WW3
Nagorno-Karabakh residents say 'disastrous' blockade choking supplies

Felix Light
Updated Wed, August 16, 2023 


An ethnic Armenian soldier looks through binoculars as he stands at fighting positions near divided Taghavard village in Nagorno-Karabakh region

TBILISI (Reuters) -Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh say it is getting harder to access food, medicines and other essential supplies as an Azerbaijani blockade of the breakaway region drags into its ninth month.

The U.N. Security Council will discuss the blockade on Wednesday, after a former International Criminal Court prosecutor this month said the blockade may amount to a "genocide" of the local Armenian population - an assertion that Azerbaijan's lawyers said was unsubstantiated and inaccurate.

Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but its population of 120,000 is overwhelmingly ethnic Armenian and the enclave's one remaining land link to Armenia, the Lachin corridor policed by Russian peacekeepers, was first disrupted in December.

Three residents of Karabakh said basic foodstuffs, fuel and medicine were almost exhausted.

"It's been a very long time since I've eaten any dairy produce, or eggs," Nina Shahverdyan, a 23-year-old English teacher, said in a video call with Reuters from the region's capital, which local Armenians call Stepanakert.

"It's been disastrous because we don't have gas. We have electricity blackouts."

Armenia's foreign minister, Ararat Mirzoyan, discussed the situation in Karabakh on Wednesday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and stressed the need to avert a "humanitarian disaster" there, Russia's TASS state news agency reported.

Karabakh's population has tightened its belt since the blockade, eating only what can be produced locally.

The residents said even food produced within Karabakh itself is delivered only sporadically to Stepanakert, as farmers lack fuel to bring their products to market.

Ani Balayan, a recent high school graduate and photographer, said she had last eaten meat around two weeks ago. She said her family was surviving on bread, alongside the tomatoes, cucumbers and watermelon still available in Stepanakert's markets.

For some weeks, footage has shown Stepanakert's supermarket shelves bare, with little or nothing on sale.

"I went to bed hungry for several days because I could not find bread to bring home," Balayan said.

BREAKAWAY REGION

The crisis has highlighted how Russia, which is pre-occupied with the war in Ukraine, is struggling to project its influence in neighbouring post-Soviet states.

Karabakh was claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia after the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, and broke away from Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s.

In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around the enclave after a second war that ended in a Russia-brokered ceasefire. The agreement required Russia to ensure that road transport between Armenia and Karabakh remained open.

Since the ceasefire, road links between Armenia and Karabakh hinged on the Lachin corridor, which was blockaded in December by Azerbaijani civilians identifying themselves as ecological activists, while Russian peacekeepers did not intervene.

In April, Azerbaijani border guards installed a checkpoint on the route, tightening the blockade.

'GENOCIDE'?

This month, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo described the blockade as potentially constituting a "genocide" of Karabakh Armenians and intending "to starve" them.

Rodney Dixon, a lawyer appointed by Azerbaijan to give an assessment on Ocampo's opinion, called the view "strikingly" unsubstantiated, inflammatory and inaccurate.

Farhad Mammadov, the head of Baku's Centre for Studies of the South Caucasus think tank, said that controls on the road were necessary to prevent the transit of "arms and Armenian soldiers" to and from Karabakh.

Azerbaijan has said it is ready to open supplies to Karabakh via territory under its control, but that the separatist authorities must dissolve and integrate the region into Azerbaijan. The Armenian side has said that the blockade is aimed at forcing Karabakh into unconditional surrender to Baku.

English teacher Shahverdyan said: "They are doing so that the people become… so desperate that they just simply leave".

However, like other Karabakh Armenians who spoke to Reuters, Shahverdyan said it had only bolstered their determination to stay in their ancestral homeland.

"How can you live under a government or people who starve you for eight months?"

(Reporting by Felix Light; editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Devika Syamnath and Nick Macfie)

Study reveals what Otzi the Iceman really looked like

Sarah Knapton
Wed, August 16, 2023 

The mummified body was found on the Schnalstal glacier in 1991 - South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/SWNS


Ötzi the Iceman was probably bald with dark skin - not too dissimilar to his present desiccated state, scientists have concluded.

The natural mummy, which dates from 5,300 years ago, was found in the Otztal Alps at the border of Austria and Italy and is Europe’s oldest mummified human.

The current reconstruction in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology suggests that Ötzi had light eyes, a shaggy head of hair, a beard and the lightish skin of an Alpine climate.

But new genetic analysis suggests he had a genetic predisposition for male pattern baldness, with dark eyes and dark skin.

“It was previously thought that the mummy’s skin had darkened during its preservation in the ice, but presumably what we see now is actually largely Ötzi’s original skin colour,” said anthropologist Albert Zink, study co-author and head of the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies in Bolzano.

“It’s the darkest skin tone that has been recorded in contemporary European individuals.”

Scientists have concluded Ötzi looked not too dissimilar to his present desiccated state, with dark skin and a bald head - South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/SWNS

Prof Johannes Krause from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany, added: “The genome analysis revealed phenotypic traits such as high skin pigmentation, dark eye colour, and male pattern baldness that are in stark contrast to the previous reconstructions that show a light-skinned, light-eyed, and quite hairy male.

“The mummy itself, however, is dark and has no hair. It is remarkable how the reconstruction is biassed by our own preconception of a stone age human from Europe.”

Ötzi died after being shot in the back with an arrow by an unknown assailant in one of the world’s oldest murder mysteries. His body was frozen forever in the snow and ice of the mountains.

The new analysis also changes Ötzi ancestry. Genetic profiling in 2012 suggested he had descended from a mix of native hunter-gatherers, migrating farmers from Anatolia - modern-day Turkey - and Steppe herders from Eastern Europe.

