Ethiopia bans ICE vehicle imports in EV adoption push. “Ethiopia recently announced the country will ban imports of non-electric vehicles, making it the first country in the world to explicitly ban the entry of fuel vehicles, Kallanish learns.”
(🎩stonykill) Kallanish, paywalled
I broke through the paywall in the most common way—control-a Select all, control-c Copy.
Alemu Sime, Ethiopia’s Minister of Transport and Logistics confirmed this decision when presenting a six-month report to the Urban Development and Transport Standing Committee in the House of People’s Representatives (Ethiopian Parliament) on 29 January.
This will save billions of dollars in fuel imports.
Electrek’s Take
Liked by 60 people
Ethiopian here. Main reason for this is the fact that it's currently struggling with a severe foreign exchange shortage, affecting its ability to import oil and other commodities. Aside from this surprising announcement, lack of foreign currency has also led to a significant push towards enhancing its agricultural productivity and boosting its local production of light manufactured goods.
I imagine the drive towards going 100% electric is largely motivated by this, but not entirely. Ethiopia has been investing massive amounts on its energy infrastructure for the past 20 years (97% of its energy comes from renewables). It's just about to inaugurate its 6500MW hydroelectric plant, poised to be the largest in Africa.
So you, out there reading this, buy Ethiopian coffee. That’s where coffee came from in the first place.
Anyway, who will be next to go all in on EVs? Norway is close behind, but everybody else has been listening to too many denialists, and putting it off for years or decades.
Coffee
The best of the best, for you, the economy, and the environment, is Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, mountain-grown, organic, Fair Trade, shade grown/bird friendly, not too dark a roast.
Volcanica: Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee - USDA Organic
Krogers has overpriced Private Selection® Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Light Roast Whole Bean Coffee, at $9.99 for 12 oz.
I get my green Yirgacheffe beans from Sweet Maria’s, but they don’t have any in stock right now.
EVs
Note that covid disruption took a big notch out of that curve, but it is back on the earlier exponential path.
Ethiopia to ban importation of fuel-powered cars to focus on green mobility
The government is said to have also implemented electric car exemptions for value-added tax (VAT), excise tax, and surtaxes in 2022, highlighting its readiness and commitment to the policy.
Many in Ethiopia are seeing this move by the government as part of its green initiatives as contained in the parliament-approved Ten Years Development Plan of Ethiopia (2021-2030) to bring at least 152,800 electric vehicles into the country by 2030.
Ethiopia reportedly has about 7,200 EVs out of 1.2 million cars plying its roads.
The developing news leaves many unanswered questions. For example, it is not clear when the new prohibition policy will take effect or whether it will affect fossil-powered vehicles already in transit from overseas.
Nigeria signs MOU with foreign partners to manufacture electric vehicles, but local manufacturers say the country may not be ready for EVs
Yes, we know about the naysayers.
- OX Delivers, an e-mobility transport service company based in the UK, has received a £1.2 million ($1.5 million) grant from Energy Catalyst, an Innovate UK programme, to help it roll out all-electric OX4 trucks in Rwanda and expand in the global South.
- It intends to build the OX4 truck in March 2024 and deliver it for assembly in local markets. A 20-person design, engineering, and production team is finalising the OX4 truck at the company's headquarters in the United Kingdom.
- Additionally, OX Delivers is looking to expand to the South globally, starting with Africa.
Consumer Reports: Hot, New Electric Cars That Are Coming Soon
Two dozen models intended to be delivered in the US this year, most of them previously seen in earlier versions and prototypes. One from Vietnam, none from China.
Agriculture
White House to back tougher rules for ethanol
President Joe Biden's administration is poised to announce an adjustment to its scientific modeling for ethanol
The adjustment is intended to more accurately account for the environmental damage caused when land is converted into farms to grow corn, while also rewarding climate smart farming techniques like no-till farming and covered crops
The adjustment will make it more difficult for ethanol producers to take part in lucrative new U.S. tax credits
Renewables and Storage
9 African climate startups get $1.8 million in investment from Catalyst Fund
The nine startups are Mazao Hub and Medikea (Tanzania), Earthbond, Zebra Cropbank and Scrapays (Nigeria), Keep It Cool (Kenya), NoorNation (Egypt), Thola (South Africa), and Tolbi (Senegal).
Our Usual Sources
I don’t have room to mine all of them today. Isn’t that a great problem to have?
