Pennsylvania governor unveils plan to cut greenhouse gases, boost renewables in big energy producer

MICHAEL RUBINKAM and MARC LEVY
Updated Wed, March 13, 2024

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a plan Wednesday to fight climate change, saying he will back legislation to make power plant owners in the nation's third-biggest energy-producing state pay for their greenhouse gas emissions and require utilities to buy more electricity from renewable sources.

Such legislation would make Pennsylvania the first major fossil fuel-producing state to adopt a carbon-pricing program. But it is drawing fierce opposition from business interests wary of paying more for power and will face long odds in a Legislature protective of the state's natural gas industry.

Shapiro's proposal comes as environmentalists are pressuring him to do more to fight climate change in the nation’s No. 2 gas-producing state and as the state's highest court considers a challenge to his predecessor's plan to adopt a carbon-pricing program. It also comes after many of the state's biggest power polluters, coal-fired plants, have shut down or converted to gas.

At a news conference in Scranton, nicknamed the “Electric City,” Shapiro said his plan will make Pennsylvania competitive in a clean energy economy, improve electricity reliability, cut greenhouse gas emissions and lower electricity bills.

It is long past time for lawmakers to act, he said.

“If they choose to do nothing, they’re choosing to be less competitive in an environment that demands us to bring excellence to the table every single day,” Shapiro said. “They’re choosing to fall behind if they choose to do nothing.”

Under Shapiro's plan, Pennsylvania would create its own standalone carbon-pricing program, with most of the money paid by polluting power plants — 70% — going to lower consumer electric bills. No one will pay more for electricity and many will pay less, Shapiro said.

Meanwhile, utilities would be required to buy 50% of their electricity from sources that are mostly carbon-free by 2035, up from the state's current requirement of 18%.

Currently, about 60% of the state's electricity comes from natural gas-fired power plants, and the 50% renewables requirement could hurt demand for electricity from those plants. Another third of Pennsylvania's electricity is from nuclear plants — which are not included in the 50% renewables requirement — and the rest from coal and renewables.



Republicans who control the state Senate have pushed to open greater opportunities for natural gas production in Pennsylvania, and have warned that carbon-pricing could raise electricity bills, fray the electricity grid, hurt in-state energy producers and drive new power generation to other states.

“Families are feeling the strain of inflation and increased household expenses, which must be a chief concern when implementing any changes to energy policy," Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, said in a statement Wednesday.

Shapiro’s administration did not provide many details of his strategy Wednesday, including how much it would reduce greenhouse gases, how much money power plants would pay or how it would affect the average household electric bill.

Patrick Cicero, Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate, said the amount of savings on electric bills will depend on usage — large industrial customers would see more and low-income households would get “significant reductions” because of a planned expansion of the state’s energy-assistance program.

For the average household, “it’s not going to be much,” Cicero said, “but it’s not costing households more. That’s a win-win.”

Neighboring Maryland, New Jersey and New York have set requirements to draw 50% or more of their electricity from renewables by 2030, prompting warnings that Pennsylvania risks falling behind in a clean energy economy.

Robert Bair, president of the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades, whose members work on power plants, refineries and pipelines, said Pennsylvania energy policy must protect workers in the coal and gas industries. But he also said Pennsylvania will lose clean energy jobs to other states if it does nothing.

Heavy energy users and coal-industry businesses slammed Shapiro's “energy tax” as posing a damaging blow to industries and a fatal blow to the state's few remaining coal-fired power plants.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents Pennsylvania's enormous natural gas industry, was more circumspect. The most pressing challenge is ensuring the electric grid is stable and reliable, said Dave Callahan, the group’s president.

Despite the lack of details, Shapiro's plan drew statements of support from renewable energy trade associations and environmental advocates.

“Even what the governor has proposed is not enough to meet the needs of addressing the climate crisis, but it’s a huge step forward from where Pennsylvania is now," said Alex Bomstein, executive director of the Clean Air Council.

Meanwhile, environmental advocates worry about abandoning the plan produced by Shapiro's predecessor, former Gov. Tom Wolf.

For the time being, a state court has blocked Wolf’s regulation that authorizes Pennsylvania to join the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which imposes a price and declining cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

As a candidate for governor, Shapiro had distanced himself from Wolf's plan — although critics said Shapiro's plan is similar — and Shapiro wouldn't say Wednesday whether he'd enforce Pennsylvania's participation in the regional consortium should the courts uphold it and the Legislature do nothing.

“I’m focused on getting these things passed,” Shapiro said.

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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Follow Marc Levy: http://twitter.com/timelywriter




Shapiro unveils energy plan that Republican lawmakers call ‘carbon tax’
Jared Weaver
Wed, March 13, 2024

(WHTM)– Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was in Scranton on Wednesday to announce a new energy proposal called the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Initiative, or “PACER”.

Under the plan, the Department of Environmental Protection would set a cap for the amount of carbon that Pennsylvania’s power plants can produce and release into the air.

To produce any carbon, the power plants would need to purchase credits from the Commonwealth to offset the pollution they emit.

Pennsylvania lawmakers propose Jason Kelce Day in Pennsylvania

Governor Shapiro says this plan will save homeowners money on utility bills, create thousands of jobs, and help Pennsylvania maintain its energy independence.

“It’s time to do better,” Shapiro said. “It’s time to do better in a multitude of ways, especially when it comes to energy. And it is long past time to take action in this space. It’s time to take these commonsense steps to cut costs, protect our planet, and create jobs.”



WHTM Daily Digest

If passed, the Governor’s office says these initiatives would save Pennsylvanians $252 million in the first five years while generating $5.1 billion in investment in clean, reliable energy sources.

The Governor says his plan would also create nearly 15,000 energy jobs.

The proposal has faced opposition from Republican Pennsylvania lawmakers. Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) compared Shapiro’s proposal to ones that cause blackouts and high energy prices in states such as California and Washington.

“Our Commonwealth needs to be focused on unleashing our energy potential, not taxing it,” Ward said in a statement. “Doing so would create thousands of good jobs and keep our power grid secure. Shapiro’s carbon tax proposal appears to be more aligned with states like California and Washington, who suffer from rolling blackouts and higher energy prices.”

State Senator Scott Martin (R-Lancaster) said the Governor’s plan is similar to one ruled unconstitutional by the Commonwealth Court.

“For over a year, Senate Republicans have urged Governor Shapiro to set aside the disastrous Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and pursue an energy strategy that puts Pennsylvania families and job-creators first and ensures we have a safe, reliable electricity grid,” said Martin. “It is difficult to move forward on Pennsylvania energy decisions when the governor is continuing to fight us in court to enact a policy that takes away jobs and pushes energy prices even higher.”

Pennsylvania governor announces new renewable energy standard, endorses statewide carbon-capping market

Zack Budryk
Wed, March 13, 2024



Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) on Wednesday endorsed a statewide carbon-trading market in the state while seeming skeptical about a regional market embraced by his predecessor.