But the new results find no link to the Steppe herders with scientists discovering that modern DNA had accidentally become mixed up with the original samples. There is also very little hunter-gatherer DNA, suggesting his lineage is from Middle Eastern farmers.

The current reconstruction suggests that Ötzi had light eyes, a shaggy head of hair, a beard and the lightish skin of an Alpine climate - South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology

The research team concluded that Ötzi came from a relatively isolated Alpine farming population that had very little contact with other European groups.

As well as a predisposition to baldness, his genes also suggest he was at increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes, although such genetic traits may have been helpful for storing fat in prehistoric times when food was more scarce.

Elisabeth Vallazza, director of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, said despite the new evidence the museum had no plans to change the reconstruction.

“The famous figure in the museum is an attempt at interpretation, a suggestion of how we imagined the Iceman during his lifetime,” she added.

“The figure was created in 2011 by the palaeo-artists Adrie and Alfons Kennis based on research that had been conducted at the time. The main purpose was to show that Ötzi was a modern human.

“Middle-aged, tattooed, wiry, weathered, a person like you and me. There are currently no plans to revise the reconstruction.”

The new study was published in the journal Cell Genomics.

DESANTISLAND

By Trying To 'Move On,' DeSantis Admits His Fight With Disney Was a Political Stunt All Along


Eric Boehm
Tue, August 15, 2023 

Dirk Shadd/ZUMA Press/Newscom


The fact that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now trying to back away from his fight with the Walt Disney Company should confirm at least one thing about the whole ugly mess.

It was never a principled fight against special privileges granted to a private company. It was a political stunt meant to raise DeSantis' profile on the national stage.

That mission having been accomplished—and with the prospects of a legal battle against Disney looming—DeSantis told CNBC on Monday that he has "moved on" from the issue. He also encouraged Disney to "drop the lawsuit" that it filed in April against his administration.

In that lawsuit, Disney claimed that DeSantis led a "targeted campaign of government retaliation" after the company's then-CEO, Bob Chapek, had spoken out against DeSantis' decision to sign a bill limiting the discussion of gender and sexuality in grade school classrooms. (The ban was later expanded to include nearly all public school classrooms in the state.) DeSantis responded to that criticism by launching a crusade against Disney's special self-governing district, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, culminating in the passage of a state law that gave the governor the authority to appoint a new board to run the zone.

DeSantis and his allies have framed that maneuver as a strike against corporate special interests, but Disney's lawsuit makes a compelling case that the governor specifically targeted Disney to punish the company for Chapek's comments. The complaint draws from numerous public statements and from remarks made within DeSantis' recently published book to argue that DeSantis sought to punish Disney for constitutionally protected speech.

It makes a lot of sense for DeSantis to try to walk away from this fight, in no small part because getting his butt kicked in federal court over a fairly fundamental constitutional issue wouldn't be a good look for a guy who is hoping to become president. Even if he doesn't lose, the lawsuit will be an ongoing source of bad news for DeSantis and will give reporters the opportunity to ask questions he'd rather not have to deal with—like the newly uncovered ethical issues surrounding one of the people DeSantis appointed to the Reedy Creek board. Ending the fight would also save taxpayers from having to foot the legal bills for DeSantis' defense, which is nice.

Still, getting out of this mess is probably not as simple as asking Disney to drop the lawsuit and move on. Does DeSantis intend to ask the state Legislature to undo the governor's control over the Reedy Creek board? If not, then why should Disney back down?

Short of that, it would be useful for reporters to ask DeSantis whether he would take similar actions against other businesses whose executives criticize his policies. Disney obviously has the power to fight back, but others might not be able to do so. Is DeSantis willing to admit he was wrong to retaliate against Disney? The answer would be instructive for voters weighing his candidacy for higher office.

Ultimately, though, DeSantis' attempt to "move on" from the fight with Disney reveals how unserious the whole thing was. If this were a principled stand against corporatism, as DeSantis has claimed, it would be worth seeing the fight through to the finish. That was never the case, however, and it looks like DeSantis simply wants to end this political stunt before it blows up in his face.

The post By Trying To 'Move On,' DeSantis Admits His Fight With Disney Was a Political Stunt All Along appeared first on Reason.com.

DeSantis' appointees ask judge to rule against Disney without need for trial


MIKE SCHNEIDER
Tue, August 15, 2023 

Members of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District asked the state judge in Orlando for a summary judgment that would rule in their favor on five of the nine counts in their case.

The case is one of two lawsuits stemming from the takeover, which was retaliation for Disney’s public opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation championed by DeSantis and Republican lawmakers. In the other lawsuit, in federal court in Tallahassee, Disney says DeSantis violated the company’s free speech rights.

DeSantis isn't a party in the state court case in which his appointees accuse Disney of wrongly stripping them of powers over design and construction at Disney World when the company made agreements with Disney-friendly predecessors. The DeSantis appointees argued that the board of Disney supporters didn't give proper notice, lacked authority and unlawfully delegated government authority to a private entity.

The judge in the state case last month refused Disney's request to dismiss the lawsuit.

The fight between DeSantis and Disney began last year after the company, facing significant pressure internally and externally, publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, a policy critics call “Don’t Say Gay.”

As punishment, DeSantis took over the district through legislation passed by Florida lawmakers and appointed a new board of supervisors to oversee municipal services for the sprawling theme parks and hotels. But the new supervisors' authority was limited by the company's agreements with predecessors.

In response, DeSantis and Florida lawmakers passed legislation that repealed those agreements.

The governor has touted his yearlong feud with Disney in his run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, often accusing the entertainment giant of being too “woke.” Disney has accused the governor of violating its First Amendment rights.

In an interview with CNBC on Monday, DeSantis urged Disney to drop the company's lawsuit, saying that he and his allies have moved on from the feud with the company.

“They’re suing the state of Florida. They’re going to lose that lawsuit,” DeSantis said on CNBC’s “Last Call.”

