Washington state moves forward with program to charge companies for greenhouse gas emissions

Published

2 years ago

February 28, 2023

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Then-Washington State Governor and presidental candidate Jay Inslee signs five climate change bills into law that will reduce carbon emissions, decrease pollution, boost jobs and increase public health, Tuesday, May 7, 2019, at Central Park in the Rainier Vista neighborhood.

Genna Martin | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

Washington state is holding its first carbon-allowance auction on Tuesday, marking a key step forward in a statewide program that will impose a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and make it more expensive for companies to emit carbon pollution.

Washington’s cap-and-invest program was established under the Climate Commitment Act that was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2021. The program imposes a statewide limit, or cap, on greenhouse gas emissions. It also requires businesses to purchase pollution allowances that will become increasingly costly and act as an incentive for businesses to curb emissions.

The new law requires businesses that emit more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually to buy emissions allowances at the Washington Department of Ecology’s auction. The department will create only as many allowances as the program’s limit allows, and the cap will be lowered each year. Washington joins 14 other states that have imposed some form of a program that imposes caps on company emissions.

In 2013, California was the first state to establish a cap-and-trade system, and Oregon enacted a program last year. Washington has set a goal to curb carbon emissions by 95% below 1990 levels by 2050 — an even more aggressive target than California’s plan to achieve an 85% reduction in emissions by 2045.

The revenue from the state’s auctions, which are projected to be roughly $1 billion each year, will go toward efforts including advancing clean energy projects and climate-adaptation measures.

More from CNBC Climate:

Pam Kiely, associate vice president for U.S. climate at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the program makes Washington the “front-runner on climate action, setting the most ambitious binding limit on climate pollution of any state in the nation.”

In addition to imposing a cap on emissions, Washington’s Climate Commitment Act includes a regulatory air quality program to help reduce air pollution in overburdened communities and requires that at least 35% of the revenue from the cap-and-invest program goes to communities disproportionally affected by climate pollution.

The legislation also requires the department to consult an environmental justice council when imposing policy and spending revenue.

“Alongside driving deep cuts in climate pollution, the program provides innovative tools to reduce local air pollution in communities that have been on the front lines of environmental harms,” