John Kostyack

@kostyack.bsky.social

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Consulting on climate change and the energy transition for NGOs, foundations and other mission-focused organizations at Kostyack Strategies

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This would be a really unfortunate retreat by the Biden Administration. Lots of law firms are undoubtedly watching the energy companies' use of the new Loper Bright SCOTUS ruling to intimidate Treasury. If Treasury retreats, expect the law firm blogs to highlight this new path to deregulation.

This is not good. We're going to pay companies who claim to be making "clean hydrogen" but cause emissions to go up. Sigh. Good piece about bad news by @emilypont.bsky.social heatmap.news/economy/hydr...

The Hydrogen Tax Credit Rules Are Effectively Deadheatmap.news The “three pillars” are crumbling.

Wondering if anyone in Amazon management has responded to its employees' scathing critique of last week's sustainability report and PR blitz. Presumably investors and the SEC are paying attention? www.amazonclimatejustice.org/our-research

AECJ - Our Research — AECJwww.amazonclimatejustice.org

The fossil fuel industry-funded "anti-ESG" coalition has a plan to convince everyone that climate risk is irrelevant to food and agriculture. Looking forward to that debate. thehill.com/policy/energ...

Anti-ESG group launches campaign around farm billthehill.com An advocacy group that opposes environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing launched a broad public relations effort to shape negotiations around a new farm bill. Consumers’ Research, a lea…

Asked what he considers to be the top risk to financial stability, FSOC nominee (& insurance industry veteran) Gordon Ito says climate is "top of mind." Maui fires, with $2.3B losses, cited as example of climate stresses on the financial system. subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...

E&E News: Republicans grill SEC nominee on climate disclosuresubscriber.politicopro.com Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, who is up for a second term, pushed for the rule to have stronger emissions-reporting requirements.

For those with no time to think about climate change, just tell them climate change is coming for your coffee. Robusta futures are up 70% over the past year due to poor harvests in the world’s main growing countries in south-east Asia. www.ft.com/content/f9f5...

Coffee prices set to rise even higher, warns Italian roaster Lavazzawww.ft.com Roasters’ profit margins squeezed as robusta futures soar 70% over past year

BP says that under our currently trajectory, oil hits peak demand next year, but gas keeps expanding (by another 20%) through 2050.

BP's influential outlook report predicts global oil demand will peak in 2025, bringing to end rising emissions by the mid-2020s amid a surge in wind and solar power. www.theguardian.com/business/art...

BP predicts global oil demand will peak in 2025, bringing to end rising emissionswww.theguardian.com Report says peak will bring to end to rising emissions as wind and solar capacity surges, but gas forecasts likely to cause concern

What counts as "durable" in the voluntary carbon markets? Microsoft, the world's largest offsets buyer, says it is "creating a market for high-quality high-integrity durable carbon-removal assets" & then cites the Mombak forestry project in Brazil as an example. www.wsj.com/articles/mic...

www.wsj.com

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"The data is clear – clean energy is not causing electric bills to rise," finds a new @energyinnovation.bsky.social report: energyinnovation.org/publication/...

Clean Energy Isn't Driving Power Price Spikes - Energy Innovation: Policy and Technologyenergyinnovation.org New Energy Innovation research finds the biggest culprits behind rising utility bills include fossil fuels and the climate change impacts they cause, not clean energy.

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If you live in N. America, food you eat is probably grown in the orange “major heat risk” strip in California's Central Valley. The heat threatens crops, farmworkers & our entire food system. This is our planet at 1.2 degrees of warming yet California is STILL approving new oil wells. #ClimateSky 🔌💡

Stanford Law professor Colleen Honigsberg gives much-needed attention to a big problem with today's capital markets: the disconnect between US GAAP book value and share prices. Book value now accounts for <20% of market value of S&P 500 companies. corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2024/07/09/d...

Dark Accounting Mattercorpgov.law.harvard.edu Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit ...

Saudi Aramco spokesperson says he thinks "ICEs will see 'significant improvements' over the coming years that will make them more sustainable, but didn’t specify what those improvements might be." Sounds like the drug dealer is getting high on his own supply.

