** A government watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry on Tuesday morning, alleging he spread misinformation about climate change. In its complaint, Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) alleged that Kerry violated federal scientific integrity policy — which requires officials to communicate scientific information accurately based on the best available evidence — when he said in May that greenhouse gas emissions kill 15 million people per year worldwide.
** Civitas Resources Inc., a US shale oil producer, agreed to acquire assets from companies controlled by private equity firm NGP Energy Capital Management for about $4.7 billion in cash and stock to expand for the first time into the Permian Basin.
** More than half of the power Xcel Energy generates across the eight states it serves now comes from carbon-free sources, the company announced in its 18th annual Sustainability Report today. Carbon-free energy made up 53% of the company’s 2022 energy mix, compared to an average of 41% nationwide.
** Phillips 66 executive management will host a webcast at noon ET on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, to discuss the company’s second-quarter 2023 financial results, which will be released earlier that day.
** The Biden administration handed a setback to makers of bio and renewable diesel with federal quotas for the fat-based fuel that advocates say ignore a surge in production and a wave of investment in new manufacturing plants.
** The incandescent lightbulb that has been used in homes for more than a century is about to become history in the United States. With a few exceptions, sales and manufacturing of incandescent bulbs will end on July 31, part of an effort by the Biden administration to save energy, reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and lower utility bills.
** Using a gas stove can raise indoor concentrations of benzene, a cancer-linked chemical, to above what is found in secondhand smoking or even beyond levels found next to oil and gas facilities, a new study has found. The research, which measured benzene levels in 87 homes in California and Colorado, found that gas and propane stoves frequently emitted benzene at rates well above healthy benchmarks set by the World Health Organization and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
World
** Argentina started filling its new natural gas pipeline Tuesday, marking a big infrastructure feat and political victory that stands to save the country billions from energy imports amid a severe dollar shortage.
** Financing for clean energy in developing and emerging economies excluding China must increase seven-fold within a decade if global warming is to be capped at tolerable levels, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday. To keep Paris climate temperature goals in play, annual investment for non-fossil fuel energy in these countries will need to jump from $260 billion to nearly $2 trillion, the intergovernmental agency said in a report.
** The head of the United Nation’s climate body said he was not satisfied with the outcome of a 10-day conference and the process was moving too slowly given the urgency of the climate crisis. “Never satisfied. In terms of whether reasonable progress made. Yes. Was it enough? We will know as we as we enter the COP28 itself,” Simon Stiell, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary, told Reuters.
** Australia’s most populous state will be ready for 100% renewable energy within a decade under a A$16.5 billion ($11.20 billion) infrastructure investment plan announced by a major grid operator on Wednesday.