CUTTING NOSE TO SPITE FACE

Floridians stung by DeSantis veto that cost $346M in energy-saving programs

Jeffrey Schweers, Orlando Sentinel
Wed, August 16, 2023
The 22-year-old air conditioning and heat pump in Daniel Milligan’s Deltona home was on its last legs, and it would cost at least $10,000 to replace, a large sum for a man in his 60s who’d been laid off and was getting by on temp work.

He’d heard about a new $8.5 billion federal rebate program targeting lower- and moderate-income homeowners and was eager to apply to the program to help pay for the upgrades that would help lower his electric bills.

But when he contacted the Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Department to see if it was participating in the program, the office’s blunt response sent on July 31 surprised him: “On June 15, 2023, Governor DeSantis used his veto power to eliminate nearly $30 million in energy programs,” said an unsigned email from the FDACS Office of Energy.

With a stroke of the pen, DeSantis had wiped out the seed money needed for Florida to get what would have been $346 million from Washington for Milligan’s heat pump and other energy-saving programs, the email said.

“He’s hurting millions of Floridians,” Milligan said, identifying himself as politically independent all of his life.

DeSantis offered no explanation for axing the energy programs in his veto message.

Asked why DeSantis did it, his press secretary, Jeremy Redfern said in an email that that the governor “reviews every bill and appropriation that comes across his desk and uses his authority under the Florida Constitution to veto bills that he believes are bad public policy.”

Five days after DeSantis vetoed the $30 million funding for energy programs that would have administered the federal rebates, the Office of Energy’s director sent letters to the U.S. Department of Energy withdrawing the state’s application to the program.

The U.S. Department of Energy sent out guidelines to state energy offices to set up energy efficiency rebate programs under the Rewiring America program, which is being financed under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and the Investment in Jobs Act.

“It gives states enough flexibility to design rebate programs that work for them while putting a priority on serving low- to moderate-income families who often spend the largest portion of their income on energy costs,” Rewiring America CEO Ari Matusiak said in a news release.

He said it was aimed at the households that are often hardest to keep comfortable in times of extreme temperatures, adding that the program would create 50,000 jobs.

It’s not the first time DeSantis has vetoed a budget item that would have helped reduce the use of gas or cut energy costs. He vetoed SB 284, a popular, bipartisan bill that would have allowed state agencies to increase the number of electric vehicles in their fleets, a measure that could have potentially saved the state $277 million.

It’s also not the first time DeSantis cut a program supported by Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson. He vetoed a $100 million land to buy rural conservation easements from Florida farmers, which perplexed agricultural leaders across the state.

“There is no conceivable reason to target agriculture in a year when we have billions of dollars in reserves,” Simpson said at the time. “Agriculture was harmed today and so was the state of Florida.”

Cutting down energy costs is a top priority for her constituents, said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando. She and other members of the climate and energy legislative caucus recently met with U.S. Department of Energy officials to discuss other means of getting that money to Florida residents, but it doesn’t seem possible under the law.

“This is just another example of DeSantis choosing political ambition over the people of Florida,” Eskamani said. “It is not only foolish but it costs people money, especially now with the heat and peak energy usage.”

The U.S. DOE deadline for states to tap into those rebate funds is Jan. 31, 2025, said Ellen Qualls, a spokeswoman for the rebate program. So the Legislature could potentially reappropriate that seed money next session and reapply for the grants.

Milligan was equally perplexed about DeSantis turning down the $350 million. He compared it to former Gov. Rick Scott’s decision to pass on $1 billion from President Obama to build a high-speed rail from Orlando to Tampa. That money went to California and North Carolina instead.

“We should get a return on our tax dollars. This angers me a lot,” Milligan said. “DeSantis cut us off at the knees.”

Allison Rice was looking forward to using that program to help finance upgrades to her 52-year-old Winter Park home. She discovered the electrical wiring is outdated, so she’s been holding off on getting a new air conditioner, hot water heater, and new electrical wiring.

“I pretty much need everything that’s offered on this list,” Rice said.

The program would help preserve other older housing stock like hers, which would help maintain affordable housing, she said.

”We need to invest money in the existing neighborhoods like Azalea Park and Pine Hills,” Rice said, “not build new ones.”

WHITE SUPREMACIST 3 STOOGES
House GOP trio introduces bill repealing DC Home Rule Act

Nick Robertson
Tue, August 15, 2023 



Three Republican congressmen introduced a bill Tuesday to repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act, an effort that would remove the Washington, D.C., mayor and council, granting all governing authority in the District to Congress.

The bill, which is not likely to pass, was introduced by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) and cosponsored by Reps. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and Byron Donalds (R-Fla.). Ogles said the bill is an attempt to exert authority over the District as Republicans focus on crime policy.

“In the first 5 days of August, DC saw 13 homicides. The Nation’s capital has been overrun with violent crime, drugs, theft, homelessness, and riots,” Ogles said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

“The Constitution places the authority and responsibility of DC administration with the Congress — not with a DC Mayor or a DC City Council. Congress needs to reclaim its Constitutional authority and make our Nation’s capital safe again, which is why I’m introducing the Seat of Government Act to repeal the DC Home Rule Act,” he continued.

The D.C. Home Rule Act, passed in 1973, establishes the District’s council and mayor. Congress must still approve any bill the council passes, but the Home Rule Act significantly expanded the District’s autonomy.

Moves by Congress to block D.C. laws are rare, but a bipartisan group of members voted to overturn an updated criminal code for the District in March. That updated code lowered penalties for some violent crimes, drawing criticism from both parties.

Some Democrats joined all Republicans in overturning the D.C. crime bill in both chambers, with President Biden agreeing to overturn the measure later in March, a controversial move that angered progressive Democrats.

