Home Blog

The Best States to Live In: All 50 States Ranked

By
-
Source: DenisTangneyJr / iStock via Getty Images

A recent survey conducted by the North American Van Lines relocation company found that more than 70% of American adults live in or near the city where they grew up. But for those who make a deliberate choice to move away from home, the decision is often influenced by one or two key factors. 

Some may choose to move to a new city to find a better job. A family may buy a home in a new neighborhood to enroll the children in a better school district. Retirees may relocate to be in a warmer, sunnier climate, while others may choose a new place to live in an area with lower crime rates or more affordable housing. The list of reasons varies. (Here are America’s least dangerous states.)

Indeed, key economic, social, and environmental factors can all be important considerations to make when deciding on a place to live – and these factors can change significantly from state to state. 

Using data from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 24/7 Wall St. created a weighted index of 16 measures to determine the best – and worst – states to live in. 

Each measure used in our index has an impact on overall quality of life. These measures include those related to the economy such as unemployment and poverty; the environment such as air pollution; and social factors such as crime and levels of investment in public works and institutions.

There are some notable geographic patterns in the ranking. For example, eight of the 10 lowest-ranking states are in the South, while the highest ranking states are concentrated in the West and the Northeast. (Here are 22 states where people live the longest.)

It is important to note that each state, regardless of its ranking, has some positive attributes as well as some negatives. For example, while many of the Southern states rank lower on this list, often due to higher crime and poverty rates, many may also make an ideal home due to warm climates, a low cost of living, and affordable housing.

Click here to see the best and worst states to live in 2022.

Click here to see our detailed methodology.

New York wakes up to climate threat; London will have to wait 4,700 years

By
-
Source: Joshua Lombard / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

It’s not news until it’s in The New York Times is a favorite saying in the Big Apple. In that case, this is the week global warming became news there as the city choked under acrid, orange smoke from Canadian wildfires. When something similar happened three years ago in San Francisco, it was regarded as an oddity in NYC. Those crazy Californians and their forest policies. Now it’s a full-on climate emergency.

Whether that helps spur the fledgling new era of bipartisanship in Congress, first on permitting reform for new energy projects and now on a possible carbon border tax against China and others, remains to be seen. But as a signal to the world’s largest financial center that even climate disasters a continent away can turn it into a futuristic hellscape, this one is pretty good.

Not so much over in London where a de facto government block on new onshore wind farms over the past decade has left England staring at a literally historic challenge on renewable energy. Scientists at the Institute for Public Policy Research there estimated this week that at its paltry rate of permitting new wind systems — some 17 small ones since 2015 — the country will need 4,700 years to meet its energy needs with wind energy. By comparison, that’s about the same timeline between the present and when Stonehenge was built.

Perhaps a wee dash of orange soot over Parliament will shake some reforms out of Rishi Sunak’s government, but we’re not holding our breath (like they are in NY). Despite increasing evidence that global warming knows no borders, governments continue to treat it like an internal problem that can be handled by domestic regulations and solutions.

As we pointed out again this week, investors and markets know better. They’re already pricing in the future impact of global warming on certain regions and investments. No word yet though on a 4,700-year bond.

Zeus: How climate change will roll through capital markets – an early guide

. . . . Anti-ESG political forces such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are working hard to stop public investors from pricing climate risk, but that’s what markets do, writes David Callaway. The decision by two of the largest U.S. insurers to stop offering new home policies to buyers in California is just the latest – and most dramatic – example of how climate risk is beginning to bleed into financial markets. The Great Repricing, as one of our favorite fund managers calls it, has begun.

Read the full Zeus column

Thursday’s subscriber insights

Congress mulls carbon border tax as bipartisan climate fervor picks up

. . . . It’s one of the more interesting and, thankfully, bipartisan climate change moves percolating in Congress: A bill to tax imports from China and other countries with lower environmental standards. In other words, it’s a carbon border tax. Europe is doing it, with much criticism of protectionism. The U.S. has always shied away from it, but suddenly the enthusiasm to use it as a tool to bash China has gathered steam. Read more here. . . .

Succession star James Cromwell has a lot to say about the Paris plastics summit — and his character Ewan Roy

. . . . In keeping with our focus on last week’s UN plastics conference in Paris, we direct you to this interview by our friend David Andelman in his Andelman Unleashed newsletter with actor James Cromwell, who starred in the hit movie “Babe” and more recently as Logan Roy’s angry brother Ewan in “Succession.” Cromwell has long been focused on ridding the world of harmful plastics practices. Hear his thoughts on the conference, President Joe Biden, and on how he helped shape his character Ewan over the length of the Succession series. Read more here. . . .

