BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the world's leading asset manager, has called on all managers to align with climate goals. Do ESG metrics do that? (This photo shows Fink with the then-chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, Duncan Niederauer, at the FT CNBC Nightcap in Davos in 2014. Courtesy the Financial Times.)
There’s an elephant in the fund: Earlier this year, some of the most vocal and proactive ESG firms, each with multiple commitments towards a net-zero future, actively funded lobbying efforts against President Biden's infrastructure bill and Build Back Better Act. These bills contain some of the most assertive climate provisions...
Illinois' government made policy while the political sun shines on renewable targets. What happens next? (This image comes from the Chicago Sun-Times.)
This September, on a sunny late summer morning in Chicago, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker signed a comprehensive piece of environmental legislation called the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA). Standing on the shore of Lake Michigan, just outside the world-famous Shedd Aquarium, Pritzker heralded the bill as a major...
A container ship on its way to a commercial port...or is it? (Photo by Ana Ulin, courtesy Creative Commons.)
With slowdowns affecting shipping and severe weather affecting demand, the price of natural gas soared and overwhelmed all other energy strategies across Asia and Europe this fall. The price crisis reveals how the world's decarbonizing economies remain tethered to fossil fuels and to the antidemocratic states that often control them...
The first four episodes tell an evolving story of a transforming world.
The first episodes tell an evolving story of a transforming world. This podcast is one of the many tools in our CBEY toolbox to foster greater dialogue, educate the general public on energy, justice, and the transition, and a great excuse for us to keep learning from experts at Yale...
For Joseph Fiordaliso, progress toward a fossil-free economy flows from top-level leadership to street-level entrepreneurship.
When we spoke with Joseph Fiordaliso, the president of the state's Board of Public Utilities, lockdowns were still only happening overseas and states were the only serious partners for renewable developers. Now, New Jersey is moving forward on transmission investment- making Fiordaliso's cheery appeals to the next generation and the...
Here's another broadly popular source of energy in Carmel, Indiana. (Photo courtesy Andy Montgomery via Creative Commons.)
The quick take says that Republicans dismiss the climate threat and refuse to see the upside in renewable energy. The deeper take shows more complexity and more finance for clean energy in ostensibly red states. Our reporter spoke with one Republican mayor to learn how solar, wind and efficiency can...
(Photo courtesy Yale Climate Connections.) China issues and regulates billions in green bonds. But can anybody fully track the product's decarbonization progress?
More than a trillion dollars' worth of green bonds have found buyers around the world, but standards for defining what makes a bond green remain watery. How fast and how far can this technique extend before standards make it more reliably predictive of carbon savings- or before an investor loses...
The administration can tee up safe, low-carbon transit in cities like Charlotte, NC and others without a cooperative Congress.
The United States, under its Paris Agreement commitments, must become carbon-free by 2050. Its Congress appears nowhere close to passing laws that would spark an energy transition, though. So the government's executive branch should craft a green industrial policy that mixes incentives, procurement, tax credits and other tools to bring...
Sumba Sustainable Solutions, a member company in the New Energy Nexus, produces solar-powered rice mills.
Though renewable energy startups have begun to find their way in Indonesia, they are not yet widely known. However, with support from stakeholders and with efforts from those stakeholders to improve regulatory clarity, startups can gain traction. One international team has set out to offer advice, advocacy, and capital to...
This professional had to climb to get to this spot: community solar investors and innovators have to climb over hurdles, too.
For those coming with fresh eyes to this series, please read the previous two articles about community solar. In the first article of the series, I explored the economic and energy equity opportunity of the community solar sector. The subsequent article investigated challenges within the market from a policy and...