Speaking in Scranton, Shapiro endorsed pending legislation in the state Legislature that will create a statewide carbon-capping market, with proceeds paying for rebates to electricity ratepayers and renewable projects in the Keystone State.

“We will not take direction from anyone outside of this commonwealth,” Shapiro said during his remarks. “This initiative will be established by us, run by us. We will set our own cap, we will set our own price. We won’t have any other state determining what is right for us in Pennsylvania.”

The proposal would remove Pennsylvania from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state carbon-capping market, in favor of the new Pennsylvania program, the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Act.

Shapiro’s predecessor, Gov. Tom Wolf (D), joined RGGI during his term, making Pennsylvania the first major fossil fuel-producing state to do so. Last November, however, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled with Republicans in the state Senate that the state Department of Environmental Protection is not authorized to collect revenues under the program.

Shapiro also announced a new renewable energy standard for the state that would require renewables supply at least 50 percent of consumer electricity. It is the first update in more than 20 years to the state standard, which currently requires only 18 percent of electricity be renewables.

“Pennsylvania is falling behind in the race to create clean and reliable energy — and we must take action to be more competitive, ensure our consumers pay less for their electricity bills, and create more jobs and opportunities for our businesses to grow and our workers to get ahead,” Shapiro said.

In a statement Wednesday, Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania Executive Director Molly Parzen praised the renewable energy standard but expressed concerns about a full exit from RGGI.

“RGGI has a 15-year track record of reducing carbon pollution while investing billions of dollars in expanded clean energy,” she said in a statement. “Any new plan that is adopted must provide at least the same benefits to the environment and to our communities as RGGI.”

 

Climate Change Pennsylvania
This is the Keystone Generating Station in Shelocta, Pa., on Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a plan to fight climate change Wednesday, saying he will back legislation to make power owners in Pennysylvania pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and require utilities in the nation's third-largest power-producer to buy more electricity from renewable sources.

 (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Shell Considers Slowing Its Carbon Emissions Cuts

William Mathis, Stephen Stapczynski and Laura Hurst
Tue, March 12, 2024 



(Bloomberg) -- Shell Plc has been considering slowing the pace of its carbon-emissions cuts as it updates its energy-transition strategy, according to people familiar with the matter.

Any changes to the company’s climate targets could come as soon as Thursday, when Shell is due to publish an update of its long-term plan for clean energy and greenhouse gas emissions, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is still private. The move comes as Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan delivers on a plan to allocate a greater portion of investments into oil and gas in order to give better returns to shareholders.

Shell initiated its plan to become a net-zero company in 2020 under previous CEO Ben van Beurden. Key to its emissions-reduction pathway is net carbon intensity, a measure of the emissions from the energy it sells to customers. In 2021, the company pledged to decrease that intensity by 20% in 2030 versus the 2016 baseline, by 45% in 2035, and to reach net zero in 2050.

The process to update this strategy — something that happens every three years — was known internally as Project Vega, the people said. A team was asked to study different options for the company’s emissions reductions and present them to senior management, they said.

“We look forward to publishing our Energy Transition Strategy report on 14 March,” a Shell spokesperson said. The publication “will contain details of our plans to become a net zero emissions energy business by 2050.”

A reduction in the pace of Shell’s intermediate or long-term climate targets would follow a move by its European peer BP Plc, which last year said it would pump more oil and gas and produce more CO2 emissions this decade than previously planned.

Shareholders rewarded BP with a more than 8% jump in its share price that day, and the company has since come under additional pressure from an activist investor to pivot further back toward oil and gas. More broadly, the European supermajors have been trading at a consistent discount to their US peers, which have remained more firmly committed to fossil fuels.

Shell’s 2050 net zero target has always been aspirational. In public documents, the company has said that it sets plans, outlooks and budgets on a 10-year horizon, meaning they cannot reflect the 2050 or 2035 carbon intensity reduction targets.

As those dates get nearer, they could start to limit how Shell is able to invest. The company has said that if society more broadly hasn’t reached net zero emissions in 2050, then Shell may not meet its target either.

Since taking over the top job at the beginning of 2023, Sawan has said repeatedly that his priority is to deliver greater value for Shell investors. That’s seen the company boost shareholder payouts, cut jobs and direct a greater share of its capital into fossil fuels. The shift has been criticized by green activists and climate-conscious investors including the Church of England Pensions Board.

YouTube blocks access to CBC Fifth Estate story on killing of B.C. Sikh activist at India's demand

CBC
Wed, March 13, 2024 

The Indian government is blocking social media access within its country to a Fifth Estate story that included security video of the deadly shooting of Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. 

(Ben Nelms/CBC - image credit)


YouTube is blocking access in India to a story by CBC's The Fifth Estate on the alleged contract killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist after the Indian government ordered the social media platform to take that action.

The Fifth Estate story released on Friday included video of the fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June as he left his place of worship in Surrey, B.C.

In an email to CBC on Wednesday, YouTube said it had received an order from India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block access to the video of the story from its website.

YouTube confirmed to CBC News Wednesday afternoon that "the content has now been blocked from view" on the India YouTube country site. While the content is restricted in India, the video is still available everywhere else on YouTube.

Meanwhile, X, formerly known as Twitter, also informed CBC that it had received a legal removal demand from the Indian government relating to the Fifth Estate story.

David McIntosh/CBC

"Indian law obligates X to withhold access to this content in India; however, the content remains available elsewhere," X said in an email to The Fifth Estate.

"We disagree with this action and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts. Following the Indian legal process, we are in current communication with the Indian authorities."

In emails from YouTube and X to CBC, the platforms said the Indian government was citing the country's Information Technology Act 2000 in making the orders.

According to one section of that act, the government has the power to "intercept, monitor or decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource." Such action can be taken, according to the act, in the interest of:

The sovereignty or integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state.


Friendly relations with foreign states.


Public order, or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to these.


Investigating any offence.

Video shows Nijjar leaving parking lot

The Fifth Estate story that aired last week included video that showed Nijjar, the president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, leaving the parking lot of his place of worship in Surrey on the evening of June 18, 2023, in his grey Dodge Ram pickup truck.

As he approaches the exit, a white sedan pulls in front of him, blocking his truck. Two men then run up and shoot Nijjar before escaping in a silver Toyota Camry.

The co-ordinated attack involved six men and two vehicles. Almost nine months later, the RCMP has yet to name suspects or make arrests in relation to Nijjar's death.

The apparent targeted killing of Nijjar ultimately led to accusations from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the government of India ordered the killing — a claim that severely damaged diplomatic ties between Canada and India.

India has strongly denied any connection to the killing.

WATCH | The full Fifth Estate episode:

Chuck Thompson, a spokesman with CBC News, said it stands by its journalism on the story.

