destroyed possibilities for union between a boy and a girl from a tiny Indonesian village. Had nature been “kinder,” none of the losses that make their love impossible would have occurred. South Korean writer Krys Lee offers a thought-provoking fictional take on the consequences of living in a damaged environment. Citizens of an unnamed Asian city live with the ever present knowledge that the poisoned air they breathe through purifying masks and indoor filters may one day kill them.
Fierce and provocative, this diverse collection shows that climate change is not just a problem for developing nations. One day, it will become a matter of life and death for rich and poor alike. Other contributors include Lauren Groff (U.S.), Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone), and Sjón (Iceland).
A powerful and timely collection on a topic that cannot be ignored.
Creed Comments: John Freeman has gathered a daisy chain of essays, stories, and poems by thirty-five writers from every hot, cold, wet, and dry spot on the planet. He also acknowledges that even this breadth of geography may not be enough to capture the vastness of the matter. Each part of the collection underlines the real physical consequences of the hydrocarbon economy that has led us to this climatic crisis and the vast range of human emotion that makes climate change much more than a scientific concept. “We are swimming in facts,” Freeman writes in his introduction, “but a fact does not fully obtain the depth of a fact, the power of a fact, until it becomes part of a story.”
This collection is best savored, contemplated, and reread as a call to action: think about what he’s saying but also enjoy the way he’s saying it. “What if we believed, stupidly or hopefully, that every living life mattered equally?” Freeman writes. Read it. Share it. Let it change the way you relate to our only home.
INSIGHTS
(source: New York Times)
Carbon trading: why COP26 is broken
After a parade of announcements tackling everything from coal to methane and protecting forests, the question remains: what do the agreements really mean?
A day after U.K. COP26 organizers celebrated a major pledge to protect the world’s forests, one of the most important signatories said it didn’t actually sign up to end deforestation by the end of the decade. Indonesia, the top producer of palm oil, said it only agreed to keep its forest cover steady over the period — meaning trees could still be cut down and replaced. Brazil, another key member, said it would only target “illegal” deforestation.
Indonesia also signed up to a pledge aimed at ending coal use, but a closer look at the terms shows it will be able to continue building coal plants at home. The U.K. highlighted Poland as one of the major signatories of that same deal, but Warsaw said it won’t phase out coal until the 2040s — the same timescale it was already planning — casting doubt on how much value the new accord adds.
A prime example of how broken the COP26 process has become is the debate over rules for a global carbon market. Developing countries want a percentage of the proceeds from all trading to be channeled to poor nations. The EU is resisting calls to apply the fee to transactions between nations — and says it’s a red line.
Article Six Matters
COP President Alok Sharma says climate talks in Glasgow are about to get tough. That’s because negotiators are trying to nail down a deal they’ve spent six years of their lives chasing.
Clinching an agreement on international carbon-market trading is a key benchmark of success at COP26, and would be a major win as the issue has been pending ever since the Paris accord was signed in 2015.
The buzzword is Article Six, and it’s about two kinds of carbon trading. One is about country-to-country exchanges of carbon credits — where one nation essentially pays another to cut emissions on its behalf. The other is about offsets traded by public and private players.
A well designed agreement would help cut emissions, spur up to $1 trillion of investment in poorer nations, and encourage low-carbon innovation. But if the rules are too lax, it will merely give a free pass to companies and countries to emit more than they should. (Think of it as paying someone else to go on a diet for you.)
But there is a sense of urgency to nail down the rules — and not just because the planet is warming fast. Demand is booming for offsets: more credits changed hands in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2020, according to BloombergNEF, as corporations and governments spend billions of dollars to meet their net-zero targets.
But there are no unified standards or international oversight, leaving room for abuse. Low-quality offsets do little — or nothing — to slow climate change. The aim in Glasgow is to bring transparency and rigor to a market that’s growing in a messy sprawl across the globe.
Companies are watching carefully — and lobbying too. They want clarity on the rules as they map out how to implement their net-zero strategies.
The chances of a deal had been looking up in recent weeks. Brazil, reluctant to compromise at the last round of negotiations, signaled it would be more flexible. But the first week of the conference was a reminder that finding a landing zone will be no easy task. Countries are stuck on the issue of how much revenue from trading should be siphoned off to helppoor countries adapt to climate change.
Another key point of contention is how the accounting rules should work to avoid emission-reductions being counted twice. A badly drawn deal could allow the credit to be booked both in the country that buys it and the one that sells it. There’s also a fight over whether credits from a now defunct carbon regime should continue to be valid or rather phased out. The fewer old credits in the system, the more effective the market will be.
The three most contentious issues mostly pit developing countries against rich nations. Brazil wants to be able to use at least some of the old credits and the African group of countries seek a bigger share of revenues to be channeled toward regions that need funds. The European Union, a key player, has been repeatedly urging robust accounting rules, and opposes the African bloc’s proposal on revenues.
[This post was adapted from the original written by Ewa Krukowska and Jess Shankleman for Bloomberg]
Creed Comments: While COP26 appears doomed to failure on carbon trading, the methane agreement is an important step towards pricing. Among notable accomplishments, COP26 should go down as the “Forest COP.” Here are two reasons why:
1) Urban forests are a powerhouse job creator, with diverse career and business ownership opportunities. A massive investment to achieve Tree Equity in our cities can address chronic underemployment in the same lower-income neighborhoods that are systemically lacking in trees.
2) Forests, home to 80% of terrestrial wildlife, are an intersection. Dying and burning forests lead to lost habitat. Conserving, restoring and growing healthy and resilient forests, of the right types in the right places, is the foundation for both carbon sequestration and biodiversity.
Making the connection between homo sapiens and Dendrology is both necessary and long overdue (read the Overstory). We’ll see if our leaders can move from aspiration to execution.
RESOURCES
The Keeling Curve a daily record of global atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Congressional Policy Tracker a summary of current federal energy legislation.
Click Clean your favorite apps and tech company clean power rankings.
Advancing Inclusion Through Clean Energy Jobs a report by the Brookings Institute.
Understanding ESG a series of ESG-focused thought leadership webinars for business and investors, presented by Baker McKenzie.
Matter of Fact, a weekly newsmagazine that focuses on socioeconomic and climate issues in America, hosted by veteran journalist Soledad O'Brien.
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