Net Zero

1. Testing Biden’s legacy
2. Well-oiled war machine
3. BP beats retreat
4. Loadshedding returns
5. A win for nuclear

Nuke tips for Wright, and Trump’s mineral ‘shakedown’ of Ukraine.

Congress tests Biden’s climate strategy

US congressional Republicans are poised to test a core tenet of Joe Biden’s climate strategy — that clean energy investments will be politically shielded because most are in Republican districts. So far, the former president’s approach appears to be working.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has promised to hold a vote on a budget bill in his chamber this week, despite opposition from some in his party to planned deep cuts to Medicaid. If it passes, Johnson will still need to iron out some differences with the Senate budget plan adopted on Friday. But the bills could deliver some key fossil fuel policy wins for US President Donald Trump, including an aim to boost federal spending on domestic energy production, which the Senate plan said could be paid for in part by leasing out more acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling. The House is also set to vote this week on whether to roll back several key Biden climate policies, including a fee on methane emissions from oil and gas operations, energy efficiency standards for water heaters, and surveying paperwork for offshore drilling.

The Biden climate legacy looks likely to survive, for now. Clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act have not been put on the chopping block, yet. The Senate budget proposal avoids tax issues entirely, and Johnson has so far chosen not to subject the Biden administration’s IRA tax guidance to the same kind of regulatory turnover that he is deploying against methane fees and appliances.

New data from Clean Investment Monitor, a research group that tracks IRA-linked investment, underscores the depth of Biden’s political insurance strategy. Between the law’s adoption and the end of 2024, $289 billion was invested nationwide in climate-related manufacturing, electricity, and industrial facilities, the report finds. Of that, 77% went to congressional districts represented by Republicans, with Texas and the southeast seeing the most benefit.

Well-oiled war machine

Europe’s payments to Russia for fossil fuel exports exceed the region’s aid to Ukraine — and Western sanctions have done little to curb the Kremlin’s oil budget.

Sanctions have so far rerouted much of Russia’s oil and gas exports, but done little to reduce their value, a new report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found. Russia’s growing “shadow fleet,” and weak sanctions enforcement by the US, have enabled it to mostly evade consequences, leaving Russian President Vladimir Putin in a stronger negotiating position as controversial peace talks unfold. Meanwhile, as the European Union tries to organize itself to pick up the military aid slack from the US, it paid €22 billion for Russian fossil fuels in 2024, compared to €19 billion for Ukraine aid.

Cutting-edge innovations in carbon capture technology, green hydrogen production, and next-gen aircraft are revolutionizing the energy landscape. As these technologies advance, what are the biggest hurdles making them commercially viable? Hosted on the sidelines of CERAWeek in Houston, Semafor’s Climate & Energy Editor Tim McDonnell will lead news-making conversations with industry leaders including John Ketchum, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy, Inc., and more, on the latest breakthroughs, challenges, and the policy shifts.

March 10, 2025 | Houston, TX | RSVP

BP beats retreat

BP plans to scrap its plans to increase renewable energy production, Reuters reported. The oil major’s early push into alternative energy over the past decade earned it plaudits from climate activists, but scorn from investors, who have seen the company’s shares lag in value compared to those of its peers amid missed profit targets. BP is under pressure from the activist hedge fund Elliott Investment Management to ditch the green goggles and return to its fossil fuel roots. And at an investor meeting this week, CEO Murray Auchincloss is expected to do just that, including selling off some of the company’s existing renewables portfolio.

Loadshedding returns

The number of megawatts South Africa’s state energy utility Eskom removed from the grid Sunday as part of a program of rolling blackouts to ration energy. This level of “loadshedding” has not been implemented since last February, reported Bloomberg. Authorities took the step after power generation units broke down at some plants. The aging coal-fired power stations that provide most of South Africa’s electricity are prone to breakdowns, which typically prompts the planned outages. The blackouts can last for up to 12 hours a day, hampering growth in Africa’s most industrialized economy in recent years.

A win for nuclear

Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz has ruled out a coalition between his Christian Democratic Union and the hard-right Alternative for Germany, but the two parties have at least one thing in common: An interest in nuclear power.

CDU and AfD lawmakers alike have heaped criticism on the outgoing government for overseeing a nuclear phaseout: The country’s remaining three reactors were shuttered in 2023, and both parties indicated an openness to reviving nuclear power in their election manifestos.

But German utilities say any such comeback is “unlikely,” which Merz himself conceded in January. In addition to the massive costs associated with reopening reactors, power plant operators won’t want to risk reputational damage, Manfred Fischedick from the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy told Semafor: “Even if less people are nowadays strictly against nuclear power plants, it is still a huge number, huge enough to jeopardize the image of the energy utilities,” he said.

Still, nuclear advocates in Brussels hope that a more pro-nuclear administration in Germany will ease some of the ideological frictions jamming up EU nuclear policy, Politico reported.

New Energy

• Asset manager Brookfield, which has been hunting for renewable energy acquisition targets, will buy National Grid’s onshore renewables business in the US for $1.7 billion.
• India is weighing a $1 billion plan to support more domestic solar panel manufacturing.

Fossil Fuels

• One IRA tax credit that’s unlikely to face the axe from Trump or congressional Republicans: 45Q, which supports carbon capture and is a favorite of Big Oil.
• Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, faces a showdown with Nigeria’s government, which has refused to sell him enough crude oil to make a massive new refinery profitable.

Finance

• Top global banks are downgrading their executive-level sustainability roles and shrinking those executives’ teams.
• Top governmental climate finance donors in Asia and Europe are divided over how to fill a gaping hole in fundraising left by the Trump administration’s retreat from climate diplomacy.
• After the exodus of many of its biggest members, the Net Zero Banking Alliance is considering scrapping its fundamental goal, to align its members’ portfolios with a 1.5C warming target.

Politics & Policy

• Activist group Greenpeace went to trial this week in a $300 million lawsuit it faces for protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. The suit could bankrupt the group if successful.
• A survey by the Atlantic Council of 1,000 global energy experts found that only 31% believe the war in Ukraine is hastening global progress toward net zero, compared to 56% in the first year of the full-scale invasion.

Minerals & Mining

• The US and Ukraine are closing in on a deal to exchange mineral royalties for military assistance, but the details of what exactly Trump is willing to offer remain much more vague than the cut of minerals he is demanding, which the The Washington Post editorial board called a “shakedown.”

EVs

• EV sales in Europe jumped 37% last month as automakers there brace for tightening emissions standards.
• Tesla debuted its full self-driving mode in China. The move, in Shanghai, appears to be a response to its Chinese rival BYD offering advanced autonomous features last month. 

Food & Agriculture

• A group of US farmers is suing the Trump administration for pulling climate data and resources off the Department of Agriculture website.

Personnel

• The US is pulling its scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Without US expertise and resources, global scientists fear the preeminent scientific collaboration on climate science will be significantly weakened.

Matt Bowen, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

Large corporations are shopping for underground bunkers that can survive a nuclear blast to protect their data centers and C-suite employees as geopolitical tensions rise. The first adopters are primarily cryptocurrency firms, companies that build the facilities told Semafor’s Rachyl Jones.

Larry Hall, owner of Kansas-based Survival Condo, said he recently priced an underground data center and executive suite space to a crypto company for $64 million. The pitch is the apocalypse. “The nuclear clock is moving closer to midnight,” he said.