Net Zero

1. Big Copper turns to Trump
2. New US climate target
3. Europe braces for gas spike
4. Big grid investment
5. EV makers’ catchup plan

Trump’s EV choice, and Saudi Arabia joins the lithium rush.

The energy transition is in for a rocky year ahead. The palpable frustration I felt at COP29 in Baku over governments’ collective inability to adequately address the climate crisis could become the new normal, at least for a while. The gradual adoption of renewable energy, EVs, and other clean tech is running up against the biggest increase in power demand in more than a generation, putting fossil fuels back into a position of power, with the help of US President-elect Donald Trump and other leaders looking for someone to blame for volatile energy prices and lost jobs in their preferred sectors.

On the other hand, there’s never been more money invested in clean energy and climate tech, so a total reversal is unlikely. We’ll be here next year to keep a close eye on the bull market for electricity, the first days of the second Trump administration, and all the other big climate stories of 2025. In the meantime, we’re off for the holidays for the next week and a half. And starting in the new year, we’re shifting our publishing schedule: Net Zero will hit your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of Wednesdays and Fridays. See you then!

A mine in Panama turns to Trump

The CEO of the company running one of the world’s largest and most embattled copper mines wants US President-elect Donald Trump to help rescue the project before the legal battles over its future turn uglier.

Tristan Pascall, who leads First Quantum Minerals, told Semafor that the Cobre Panama mine — a $10 billion project deep in the Panamanian jungle that has been shuttered by the government since November 2023 because of disputes related to tax rates and other issues — could be a vital source of raw materials for US companies chasing clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence. But first it has to reopen. With the firm spending about $12 million a month just to maintain the mine’s physical integrity, time is running out to reach a deal with Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino Quintero before Pascall says First Quantum will have to pursue arbitration.

With Trump looking to take a hawkish stance on China — the world’s top copper consumer — and a secretary of state nominee, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has close ties to Latin America, Pascall aims to pitch the administration for its support in reviving the mine.

“There’s a huge opportunity for the incoming administration in this space,” he said. “There’s absolutely a deal for Trump to do on copper that lines up with the strategic interests of the US and of Panama.”

New US climate target

The Biden administration set new, significantly more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.

They carry little legal weight, since they’re certain to be ignored by the incoming Trump administration. But they’ll serve as the informal guideposts for companies and sub-national governments that will need to carry the torch on decarbonization for the next four years. The plan will require the US to cut all emissions across the economy by 61-66% relative to 2005 levels by 2035, cut methane by at least 35%, and reach net zero by 2050. As of 2023, US emissions have fallen about 17% since 2005 and researchers recently estimated that Washington is on course to cut emissions by 38-56% by 2035. So the pace of the energy transition will need to accelerate if the new target is to be met. “The 2035 emissions reduction target is at the lower bound of what the science demands,” said Debbie Weyl, US acting director for the World Resources Institute. “And yet it is close to the upper bound of what is realistic if nearly every available policy lever were pulled.”

Europe braces for gas spike

Europe’s natural gas market is bracing for the looming shutoff of Russian gas transiting through pipelines in Ukraine. A longstanding deal under which Ukraine pockets royalties in exchange for letting Russian gas cross its territory is set to expire on Jan. 1. This week, leaders of both countries said that an agreement to extend the deal, which benefits the Kremlin’s finances more than Kyiv’s, was unlikely. An arrangement by which gas in Ukraine’s pipeline continues to flow from Russia but is nominally designated as originating in Azerbaijan is also unacceptable, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, unless payments could be kept in escrow until after the war. If the gas does get cut off, energy prices in Europe will spike, so gas traders are watching the last-minute negotiations with bated breath.

Semafor announces the launch of The CEO Signal from Semafor Business, an exclusive, invitation-only membership for chief executives of the world’s largest companies.

Helmed by veteran Financial Times editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, the initiative builds on the success of Liz Hoffman’s Semafor Business and sets a new standard for how global leaders connect, learn, and navigate future challenges. Focusing on exclusivity over scale, the platform will debut as a weekly briefing in January 2025 offering candid, practical insights and interviews tailored for global CEOs who are short on time and seeking actionable intelligence.

Big grid investment

The size of a loan announced this week by the Biden administration to the California utility company PG&E. It’s the largest of its kind from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, which is scrambling to offload its enormous warchest of climate cash before Trump takes office. The money will help PG&E adapt to climate change impacts — for example, by burying power lines to protect them from wildfires — and expand the grid to accommodate more EVs and data centers. And it will save the company about $1 billion in debt costs it would have faced borrowing a similar sum from the private market, LPO said. The second-largest LPO ever was also finalized this week: $9.6 billion for a Ford EV battery factory.

EV makers’ catchup plan

Japan’s automakers are scrambling to respond to anticipated tax credit cuts under Trump and mounting competition with China. Nissan and Honda are in talks to merge, which would help both cut production costs. Nissan was an early EV pioneer with the popular Leaf model, but fell behind its rivals in introducing hybrids and is losing market share across all of its key global markets. As a Guardian columnist put it, “cost-cutting is a poor substitute for innovation, but, in theory, it buys some time to try to get back into the EV race.” Toyota, meanwhile, cut $6,000 from the price of one its popular new EV models, hoping to keep prices level if buyers lose access to the $7,500 tax credit that Trump is likely to axe.

Will Carlos Watson’s conviction change the digital media business? On Monday, the founder of Ozy Media was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for fraud. Today, in Ben’s first extensive conversation about Ozy since Watson’s arrest, he and Nayeema discuss the company, the scandal, and what it reveals about the broader digital media and advertising business. They are joined by Madison and Wall analyst and former GroupM Global President for Business Intelligence, Brian Wieser, to explore why marketers and investors were duped by Watson, what changed in the aftermath, and what the next digital media scam might be.

New Energy

• Avina Clean Hydrogen Inc. will build a new $820 million sustainable aviation fuel factory in Illinois, a win for Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is angling to position his state as a hub for clean energy enterprises.
• Walmart said it will likely miss its 2025 and 2030 emissions targets, as the retail chain struggles to source enough renewable power for its growing number of stores.
• National Grid plans to invest $44.5 billion in the UK electric grid.

Tech

• The carbon removal buying consortium Frontier will buy $80 million in credits from two startups working to remove carbon from paper and wastewater treatment factories.
• The Sam Altman-backed nuclear startup Oklo announced a plan to build 12 gigawatts of small power plants for data centers over the next two decades.

Minerals & Mining

• Saudi Arabia is getting into the lithium game as it looks to develop industries for a world with declining future oil demand, including one led by Saudi Aramco to extract lithium from waste liquids from oil fields.

EVs

• US federal officials agreed to let California ban the sale of gas-engine vehicles after 2035.
• China’s CATL, the top maker of EV batteries, plans to open at least 1,000 facilities next year in which drivers could swap depleted batteries for full ones, a faster alternative to charging.

Genevieve Cullen, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association.

Filmmaker Nenad Cicin-Sain has tried using AI to write his next screenplay, with bizarre results, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti reported.

“I expected it to instantaneously pump out a screenplay once I created all the prompts,” he said. Instead, ChatGPT kept stalling, changing deadlines and then coming up with reasons why it couldn’t meet them.