This week in climate policy: 4 stories you should follow - GreenBiz

This week in climate policy: 4 stories you should follow | GreenBiz

Here are the major climate policy developments for this week:

- The European Union is officially imposing additional tariffs on electric cars built in China, increasing current duties in place from 10 percent to 38 percent. Driven by the EU’s desire to level the playing field against Chinese automakers, the increase comes one month after the United States announced that it would impose new tariffs on Chinese EVs. Some European auto manufacturers worry that additional tariffs will actually increase production costs, as many are dependent upon China for both exports and imports in the domestic marketplace. Some experts worry that the tariffs will increase prices for domestic EVs, leading consumers and constituents to continue to prioritize gasoline-powered vehicles.
- Global clean energy spending is expected to surpass $2 trillion in 2024, according to new predictions from the International Energy Agency, thanks in part to U.S. legislation like the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The World Energy Investment report states that BIL and IRA catalyzed large leaps in clean energy investments; funding for low-emissions electricity totaled $76 billion from 2021 to 2023 before leaping to $94 billion in 2024 so far. “For every dollar going to fossil fuels today, almost two dollars are invested in clean energy,” said Fatih Birol, executive director at IEA.
- In the wake of a report from Bloomberg revealing that American regulators blocked an effort to focus international financial rules on climate risk, 19 Democratic senators and representatives called on financial institutions to do more to combat the climate crisis. Senator Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Rep. Sean Casten (Ill.) led the coalition to write a letter to the Federal Reserve, Office of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that stated, “The United States’ lack of progress and innovation in establishing robust measures to address the financial and economic risks from climate change places us behind out international peers and is counterproductive to American interests.”
- Policymakers and utilities agree that the establishment of a region-wide electricity trading market in the Western US would enable the sharing of clean energy resources and reduced power costs, but incorporating California’s massive clean energy demand is a major obstacle. California is a member of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative alongside Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, a group meant to create a shared regional electricity market that would expand access to clean energy produced in each state by creating a trade network. While all parties across the five states agree on the utility of the regional marketplace, they can’t agree on a market structure that works for each state’s individual energy goals. Initial proposals were submitted last month, but it will likely take years to agree upon a final model.