"To ensure fairness and balance, the documentary included a wide range of voices, witnesses and subject matter experts," he said.

"And, as is the case with all stories on The Fifth Estate, "Contract To Kill" was thoroughly researched, vetted by senior editorial leaders and meets our journalistic standards."

Corynne McSherry, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization focusing on civil liberties on the internet, said these actions by the India government are part of a pattern they've seen over the past few years. The government will take advantage of its own laws to pressure social media companies to take down content it doesn't like, she said.

"Unfortunately, at this point, it's got pretty broad legal powers to do that. And as far as we can tell, is not hesitating at all to use them," she said.

"The companies are in a difficult position because on the one hand, if they want to be able to provide services in a given country, they may need to comply with those country's laws whether or not they want to."
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The arrests putting Narendra Modi’s 

‘fascist’ India on trial

Andrew Whitehead
Wed, March 13, 2024 

Mahesh Raut, one of the accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon riot case - Hindustan Times
Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest, died in custody in India in July 2021. He was 84. He had spent nine months in detention and had been repeatedly denied bail; yet he had not been convicted of any offence. Swamy had Parkinson’s disease, but for several months the prison authorities denied him the sipper-cup he needed to be able to drink without spilling.

In poor health, Father Swamy was moved from jail to hospital a few weeks before his death. He was diagnosed with Covid-19, and died after a heart attack. This was – according to the historian Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s leading public intellectuals – “judicial murder”. Mary Lawlor, a UN Special Rapporteur, said the death was “a stain on India’s human rights record”.

Swamy had been detained under India’s catch-all anti-terrorist legislation, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which dates back to 1967. He was accused of inciting clashes between rival groups at a place called Bhima Koregaon (or BK) on New Year’s Day 2018 – though there is no suggestion that he was present – and of being a sympathiser of armed Maoist insurgents.

Although of gentle disposition, Swamy was certainly a turbulent priest. He devoted his life to the most marginalised in India, and particularly to the indigenous peoples known as Adivasis, members of what are regarded as tribal communities who total more than 100 million. Swamy defended their interests, encouraged their self-organisation and stood against attempts to turn their forest, so essential to their life and values, into open-cast mines. He was a thorn in the side of the Indian authorities and corporate interests – and at times of the Church, too. You could say he was a rebel, but he was not an insurgent.

Alpa Shah, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, argues in The Incarcerations that the arrest of Swamy and 15 others – lawyers, academics, poets, activists – in what has become known as the “BK case” reveals India’s authoritarian creep. The action against the BK-16, she says, is an attempt to intimidate and muzzle critics of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, whose party, the Hindu nationalist BJP, is expected to win a third successive general election in the coming weeks.

Narendra Modi (c) has been accused of illiberalising India - Bloomberg

At BK in 2018, a well-organised mob attacked a rally attended by tens of thousands of Dalits, those at the bottom of India’s caste-hierarchy once known as “untouchables”. The violence was alleged to have been orchestrated by two prominent Hindu hardliners, and conducted by those who saw themselves as cheerleaders for Modi and his assertive style of Hindu cultural identity.

Yet the police had no appetite for pursuing politically well-connected local figures, and so – Shah suggests – they turned the case around. Over the course of several months, they rounded up high-profile intellectuals and activists who had been outspoken in championing the interests of the dispossessed, of Dalits and Adivasis and India’s large but increasingly beleaguered Muslim minority. The allegations extended to waging war against the state and plotting the prime minister’s assassination.

Shah knows several of those detained from her work as an anthropologist; her previous book was a well-regarded account of accompanying armed Maoists who remain a formidable force in some Adivasi areas. She’s convinced that the 16 were neither assisting armed insurgency nor plotting assassinations, and had no role in fomenting the clashes in BK.

Alpa Shah, author of The Incarcerations, is a professor at the LSE - William Collins/Chiara Ambrosio

This book, dedicated to those “unjustly incarcerated”, is thus an expression of solidarity. Shah describes those imprisoned as the “last bastions of democracy” as the country slides into – in her words – “an Indian form of fascism”. The use of that incendiary term is justified more by reciting those Indian commentators who have also expressed concerns about totalitarianism, rather than by detailed argument. While Shah is convincing on the degradation of civil society and of secular values in India, the haphazard organisation of her book and a rather pedestrian prose-style don’t help her argument.

Much of Shah’s account is given over to the life stories of the men and women caught up in the case. It’s easy to get lost in the thicket of names and details, but she presents striking evidence, drawing on expert forensic analysis, of the alleged planting of incriminating documents in the laptops of those detained – with cyber trails apparently pointing both to police officers and to Indian hackers-for-hire happy to do this sophisticated dirty work. Astonishingly, Shah even managed to get through on the phone to two of the investigating police officers. One spoke to her at length, insisting that “every mandatory procedure was meticulously followed” in making arrests and that the police had always operated within the law.

But the evidence the police and India’s National Investigation Agency have amassed has not yet been tested in court, and it’s not clear when it will be. As The Incarcerations went to press, no date had been set for a trial. Indian civil-liberties organisations report that fewer than 3 per cent of arrests under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act lead to conviction. Shah suggests that the protracted legal process and pre-trial detention is as much the punishment as any guilty verdict would be.

Andrew Whitehead’s books include A Mission in Kashmir. The Incarcerations is published by William Collins at £30. 

US energy industry methane emissions are triple what government thinks, study finds

SETH BORENSTEIN
Wed, March 13, 2024 

FILE - A flare burns at a well pad Aug. 26, 2021, near Watford City, N.D. American oil and natural gas wells, pipelines and compressors are spewing three times the amount of the potent heat-trapping gas methane as the government thinks, a new comprehensive study calculates. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)


American oil and natural gas wells, pipelines and compressors are spewing three times the amount of the potent heat-trapping gas methane as the government thinks, causing $9.3 billion in yearly climate damage, a new comprehensive study calculates.

But because more than half of these methane emissions are coming from a tiny number of oil and gas sites, 1% or less, this means the problem is both worse than the government thought but also fairly fixable, said the lead author of a study in Wednesday's journal Nature.

The same issue is happening globally. Large methane emissions events around the world detected by satellites grew 50% in 2023 compared to 2022 with more than 5 million metric tons spotted in major fossil fuel leaks, the International Energy Agency reported Wednesday in their Global Methane Tracker 2024. World methane emissions rose slightly in 2023 to 120 million metric tons, the report said.


“This is really an opportunity to cut emissions quite rapidly with targeted efforts at these highest emitting sites,” said lead author Evan Sherwin, an energy and policy analyst at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab who wrote the study while at Stanford University. “If we can get this roughly 1% of sites under control, then we're halfway there because that's about half of the emissions in most cases.”

Sherwin said the fugitive emissions come throughout the oil and gas production and delivery system, starting with gas flaring. That's when firms release natural gas to the air or burn it instead of capturing the gas that comes out of energy extraction. There's also substantial leaks throughout the rest of the system, including tanks, compressors and pipelines, he said.

