** The world’s oil and gas companies will undergo annual reviews by the International Energy Agency for how they’re doing on climate change and clean energy issues. The group released a report Sunday showing that oil and gas producers, including those owned by governments, spend on average just 1% of their total capital expenditure outside oil and gas.
** Environmental groups and officials from Minnesota’s two largest cities oppose a state plan to spend up to $8.2 million in Volkswagen settlement funds on fossil fuel vehicles and equipment.
** Despite the debut of 45 electric vehicle models in the U.S. last year, sales declined by 6.8%.
** Colorado-based Energy Fuels Inc. has laid off 24 of its 79 employees in rural San Juan County, Utah, the poorest constituency in the state.
** Colorado’s efforts to cut air pollution are hampered by Metro Denver-area residents who are driving more, rather than using transportation alternatives.
** California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued BLM over its plan to reopen more than 1 million acres of public land to fracking. Becerra said the agency failed to fully account for the potential environmental effects of fracking when it unveiled a final environmental impact statement last month that would give the OK for oil and natural gas development across eight California counties.
** Starbucks hopes to cut carbon emissions from its operations and huge supply chain by 50% by 2030 as part of new environmental pledges unveiled last week. Starbucks is the latest multinational giant to set new targets as global emissions rise and multilateral efforts fail to even lay the groundwork for steep cuts.
** China unveiled sweeping plans over the weekend to curb production and use of many single-use plastics including shopping bags over the next five years, with some phases to begin almost immediately.
** PepsiCo will get all of its electricity in the U.S. from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar later in 2020, the company said in a statement. The U.S. is the food and beverage company’s largest market and accounts for nearly half of its total global electricity consumption.