ACORE
U.S. Energy Storage Market Primed for Growth
The U.S. energy storage market is prepared to skyrocket within the next decade to support the clean energy transition, with analysts projecting cumulative capacity to increase by more than tenfold by the end of 2030. The Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) tax credits for energy storage have significantly accelerated growth projections for both standalone and hybrid energy projects. Furthermore, state decarbonization targets, expanding corporate demand, and declining costs will continue to fuel growth.
Canary Media
Heat pumps outsold gas furnaces last year, and the gap is growing
A [$]245 million bid to pull clean hydrogen from the ground
EDF and Google partner to map global methane emissions from space
The Guardian: The UK’s climate choir movement is growing
“The climate’s changing, what are we doing?” the 40-strong choir sings, to the tune of a Zimbabwean traditional song.
Carbon Brief
Interview: Why global support for climate action is ‘systematically underestimated’
It finds that 86% of people “support pro-climate social norms” and 89% would like their governments to do more to tackle warming. Moreover, 69% say they would be willing to contribute 1% of their income to addressing climate change.
Yet respondents also “systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act”, according to the paper, creating a potentially challenging “perception gap”.
From DK
Our community is picking up the pace, even as the entire world has.
Earth Matters, by Meteor Blades
Due to circumstances beyond my control, Earth Matters and the Weekly Spotlight on Climate & Eco-diaries will not appear today or Sunday, Feb. 25, but will return on March 3.
Here is a video to fill the space.
Green transition progressing in Denmark
in the mid-1990s, the government set a more ambitious goal for wind to provide 50% of domestic electricity consumption, and to achieve that, they pioneered the development of off-shore wind: turbines installed in shallow seas, which can exploit stronger & more stable winds than on land.
As in Germany, deployment was temporarily throttled by right-wing governments.
The original 50% target for wind has finally been reached and even exceeded in the last two years.
Something else happened in recent years: a rapid expansion of solar power.
Good News Roundup for Tuesday, February 13, 2024 — Laissez les bon temps rouler!, by arhpdx
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How our drinking water could come from thin air
This is a truly innovative solution to a very challenging problem.
From BBC:
Southern Nevada is in the grip of one of the worst droughts it has experienced in recorded history, leading to water shortages and restrictions on use. So, in water-stressed areas such as this, the prospect of wringing water from thin air is an appealing prospect. And it is exactly what Cody Friesen is trying to do. Friesen, an associate professor of materials science at Arizona State University, has developed a solar-powered hydropanel that can absorb water vapour at high volumes when exposed to sunlight.
It is a modern-day twist on an approach been used for centuries to pull water from the atmosphere, such as using trees or nets to "catch" fog in Peru, a practice that dates back to the 1500s and is still being used today. Amid the flashy transparent televisions and electric vehicles at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, there were a few start-ups claiming to have new ways of exploiting this ancient, and often overlooked source of clean drinking water. And with the help of artificial intelligence, they're finding ways of pulling even more water out of the air.
Friesen founded his own company Zero Mass Water in 2014 following his research on solar-powered hydropanels. Today the company is called Source Global, operates in more than 50 countries and has a private valuation of more than $1bn (£800m). The panels work by using sunlight to power fans that pull air into the device, which contains a desiccant material which absorbs and traps moisture. The water molecules accumulate and are emitted as water vapour as the solar energy raises the temperature of the panel to create a high-humidity gas. This then condenses into a liquid before minerals are added to make it drinkable. ✂️
Friesen's goal is to democratise access to water for people with few options, such as rural and tribal communities that don't have electricity, and regions devastated by natural disasters. Among Source's customers is a sub-Saharan school in Africa where girls once had to trek for hours a day to find fresh water, and now can spend their time learning instead.
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[Oregon] Treasurer Tobias Read Will Ask Investment Council to Approve Fossil-Fuel Divestment Plan
The trend toward fossil fuel divestment is growing, and it’s an effective strategy.
From Willamette Week:
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read [presented his plan] for reducing the emissions intensity of his agency’s investments to the Oregon Investment Council on Feb. 6.
In a new report, Read has outlined a plan to cut the investment portfolio’s emissions intensity—a measurement of tons of CO2 emissions per million dollars of assets under management—by 60% by 2035 and to net zero by 2050.
Working with consultants, the Oregon State Treasury used the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund portfolio in 2022 as the baseline for reductions. That portfolio was worth $91.9 billion but reduced for some investments that are short term or over which the treasury has insufficient control to mandate changes. That left a value of $73.2 billion, or 80% of the treasury’s total holdings, that are subject to the emissions reduction pledge.
