Daily Climate News Roundup - March 6
Carbon Capture with Seawater; Nuclear on the moon; and more!
In this newsletter
Legislation and Reporting
Carbon Capture with Seawater
Top Stories
Research
Legislation and Reporting
New SEC rule makes reporting Scope 3 emissions non-mandatory for large accelerated filers - companies with over $700 million in shares held by public investors - in the US. Scope 3 emissions are those made by entities that are part of a companies supply chain. The new rule “establishes a floor for a disclosure framework that will provide investors with climate risk information, help inform investors’ investment decisions, and be subject to the rigor of Commission filings.” That floor includes scope 1 and 2 emissions, but not scope 3.
[For scope 1 and 2] Companies will have to disclose a quantitative dataset of GHG emissions subject to a gatekeepers’ review. These gatekeepers must follow certain widely-accepted attestation standards, which includes a requirement that the gatekeepers be independent from the company. Moreover, companies will have to disclose if they dismissed or fired a gatekeeper over disagreements related to GHG emissions disclosures, making it harder to hide deceptive or irregular practices.
…Today’s final rule excludes requirements to disclose Scope 3 GHG emissions, despite comments making it abundantly clear that they represent a key metric for investors in understanding climate risk, particularly transition risk. Today we remove any Scope 3 requirement—even one with a safe harbor that would have shielded issuers from liability for good faith estimates in reporting. Indeed, comments from investment advisers, pension funds, and the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee, among many others, highlight that Scope 3 remains an invaluable metric for investors. It is a comparable, quantitative metric that allows investors to measure that risk across companies, sectors, and their portfolios. SEC Statement
In EU and California reporting Scope 3 emissions is mandatory.
Washington State Legislature passed bill HB 2301, expanding food waste donation and recycling requirements. It builds upon the state's Organics Management Law, aiming to divert organics from businesses to combat food waste.
Carbon Capture with Seawater
Oceans are a natural carbon sink - they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which reacts with minerals underwater and also enters biological cycles (photosynthesis). The carbon dioxide sometimes forms calcium carbonate that hardens into extremely tough structures such as abalone shells, pearls and coral reefs. Several million tonnes of carbon has been sequestered into fossil fuels through absorption by ocean - why you discover oil basins offshore so often.
Equatic, a US-based startup, is testing a new method for capturing carbon developed by scientists at UCLA’s Institute of Carbon Management. In this process:
Renewable energy is used to electrolyse seawater - generating oxygen and hydrogen (“green” hydrogen because renewable power was used)
Carbon dioxide is passed through the remaining seawater resulting in a mildly acidic solution
Alkaline rock is added to the solution to bring the pH to that of normal seawater
The processed water with pH similar to seawater is returned to the ocean
A demonstration project, that will capture 10 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide and produce 300 tonnes of green hydrogen, is expected to be commissioned mid-2024 in Singapore.
Power Technology | Equatic website
Top Stories
Nuclear Power on the moon - The space agencies of China and Russia are exploring deploying a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2033-35, a development that may aid lunar settlements
The New Zealand Supreme Court has granted a leader of the Māori people in New Zealand the right to sue seven corporate entities - involved in oil & gas, power, infrastructure, coal mining and dairy exports - over their contributions to climate change. In 1840, New Zealand became a British territory when 540 Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi. The country, independent since 1947 with the British monarch as head of state, is now of largely European descent and Maoris form the largest minority group.
The Guardian (recommended) | UNEP’s Global Climate Litigation Report 2023
Final negotiations underway for UK-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) ET Energy
Florida is considering banning wind power, including offshore, to protect tourism, marine biodiversity and real estate. Currently, there isn’t much wind deployment in Florida due to slow wind speeds and threat of hurricanes. Recharge
New report from Bureau Veritas on Decarbonisation Trajectories for the maritime industry examines 5 scenarios and highlights need for bio and synthetic fuels Offshore Energy | BV Whitepaper
New Nature study reveals that current models may underestimate sea-level rise threats in 32 coastal cities. New York Times
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has generated $500 million and may have abated up to 1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions between 2022-23 by deploying AI technologies across its value chain. AI has been used in mapping subsurface resources, remotely monitoring critical operations, smarter reservoir management and optimising drilling. OGV Energy
European NGOs are encouraging Football teams to choose rail over flights for Euro 2024. UEFA EURO 2023 has formed a partnership with German railway company, Deutsche Bahn. ECEEE
U.S. Census Bureau estimates that nearly 2.5 millions Americans were displaced due to disasters such as wildfires in 2023. Scientific American | US Census Bureau Press Release
GET Invest (funded by European Union, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria) is funding projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific regions. The projects may be
in a range of areas, such as electricity generation and distribution (in the case of mini-grids and stand-alone systems), clean cooking and off-grid appliances, green hydrogen/PtX, pure storage, e-mobility, and smart-data systems or digital projects associated with clean energy
In Narrabri (rural Australia) a fishing competition is held annually to control the population of carp, an invasive species that out-reproduces the native fish populations and can breed fast enough to dangerously lower water oxygen levels resulting in mass fish deaths. The Guardian
There is a $15m government plan to infect carp with a herpes virus to control numbers.
Research
Recycling PLA and PET - PLA (polylactic acid) is a commonly used bioplastic (made from plant materials) that is hard to degrade under natural conditions - it shows almost no degradation over a year in landfills but requires high temperature processing in industrial facilities. A team of scientists has developed a process that can decompose PLA in 2 steps
break down the polymer into constituent units (monomers) using a chemical process
use microbial fermentation to convert the monomers into another polyester called polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), which can be used in packaging
You can read ~200 stories from March 6 on Telborg.
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Let me know if I can help with anything! Enjoy your day!
Best,
Soumya Gupta
Founder
Telborg.com | SummaryWithAI.com