With nowhere else to go, Japan turns here for renewable energy

. . . . With just 20% of its energy coming from renewables — much of it longstanding hydro sources — Japan has been somewhat of a laggard in the energy transition. But now it seems to be getting its act together with a declaration that it will be the world’s leader in offshore wind. They’re also getting big into batteries. Read more. . . .

Editor’s picks: Canada’s fires and climate change; smoke hampers plane flights and baseball in the northeast

Raging wildfires threaten Canada’s infrastructure

Canada’s exceptionally hot and dry weather in May has fueled hundreds of wildfires burning across the county from Quebec to the western provinces. About 9.4 million acres have burned, an estimated 15 times the 10-year average, Federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair said. “Across the country as of today, there are 414 wildfires burning, 239 of which are determined to be out of control,” he told a briefing. According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, some of the fires were started by lightning. Canadian officials have expanded evacuation orders and asked for firefighting help from other countries. Quebec, Canada’s second-most populous province, has suffered four times its 10-year average of wildfires so far this year, according to published reports. Major League Baseball postponed games in New York, Philadelphia and other cities because of poor air quality.

Smoke halts flights in New York

The Federal Aviation Administration on had to halt flights headed to New York’s LaGuardia airport and delayed flights on the ground there due to smoke from Canadian wildfires this week. The FAA said heavy smoke haze, affecting visibility and air quality, was hanging over the northeastern U.S. and delays were reported through Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. “The FAA has slowed traffic to and from the New York City area airports due to reduced visibility from wildfire smoke,” the FAA told CNN in a statement. “The agency will adjust the volume of traffic to account for the rapidly changing conditions.” CNN reported Wednesday afternoon that airlines in the U.S. had canceled 120 flights and delayed another 1,928, citing data from tracking site FlightAware. New York City Mayor Eric Adams urged millions of residents to remain indoors after the city’s air quality became the worst among major cities in the world.

Climate change damages across the globe

The future impact of climate change on the world economy is a topic of great importance and uncertainty, and previous models predict only mild aggregate damages and that some countries will be unaffected or may even benefit, writes the author of The Importance of External Weather Effects in Projecting the Economic Impacts of Climate Change. According to the abstract, this article demonstrates that these results rely on the restrictive assumption that economies are unaffected by weather shocks in other countries, which leads to overly optimistic predictions of impacts from global weather shocks. “Relaxing this assumption in existing models leads them to predict catastrophic economic impacts from significant climate change, where all countries are badly affected to different degrees. This article also outlines the difficulty in forming plausible predictions given that projections of future climate change produce weather draws that lie wholly outside historical experience. The results have fundamental implications for damage functions inside Integrated Assessment Models, and also explains the strong contrast between economics and the physical sciences when discussing severe climate change. Author: Timothy Neal, UNSW Australia Business School, School of Economics.

Words to live by . . . .

“It’s not that things are worse because it has warmed a couple degrees because of climate change. It’s a cumulative effect in that climate change is altering the landscape. You’re getting longer periods of the year when you get these fires. We’re literally burning the candle at both ends.” — Daniel Swain, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA.

By David Callaway

The 13 Worst Wildfires in American History

By
-
Source: David McNew / Getty Images News via Getty Images

Terrible wildfires burning in Canada this week have blanketed parts of the American Northeast, including New York City, in a thick haze. The smoke pollution is dangerous to breathe, containing particulates that can cause all kinds of serious health problems.

Wildfires have ravaged the United States for centuries, and many experts project they will only worsen along with climate change. In the nation’s history, fires have wreaked widespread destruction in major cities and in rural areas. 

Since 2000, an average of 70,072 wildfires a year have burned an average of 7.0 million acres. In the 1990s, the average acreage burned was less than half, at 3.3 million, though the average of annual wildfires was higher, at 78,600. In 2022, a reported 66,225 wildfires burned just over 7.5 million acres. (These are the most catastrophic fires and explosions in US history.)

To determine the worst wildfires in U.S. history, 24/7 Wall St. referenced historical data on wildfires within the United States. Wildfires are ranked by the size of these wildfires in total acreage.

Recent years have been especially destructive for the West Coast, but the worst wildfires in U.S. history are also mostly in the West, but also the Midwest and South. (This is how much of every state has burned in wildfires.)