The agency established emission reduction goals that parallels those planned by other large pension funds in California, New York and Canada, and come in response to international agreements to combat climate change. ✂️
It plans to do so through a combination of strategies. Broadly speaking, those will include investing in companies that have net zero plans of their own, increasing investments in green energy, and reducing investments or not investing in companies that generate emissions.
- FEMA to compensate schools, hospitals for adding solar panels after disasters
This is a terrific win-win for communities destroyed by natural disasters and for the Biden administration’s ambitious goals to increase renewable energy.
From The Hill:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will compensate local and state governments for energy efficiency upgrades to school and hospital facilities in the wake of natural disasters, the agency announced [on January 30th].
Under the new policy, FEMA’s Public Assistance grant program will offer funding for net-zero energy installations including solar panels and heat pumps for public facilities damaged by extreme weather and other disasters.
The Biden administration has set ambitious goals for the proliferation of renewable and net-zero energy. The announcement also comes as natural disasters, many of them intensified by climate change, have become more numerous and expensive. Last year, the U.S. experienced a record 28 disasters with damages of at least $1 billion, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). More than 80 disasters have been declared across FEMA’s 10 regions in January. ✂️
FEMA’s Tuesday announcement comes a week after the agency announced it would expand aid eligibility for those affected by natural disasters, pointing to the increasingly visible effects of climate change. That rule expands eligibility for immediate cash assistance as well as establishing a new “displacement assistance” fund for people unable to return to their homes in the immediate wake of a disaster.
This new tool will help you plan your home electrification journey
The personal electrification planner is designed to help millions of U.S. homeowners ditch fossil fuels, a move needed to help the country hit its target of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Subsidizing Transits make them more efficient
Metro areas that received more government subsidies per capita were more likely to run buses and trains with lots of passengers on board
Before we consider the future of our climate, let’s get some perspective. Here’s a not unimportant consideration should you contemplate having a baby: What are its chances of dying? Fifty years ago, in 1973, the global child mortality rate was three-and-a-half times higher than today (three times, even in the U.S.), and in 1923, it was almost nine times higher. The distant past was even worse. For all of human history up until the Industrial Revolution, at least three in 10 children died before reaching their fifth birthday. In the past half-century, extreme poverty has also been slashed, for the first time in history: While nine out of 10 people were extremely poor before the Industrial Revolution, today the proportions are inverted: Fewer than one in 10 falls below the absolute poverty level. In almost every respect, the world is a much better place to be born right now than at any previous time in history.
So far, so good. But of course, all of this still leaves open the possibility that our hard-won progress will soon be swept away by catastrophic global warming. Progress is not something that is mandated by the laws of nature, and there is no guarantee that it will continue indefinitely in the future. And yet, such a catastrophe is extremely unlikely. In fact, it is doubtful whether any of our recent victories over poverty and child mortality will be lost again, let alone slide back to the levels of 1973 or 1923. The opening line of David Wallace-Wells’ “The Uninhabitable Earth,” the most-read essay in the history of New York magazine, reads as follows: “It is, I promise, worse than you think” (in his subsequent book, he ups the ante, writing that it’s “worse, much worse” than you think). However, if you’re like most people—eight in 10 consider climate change a “catastrophic risk”—the reality about global warming is in fact much better than you think. If you have consumed an unhealthy dose of doom porn about the climate, you have likely ended up with a view of the future that is much more bleak and terrifying than what is scientifically plausible. In fact, I hope to convince you that this the greatest time in human history to be born. We ought to face the future with abundant optimism—thanks to science and human ingenuity.
Swell Energy, a California-based installer and financier of distributed energy storage, has acquired Renu Energy Solutions, a regional installer covering the Carolinas and Georgia, for an undisclosed sum.
Swell’s business relies on tying together hundreds or thousands of home batteries into an aggregate virtual power plant, or VPP, which can be used by utilities to bolster the grid; homeowners who agree to participate can earn compensation. The addition of Renu gives Swell more rooftops and batteries to work with, as well as an installer network that extends beyond California, currently the biggest solar-plus-storage market.
limate activists had planned to spend this week blocking the entrance to the U.S. Department of Energy’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. During a three-day sit-in, demonstrators were prepared to risk arrest while demanding that the Biden administration stop Calcasieu Pass 2, a massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal planned in Louisiana. Opponents say the nation’s rapid buildout of LNG infrastructure threatens the planet’s climate and the communities living near the heavily polluting facilities.
The sit-in, however, never happened.