“It's actually straightforward to fix,” Sherwin said.

In general about 3% of the U.S. gas produced goes wasted into the air, compared to the Environmental Protection Agency figures of 1%, the study found. Sherwin said that's a substantial amount, about 6.2 million tons per hour in leaks measured over the daytime. It could be lower at night, but they don't have those measurements.

The study gets that figure using one million anonymized measurements from airplanes that flew over 52% of American oil wells and 29% of gas production and delivery system sites over a decade. Sherwin said the 3% leak figure is the average for the six regions they looked at and they did not calculate a national average.

Methane over a two-decade period traps about 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide, but only lasts in the atmosphere for about a decade instead of hundreds of years like carbon dioxide, according to the EPA.

About 30% of the world's warming since pre-industrial times comes from methane emissions, said IEA energy supply unit head Christophe McGlade. The United States is the No. 1 oil and gas production methane emitter, with China polluting even more methane from coal, he said.

Last December, the Biden administration issued a new rule forcing the U.S. oil and natural gas industry to cut its methane emissions. At the same time at the United Nations climate negotiations in Dubai, 50 oil companies around the world pledged to reach near zero methane emissions and end routine flaring in operations by 2030. That Dubai agreement would trim about one-tenth of a degree Celsius, nearly two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit, from future warming, a prominent climate scientist told The Associated Press.

Monitoring methane from above, instead of at the sites or relying on company estimates, is a growing trend. Earlier this month the market-based Environmental Defense Fund and others launched MethaneSAT into orbit. For energy companies, the lost methane is valuable with Sherwin's study estimate it is worth about $1 billion a year.

About 40% of the global methane emissions from oil, gas and coal could have been avoided at no extra cost, which is “a massive missed opportunity,” IEA's McGlade said. The IEA report said if countries do what they promised in Dubai they could cut half of the global methane pollution by 2030, but actions put in place so far only would trim 20% instead, “a very large gap between emissions and actions,” McGlade said.

“It is critical to reduce methane emissions if the world is to meet climate targets,” said Cornell University methane researcher Robert Horwath, who wasn't part of Sherwin's study.

“Their analysis makes sense and is the most comprehensive study by far out there on the topic,” said Howarth, who is updating figures in a forthcoming study to incorporate the new data.

The overflight data shows the biggest leaks are in the Permian basin of Texas and New Mexico.

“It's a region of rapid growth, primarily driven by oil production,” Sherwin said. “So when the drilling happens, both oil and gas comes out, but the main thing that the companies want to sell in most cases was the oil. And there wasn't enough pipeline capacity to take the gas away” so it spewed into the air instead.

Contrast that with tiny leak rates found in drilling in the Denver region and the Pennsylvania area. Denver leaks are so low because of local strictly enforced regulations and Pennsylvania is more gas-oriented, Sherwin said.

This shows a real problem with what National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association methane-monitoring scientist Gabrielle Petron calls “super-emitters."

“Reliably detecting and fixing super-emitters is a low hanging fruit to reduce real life greenhouse gas emissions,” Petron, who wasn't part of Sherwin's study, said. “This is very important because these super-emitter emissions are ignored by most ‘official’ accounting.”

Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who also wasn't part of the study, said, “a few facilities are poisoning the air for everyone.”

“For more than a decade, we’ve been showing that the industry emits far more methane than they or government agencies admit," Jackson said. “This study is capstone evidence. And yet nothing changes.”

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

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When Will Methane Emissions Fall?

Jessica Hullinger
Wed, March 13, 2024 



Current conditions: Storms dropped hail stones big enough to leave craters in the ground in Argentina • Denver is expecting more than a foot of snow • A wildfire outbreak is possible in Texas and Oklahoma.

THE TOP FIVE

1. IEA: Methane emissions from energy still high but could fall soon

Methane emissions from energy production around the world reached a record high in 2019, and have remained at that level ever since, with 2023 being no exception, according to the International Energy Agency’s 2024 Global Methane Tracker. Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps more heat than carbon dioxide, and is responsible for about one-third of the total rise in global temperatures compared to pre-industrial levels. Fossil fuel production is not the only source of methane emissions, but it is a big one, and it is within our control. Improvements to oil and gas infrastructure can reduce methane leaks, for example.

Energy production is the third largest source of methane emissions. IEA

Last year oil, gas, and coal producers added more than 120 million metric tonnes of methane to the atmosphere, a number that is “unacceptably high,” said the IEA’s chief energy economist Tim Gould. The agency called for a 75% reduction in methane emissions from fossil fuels this decade to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and said new policies, pledges, and methane-tracking satellites could bring emissions down soon. “If all methane pledges made by countries and companies to date are implemented in full and on time, it would be sufficient to cut methane emissions from fossil fuels by 50% by 2030,” the IEA said. “However, most pledges are not yet backed up by plans for implementation.”

2. Biden administration unveils infrastructure plan for electric freight trucks

The Biden administration yesterday released details of its plan to create the infrastructure needed to electrify the nation’s trucking fleet. “Heavy duty vehicles have a disproportionate effect on pollution, as large diesel engines release many more particulate emissions than light-duty vehicles do,” explained Jameson Dow at Electrek. Indeed the transportation sector accounts for about 30% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and more than a fifth of that comes from the biggest trucks. Phase 1 of the plan is to build out charging and hydrogen fueling hubs along some 12,000 miles of roads between 2024 and 2027, targeting some of the busiest routes first, including those around major ports. After the hubs are established, the subsequent phases would then connect those hubs to one another, and then expand the network. Here is a look at the hubs:

Joint Office of Energy and Transportation

3. Climate change threatens world’s banana production

Did you know there’s a World Banana Forum? The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) hosts the annual gathering so the “main stakeholders of the global banana supply-chain work together to achieve consensus on best practices for sustainable production and trade.” This week the event took place in Rome, and climate change was top of the agenda. “Farmers are battling daily with unpredictable weather patterns, scorching sun, floods, hurricanes, and increased cases of plant diseases,” said Anna Pierides, a sustainable sourcing manager at the Fairtrade Foundation. She warned that farmers may go out of business if they do not get more support and see fairer prices. “There will be some price increases, indeed,” said Pascal Liu, senior economist at the FAO. “If there’s not a major increase in supply, I project that banana prices will remain relatively high in the coming years.” Bananas are the world’s most exported fruit.

4. Greta Thunberg hauled away from Swedish parliament

For the second day in a row, police forcibly removed Greta Thunberg from the entrance to the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. The 21-year-old climate activist and other protesters began their demonstration there yesterday, protesting against what they see as inaction from political leaders in addressing the climate crisis. After Thunberg refused to move, police lifted her by the arms and put her about 20 meters away from the building’s door.

