** A federal appeals court panel ruled in favor of energy industry groups in an order Tuesday evening requiring the Biden administration to hold a massive offshore oil and gas lease sale without eco restrictions. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the decision that the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) must move forward with Lease Sale 261, a large Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale mandated under the Inflation Reduction Act.
** The Biden administration is rolling out billions of dollars aimed at making the country more resilient to the impacts of climate change and stressed on Tuesday that solutions are possible reported The Hill.
** Toyota is partnering with San Diego’s largest utility company to explore using the grid to power electric vehicles (EVs) but also give back to it.
** The U.S. and China — the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions — agreed Tuesday to work to dramatically expand renewable energy in the hopes of phasing out fossil fuels. The State Department released a statement announcing the new cooperation plan after months of negotiations between White House climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua.
** The world’s first satellite capable of detecting industrial sources of carbon emissions from space has just reached orbit — and it promises to be a game-changer. The satellite, called Vanguard, will be able to detect emissions from individual coal and gas-fired power plants, large oil refineries, steel plants and other polluting industrial facilities.
** Chevron Corp said it is evaluating options for around 70,000 net acres of land in East Texas’ Haynesville shale formation after pausing development earlier this year, with sources saying a full sale is one option under consideration.
World
** Siemens Energy reported a 4.59-billion-euro ($5-billion) annual loss Wednesday, dragged down by a crisis in its wind power unit, a day after a government-backed rescue package was unveiled for the German group.
** Testing and installation of The Viking Link Interconnector, the world’s longest onshore and subsea power cable, is complete. The project is a joint venture between the U.K.’s National Grid and Denmark’s Energinet and was designed and installed by Italy-based contractor Prysmian Group, according to Electrek.
** Restoring global forests could sequester 22 times as much carbon as the world emits in a year, according to a scientific study published on Monday, making the case that trees are a key tool in confronting the climate crisis along with cutting fossil fuels.
** The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a record high last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday, warning there was “no end in sight” to the trend.
** To meet the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), nine major Asian economies must increase the share of electricity they get from renewable energy from the current 6% to at least 50% by 2030, according to a report by a German thinktank released Wednesday.
** Nearly five times more people will likely die due to extreme heat in the coming decades, an international team of experts warned on Wednesday, adding that without action on climate change the “health of humanity is at grave risk”. Lethal heat was just one of the many ways the world’s still-increasing use of fossil fuels threatens human health, according to The Lancet Countdown, a major annual assessment carried out by leading researchers and institutions.
** Negotiators for the EU’s member states and lawmakers on Wednesday reached a deal on new rules to curb methane emissions which would put new reporting requirements on the coal, gas and oil industry.
