WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, November 27, 2023

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1/ Biden won’t attend the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, which draws leaders from nearly 200 countries. The White House said it would send a climate envoy, including John Kerry, Ali Zaidi, and John Podesta. While Biden has called climate change “the ultimate threat to humanity,” it’s unclear why he will skip the annual COP28 after attending the previous two summits. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates – the world’s fifth-largest oil producer – is hosting the climate talks this year. Leaked document show that the UAE plans to use its position as host country to discuss oil and gas deals with more than a dozen countries. (Associated Press / Politico / New York Times / CNN / Bloomberg / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)

• Why an oil kingdom is hosting the COP28 climate summit. “The United Nations rotates the location of COPs each year through Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe. This year, it was the Asia-Pacific group’s turn to host, and the United Arab Emirates made an unopposed bid in May 2021.” (Washington Post)

• Former Coal Towns Get Money for Clean-Energy Factories. “An Energy Department program designed to create jobs and manufacturing in communities reliant on fossil fuels is backing projects in West Virginia, Colorado and elsewhere.” (New York Times)

• Huge Turbines Will Soon Bring First Offshore Wind Power to New Yorkers. “New York’s best bet for entering the era of offshore wind power is stacked up at the water’s edge in Connecticut.” (New York Times)

• Sodium in Batteries: Shift May Herald Another Shakeup. “Sodium — found in rock salts and brines around the globe — has the potential to make inroads into energy storage and electric vehicles because it’s cheaper and far more abundant than lithium, which currently dominates batteries. But while chemically and structurally similar, sodium has yet to be used on a large scale, partly due to the better range and performance of similarly sized lithium cells.” (Bloomberg)

• Costs for renewables have plummeted and growth is exceeding expectations. “In 2009, the International Energy Agency predicted that solar power would remain too expensive to compete on the grid. It continued to underestimate the growth of renewable energy and EVs. Last year, more than four-fifths of the world’s new power capacity was renewables, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.” (Wall Street Journal)

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