• Green Finance

A Climate Change Two-Fer: Big Climate-Focused Jobs Package And Kerry Goes to India and the UAE

• Build Back Better
• climate resilience
• electric grid
• EVs
• green infrastructure
• Infrastructure
• resilience
• transportation

Today the Biden administration unveils its American Jobs Plan and it is chock full of actions that will create jobs and address climate change and environmental justice issues.  At the same time, the Wall Street Journal reported last night that Presidential Climate Envoy Kerry is traveling later this week to the United Arab Emirates and then on to India.

Why This Matters:  Climate policy is central to both the Biden foreign and domestic agendas.

• Green Finance

Banks Poured $3.8B Into Fossil Fuel Companies Since Paris Agreement

by Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer A new report, published Wednesday found that the world’s largest commercial and investment banks have altogether put $3.8 trillion into fossil fuels from 2016 to 2020. This report — a collaboration between the Rainforest Action Network, Bank Track, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, and Sierra Club […]

• Green Finance

Big Build Back Better

• carbon pollution
• clean energy
• climate change
• earmarks
• Infrastructure
• roads

To make good on its Build Back Better promise, the Biden administration is considering a very big infrastructure bill — spending could be as much as $300 billion a year for 10 years or $3 trillion total — with much of it going to update energy infrastructure to make it “cleaner” and also for the energy grid, roads, bridges, and water pipes and sewer upgrades to make them safer and more climate-resilient, several major media outlets are reporting.

Why This Matters:  Americans, according to recent polling by Yale University’s climate communications project, overwhelmingly want to see Congress and the administration take bold action on climate change.

• Green Finance

UN Recognizes GDP Alone Doesn’t Measure Economic Wellbeing

• 30 by 30
• natural capital
• nature

Protecting nature and maximizing the capacity of land and water to sequester carbon is one of the best tools to help fight global climate change. Yet many of Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems are in serious jeopardy: for example, a first-of-its-kind study from Frontiers in Forests and Global Change revealed that the Amazon rainforest emits more […]

• Climate Change
• Green Finance

BlackRock’s Message to Companies: Adapt or Die

• BlackRock
• carbon footprint
• climate change
• net zero
• Paris Agreement

On Tuesday, the CEO of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset management company, announced in his yearly letter to his clients that they must layout comprehensive game plans to survive in a net-zero world.

Why This Matters: A 2020 report from portfolio.earth found that the world’s largest investment firms and banks are investing trillions each year into operations that damage the environment and threaten biodiversity.

• Green Finance

EJ Bills Introduced In Congress Now Set the Stage For Next Year

• communities of color
• Cory Booker
• Environmental Justice
• indigenous communities
• Kamala Harris
• low income communities
• pollution
• Tammy Duckworth

Environmental Justice legislation is getting lots of attention this year as numerous bills are pending in Congress on a topic that, until now, barely received attention. Yesterday, Senator Cory Booker and Representative Deb Haaland rolled out a bill that would put $100 billion dollars toward eliminating pollution that has disproportionately harmed communities of color.

Why This Matters:  Lisa Friedman of  The New York Times wrote last month that by putting Senator Harris on the ticket with him, Vice President Biden signaled that environmental justice will be high on their agenda.