Different parts of the country do not necessarily carry the same risk of experiencing a fire hazard. In fact, according to the NIFC, more wildfires occur in the East, which includes central states, but the wildfires in the West are larger and burn more acreage. 

Here’s a look at the 13 most destructive wildfires in US history:

How climate change will roll through capital markets – an early guide

By
-
Source: Maxiphoto / iStock via Getty Images

(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc. His climate columns have appeared in USA Today, The Independent, and New Thinking magazine).

SAN FRANCISCO (Callaway Climate Insights) — Jeff Gitterman calls it The Great Repricing.

That’s the shift in capital markets as the cost of global warming begins to mount in specific regions, such as the Canadian wildfires, Arizona water shortages, European heatwaves, or wildfire smoke over New York City or San Francisco. Gitterman, founder of Gitterman Asset Management in New Jersey, has long been a proponent of the idea that climate change will cause a dramatic shift in markets and how investors seek opportunity and hedge risk.

To date, a lot of the focus has been on opportunity. Electric vehicle makers. Battery storage startups. Surging solar and wind power. Carbon capture and removal. But lately, we’ve started to see the flip side. The decision by two of the nation’s largest insurers, State Farm and Allstate, to stop taking new homeowner business in California because of wildfire threats was a dramatic wake-up call last week that the cost of climate change will be shared by many, including businesses and investors.

“There are three trends converging at once,” Gitterman told me. Adaptation, innovation and regulation, or what he calls AIR. “They will impact wide parts of the capital markets; first being real estate values, second municipal bonds and mortgages, and then ultimately businesses where adaptation is costly or undertaken too slowly to offset risks of extreme heat, droughts and larger storms and flooding.”

Subscribe to Callaway Climate Insights to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

By David Callaway

50 Most Successful Small Businesses to Start in America

By
-
Source: vchal / iStock via Getty Images

The COVID-19 pandemic was a historically major shock to the U.S. economy, accelerating market trends by several years and adding an unprecedented level of uncertainty to the global business environment. But while COVID-19 destroyed opportunities for entrepreneurs across some industries, economic trends in other areas created new ones. And who knows, maybe some of the newest entrepreneurs will one day rank among the 25 richest Americans of all time.

To determine the fastest growing small business opportunities, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed data on business establishment growth by industry from the U.S. Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns program. Detailed industries were ranked based on the percentage change in establishments from 2017 to 2021. Only industries in which the average establishment size was less than 20 employees were considered. 

Many of the fastest growing business opportunities are in industries being shaped by changing consumer tastes. Shifts in preference towards small, locally-produced artisanal products, for example, have led to a boom in demand for small breweries, distilleries, and wineries. The increase in consumer demand has coincided with an easing of licensing requirements for businesses of this type in much of the country. The number of breweries, distilleries, and wineries in the U.S. grew 31.9% from 2017 to 2021, nearly 10 times the growth in establishments across all industries. (Unlike these small companies, these companies control over 50% of their industry.)

Other fast-growing businesses have benefited from social media marketing. Creative business owners have increasingly been able to showcase their work and share customer testimonials on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, helping to raise brand awareness and build reputation. This has led to a rapid increase in the number of establishments in businesses like nail salons, barbershops, and food trucks. The number of mobile food establishments in the U.S. rose 88.2% from 2017 to 2021, the largest increase of any small business industry.

Click here to see the 50 most successful small businesses to start in America.

Click here to see our detailed methodology.

Paris plastics treaty ensures only one outcome

By
-
Source: artisteer / iStock via Getty Images

In today’s edition:

— Five days in Paris: What’s the next step for cutting global plastic use?
— Auto dealerships face strange new world as EVs hit the market
— COP28 in Dubai will be a can’t-miss news event, with drama, wild predictions, and global politics. The only thing missing may be the climate problem.
— Nevada wants to be the ‘Silicon Valley of lithium,’ among everything else
— Global carbon levels are now 50% higher than at the start of the industrial era, after carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a new record of 424 parts per million

When I was a young foreign correspondent in the ‘90s in Europe covering the advent of the euro, a friend at a rival news outlet wrote about how investors looking to attend conferences on the new single currency could pretty much find one every single day one summer in some exotic European hotspot.

Today it’s climate conferences, with climate weeks in several cities and a steady calendar of government events around the world. This week it’s the pre-COP28 conference in Bonn. Last week the UN plastics conference in Paris. No shortage of fun places to discuss global warming. But a definite shortage of progress.