Congress passed a resolution overturning a D.C. police reform bill in May, though Biden vetoed that resolution letting the D.C. bill go into effect.

Violent crime is up about 37 percent in 2023 when compared to this point in 2022, according to District police data. There have been 164 homicides, a 25 percent increase, and 2,159 robberies, a 61 percent increase, as of Tuesday morning. Car thefts have increased by 114 percent since last year, according to the data.

If passed, Congress would again be responsible for all aspects of the D.C. government, from managing and funding public services like police to public works and infrastructure.

District politicians have criticized Ogles’s proposal.

“My first reaction is this: The gentleman hasn’t a clue how to run the District of Columbia,” District Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) told The Washington Post. “And the notion that Congress is ready to go back 50 years, when it wasn’t running the city well then, is fantasy.”

The Inflation Reduction Act will drive down emissions. But how much?

Julian Spector
Wed, August 16, 2023

Canary Media thanks KORE Power for its support of our special coverage of the Inflation Reduction Act's first year.

There’s no doubt that the Inflation Reduction Act, in just one year’s time, has fundamentally reshaped the trajectory of the U.S. clean energy industry.

But history will not judge the Inflation Reduction Act based on the billions in investments it spurred in 2023. When measuring the law’s effectiveness, one immutable criterion looms above all else, and that is carbon emissions. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an order reinstating the U.S. to the Paris Agreement and pledged to cut U.S. emissions in half by 2030, relative to 2005 levels. The law he signed last August is the strongest effort yet to deliver on that promise.

Is it working?

Answering this question requires peering seven years into the future — a dicey proposition even in less turbulent times. Nonlinear feedback loops, S-curve adoption trends and sociopolitical obstacles abound, making any definitive predictions impossible.

But energy-system modelers have published a veritable library of detailed studies to illustrate the emissions-reducing potential of the law, and their research converges around a general outlook: The U.S. is far closer to meeting its 2030 emissions-reduction goals thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, but it’s still not all the way there. Keeping the Paris goals alive will require follow-on policies at the city, state and federal levels, exceptional performance by the clean energy industry, and an overhaul to the permitting and grid interconnection regimes that threaten to slow essential clean energy projects today.

Averaging across nine independent studies, a report in Science concludes the country is poised to cut emissions by 33% to 40% by 2030, compared to a 2005 baseline. Before the IRA passed, the country was on track for reductions of just 25% to 31%, so the floor is now higher than the ceiling was prior to the legislation.

Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor and one of the modelers featured in the Science paper, put it this way: Factoring in the IRA, we’re running four to five years behind schedule on the Paris goals.

“For the first time in U.S. history, the full financial might of the federal government is aligned behind the clean energy transition,” Jenkins said. “Is that necessary? Absolutely. Is it sufficient? No.”

The Inflation Reduction Act will make its biggest dent in power-sector emissions. And that's for good reason: Electricity is a major emitter itself, but clean electricity can drive decarbonization in transportation, buildings and at least some of the heavy industrial processes. As a result, the near-term success of the law will depend on how rapidly it can drive down emissions from power plants.

The task is made more difficult because the grid can’t just get cleaner than it’s ever been; it has to expand to shoulder this new demand from other sectors. And as it stands — even though power-sector emissions are expected to nosedive by nearly 70 percent compared to 2005 levels — it doesn’t look like the sector will cut carbon fast enough to make the Paris targets come true.

Still, Jenkins doesn’t think the 2030 goals are out of reach.

“There are a number of positive feedbacks that could close the gap,” Jenkins said. “I’m optimistic because I think we can get the work done, and the IRA itself will encourage more work to be done.”
The grid is about to get cleaner, faster than you ever imagined

The Inflation Reduction Act strikes hardest and fastest at the power sector, and the emissions outlooks reflect that. A helpful chart from the Rhodium Group breaks out each sector of the economy and shows the precipitous plunge in emissions from the electricity sector, far outstripping the progress in transportation and buildings, and the lack of any improvement in agriculture and heavy industry.

Recall that in 2022, 41% of U.S. power production yielded no carbon emissions; that portion is pretty evenly split between nuclear and assorted renewables. The best-case outlook in the Science study is the model from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which shows carbon-free generation rising to 71% in the pessimistic case (!) and as much as 90% if clean energy performance and deployment constraints break more favorably for the transition. And this shift would lower bulk power costs by billions of dollars.

The economics of radically cheap renewable generation were already reshaping the utility sector — again and again, utilities have realized it's in their interest to build far more wind and solar this decade than they previously considered. Then Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act and upped the tax credits for investing in clean energy to as much as 50%. That broadens the number of places and situations where solar, wind and energy storage can supply the cheapest electricity, said Daniel Steinberg, lead author of the NREL study.

“It is really a fundamental change in the rate that clean technologies are being deployed,” Steinberg said.

Granted, the grid might not change as fast as NREL’s modeling suggests. The models surveyed in the Science study average out to a more modest 68% reduction in power-sector emissions by 2030 compared to 2005.

One possible reason for this divergence: NREL assumed a “marginal increase in load associated with electrification” rather than a “radical increase,” Steinberg said. If, say, electric vehicle adoption blows past expectations and drives a voracious uptake in charging at times when renewables aren’t broadly available, this would pressure utilities to burn more fossil fuel to meet this demand.

This is the paradox of the clean-electrification strategy: It's essential to convert fossil-fuel-powered machines to run on electricity, but doing so increases electricity demand, making the task of decarbonizing the grid that much more difficult. Renewables not only need to replace existing fossil fuel generation — they also need to grow to meet this new demand as well, across time and space.

“The power sector needs to cut [emissions] faster and deeper than any other sector while expanding electricity production to supply EVs and new demands if we want to hit our Paris goals,” Jenkins said.

