Crypto News: What Harris could do on climate

Today's newsletter looks at the still-amorphous climate agenda of Kamala Harris and how it might solidify if she wins the US presidency. The full version of this story is on Bloomberg.com. For more coverage of the politics of climate change, please subscribe.

By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter

Kamala Harris hasn't laid out a detailed vision for addressing climate change and energy if she's elected president — but she's already getting plenty of advice.

Environmentalists and former advisers have outlined their prescriptions for ways a victorious Harris could build on Biden-era climate initiatives — including the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act — to drive more US clean energy deployment and winnow planet-warming pollution worldwide. And some activists are pushing a harder line, developing blueprints for Harris to stanch flows of US oil and gas if the Democrat prevails over Republican Donald Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on the Biden administration's investments in climate action at Naomi Drenan Recreational Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on April 4, 2024. Photographer: Allison Joyce/Getty Images

The lobbying portends an agenda that could be a tailwind for clean energy technology companies and renewable project developers — as well as a hindrance to fossil fuel interests.

Here's a closer look at three areas where climate advocates see room for major action from a Harris White House.

If Harris is elected but Republicans have control of any part of Congress, she'll have far less room to maneuver. But if Democrats win a trifecta, that could present an opportunity to expand the IRA's domestic energy manufacturing incentives, potentially reaching further up the supply chains for solar panels and other technology.

Lawmakers could also work with Harris to expand tax rebates tied to the installation of heat pumps and other equipment. The rebate money provided by the IRA is "a small fragment of what we need," said Leah Stokes, an environmental politics professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Environmentalists are encouraging Congress to revive some proposals that didn't make it into the IRA the first time around. One contender: a so-called Clean Electricity Performance Program that would have used grant money to entice electric utilities to hit annual targets for emission-free power generation while hitting the laggards with fees.

An IRA 2.0 could open a window for factoring carbon intensity into trade policy — an approach that offers a competitive advantage to US exports made with a smaller environmental footprint than their foreign rivals.

One unfinished policy task that Harris would inherit from Biden is reducing pollution from the industrial sector, which is responsible for about a quarter of US greenhouse gas emissions today. Further investments in decarbonizing heavy industry could be paired with new regulatory limits on emissions from steel mills, concrete plants and other facilities.

The Biden administration already imposed limits on greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's coal power plants. But the Environmental Protection Agency is still working to develop a rule targeting the nation's existing fleet of gas-fired power plants, which may be summoned into more service to meet a surge in demand tied to manufacturing and artificial intelligence. That regulation won't even be proposed before Inauguration Day, adding to the to-do list that could await Harris.

Environmental activists are drafting blueprints for Harris to take a more aggressive stance clamping down on fossil fuels. Top targets include limiting liquefied natural gas exports and shutting down Energy Transfer LP's Dakota Access Pipeline.

A President Harris would face the same political sensitivities around the cost of gasoline that have stymied similar efforts to restrict supply. And on the campaign trail, she's taken pains to highlight surging US oil and gas production that's hit record levels under her and Biden's watch.

Still, if she wins, activists have made their expectations clear.

"We need more than platitudes," said Collin Rees, with Oil Change International. "We're looking for specific pledges," he said, "and a clear plan to phase out fossil fuel production and end environmental injustice."

Read the full story on Bloomberg.com.

11.3

This is how many gigawatts of offshore wind power capacity are pending approval before the Interior Department. A Trump win would certainly put these offshore wind projects at risk.

"Republicans will be reluctant to tear out the IRA root and branch. There will be a lot of projects in Republican districts they do not want to uproot."

James Lucier

Managing director at research group Capital Alpha Partners

Trump has promised to redirect climate funding under the Inflation Reduction Act. But scrapping the measure and its subsidies for clean energy could prove politically difficult, even if Trump triumphs and Republicans gain control of the House and keep the Senate.

Grammy-award-nominated musician and award-winning farmer are careers that aren't typically synonymous. But Andy Cato straddles that line. He does around 40 gigs a year as half of DJ duo Groove Armada, but he's also a farmer who was knighted in France and is one of the UK's most prominent voices calling for an overhaul of how the world produces its food.

Over the past six years, he built a network of more than 100 farmers in the UK and France to grow wheat using regenerative farming methods. He's also convinced some of the UK's biggest retailers and restaurant chains to pay a premium for the flour and bread made from the wheat, known under the brand Wildfarmed.

Regenerative agriculture has been hailed as a climate solution for farming — one that makes crops and soil more resilient to weather shocks, while helping protect soil, water and biodiversity. While the practice so far has been niche, the need for increasing adoption of it is growing as modern industrial farming brings an increasing cost to nature.

Groove Armada's Andy Cato at his farm in Oxfordshire, UK. Photographer: Tom Skipp/Bloomberg

Study raise new concerns on gas stoves. Nearly 40,000 early deaths each year in the EU and UK can be linked to exposure to nitrogen dioxide from burning gas for cooking indoors, a paper by scientists at Jaume I University in Spain has found, the first such estimate for Europe.

World is drastically off course on emissions cuts. Total emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2030 will only be 2.6% lower than in 2019, according to the latest climate plans put forward by countries, a UN report said. To be consistent with a goal for a 1.5C warming limit, emissions have to fall by 43% over the same time period.

Green muni bonds are growing in India. Cities like Surat, Pimpri Chinchwad and Coimbatore are preparing to issue their first green bonds to fund climate projects — ranging from wind and solar installations to sewage water treatment plants.

Marine biologist and writer Ayana Elizabeth Johnson wants voters to remember a simple message this year: Local elections matter to the climate too.

What If We Get It Right? is her new anthology of essays, poetry, art and interviews with climate business, policy and scientific leaders. It's a wide-ranging and personal introduction to a coterie of experts she picked to show off what a possible climate future can look like.

Johnson, who worked in federal agencies under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, spoke with reporter Eric Roston about what she's learned while writing and promoting her book.

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Photographer: Julia Kokernak

What concerns have you heard from people on your book tour?

There are so many people who are not only despondent, but they feel bad that they're not hopeful. People assume I'm an optimist, which I find to be hilarious, because… I'm a scientist! Instead of being an optimist — or instead of even being hopeful — I'm just like, 'How can I be useful?' I've been thinking a lot about the Civil Rights Movement, and this one particular line from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: "I may not get there with you." We do not get to give up on the future of life on Earth for ourselves or the millions of other species we share this planet with.

One question not enough? Read the full interview.

As Republican and Democratic canvassers make their final push to get out the US vote, the famed tech investor Vinod Khosla has been making the case for Vice President Kamala Harris with a very specific audience in mind: Elon Musk. On the social media platform owned by his fellow billionaire, Khosla has pressed the case in a series of X posts that former President Donald Trump is the wrong candidate for the future of the planet. Although Khosla is a former Republican, he says in an interview that he will be voting for Harris. But he doesn't expect tech investors to see much fallout no matter who wins. "I don't think there'll be any difference in policy between the two when it comes to tech."

Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.

Hyperdrive for expert insight into the future of cars
Energy Daily for a daily guide to the energy and commodities markets that power the global economy
CityLab Daily for top urban stories and ideas, curated for your inbox by CityLab editors
Tech Daily for what to know in tech

Explore all Bloomberg newsletters at Bloomberg.com.