On January 26, the Biden administration said it is temporarily pausing its decision on whether to approve permits for Calcasieu Pass 2, known as CP2, and other LNG projects until the Department of Energy can more thoroughly assess their impacts on climate change and the American public. The would-be protestors claimed the announcement as an early victory.
“The best [civil-disobedience] actions are the actions you don’t have to do,” Bill McKibben, a writer and climate activist, said on a press call held later that day. Still, he added, “That doesn’t mean there isn’t all kinds of appetite for doing this kind of thing when we need to going forward.”
EU Fossil CO2 emissions lowest in 60 years
- EU countries reduced their carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels by 8 percent in 2023 compared to 2022.
- More than half of the reduction in emissions came from the use of cleaner electricity.
- The EU built a record amount of solar panels and wind turbines in 2023.
The Rising Tide case demonstrates the effectiveness of contesting charges in gaining institutional support for nonviolent climate protest. Yet, as long as anti-protest laws exist, activists like Adrian Birragubba, Colette Harmsen, and Andrew George — who faced bankruptcy, jail and maximum-security prison respectively for their protests — remain vulnerable. These cases highlight the limits of relying on judicial goodwill against governmental repression through legislation.
Despite these challenges, the climate movement has various strategies to resist the criminalization of nonviolent disruptive protest. In order to do so however, it is important to understand the ways in which law enforcement repress climate activism.
Considering Australia was on fire for an entire year (Like literally, the entire country) I think people there deserve to be pissed about the climate. And also boo on anti protesting laws.
This years Super Bowl will be the most climate friendly yet
That’s a lot of power, no matter how you look at it, and the NFL, which is nothing if not quite mindful of its image, has recently rebranded itself as a champion of sustainability. Over the past few years, it has initiated waste-reduction programs, and 23 percent of professional sports stadiums in the U.S. are powered by solar energy in some way. Yet even by that measure, the league is touting this year’s Super Bowl, featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, as the greenest yet because it will be powered entirely by renewables. The company’s sustainability arm, NFL Green, works with each year’s host city to offset other emissions through community gardens and tree plantings.
“We work to leave a positive ‘green legacy’ in the communities that host our events and tailor our greening projects to the needs of each community,” NFL Green associate director Susan Groh told Forbes.
The Las Vegas Raiders, which moved into Allegiant Stadium in 2020, have a 25-year contract to buy electricity from NV Energy, which maintains a 621,000-panel solar farm in the desert northwest of Las Vegas. The amount of energy flowing from the panels, along with a smattering of wind, geothermal and hydropower sources, to the game is enough to allow 46,000 homes nationwide to watch the four-hour game, according to the utility.
The NFL doesn’t have much say in the energy mix of a given arena, and Allegiant Stadium, like almost everything else in Las Vegas, will draw from a grid that also relies upon natural gas. But the amount of energy the Super Bowl is expected to use this weekend is roughly equal to the capacity of the solar farm it draws from, says Jonathan Casper, who studies, among other things, the intersection of sports and sustainability at North Carolina State University. The stadium arranged in advance for the massive power usage with NV Energy, and it has batteries on site to store the power after sundown.
Oil and Gaslighting
Where the bloomin’ capitulists try to point the skinger of forn at ye. (I Belong to Glasgow, as sung by U. Utah Phillips)
Chevron topped CA lobbying spending with $11 million in 2023 - Big Oil set new record of $27 million
Scientific American: Opinion: Beyond the Doom and Gloom, Here’s How to Stimulate Climate Action
Our findings revealed that doom and gloom messaging was highly effective for stimulating climate change information sharing, like posting on the Internet or social media, where negativity reigns. […]
But … we found that this strategy had no effect on policy support or climate beliefs; for these outcomes, writing a letter to a future generation member explaining one’s climate actions today, or thinking about the consequences of climate change in one’s region, were the most effective interventions.
Doom and gloom even backfired when it came to more effortful behavior. Hearing these messages actually decreased people’s pro-environmental behavior… When faced with the enormous stakes of the climate crisis, individual-level actions might seem futile.
Florida League of Cities affirms its opposition to solar power amendment
Solar choice Floridians are looking for an amendment that would allow voters to homeowners and businesses that sell up to two megawatts of solar energy and forbid the state to erect barriers to the roof solar market in Florida.
But an assortment of heads of government and industry are fiercely opposed such a move, with some of them filing a legal brief asking the Supreme Court to reject the measure. One such group is the League of Cities of Florida, which has alienated some elected officials around the state. In protest, the last 16 mayors and / or members of the city council, wrote a letter to the League, asking for a vote at its annual meeting this week that the organization may withdraw its legal brief.