In today’s edition:

⚡️ Whitehouse reforms for new energy projects

🚜 Carbon soil sequestration on shaky ground

🌳 Food companies worried about deforestation laws

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⚡️ Energy (1-minute read)

Remix to Transmission’ Hot and Fresh Out the White House Kitchen

The Problem: White House climate adviser John Podesta told reporters that the US needs 60% more high-voltage transmission by 2030, to keep on track to meeting Biden’s clean energy and infrastructure goals. But the permitting process for clean energy infrastructure, including transmission, is currently plagued by delays and bottlenecks (right now, it’s often easier to permit fossil fuel infrastructure than clean energy infrastructure)

What’s New: The White House on Friday proposed reforms to the environmental review process for new energy projects that would help speed up permitting for electric transmission and encourage more streamlined processes.

Details: The proposal would encourage more "programmatic" environmental reviews of multiple projects rather than individual reviews and a streamlined process. It would also limit the need for environmental reviews for projects federal agencies deem significant and long-lasting positive impacts.

🚜 AgriTech (1-minute read)

Company paying farmers to trap carbon in their soils could be on shaky ground

Headline: Boston-based company, Indigo, is paying farmers in the US to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Indigo then sells the sequestered carbon to companies, like IBM and JPMorgan Chase, in the form of carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Details: Farmers sequester this carbon by adopting regenerative practices (incl. using cover crops, reduced tillage, and rotating crops), which increase organic matter in the soil leading to more carbon storage in the form of soil organic carbon.

Scepticism: Researchers criticise the effectiveness of soil carbon capture programs, especially the model companies like Indigo use to predict the total carbon sequestered by farmers, citing uncertainties in measuring soil carbon gains and losses

The bigger picture: Soil-based carbon capture could offset 5-15% of global GHG emissions, while the soil carbon market could be worth $50bn by 2030. To succeed, Indigo and other soil carbon capture programmes need more than the blessing of researchers. They also need thousands of farmers to rethink practices that go back generations.

🌳 Nature (1-minute read)

Chocolate and coffee makers brew concerns over deforestation law

What happened: Chocolate and coffee makers, including Italy's Lavazza and Cadbury-maker Mondelez, are concerned about the "practicalities" of a new European Union law to stop deforestation.

Details: The pushback follows the law, which is expected at the end of 2024. Importers of coffee, cocoa, beef, soy, rubber and palm oil must prove their supply chains aren't contributing to the destruction of forests, a cause of climate change, or be fined up to 4% of their turnover in the bloc.

Pushback:

Elsewhere in the Amazon: Not only has deforestation dropped by 34% in Brazil under the current government, but President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has made an ambitious pledge to end illegal deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 2030.

💭 Little Bytes

Quote: “There is a distressingly growing gap between the level of greenhouse gas reductions the world needs to achieve in order to meet its temperature targets and the actions that governments are actually taking to lower emissions.” Colombia University’s Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law faculty director Michael Gerrard

Stat: 43% of plastics manufactured this year will end up as pollution — Earth Action (EA).

Watch: A startup that’s making recycling household batteries easier

🗞 In other news…

🎣 Gone Phishing

Three of these stories are true, one we've made up. Guess which:

🌞 Climate meme of the week

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