In fact, Jenkins and his team at Princeton found that the sector on track to overshoot emissions targets the most is the power sector — even in spite of the rapid progress expected. The chart below depicts emissions beyond what’s allowed for the pathway to net zero by 2050; the gray bar for power-plant emissions exceeds any other source in the 2030 timeframe under every modeling scenario.

A bunch of hard-to-model variables could obstruct climate progress

Clean energy clearly has the upper hand in a coolheaded economic analysis of what power plants should be built through the 2020s — a major coup after the early years in which renewable power cost more than the status quo. But humans and legacy institutions rarely act based on a reasoned economic calculus alone.

The conservative scenarios in all the various studies show what happens when these so-called “non-economic factors” constrain the pace of clean energy adoption. These limitations could include variables like supply-chain scarcity, workforce bottlenecks, lackluster buildout of transmission wires, and local bans or resistance aimed at clean energy installations and power lines.

That local opposition is a potentially major obstacle that, while not precisely “non-modelable,” is “challenging to model,” NREL’s Steinberg noted. For instance, NREL researchers approximate land-use constraints by tracking local ordinances that ban renewables or battery storage development. But it’s not possible to ascertain exactly where communities will block the kinds of projects needed to decarbonize the economy.

In one of the most prominent instances thus far, Texas legislators this summer attempted to pass a series of policies to disadvantage renewables in the competitive energy markets; if that push hadn’t failed at the last minute, it could have derailed the largest state market for new solar construction and wind generation.

“States and localities, some of them are closing their door to clean energy,” said Conrad Schneider, who leads U.S. advocacy at the Clean Air Task Force. “We need a world where communities are volunteering, saying ‘I want it!’”

The Biden administration wields more control over another limiting factor: getting the money out the door. The Inflation Reduction Act building spree cannot begin in earnest until the IRS spells out the rules to qualify for the many tax credits; some of those are still rolling out a year later, including the hotly contested qualifications for clean hydrogen production.

The law’s home-electrification credits are live, but that money won’t reach people’s pockets until they file tax returns in 2024, noted Stephen Pantano, head of market transformation at Rewiring America. “We had this one year of anticipation” culminating in the Department of Energy publishing guidance for about $9 billion of electrification and home efficiency rebates, separate from the tax credits, in late July. But the rebate money flows through state energy offices, which need to set up their own programs to get the funds to customers.

And though tax credits for clean-energy developers are mostly finalized, it remains to be seen how readily they can take advantage of the relevant tax credits. Clean power plants can knock up to half off their upfront cost if they hit labor standards, use the right amount of domestic content and build in an “energy community” as defined in the law. But we haven’t seen projects take advantage of that full stack of credits yet, so modelers have to choose assumptions they think are realistic.

The studies of IRA impact all account for these constraints in their own ways, hence the Science study’s range of economywide emissions falling anywhere between 33% and 40%. Now the task falls to industry and policymakers to push for the higher end of those projections — or to prove the modelers overly pessimistic.
Positive feedback loops could help the U.S. beat expectations

To save the Paris goals, the U.S. needs to chase its landmark legislation with further action, and ideally kick off a chain of feedback loops that reduce emissions further, faster than currently expected. The public and private sectors have roles to play here.

The best shot at substantially reducing power emissions by 2030, per the Princeton study, would be finding ways to phase out coal-fired generation ahead of current timelines. The next biggest chunk to target comes from non-CO2 emissions, like methane and NOx, which have an outsize influence on shorter-term warming.

The IRA levies a fee on oil and gas companies that release methane, and uses those funds to pay for methane cleanup efforts. And the Biden administration is already working on additional greenhouse emission regulations for vehicles and power plants. Per the Clean Air Task Force’s analysis, the Biden administration must enforce “stringent” regulations (based on its existing authorities) to close the gap on climate goals.

The IRA strengthened the Environmental Protection Agency’s toolkit in two key ways. First, the law codified EPA’s mandate to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, noted Schneider of the Clean Air Task Force. The legislation also made carbon-capture technology significantly more cost-effective with a new set of tax credits; that expands the range of remedies for plant owners to comply with new, stricter emissions rules.

The EPA then drew on its newly strengthened authority to propose power-plant regulations this spring that could clean the sector faster by forcing down emissions from coal plants and large gas plants; to comply, operators could close dirty old plants, switch to cleaner fuels or add carbon-capture equipment. In this case, the IRA carrots for green hydrogen and carbon capture help unlock more powerful regulatory sticks, which could in turn drive more adoption of the IRA incentives — and emissions reductions.

“The companies that have to deploy it and their ratepayers no longer have to swallow the whole cost,” Schneider said of carbon-capture tech. “That enabled the regulations to move ahead.”

The private sector can kick off its own feedback loops to close the emissions gap by aggressively building as much clean energy as possible — something the Inflation Reduction Act transformed into a scintillating business proposition.

“The federal government just put clean energy on sale, for everyone, everywhere,” Jenkins said. “Whatever level of emissions reductions made economic or political sense prior to the Inflation Reduction Act, you can now do more. And the faster you move, the more federal tax credits you'll get.”

An unexpected vote of confidence in this likelihood came from Goldman Sachs, which predicted in March that industry will make use of $1.2 trillion of IRA incentives through 2032. That level of uptake would be more than three times the amount that legislators expected to spend on the law’s clean energy provisions when it was passed.

Technological advancements could also break in favor of faster carbon reduction. The cheaper and better solar and storage get, the more installations will ensue. Clean Air Task Force’s research suggests carbon capture could become a meaningful contributor to reductions in that timeframe, especially in the industrial sector that is otherwise hard to decarbonize.

If clean energy outstrips today’s best estimates, it wouldn’t be the first time. Top-of-the-line models failed to register the propulsive growth of early solar installations, year after year. Clean energy technologies exhibit a well-documented tendency to beat the most sophisticated expectations. If that happens again, it would push the U.S. closer to its goals.