5. Bezos Earth Fund invests in making meat alternatives taste better

Jeff Bezos’ philanthropic organization, the Bezos Earth Fund, is pouring $60 million into setting up hubs at universities where researchers will work to improve the texture, taste, and nutritional value of meat alternatives. We’re not talking about “lab grown” meat here, but plant products made to taste like meat. Animal agriculture accounts for up to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations, and meat consumption is expected to grow by 50% by 2050. Meat alternatives could reduce the environmental footprint of the food system, but only if they taste good enough to convert enough meat lovers. Last week Oscar Mayer announced it had partnered with a Bezos-backed food startup to create meatless hot dogs and sausages that “not only deliver on great taste, but also bring the smell, appearance, texture, and grill marks consumers desire and want.”

Oscar Mayer's plant-based sausges and hot dogs 

KraftHeinz

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IEA wants methane emissions from oil and gas sector reduced faster

DPA
Wed, March 13, 2024

Executive Director of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol speaks during the Annual Meeting 2019 of the World Economic Forum. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has called for methane emissions in the oil and gas sector to be reduced more quickly in order to achieve climate protection targets. Valeriano Di Domenico/World Economic Forum/dpa


The International Energy Agency (IEA) has called for methane emissions in the oil and gas sector to be reduced more quickly in order to achieve climate protection targets.

According to the IEA in Paris on Wednesday, almost 120 million tons of methane were released in 2023 from the production of these two fossil fuels, a slight increase on the previous year. In addition, around 10 million tons of methane were released from bioenergy sources such as the use of biomass.

The main emitters of methane pollution are the US, Russia and China.

A reduction in methane emissions of 75% by 2030 is necessary to limit global warming, said IEA Director Fatih Birol. It is now important to translate commitments made by almost 200 countries at the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai last December into action, he said. This alone would halve methane emissions by 2030.

Methane is responsible for almost a third of the global rise in temperature since the Industrial Revolution and the energy sector is the second largest source of emissions from human activities, according to the IEA.

Although methane volatilizes faster in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it is a much stronger greenhouse gas during its short lifetime. Reducing methane emissions is therefore one of the best ways to limit global warming and improve air quality in the short term, the agency said.

The IEA calculated that around 40% of methane emissions from fossil fuel extraction in 2023 could have been avoided without additional costs, as the value of the methane captured was higher than the cost of the abatement measure.

Methane emissions are produced in the energy industry by leaking pipelines or during extraction as a by-product, which is often flared off, although not all methane is converted into carbon dioxide.


Methane emissions from energy sector rose in 2023: IEA

Nick Perry
Wed, March 13, 2024 

Methane leaks from energy production, transportation infrastructures -- such as gas pipelines -- and from deliberate releases during maintenance (JOE RAEDLE)


Planet-heating methane released by the fossil fuel industry rose to near record highs in 2023 despite technology available to curb this pollution at virtually no cost, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday.

Slashing emissions of methane -- second only to carbon dioxide for its contribution to global warming -- is essential to meeting international targets on climate change, the IEA said.

The Paris-based agency said failing to curb methane leaks from oil and gas projects was a "massive missed opportunity" to prevent losses and reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.

"Emissions of methane from fossil fuel operations remain unacceptably high... There is no reason for emissions to remain as high as they are," IEA chief energy economist Tim Gould told reporters ahead of the release of the agency's annual Global Methane Tracker report. Countries and companies could slash these emissions from fossil fuels in half by 2030 if they deliver on their methane promises in full, the IEA said.

Methane is responsible for around 30 percent of the global warming experienced today, according to the UN Environment Programme.

While some 40 percent of methane is released from natural sources, mainly wetlands, human activities are responsible for the rest.

Agriculture is the main source but the next largest is the energy sector, where methane leaks out from energy infrastructure such as gas pipelines and from deliberate releases during maintenance.

- Major leaks -

These emissions have risen three years in a row, the IEA said.

It said nearly 120 million tonnes was released in 2023 -- a small rise compared with 2022, and close to the record high in 2019.

And a significant proportion of the 2023 emissions, around 40 percent, "could have been avoided at no net cost" using tried and tested methods to prevent leakages, said IEA energy expert Christophe McGlade.

"It still represents a massive missed opportunity," he said.

To limit global temperature rises to internationally agreed levels, methane emissions from fossil fuels need to be cut 75 percent by 2030, the IEA said.

This would require about $170 billion in spending, "less than 5 percent of the income generated by the fossil fuel industry in 2023," it added.

Two-thirds of methane emissions from fossil fuels come from just 10 countries.

China leads for methane from coal production, while in the oil and gas sector the United States generates the most emissions, followed by Russia.

But some countries release far less methane than others, with Norway the most efficient at preventing emissions and Turkmenistan and Venezuela the least, the IEA said.

Last year witnessed a surge in large-scale methane leaks, the IEA said, including a well blowout in Kazakhstan that lasted more than 200 days.

- 'Low-hanging fruit' -

The IEA said advancements in satellite monitoring would provide a clearer picture of these events.

In early March, a new methane-tracking satellite backed by the US-based Environment Defence Fund, a non-profit organisation, was launched into orbit on a SpaceX rocket.

In a separate study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers found that six major oil and gas regions in the US may be losing on average nearly three percent of supply as methane.

These regions -- comprising roughly half of onshore oil production and 29 percent of gas -- may be contributing 6.2 million tonnes per year of methane emissions, three times official government estimates.

"Together, the emissions quantified here represent an annual loss of roughly US$1 billion in commercial gas value and a US$9.3 billion annual social cost," read the study.

Methane is far more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere but relatively short-lived, making it a key target for countries wanting to slash emissions quickly and slow climate change.

More than 150 countries -- including Azerbaijan, host of the next UN climate talks -- have promised a 30 percent reduction by 2030.

Oil and gas firms have meanwhile pledged to slash methane emissions by 2050.

But these commitments were not backed up by detailed plans, the IEA said.

Meanwhile, energy think tank Ember said methane from coal, in particular, was being overlooked in these pledges despite being a major source of emissions that could be cleaned up at low cost.

"There are cost-effective technologies available today, so this is a low-hanging fruit of tackling methane," said Sabina Assan, a methane analyst at Ember.

np-bl/cw

Delta’s CEO just paid out $1.4 billion to his employees. 

Sunny Nagpaul
Wed, March 13, 2024 



Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian was 25 when he first got on a plane. Since then, he’s become one of the most admired CEOs on the Fortune 500.

Bastian, who’s been with the company for over 25 years, has seen it all. There was the industry fallout from the 9/11 attacks; a slew of airlines announcing bankruptcy amid thousands of job cuts in 2005; and later, the pandemic, which slashed aviation jobs by about 43%.

Yet, Delta got through hard times to become the most profitable airline company in the world. It owes much of its success as a Fortune World's Most Admired Company to Bastian’s leadership. He was also named Chief Executive magazine's CEO of the year in 2023.