Many headlines were made of the plastics treaty in Paris last week, where nations came together and … pledged to write a future agreement. First drafts are due in Kenya in November, at the next big plastics conference. I suppose that’s progress but given the world’s problems with plastics, made from fossil fuels, from recycling to the waste in the oceans, it feels like a baby step at best.

Doug Woodring, founder of the Ocean Recovery Alliance, said the agreement to create a “Zero Draft” was a step forward. But as he wrote in a piece for Callaway Climate Insights last week, countries need to set their sights higher; more on creating a circular economy for plastics that involves reusing them rather than just recycling rules that many countries might not be equipped to meet.

Global diplomacy is a tricky and time-consuming practice. At least the advent of the euro had a deadline that these conferences could point to. For those seeking progress in plastics, all last week’s agreement guarantees is another long plane ride to another conference in another country, sometime soon.

Subscribe to Callaway Climate Insights to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

By David Callaway

20 States With the Biggest Risk of Flooding

By
-
Source: Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images

Among the major natural disasters, floods are the deadliest, and are the most common of all weather-related natural disasters in the United States. They kill more people each year than hurricanes, tornadoes, or lightning. Though they can happen almost anywhere, floods most often happen along rivers and coasts – and the likelihood of both types is rising in some parts of the country, apparently because of climate change.

NASA predicts that, due to global warming, hurricanes will increase in intensity. The more intense rainfall and stronger winds, combined with higher storm surge caused by rising seas, will likely increase flood risk for communities along the coast, NASA notes. Other common causes of flood such as heavy rain, snow melts, and storm surges are also greatly impacted by climate change. (Also see, the 18 separate billion dollar weather and climate disasters in 2022.)

Along rivers and streams, too, floods have generally become larger and more frequent in some parts of the country and decreased in others, coinciding with changing weather patterns. Floods have become larger across the Northeast and the Midwest and have increased in frequency in the Northeast, Pacific Northwest, and northern Great Plains, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

To find the states Americans should leave because of high flood risks, 24/7 Wall St. used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network to calculate the area of each state designated EPA Flood Hazard Area – areas that have a 1% annual chance of coastal or riverine flooding based on the 100-year flood zone – as of 2020. 

In Louisiana, where nearly 42% of the state is designated as at risk of flood, the EPA warns that in the coming decades, rising sea level is likely to accelerate coastal erosion caused today by sinking land and human activities. In fact, Louisiana has been losing about 25 square miles of land per year in recent decades. Much of New Orleans and other populated areas in the state are already below sea level and are protected by levees and pumping systems. With a higher sea level, these may be overtopped more often during storms. (See where New Orleans ranks on the worst cities to live as climate change gets worse.)

While in Florida, which is mostly susceptible to coastal flooding due to tropical storms, 32% of the state is designated special flood hazard area, millions of people live in areas at risk of flood. Miami-Dade County, in particular, has a high risk coastal flooding, but areas inland as well. Yet despite the risk of flood, development has been rapid and often sits on top of previous fields and marshes, an NPR analysis reveals.

Click here to see the 20 states with the highest risk of flooding.

Click here to read our detailed methodology.

U.S.-China climate relations restart with green shipping deal; plus, net-zero lawsuits begin

By
-
Source: Art Wager / Getty Images

(A native of England, veteran journalist Matthew Diebel has worked at NBC News, Time, USA Today and News Corp., among other organizations.)

A childhood memory, a current-day dream

When I was a boy, my father and I used to enjoy going up onto a fortress-topped hill near our vacation house on the Channel Island of Alderney and watching the ships go by. And there were many, because we were overlooking the southern shipping lane of the English Channel, the waters between France and England that form the busiest waterway in the world.

There were a few ocean liners, such as the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Elizabeth 2, which sailed by on their way to and from the U.S. But mostly it was large cargo boats and oil tankers making their way to ports such as London and Rotterdam.

And, boy, did they belch smoke. In fact, when the wind was headed our way, we could smell the acrid fumes from the heavy oil used to power their engines, emissions that make up about 3% of the world’s total.

Long an ignored and/or overlooked contributor to carbon pollution, the shipping sector is now getting more focus, though the efforts are still somewhat hampered by complex multi-national maritime laws that must go through many hurdles to be changed. However, one initiative has emerged which shows promise in making changes…

Subscribe to Callaway Climate Insights to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

By David Callaway

US Cities Where Hurricanes Would Cause the Most Damage

By
-
Source: GCShutter / E+ via Getty Images

The Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1, with the U.S. National Oceanic and Administration projecting an “near-normal” one. But even an average hurricane season can be highly destructive and catastrophic. 

