Analysis | Why another war may further delay aid for nations ... - The Washington Post

Why another war may further delay aid for nations ravaged by climate change - The Washington Post

Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! This is Tim Puko, a climate policy and politics reporter for The Washington Post, taking over the top of today’s newsletter.

Why another war may further delay aid for nations ravaged by climate change

Already facing steep challenges, the world’s big climate summit now confronts a war in the Middle East that is sure to complicate its path to success.

The summit already faces tensions over international aid to help poor and vulnerable countries deal with climate change. Rich countries responsible for most human contributions to a warming planet, especially the United States, have promised billions. But in many cases these countries have failed to come through, a pattern of unfulfilled pledges that has left many developing nations skeptical of the entire process.

Now just weeks before the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, and with gridlock over a new budget already roiling Washington, war between Israel and Hamas is creating more competition for U.S. aid. Republicans who control the House have long opposed climate spending of all types. And with pressure mounting to further boost military support abroad, it is likely they will ignore President Biden’s requests for international climate aid, according to current and former U.S. officials.

“Unfortunately I don’t think global events and the current dynamics in the House will make it any easier for the administration to provide additional money for developing countries,” said Beth Viola, an energy lobbyist at Holland & Knight who had served in the Clinton administration and as an environmental adviser to both former vice president Al Gore and then-Sen. John F. Kerry.

‘Lack of follow-through’

If Washington funds its long-standing ally Israel instead, that also risks deepening mistrust within the developing world and undermining COP28 efforts in which all countries must agree to any deal. Many poor and vulnerable countries have been frustrated that the United States and other NATO governments approved so much military aid for Ukraine in the last 18 months while saying they couldn’t do the same on climate change. A repeat scenario with Israel could reinforce frustrations.

“All these resources have been mobilized for war instead,” said Michai Robertson, senior adviser on finance at the Alliance of Small Island States, a group of 44 islands and low-lying coastal states around the world that work in concert at international climate talks. “The lack of follow-through with [climate] commitments has huge implications on how we go about negotiating and building trust in the process.”

In recent days, Biden administration officials have said they are still committed to pursuing more international climate aid from Congress. But Congress’s prolonged budget negotiations already kept them on the sidelines of a major fundraising summit last week for the Green Climate Fund, one of the flagship vehicles to support climate-friendly projects in developing countries.

Former president Barack Obama had helped launch the fund by pledging $3 billion in 2014, but Washington has still not provided all of that money. And on Thursday, the United States was among a handful of countries that didn’t join in on a new round of donating for the fund’s work in 2024 through 2027.

Two officials — who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not have authorization to comment on the record — said the administration plans to keep pushing Congress on climate funding. But those officials also said they were already expecting Congress to forgo more climate aid, forcing the Biden team to look for smaller amounts of money to pull from other programs, acknowledging that those won’t close the gap and are unlikely to satisfy other countries.

On the Hill

“Why does the administration continue to funnel so much taxpayer money to our greatest adversary with things like the U.N. Green Climate Fund?” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during a hearing in July with Kerry, now Biden’s climate envoy.

Another committee member, Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), derided such donations as “climate reparations.” The Biden administration has resisted using that description and Kerry said “no — under no circumstances” would he commit the country to making such payments.

McCaul, who has voiced support for providing additional military aid to Israel, argued that the United Nations should reclassify China as a developed country that must pay its fair share of international climate finance. Beijing now ranks as the world’s second-largest economy and the biggest annual emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases.

Kerry responded that he had raised this issue with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, and that negotiators would try to address it at COP28.

The summit is scheduled to start Nov. 30 in Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, which established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020. While the UAE is on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from Israel and Gaza, there are worries about conference security if a local war expands into a regional, sectarian conflict.

While some U.S. officials fear the violence could escalate into a wider war, it could be weeks before more is known about the implications for the Dubai summit. A spokeswoman for its organizers declined to comment.

On the Hill

Exclusive: Lawmakers urge Commerce Dept. to crack down on illegal fishing

A bipartisan group of 14 House lawmakers today will urge the Commerce Department to address alleged illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing by China, according to details shared exclusively with The Climate 202.