Bastian took the stage at South by Southwest’s annual series of tech, music and film conferences, joining Fortune’s editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell to describe how he steered the company to success.

People first

In 2005, Delta joined other big airline companies, like Northwest, US Airways and United Airlines in filing for bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy, which led to at least 7,000 layoffs and pay cuts, also helped kickstart a new era of employee-focused company culture–which starts with employees getting paid before management. Now, Bastian said, employees get “15% of the profits of the company and get paid before management.”

Delta rolled out a profit-sharing model in 2007 and it gave employees a financial cushion when company money was tight. It’s a benefit they’ve continued since a brief pause in 2020. This year, Delta gave employees $1.4 billion under the model through a bonus check that amounted to over 10% of their annual salary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DslH0SuwjQ&t=1177s

But “the single most important thing we did,” Bastian told Fortune, “is we started to gather our people together in groups of 200 to 300 people at a time in sessions called Velvet, which are ongoing today, over 20 years later.”

In Velvet sessions, employees talk about the business, their roles in it, and they cast company visions together. “If you do that over 20 years,” he said, “that culture is palpable.”

Innovate during challenging times

World events, like the 9/11 attacks and the pandemic, drastically changed the airline industry nearly overnight.

At the time of the 2001 attacks, Bastian was working in Delta’s Atlanta office and saw “international business drop to almost nothing overnight,” he said in an interview with The New York Times.

In the following years, Delta made a number of unconventional business moves including its purchase of an oil refinery to offset risks of higher jet fuel prices in 2012. The company announced it would spend $150 million to acquire the refinery, located near Philadelphia, and an additional $100 million to renovate the plant to increase its jet fuel harvest.

Then came a travel-killing pandemic. The industry reported net losses of over $126 billion in 2020; the number of air passengers reduced by 60%, and direct aviation jobs dropped by 43%, according to a study that analyzed the impacts of the pandemic on air transportation.

Bastian’s team at Delta enticed travelers back by eliminating change fees, which helped build trust with customers when they were ready to travel again. They also used the down time to hire and train a strong workforce.

Put your own ego aside

In response to the pandemic, Bastian decided to go without half his salary for the year, nearly $946,000, in 2020. Meanwhile, the pandemic didn’t spare him personally. His mother, who raised Bastian and his eight siblings, passed away from COVID-19 at the end of February 2020. He said he was “distraught” to lose his “personal hero.”

Still, he said, it was a moment that “was not the time to feel sorry for myself or anyone. This is the time to lead.”

The company saw turnover; about a quarter of the company’s workforce naturally turned over during the pandemic, and Bastian said the company “did not lay one person off throughout the entire pandemic.”

“We had 50,000 people take up to two years off without pay,” he said, and added that benefits and travel privileges were intact. The move shrunk the “company in half overnight.” 20,000 more employees agreed to take an early retirement and once the pandemic cleared, Delta brought people back.

Perhaps another way the Delta CEO likes to save on costs? He flies coach on domestic trips and serves as the face of the airline’s pre-flight safety video.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Toyota agrees to biggest wage hike in 25 years, paves way for BOJ shift

Updated Wed, March 13, 2024

FILE PHOTO: Workers install the fuel cell power system in a Toyota Mirai at a Toyota Motor Corp. factory in Toyota

By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Anton Bridge

TOKYO (Reuters) -Toyota Motor agreed to give factory workers their biggest pay increase in 25 years on Wednesday, heightening expectations that bumper pay raises will give the central bank leeway to make a key policy shift next week.

Toyota, Panasonic, Nippon Steel and Nissan were among some of Japan Inc's biggest names that agreed to fully meet union demands for pay hikes at annual wage negotiations that wrap on Wednesday.

The talks, long a defining feature of the usually collaborative relationship between Japanese management and labour, are being closely watched this year as the pay increases are expected to help clear the way for the central bank to end its years-long policy of negative interest rates as early as next week.

Toyota, the world's biggest carmaker and traditionally a bellwether of the annual talks, said it agreed to the demands of monthly pay increases of as much as 28,440 yen ($193) and record bonus payments. Keeping with past practice, the company did not provide a percentage figure for the salary rise.

"We're seeing strong momentum for wage hikes," Japan's top government spokesperson and chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, told reporters. "It's important that the strong wage hike momentum will spread to small and mid-sized firms."

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made putting an end to the years of meagre wage growth a top priority to jumpstart feeble consumer spending. Japan's wage increases have kept well behind the average for the OECD grouping of rich countries.

The Bank of Japan is also closely watching the results as a key data point in deciding when to end negative rates, in place since 2016.

The bank, which has stuck with massive stimulus and ultra-low rates for years longer than other developed countries in an attempt to revive a moribund economy, is set to hold its next policy setting meeting on March 18-19.

"The outcome of this year's annual wage negotiation is critical" in deciding the timing of an exit from massive stimulus, governor Kazuo Ueda told parliament on Wednesday.

Workers at major firms have asked for annual increases of 5.85%, according to Japan's biggest trade union grouping, Rengo, which if agreed upon would breach the 5% level for the first time in 31 years.

Hisashi Yamada, a senior economist at Japan Research Institute and an expert on labour issues, estimated overall increases of 4.2% to 4.3% based on the "quite strong" responses so far, and possibly more than 5% for top firms.

He attributed the rises to the trend of higher wages globally, domestic labour shortages and inflation.

"Still, the sustainability of such strong pay raises and whether the trend of wage hikes will spread to small and medium-sized companies going forward is uncertain," Yamada said.

TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT

In a further positive sign, the Japanese Association of Metal, Machinery and Manufacturing Workers (JAM), a union representing workers at small manufacturers, said the pay rises secured for members exceeded expectations and there was a change in workers' mindset.

"The Japanese are finally starting to realise that the gap between wages inside and outside the country is widening significantly," JAM Chairman Katahiro Yasukochi told reporters.

Smaller firms employ seven out of 10 workers in Japan but have struggled to offer sizeable pay hikes because they have less leverage to pass on costs to clients.

Akihiro Kaneko, chair of the Japan Council of Metalworkers' Unions, echoed Yasukochi's sentiment, saying he was hopeful that this year's results could lead to a virtuous cycle of higher wages and inflation.

Top companies such as Toyota are under pressure from the government to facilitate wage hikes downstream so that real wages, which are adjusted for inflation, can reverse a 22-month streak of consecutive falls.

"We do hope that our results could spread to all of our suppliers," Toyota's chief human resources officer, Takanori Azuma, told reporters.

"We need to continue asking tier-one suppliers to pass that down to tier-two suppliers and so on," he said, while adding that ultimately, wage decisions were up to each individual company.