But NREL’s Steinberg cautioned against holding out too much hope for that Hail Mary.

“In my opinion, we have decreasing uncertainty in terms of what kind of deployment trajectories we’re seeing under a given scenario,” he said. “We have collectively gotten a whole lot better.”

Outperforming the models, then, will take sustained, diligent work from regulators, policymakers, and businesses — and an enthusiastic reception from customers, too. Those actions, coupled with avoiding the worst-case constraints on deployment — could push the U.S. beyond the best-case 40% emissions cuts of the latest studies. The Inflation Reduction Act has already planted seeds for this to happen, but they need to be watered and nourished.

Headquartered in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho with clients on every continent, KORE Power provides functional solutions to meet the growing demand for green economic expansion and a decarbonized future. As a fully integrated provider of battery cells and clean energy technology and solutions, KORE drives the energy transition through direct access to superior tech, clean energy manufacturing, and unmatched support for clean energy jobs and resilient, sustainable communities worldwide. KORE Power's robust portfolio provides the commercial, industrial, utility and defense markets with next-generation battery cells, advanced energy storage systems that scale to grid+, intuitive asset management, and EV power and charging infrastructure support.

Biden is set to mark the anniversary of his signing of a major climate, health and tax law

SEUNG MIN KIM
Updated Wed, August 16, 2023





 President Joe Biden speaks about the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Sept. 13, 2022. It's a once-in-a-generation undertaking, thanks to three big bills approved by Congress last session. They're now coming online. Biden calls it "Bidenomics." Republicans criticize it as big government overreach. Taken together, the estimated $2 trillion is a centerpiece of Biden's re-election effort. 

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is ramping up its efforts to illustrate the real-world impact of President Joe Biden’s signature climate, health care and tax law by showing how various Americans say they’ve benefited from his economic policies on the anniversary of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

At a White House event Wednesday afternoon to celebrate a year since he signed the bill, Biden will stand alongside people — from union workers to small business owners to consumers — who the White House says have been aided by the law. That sweeping package, along with the bipartisan infrastructure law and a massive bill that bolsters production of semiconductor chips, make up the core of what the White House has branded “Bidenomics." It's aggressively promoting the concept as Biden seeks to improve his standing with voters amid his re-election campaign.

Before the East Room event, the administration is rolling out a new online tool on invest.gov that relays stories from across the country about the impact of the president’s economic agenda.

The White House is on a sprint to connect what they say is a popular economic agenda with an unpopular incumbent president, as polls show a majority of voters consistently disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy even amid signs of a U.S. economic upswing.

The inflation rate has cooled over the past year to a more manageable 3.2% annually, while job growth has stayed solid and the economy has avoided the recession that many analysts said would be needed to bring down prices. On Tuesday, the Census Bureau reported that retail sales have climbed 3.2% over the past 12 months.

That level of consumer spending led the investment bank Goldman Sachs to raise its expectations for overall growth in the third quarter to an annual rate of 2.2%. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow estimate jumped even higher with the forecast of third-quarter growth reaching 5%.

The evidence of economic strength has yet to translate into political gains for Biden, who has devoted the past several weeks to traveling the U.S. He's emphasized the roughly $500 billion worth of investments by private companies that have been spurred by his policies.

Aides say the mood of the American electorate has been dampened in recent years by outside forces such as a once-in-a-century pandemic and the time it takes for laws signed by Biden to have an impact.

“They’ll take time for people to feel,” Olivia Dalton, the principal White House deputy press secretary, said Tuesday as Biden traveled to Wisconsin. “But we believe we’re headed in the right direction and people are going to increasingly see that, and the president is going to keep talking about it.

During his remarks Wednesday, Biden will lean into the climate provisions of the law, noting how the investments spurred by it have not only created jobs but given communities new resources to protect themselves from climate-related threats.

U.S. Treasury is marking the legislation’s anniversary by releasing a new analysis that it says shows new clean energy investments spurred by the law are largely benefitting underserved communities.

The agency report issued Wednesday states that new investments in clean energy, electric vehicles and batteries are concentrated in areas with lower employment, wages and college graduation rates.

“Not only will these investments provide opportunity to communities that need it the most, but they will also leverage the most promising regions for national productivity growth,” said Treasury officials Eric Van Nostrand and Laura Feiveson in a Wednesday blog post.

But the name is the Inflation Reduction Act after all, despite the minimal impact that the law has had in actually taming cost prices over the past year. So the administration is also rolling out a new report from the Department of Energy that shows the law will cut electricity rates up to 9 percent and lower gas prices by up to 13 percent by the year 2030.

My husband works for UPS and I wish people could see how hard his job is — and why the new $170,000 contract deal is well deserved

Fortesa Latifi
Updated Wed, August 16, 2023 

Kourtney is married to a UPS driver.

Courtesy of Kourtney

• Kourtney is married to a UPS driver in Rhode Island.

• Kourtney says she sees how hard the job is and drivers deserve the new $170,000 contract deal.

• She believes people shouldn't be upset about the deal because blue-collar workers deserve fair pay.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kourtney, a 30-year-old hairdresser and wife of a UPS driver in Rhode Island. Her last name has been omitted for privacy reasons. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

After the Teamsters union secured a win guaranteeing that UPS delivery drivers would make $170,000 in salary and benefits by the end of a 5-year period, people in tech and other white-collar workers had a lot to say about it. As the wife of a UPS driver, so do I.

Let's start with the facts. The $170,000 is not a base salary — it takes into consideration healthcare and pension benefits. But that's not even what bothers me most about people's reactions, which range from wondering why drivers would make that much money to calling them overpaid and undeserving.