Inside this morning's climate briefing: 💰 Oil giant invests big in internal combustion engines 🌬️ Weakened Beryl spawns tornadoes as it moves north 🌉 NYC bridge temporarily closed because of extreme heat

Saudi Aramco’s Big Bet on Combustion Enginesheatmap.news On the future of ICEs, stuck bridges, and patriotic appliances

This report's definition of "green economy" is arguable, but focus instead on the key takeaway: energy efficiency & mgmt are hugely profitable. This is great news for the climate: along w renewables, this tech is the big driver of fossil fuel demand reduction. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Returns of $7.2 Trillion Green Sector Outpaced Only by Tech Stockswww.bloomberg.com The so-called green economy has delivered total returns of 198% over the past 10 years, LSEG says

Investors are angry about companies' funding of lobbyists to advance agendas at odds with their public pronouncements. 1/5 of Business Roundtable's members express support for SEC's climate risk disclosure rule while funding BRT's efforts to overturn it. subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...

E&E News: Business Roundtable targets climate rule supported by its memberssubscriber.politicopro.com Six directors of the CEO lobby group run companies that publicly backed the SEC regulation.

How state and local governments can combat misinformation pushed by ill-informed constituents or covert fossil fuel interests and get renewables projects built. "We should never accept being made poorer and sicker because of misinformation-filled Facebook memes—there’s too much at stake."

Our Greg Alvarez writes about how #wind and #solar are the cheapest forms of #electricity, but a variety of restrictions threaten economic growth and the health of American communities. www.forbes.com/sites/energy...

Fear-Based Myths About Clean Energy Could Make Americans Poorer And Sickerwww.forbes.com Local opposition, often driven by misinformation and with help from fossil fuel interests, is slowing down the clean energy transition.

Few private standard-setters are more important to climate progress than SBTI so it is really gratifying to see this work by the Technical Council to protect its scientific credibility. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

World's Top Verifier of CO2 Claims Suffers New Credibility Blowwww.bloomberg.com The group in question is the Science Based Targets initiative, which has been embroiled in controversy since April.

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2023 Canadian wildfires produced CO2 emissions that were *quadruple* the global aviation sector. But because it's a physical hazard they don't "count" Physical risk 🤝 Transition risk HT @hausfath.bsky.social

Canada’s 2023 wildfires outsmoked global aviation, yet emissions go uncountednews.mongabay.com On a June day in 2023, New Yorkers woke up to an eerie scene: the sky had turned a murky orange, the sun a dim red orb in the haze. The culprit? Smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away, in Canada....

Yet another scandal in the carbon markets, this one brought to our attention by @followthemoney.bsky.social. The focus is on an Ivory Coast reforestation project that Rabobank used for selling credits to Microsoft, "one of the largest transactions of its kind." www.ftm.eu/articles/rab...

Microsoft uses carbon-offsetting scheme with no measurable impactwww.ftm.eu The software giant is paying Dutch multinational Rabobank millions of euros to neutralise its impact on the environment. The problem? The bank’s carbon credit programme has no clear effect, Follow the...

The Biden Administration just approved its 9th Atlantic offshore wind project, with 195 turbines to be sited off the NJ coast. Approved offshore capacity is now at 13 GW. A critical piece of the decarbonization puzzle is finally falling into place. subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2024...

POLITICO Pro: Biden administration approves ninth offshore wind projectsubscriber.politicopro.com

All of the assets managers in this study are GFANZ members and argue that investing in coal expansion is Paris-compatible. Someone pls ask GFANZ to clarify its position on this.

EU “green” funds invest millions in expanding coal giants in China, Indiadlvr.it Climate Home found leading asset managers hold shares in coal firms within funds touting sustainable credentials The post EU “green” funds invest millions in expanding coal giants in China, India appeared first on Climate Home News.

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German industry turns to solar in race to cut energy costs "Newly installed photovoltaic capacity on business rooftops rose by 81% year-on-year in the first four months of the year" www.reuters.com/business/ene...