In a letter to Richard Spinrad, who leads Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the lawmakers accuse China of circumventing international conservation and management regulations, including through forced labor and unsustainable fishing practices.

“Past approaches to combatting IUU fishing by the PRC and efforts to stop forced labor have been insufficient, putting our fishermen and seafood producers at a competitive disadvantage, damaging marine ecosystems, and implicating U.S. consumers in forced labor,” they write.

Led by House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), the lawmakers are asking Commerce to enforce the Moratorium Protection Act, which allows the nation to deny port privileges and impose trade sanctions on nations that do not take corrective actions and receive a negative certification determination from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service — which applies to China.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) signed on to the letter, along with Reps. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), Rob Wittman (R-Va.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), Carlos A. Gimenez (R-Fla.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.), and Scott Peters (D-Calif.).

Pressure points

Biden to announce $7 billion for nationwide hydrogen hubs

The Biden administration this week will unveil about $7 billion in competitive funding for hydrogen projects across the country in an effort to boost the fuel, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about plans not yet made public, Bloomberg News’s Ari Natter reports.

The announcement could come as soon as Friday, when President Biden is slated to visit Pennsylvania and deliver remarks about the nation’s clean-energy transition. Projects across the Northeast, California and some Appalachian states to produce and use the gas to run factories and power plants are already under consideration.

According to an Energy Department report released this year, the nation could produce 10 million metric tons of hydrogen by 2030 if the funding is delivered swiftly. But opponents argue that the technology is extremely costly, as is the price of the fuel itself, making it difficult to bring to scale. Plus, some environmentalists warn that hydrogen requires a lot of electricity to produce — and that despite being a clean fuel, it can have a large carbon footprint if that power is originated by the burning of coal or natural gas.

Climate in the courts

Supreme Court blocks Republican challenge to social cost of carbon

The Supreme Court yesterday denied a request from 12 Republican states to review the Biden administration’s social cost of greenhouse gas emissions metric, which is meant to inform agencies as they consider the climate implications of proposed projects and regulations, Bloomberg News’s Greg Stohr reports.

The group of 12 Republican-led states sought to challenge a decision made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit that upheld the White House’s interim estimates, saying that the states could not prove that they faced injury from the values. The metric is likely to affect permitting decisions for oil and gas infrastructure as well as construction, agriculture and fuel efficiency rules.

The high court did not explain its decision to turn away the appeal. The formula, which is not yet finalized, was created by the Biden administration to replace a weaker cost-estimations approach under former president Donald Trump.

International climate

Finland raises specter of sabotage of Baltic Sea gas pipeline

Damage to a natural gas pipeline and a communications cable in the Baltic Sea is causing alarm in Europe, with Finnish officials yesterday suggesting sabotage as the most likely explanation, though they did not identify any potential culprits, The Post’s Emily Rauhala reports.

The Balticconnector pipeline, which carries gas 50 miles across the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia, was shut down early Sunday because of an unusual drop in pressure. Finnish officials on Tuesday said an initial assessment found clear damage, most likely as the result of deliberate interference, and they would investigate it as a crime.

It comes after explosions last year blew up the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany, though that incident remains unresolved.

On Sunday, Gasgrid Finland and Elering, the pipeline’s gas system operators, said they had shut off valves and contained the leak. It was built in 2020 to help ease Finland’s “gas isolation” by connecting it with the rest of Europe, but the officials said it is not critical to the country’s power supply since gas is only a small percentage of Finland’s energy mix.

Still, Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said the repairs could take months and gas prices might increase this winter.

In the atmosphere

Major Hurricane Lidia intensifies while racing toward landfall in Mexico— Ian Livingston for The Post
How climate change is threatening your beer— Maggie Penman for The Post
S.C. wants to make it easy to build electric vehicles. Buying one is another story.— Alexander Thompson for the Post and Courier
Human emissions made deadly South American heat 100 times more likely— Jonathan Watts for the Guardian

Viral

Tiny trunk, big splash! 🐘💦— Dallas Zoo (@DallasZoo)

Can you believe Okubili weighs over 700 pounds now? He’s growing so fast! pic.twitter.com/d2gESoaZAe October 9, 2023

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