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto, Daniel Leussink, Maki Shiraki, Sam Nussey, Anton Bridge, Satoshi Sugiyama and Leika Kihara; Editing by David Dolan, Chang-Ran Kim, Sam Holmes and Shri Navaratnam)

Japan's overworked, underpaid truckers left behind in wage bonanza

Delivery trucks are parked at a parking area along the highway in Chiba


By Satoshi Sugiyama

Wed, March 13, 2024 

TOKYO (Reuters) - As Japan's big companies prepare to hand out their heftiest pay hikes in decades, trucking firm owner Ikuko Sakata feels like she inhabits a different reality.

Despite facing some of the country's tightest labour markets and no shortage of demand, small delivery companies like Sakata's can barely afford to make ends meet.

The Tokyo-based company that she runs pays its approximately 80 employees the minimum wage, putting their base salaries at around 280,000 yen ($1,900) a month before overtime.

"That's the best we can do," said Sakata, who took over the 73-year-old family business from her father in 1995. She hopes to do better for the coming year but is afraid that might be difficult.

Sakata's predicament contrasts starkly with the rosy picture emerging for workers' pay at brand-name companies such as Toyota Motor and Nippon Steel.

It also raises questions about whether the time is right for Japan's central bank to finally normalise monetary policy, with sustainable wage increases seen as one of the conditions for an end to negative interest rates.

Most economists expect the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates - for the first time in 17 years - either this month or next.

Wrapping up their annual wage negotiations on Wednesday, Toyota, Panasonic, Nippon Steel and Nissan were among major firms that agreed to fully meet union demands.

Workers at major firms have asked for annual increases of 5.85%, topping the 5% mark for the first time in 30 years, according to Japan's biggest trade union grouping, Rengo.

The government is counting on such wage hikes to trickle down to smaller and medium-sized firms, which account for a whopping 99.7% of all enterprises and about 70% of the country's workforce. Wage talks for the bulk of small- to mid-sized companies are expected to conclude by the end of March.

FEEBLE BARGAINING POWER

However, among smaller delivery companies, only 57% are planning any wage hikes in the fiscal year from April, according to a Japan Chamber of Commerce survey published last month. Of those, less than a third plan to raise wages by 3% or more.

Experts say the proliferation of players in the industry due to a wave of deregulation in the 1990s was partly to blame for the sector's unique strains.

"There are many small companies in the freight industry and as a result, they have weak bargaining power," said Uichiro Nozaki, an economist at Nomura Securities.

The government has recognised the problem and is taking steps to crack down on the strong-arming of subcontractors. It has also put in place policies to raise standard freight rates and make sure workers are compensated for non-driving duties, in a bid to raise the industry's wages by around 10%.

But another law change taking effect next month to limit overtime to improve truckers' notoriously gruelling hours is feared to, ironically, drive away workers who have long relied on the extra hours to make a living, exacerbating the staffing crunch, industry insiders have said.

Tetsuyasu Kondo, who heads a trucking company in the northern prefecture of Akita, said companies like his need to pass on rising costs to their customers to be able to afford higher pay.

After offering an industry-beating base salary hike of 4.5% last year, Kondo said he hopes to raise wages by a margin that would at least exceed inflation this year.

For smaller businesses like Sakata's in Tokyo, though, asking shippers to pay more could mean losing business.

"We do try to negotiate price increases, but they're never met in full," she said. "At best it's 50%, and most of the time, it's 20% to 30%."

($1 = 147.2700 yen)

(Reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Sam Holmes)

Could the Senate pass federal bill for shorter workweek? Here's what to know

Rachel Looker, USA TODAY
Wed, March 13, 2024 

WASHINGTON − There's a revived effort on Capitol Hill to make a shorter workweek the new norm.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., announced Wednesday he will introduce a bill to establish a standard 32-hour workweek that would result in no loss in pay.

Sanders, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, will introduce the legislation Thursday during a hearing on the need for a shorter workweek.

“Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea,” Sanders said in a statement. “Today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. That has got to change."

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 22: Bernie Sanders attends during "Bernie Sanders: It's OK To Be Angry About Capitalism" at Royal Geographical Society on February 22, 2024 in London, England.

Sanders' bill pushes for four-day workweek

The legislation amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours per week to 32 hours per week. It would also allow employees to be compensated time and half for working beyond 32 hours.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act into law in 1938 which established minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping and youth employment standards. The bill led to the standard 40-hour workweek most Americans are familiar with today.

More than half of adults employed full time reported working more than 40 hours per week, according to a 2019 Gallup poll.

"It is time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life," Sanders said.

Rep. Takano introduced 4-day workweek bill last year

House Committee on Veterans' Affairs ranking member Mark Takano, of Calif., questions Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, during a hearing on whether the Veterans Affairs ignore and perpetrate sexual harassment, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, in Washington.

This isn't the first time Congress has pushed for a four-day work week.

Progressive Democrats last year renewed a push to make four-day workweeks federal law, with lead sponsor Rep. Mark Takano of California saying the change will give Americans more time "to live, play, and enjoy life more fully outside of work."

Takano, a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, introduced a similar bill last year to Sanders' legislation that would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32, effectively ending the traditional five-day cycle. It would also require overtime pay at a rate of time and half for any employee who works more than 32 hours in one week.

His bill was referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The legislation followed a shift in workplace trends after the COVID-19 pandemic influenced conversations about what the future of work may look like. More than 70 British companies started to test a four-day workweek last year, and most respondents reported there has been no loss in productivity.

Takano introduced similar legislation in 2021, but it was not voted on in the House or Senate.

Could it become law?

Bernie Sanders talks to United Auto Workers and community members during a rally outside the UAW-Ford Joint Trusts Center in Detroit on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023.

Sanders' bill is backed by Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-Calif., and Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., who introduced companion legislation in the House.

It also has received the endorsement of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, United Auto Workers, the Service Employees International Union, the Association of Flight Attendants and several other labor unions.

While Sanders' role as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee places a greater focus on shortening the workweek, it is unlikely the bill will garner enough support from Republicans to become federal law and pass in both chambers.

 

Who Supports Bill for Four-Day Working Week?

Published Mar 14, 2024 
By Aliss Higham


Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced that he is introducing a bill to Congress that advocates for a 32-hour, or four-day, working week.

The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act would see workers work fewer hours for no loss of pay. According to a summary of the bill, the proposed legislation would reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 32 hours over four years. Employees would also be compensated time and a half for working beyond the stipulated 32 hours.


The Fair Labor Standards Act, introduced in 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, established minimum wage, overtime pay, and employment standards for youths. This bill, although unlikely to become legislation given that many Republicans will likely oppose it, would amend the act.

As of 2019, nearly 40 percent of U.S. employees work 50 hours a week, and 18 percent, or 28.5 million workers, work at least 60 hours per week, according to a press release issued by Sanders on March 13.