German industry turns to solar in race to cut energy costswww.reuters.com For months, Philip Matthias tried to convince his father to install solar panels on their company's roof in the eastern German state of Thuringia, aiming to cut electricity costs and carbon emissions at the metal products factory.

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Today, Moira Birss continues our series on the LPE of Insurance, arguing that policy responses to the current home insurance crisis should focus on protecting households, not insurance companies. lpeproject.org/blog/the-ins...

The Insurance Industry Is Not the Victimlpeproject.org The rapidly worsening home insurance crisis is often understood as primarily a problem for insurers. Yet the overarching policy question should not be, “how do we save the home insurance industry from...

What happens in FL does NOT stay in FL. "All this [flood] risk will likely end up ...on the books of the GSEs if people walk away from their mortgage obligations, or more generally on taxpayers if these pockets of risk affect other financial engines." susanpcrawford.substack.com/p/its-called...

It's called the Waterfront Wonderland for a reasonsusanpcrawford.substack.com Cape Coral has 400 miles of navigable canals and a looming property value problem. It must believe in magic.

In addition to having a carbon bubble linked to denialism about the energy transition, we have a bubble of asset valuations flowing from denial of climate impacts. The Fed and other regulators with responsibilities to protect financial stability are moving far too slowly on this market failure.

New working paper by EDHEC Risk's Rebonato et al. looks into physical #climaterisk and finds Equities may be overvalued by up to 40% "Current valuations appear to imply either a very strong and effective abatement action, or that climate change will have a negligible effect on economic output"...

$19T has been committed so far to financing the climate transition thru 2030. But developing, building & operating climate-related infrastructure & tech requires insurance coverage. BCG and Howden find that ~$10T of coverage will be needed for the $19T investment. www.howdengroup.com/sites/g/file...

www.howdengroup.com

This sums up nicely the hurdles the Court put up today for federal agencies working to protect our health, safety, environment & financial markets.

"But courts need not *may not* defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous." JFC

Large European investors are ditching oil & gas, not (just) because it's burning down the planet, but because of impacts of the sector's transition risks to their portfolios. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The List of Money Managers Dumping Oil Stocks Just Got Longerwww.bloomberg.com There’s a growing list of institutional investors in Europe who are stripping oil and gas stocks out of their portfolios, in a move they say reduces the risk of ending up with stranded assets and fina...

Another great @emilypont.bsky.social piece. With carbon removal gaining traction in climate policy & voluntary carbon markets, there's no agreement on what that term means. Life-cycle assessments kinda make sense -would eliminate CCS for corn ethanol - but what about enhanced rock weathering?

"But the logic of carbon credits may not be totally aligned with the point of carbon removal." Read @emilypont.bsky.social on the identity crisis facing carbon removal, with help from @freyachay.bsky.social and @roberthoglund.bsky.social:

Carbon Removal’s Existential Questionheatmap.news It starts with ethanol.

Former Treasury official @grahamsteele.bsky.social: The US has forfeited its leadership role on financial regulation, is now a laggard in addressing climate-related financial risk. "As US banking agencies fiddle, the planet continues to burn." greencentralbanking.com/2024/06/27/u...

US block on Basel risks derailing global measures on climate riskgreencentralbanking.com The US wants to water down the Basel Committee’s efforts to address climate-related financial risk and is jeodardising the whole process, says former Treasury official Graham Steele.

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As we watch insurance companies bail on more areas, it seems like a good time to start thinking about climate risk disclosures. John notes how "This cost-of-capital calculus creates a powerful incentive for carbon-intensive companies to conceal their transition risks. " And they do just that.

Important progress has been made on climate risk disclosures in recent years but, as I explain my latest Forbes op-ed, the work is far from complete. Fortunately, progress in the US need not await resolution of litigation over the SEC’s climate rule. www.forbes.com/sites/johnko...

Reality Check For Regulators: A Dangerous Carbon Bubble Persistswww.forbes.com Although progress has been made on climate risk disclosure, more action from regulators is needed to address a dangerous bubble of inflated carbon-intensive assets.