I really want people to think about why they believe UPS workers don't deserve to be fairly compensated

It seems like a lot of it has to do with the snobbery white-collar workers feel toward blue-collar workers. I'm a hairdresser so I see it in my work, too. Some people just feel like they're better than us and that we don't deserve nice things or stability.

I feel like college-educated white-collar workers don't believe blue-collar workers deserve to live a comfortable life — even though service workers are the backbone of society. They're the most physically skilled ones and they're the ones performing jobs nobody else wants to do. Despite that, they're constantly taken for granted.

If you're upset about my husband's salary, you should be looking at the CEO of your company. The truth is, the CEO of your company makes, on average, 272 times more than the average worker. This is the design of capitalism. It pits workers against each other.

I wish people could see how hard my husband's UPS job is

Every morning, he leaves the house before our kids are awake and comes home each night after they're asleep. When he returns, he's covered in dirt from head to toe. There isn't air conditioning in his truck and he sends me photos of the infrared thermometer reading 115 degrees. I worry so much about him in those physically demanding conditions that I track his location just to make sure he's always moving.

This is an incredibly difficult job. Even driving a truck of that size requires specific skill, but people just think "oh, I could be a delivery driver" and they have no idea what it actually takes.

All these delivery drivers just want to live a comfortable life

They're not asking to be millionaires. They just want to be able to provide for their families and enjoy their lives on the weekends after working hard all week. It's not a crime to want a comfortable life.

It's normal to want to be able to go on vacation and have a nice car and be able to enjoy your life. I've seen, firsthand, how hard these drivers work. I know how important they are to the economy and to our country — and obviously UPS does too, as evidenced by the tentative agreement with the union.

If UPS believes these workers should be paid more, that's none of your business

Workers are the ones that make the corporation profitable and that's what makes shareholders happy. They deserve to be compensated for that. We all deserve to be fairly compensated for our labor.

I don't think the people who are complaining have any idea what it's like to be a UPS driver, but I do because I see it every day.

Editor's note: A UPS spokesperson sent the following statement to Insider:

"The safety and well-being of every UPSer is our top priority. We have been steadily building on our efforts to protect our people in the face of increasingly hot temperatures, provide a safe work environment, and make working at UPS a great experience for employees as they serve our customers and strengthen our communities.

"We have worked with top experts in heat safety to study our working conditions and further improve our trainings and protocols to help our employees work safely — especially on hot days. Improvements include:

How truck driving became one of the worst jobs in the US

More than 3 million people drive trucks in the US, but the job is no longer the golden ticket it once was to a middle-class life. At the start of the pandemic, truck drivers were celebrated as frontline workers, but now many of them say they feel forgotten again.

Middle class Americans are moving straight into fire and drought because they can't afford to live in the cities that are safer from climate change

Eliza Relman
Updated Tue, August 15, 2023

An aerial view of homes in the Phoenix suburbs on June 9, 2023 in Queen Creek, Arizona.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

• Rising housing costs have helped push Americans into parts of the country more vulnerable to climate change.

• US counties that have the most at-risk homes are all growing in population.

• The trend shows how the burden of climate change is falling disproportionately on less affluent people.

The skyrocketing cost of housing has pushed many Americans to trade their lives in big coastal cities like New York and San Francisco for more affordable ones in Sunbelt cities and Southern suburbs.

But that move could cost more in the long-run.

These more affordable regions of the country are also facing much more severe impacts of climate change, including extreme heat, wildfires, floods, and droughts. People are pouring into flood-prone Florida, moving into Houston not long after Hurricane Harvey devastated the city in 2017, and relocating to parts of the West and Southwest dealing with the worst droughts and wildfires in the country.

Rather than leaving areas at high risk of natural disasters and other climate issues, more Americans are moving into them. US counties that have the most at-risk homes are all growing in population, while those with the fewest at-risk homes are almost all losing residents, according to a 2021 Redfin analysis.

The pandemic exacerbated this trend. There's been a recent spike in people moving from more expensive cities to lower-cost, smaller places farther from large metros and closer to natural amenities, in part due to the rise in remote work. These locations – like Bend, Oregon, which is vulnerable to wildfires — tend to be more at risk of natural disasters. The number of loan applications for homes in high-risk areas rose from 90,462 in February 2020 to 187,669 in February 2022, Freddie Mac reported.

In the longer-term, this trend will put many more Americans at risk of losing their homes to wildfires and floods, or being hurt or killed by extreme heat, or suffering from a lack of water. Rich people are already better able to protect themselves from natural disasters and other climate impacts, whether by fleeing, hiring private firefighters, or retrofitting their homes. But if lower-risk cities continue to price people out, the burden of climate change will fall even more disproportionately on less affluent communities.

Experts say there are ways that local, state, and federal governments can help to reverse this dangerous trend.

A recent Brookings Institution report recommended several ways that policymakers can encourage Americans to seek climate safety. First, the researchers say that Congress and the the Federal Housing Finance Agency should work with mortgage lenders and property insurers to factor climate risk into their rates, charging homeowners more based on how much risk they're taking on.

Often, homebuyers don't know what kinds of climate risks their property faces, so state and local governments should develop rules about what information needs to be disclosed to a potential homebuyer and then impose higher taxes on riskier property.

"Higher fees in risky areas serve two purposes: they encourage price-sensitive households to choose safer locations, and they also provide local governments with more revenue to upgrade the climate resilience of infrastructure," Jenny Schuetz and Julia Gill of Brookings write.

Zoning and other land-use regulations, they argue, should be reformed to encourage more dense development in safer places and less sprawl into particularly climate-impacted areas.

Homeowners and landlords in riskier places also need to do more to retrofit homes to make them more fire and wind proof and more energy efficient. The researchers recommend that local policymakers think more carefully about where to invest infrastructure — including roads, schools, and water and sewage capacity — in climate-impacted areas to either discourage or encourage people to move to certain areas.