"The average full-time worker in the U.S. now works 42 hours a week – although this estimate does not necessarily account for those working multiple jobs," the release said. "On top of this, more than 8 million Americans work multiple jobs, with 4.7 million working a second part-time job on top of a full-time job."

Sen. Bernie Sanders at a hearing on November 14, 2023, in Washington, D.C. Sanders has introduced a bill calling for a four-day work week.GETTY


"Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea," Sanders said in a statement. "Today, American workers are over 400 percent more productive than they were in the 1940s. And yet, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages than they were decades ago. That has got to change."

Newsweek reached out to Sanders for comment via email outside of normal working hours. This article will be updated with any response.

This isn't the first time Democrat lawmakers have pushed for a reduction in working hours. California Representative Mark Takano, who is backing the bill, introduced similar legislation in 2021, although it was not put forward to the House or Senate.

Who is backing the bill?

California lawmakers Laphonza Butler and Mark Takano have both backed the bill.

"While CEOs' wages continue to increase, our workers are finding themselves doing more, yet earning less than they have in decades," said Senator Butler, who introduced the legislation in the Senate. "The Thirty-Two-Hour Workweek Act would allow hardworking Americans to spend more time with their families while protecting their wages and making sure profits aren't only going to a select few."

Takano echoed Butler's sentiment, saying, "As the lead sponsor of the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act in the House of Representatives and a Senior Member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, I am thrilled Senator Sanders is leading the Senate companion to this transformative legislation that will be a win for both workers and workplaces."

The proposed legislation has also been backed by a range of workers' rights groups and unions, including The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, United Auto Workers, and Service Employees International Union.

1933

 

First recognition of self in the mirror is spurred by touch

New evidence reveals that young children learn self-awareness through experiences of touch

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Most babies begin recognizing themselves in mirrors when they are about a year and half old. This kind of self-recognition is an important developmental milestone, and now scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered a key driver for it: experiences of touch.

Their new study found babies who were prompted to touch their own faces developed self-recognition earlier than those who did not. The research was published this month in the journal Current Biology.

“This suggests that babies pulling on their toes or tapping their fingers are not just playing,” said Jeffrey Lockman, a professor of human development and family sciences at UT and senior author on the paper. “They are developing self-awareness through self-directed activity. I think this work demonstrates a possible mechanism by which self-recognition can develop based on active experience that human babies naturally generate.”

Researchers began by placing small vibrating discs on the foreheads and cheeks of toddlers when they were around 14 months old, before the usual age at which self-recognition occurs. In response to the vibration, the children would reach up and touch the disc. Next, researchers turned the children to face a mirror and watched as they reached up to touch the discs.

Researchers then had the children perform the standard mirror-mark test for self-recognition in which a small mark of paint or makeup was placed on each child’s face. If the child looked in the mirror and touched the mark on their own face or said words like their name or “me,” they demonstrated self-recognition.

Researchers also observed a control group of children who were exposed to the laboratory experience with mirrors but not the vibrating discs. Both groups were comparable at the beginning of the study and observed monthly until they recognized themselves or reached 21 months.

The children who touched their face more frequently recognized themselves in the mirror about two months earlier, on average, than when children typically first begin to recognize themselves in a mirror.

The study challenges a longstanding assumption that self-recognition in early childhood is somehow hardwired. For a long time, scientists believed early recognition in the mirror was a built-in function of human brains and those of our closest primate relatives, versus linked to sensory or motor experiences.

The researchers said the findings may have implications for interventions for children with motor development delays.

“Interventions for infants who have issues related to motor skills are typically focused on reaching for objects in the external world and manipulating them,” Lockman said. “These findings suggest that reaching to the body may be equally important and that exploring the body is the gateway to self-knowledge.”

Lisa Chinn of the University of Houston and Claire F. Noonan and Katarina S. Patton of Tulane University were also authors on the paper. Funding for the research was provided by the National Institutes of Health.

---

JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.028 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Tactile localization promotes infant self-recognition in the mirror-mark test

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-Mar-2024

COI STATEMENT

N/A

Summer solstice triggers synchronized beech tree reproduction across Europe

New study finds that the summer solstice provides a celestial cue to synchronise beech tree reproduction across vast distances in Europe,

UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL

 

IMAGE: 

SUMMER SOLSTICE SYNCHRONISED SEED PRODUCTION

view more 

CREDIT: JAKUB SZYMKOWIAK, ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY

A new study published in Nature Plants has found that the summer solstice acts as a "starting gun" to synchronise beech tree reproduction across vast distances in Europe, affecting ecosystem functions.

An international research team from the University of Liverpool, the University in Poznań, Poland and the University of Canterbury, Christchurch in New Zealand joined forces to look at the associations between weather patterns and seed production in perennial plants like the European beech (Fagus sylvatica), and to explore how tree reproduction is consistently synchronized across vast distances.

Previous work by the team showed that the key to achieving this synchrony is a coordinated response to an external trigger, such as weather, but how the European beech -  which grows across the European continent with greatly varying climates  - achieved this was a mystery.

The research team looked at fine-scale changes in plant responses to temperature and found that the 21st June – the summer solstice and the longest day of the year- acted as a celestial cue, triggering synchronised responses to weather conditions among widely separated populations of European beech.

Dr Valentin Journé, a postdoctoral researcher at Adam Mickiewcz University in Poznań, Poland, who led the analysis said: “We got inspired by a recent Science paper where researchers from Switzerland found that the effects of temperature on leaf senescence switch at the summer solstice. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, and happens at the same time anywhere in the Hemisphere.”

Jessie Foest, a PhD researcher from the University of Liverpool who was involved in the research, said: “The sharp response of beech trees is just remarkable. Once the day starts to shorten after the summer solstice, the temperature sensing-window opens simultaneously, all across Europe.

“What’s truly jaw-dropping is that the change in day length that the trees are able to detect is really small - we are talking about a few minutes over a week. Apparently, trees are able to recognise the difference.”

Many perennial plants do not reproduce regularly and forgo reproduction for a few years to accumulate resources and then produce a bumper seed crop. The remarkable synchrony of this interannual variation was known to extend to hundreds and thousands of kilometres in many species. This study reveals how plants can achieve coordination over such great distances.

Such large-scale regional synchronisation of seed production by trees has important consequences for ecosystems. Large-seeding years result in a pulse of resources for wildlife, while reproductive failures result in famines for seed-eating animals. When this variation is synchronised at sub-continental scales the consequences include far-reaching disruptions in food webs, including rodent outbreaks, migration of ungulates and birds, and spikes in wildlife-borne human diseases.

The paper, ‘Summer solstice orchestrates the subcontinental-scale synchrony of mast seeding’ was published in Nature Plants (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-024-01651-w)

---

JOURNAL

Nature Plants

DOI

10.1038/s41477-024-01651-w 

ARTICLE TITLE

Summer solstice orchestrates the subcontinental-scale synchrony of mast seeding’