Hurricanes that threaten the United States form in the North Atlantic Basin and pose a perennial risk to communities along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. According to a recent report from CoreLogic — a property information, analytics, and data provider — nearly 8 million single-family homes are at risk of storm surge damage from hurricanes, and over 31 million homes are at risk of damage from hurricane winds nationwide. These risks are disproportionately shouldered by metropolitan areas along the Eastern Seaboard and along the Gulf of Mexico.

Using data from CoreLogic’s 2021 Hurricane Report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 15 cities where hurricanes would cause the most damage. Metro areas are ranked by the number of single-family homes at risk of storm surge damage. 

Over one third of the metro areas on this list are located in Florida. Another three are in Louisiana, and two are located in the Northeastern United States. Each of these places has faced the threat of major hurricane damage in recent decades — some have narrowly dodged the worst devastation, while others, like New Orleans in 2005, have not been so lucky. Here is a look at the before and after pictures of the worst hurricanes in American history. 

Click here to see the US cities where hurricanes would cause the most damage

To determine the cities where hurricanes could cause the most damage, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed data on hurricane risk in metropolitan areas along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts from CoreLogic’s 2021 Hurricane Report. CoreLogic is a property information, analytics, and data provider. Metropolitan areas were ranked based on the number of single-family residential structures less than four stories at moderate or greater risk of damage from storm surge flooding in the 2021 hurricane season. Supplemental data on the estimated reconstruction cost value of the at-risk homes also came from CoreLogic and includes the cost of materials, equipment, and labor that would result from reconstruction of these homes after 100% destruction. Data on population for each metro area came from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey and are one-year estimates.

A silver lining in the failure of climate resolutions at the oil giants

By
-
Source: zodebala / iStock Unreleased via Getty Images

The failure of shareholder climate resolutions designed to reduce pollution from the oil giants in the U.S. and Europe in the past two weeks has left climate activists depressed and slowed any momentum on Wall Street — if there really ever was any — to push for a faster energy transition away from fossil fuels.

But behind the headlines of weak climate votes at Exxon $XOM , Chevron $CVX , Shell $SHEL and BP $BP , the transition is quietly picking up speed. Exxon announced a deal with steel company Nucor $NUE this week to capture up to 800,000 tons of carbon from one of its steel plants — the third big carbon capture deal for Exxon since October and the fourth big deal in the industry in the past few weeks.

The oil giants are also increasingly adding renewable power to their arsenals, even as they continue producing oil at a reckless pace. Shell announced plans this week to buy 12 solar projects in Spain to boost its solar power business.

These may be small deals now, but they will pile up and grow larger over time. At some point, an oil giant will buy a major wind company or solar company, and these small deals will start to make sense. At the same time, the nascent carbon capture industry will shift to the oil companies, just as the electric vehicle business is beginning to shift to the major automakers.

Shareholders of these oil companies have clearly voted in favor of profit and more drilling — even as oil prices fall this year. But just like the tech companies, the search is always on for the next major revenue stream. And it’s not going to be oil much longer.

Why Latin America is unlikely to form an OPEC-like cartel for lithium

. . . . Hoping to ride the wave of its massive lithium deposits as the mineral is sought after for use in electric vehicle batteries, Chile announced plans last month to nationalize its lithium mines, and even floated the idea of a lithium cartel with neighboring Bolivia and Argentina. But our Latin America correspondent Mike Molinski doubts that lithium can become the successful product that drove oil producers to create OPEC, or that the three countries have stable political economies enough to compete with other big lithium producers such as China and Australia. . . .

Read the full column

Thursday’s subscriber insights

Climate change causing more deaths on Mount Everest

. . . . . As many as 17 people have died this year attempting to climb Mount Everest, and Nepal’s head of tourism says variable weather and climate change are part of the reason this will be one of the deadliest years on record. Read more. . . .

Lucid shares fall 15% as Saudi rescue seen on hold

. . . . Shares of Lucid Motors, which have been in a freefall since February, plunged another 15% on Thursday after the electric vehicle maker raised $3 billion in a stock offering, which included a private placement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The $1.8 billion placement kept the Saudi fund’s holdings in Lucid $LCID at just over 60%, disappointing investors who had hoped earlier this year that the fund would simply take over the struggling company.