Siemens to make solar energy equipment for US market in Wisconsin

Reuters
Tue, August 15, 2023 


(Reuters) - German conglomerate Siemens said on Tuesday it will start producing solar energy equipment in the United States in 2024 through a contract manufacturer in Wisconsin.

The announcement marks a move by one of the world's largest manufacturers to capitalize on incentives in President Joe Biden's year-old landmark climate change law to boost American-made supplies of solar energy components and compete with China.

Siemens will produce solar string inverters, devices that convert energy generated from solar panels into usable current, for the U.S. utility-scale market, it said in a statement. The products will be made at a facility in Kenosha, Wisconsin, operated by Sanmina.

"Working with Sanmina to establish this new production line, Siemens is well positioned to address supply challenges our country is facing as we work to localize production for green and renewable infrastructure," Brian Dula, vice president of electrification and automation at Siemens Smart Infrastructure USA, said in the statement.

The work for Siemens will create up to a dozen jobs at the factory to start, the company said. Production will scale up to a capacity of 800 megawatts of inverters per year.

The Inflation Reduction Act has unleashed $100 billion in investment in the domestic solar sector in the last year, including $20 billion for solar and storage manufacturing, the top U.S. solar trade group said this week.

More than 50 solar manufacturing facilities have been announced or expanded since the IRA passed, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association study. That includes about 7 gigawatts of inverter capacity.

IRA tax credits incentivize both producers and buyers of domestically made clean-energy equipment. For example, solar projects that use American-made equipment, including inverters and other components, can qualify for a bonus tax credit worth 10% of the project's cost.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Accounts of 'body checks' at Miss Universe Indonesia shock the nation as contestants speak out

ANDI JATMIKO
Updated Tue, August 15, 2023 



Indonesia Miss Universe

In this image made from video, contestant of Miss Universe Indonesia Priskila Ribka Jelita, center, talks with her mother, Maria Napitupulu, right, and lawyer Melisa Anggraini during an interview with the Associated Press Television in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023. The lawyer of a number of contestants of Miss Universe Indonesia pageant said Tuesday they have filed complaints with police, accusing local organizers of sexual harassment. 

(AP Photo/APTN)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Their dreams of representing Indonesia in the 2023 Miss Universe pageant turned to nightmares when they were forced to undergo “body checks” in front of local organizers. Now seven contestants have filed complaints with the police, accusing the organizers of sexual harassment, their lawyer said Tuesday.

During the July 29-Aug. 3 Miss Universe Indonesia contest in the capital of Jakarta — and ahead of the show's Grand Final event — the contestants were told to strip to their underwear for “body checks” for scars or cellulite, said lawyer Melissa Anggraini.

The checks took place in a ballroom at the downtown Sari Pacific Hotel, where the contest was held, with about two dozen people present, including men. Five of the contestants said they were then photographed topless, Anggraini said.

“We have obtained some evidences, even videos showing that the organizer had carried out ‘body checks’,” she added.


One of her clients, 23-year-old model Priskila Ribka Jelita who represented West Java province in the pageant, recounted her “body check” ordeal in an interview with The Associated Press.

“When they asked me to open my bra ... I was shocked! But I couldn’t speak or refuse," she said. “When I tried to cover my breast with my hand, I was even scolded and yelled at.”

“I was totally confused, nervous and humiliated, especially when I was told to lift my left leg on the chair” for an inspection up the inside of her leg, Jelita said.

After news of the “body checks” leaked out, the Miss Universe Organization cut its ties with its Indonesian franchisee. The New York-based organization said in a statement late Saturday that it had decided to sever ties with PT Capella Swastika Karya, the franchisee, and its National Director Poppy Capella.

“In light of what we have learned took place at Miss Universe Indonesia, it has become clear that this franchise has not lived up to our brand standards and ethics,” the Miss Universe Organization said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The organization also said it would be cancelling this year’s Miss Universe Malaysia as the Indonesian franchisee also holds the license for the neighboring country's pageant.

It said it would make arrangements for the Indonesia 2023 title holder, Fabienne Nicole Groeneveld, who won in Jakarta, to compete in the upcoming Miss Universe pageant, to be held in El Salvador later this year.

Groeneveld was not among the contestants who filed a complaint.

Jelita's mother, Maria Napitupulu, said she found out what happened to her daughter only after reading her daughter’s post on Instagram, where she recounted the ordeal.

“It’s very sad and this really hurts me,” Napitupulu said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

In March, Indonesian beauty company PT Capella Swastika Karya took over the license for Miss Universe Indonesia from Yayasan Putri Indonesia, or YPI, an Indonesian foundation that had held the license for 30 years.

Capella, a former singer and the franchisee's manager, could not be reached for comment.

In a post on the franchisee's Instagram account, Capella on Saturday denied she had any knowledge of or was in any way involved in any “body checking” of the contestants. She also said that she was against every form of “violence and sexual harassment.”

In its statement, the Miss Universe Organization said no measurements of height, weight, or body dimensions are required to join the pageant, and thanked the Indonesian contestants who have shown "bravery in speaking out.”

“To the women who came forward from the Indonesian pageant, we are sorry that this was your experience with our organization,” it said, adding that it was also evaluating current franchise agreements and policies to prevent this type of conduct from occurring again.

Since the “body checks” news broke, controversy over the pageant has been mounting in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The country has a reputation as a tolerant, pluralist society that respects freedom of expression.

Most Muslims in Indonesia, a secular country of 277 million people, are moderate, but a small hard-line fringe has become more vocal in recent years.

In 2013, several conservative Muslim groups staged a massive protest against the Miss World competition in Indonesia, prompting the organizers to move the contest from Jakarta to the resort island of Bali. All of the more than 130 contestants were required to wear Bali’s traditional long sarongs instead of the bikinis that have historically been a symbol of the competition.

___

Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.