Lucid has plenty of runway left, more than $3 billion in cash and credit lines. It has said production of its sleek new EVs is increasing, so this will be a pivotal year. EV demand is growing, but the smaller EV makers such as Lucid face enormous production obstacles in competing with the likes of Ford Motor $F and Tesla $TSLA .

An eventual Saudi takeover of the company, or brokering of a deal to a larger automaker, looks likely. But investors brave enough to hold on will have to wait a little bit longer. . . .

Making energy from the Earth’s humidity, like lightning, under study

. . . . An exciting new possibility for the generation of green power is the possibility of harvesting electricity from the Earth’s humidity. It is already proven to a certain extent in lightning strikes; now scientists are trying to figure out how to plug into what could be a vast natural resource that is constant (unlike wind and sunlight). Read more here. . . .

EU votes to require climate reporting, transition plans from large companies

. . . . The European Parliament formally voted Thursday on a law to require climate disclosure reporting from the largest companies, including so-called Scope 3 reporting of their emissions of their supply chains. The law, a long time in coming, also will require companies to detail their transition plans to renewable energy.

The vote, which was expected to pass by a large margin, puts Europe firmly ahead of a divided U.S. on climate reporting and transition. Because so many large U.S. companies already compile and report similar information to comply with European regulations, the move to this type of reporting will inevitably come to the U.S. as well, though not without a messy political circus about climate change beforehand. . . .

Editor’s picks: PG&E fire settlement; EU’s ‘hydrogen bank’ to spur development

PG&E settles in fatal fire lawsuit

During a windstorm in late September of 2020, a gray pine fell on a power line in Northern California’s Shasta County. The resulting fire killed four people, destroyed more than 200 buildings and blazed through 56,000 acres. Blame for the Zogg fire, as it was called, was placed at the feet of the state’s beleaguered utility, Pacific Gas & Electric $PCG — which has faced numerous other civil and criminal complaints in recent years, most alleging the company didn’t properly maintain equipment and vegetation. This week, a Shasta County judge dismissed criminal charges against PG&E for its role in the Zogg fire. The tentative court order found no evidence the company’s inspections fell below industry standards. However, PG&E will pay $50 million in a related civil settlement; $45 million will go to nonprofits and other local support organizations. Another $5 million will go to Shasta County. This deal follows a settlement PG&E made with California’s Public Utilities Commission two weeks ago related to the Zogg fire. The utility agreed to pay a total of $150 million in that case — $10 million will be paid as a penalty to California’s General Fund, and $140 million in shareholder funds will be invested for new wildfire mitigation initiatives designed to cut fire risk. PG&E will also implement several new vegetation management systems in high fire risk areas, according to the CPUC.

EU plans ‘market maker’ hydrogen funding auctions

The European Commission and the region’s hydrogen developers are getting ready for the first funding auction later this year, in a move to help achieve production targets by the end of the decade. According to a post for S&P Global Market Intelligence, the EC has created the European Hydrogen Bank, “designed to bridge and lower the cost gap between renewable hydrogen and fossil fuels for early projects, with producers competing for a fixed price per kilogram of hydrogen for a maximum of 10 years.” The goal is to reach 10 million metric tons of domestic green hydrogen per year by 2030, as well as another 10 MMt/y of imports. According to the S&P report, the first auction, backed by €800 million from the EU and its member states, is scheduled for later this year but will need to be followed by larger auctions if the EU’s hydrogen targets are to be met.

Explain that: Seeing REDD

. . . . Avoiding deforestation is one way to mitigate emissions and encourage sustainable development. REDD+ stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and it’s part of an “effort to create financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development,” according to the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change. “REDD+ goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. The concept was first introduced in 2005 in the 11th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Montreal and later given greater recognition in the 13th Session of the COP in 2007 at Bali and inclusion in the Bali Action Plan, which called for ‘policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD) and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stock in developing countries.’” Since then, support for REDD has increased and has slowly become a framework for action. Read more in the IPCC glossary. . . .

Words to live by . . . .

We can produce imagery to share the beauty of the oceans and what is there to protect. We can also expose the truths about overharvest, climate change, and habitat loss to give oceans a voice. — Photographer David Doubilet.

By David Callaway

123...60Page 1 of 60

Popular Posts

© 2023 24/7 Wall St. and Callaway Climate Insights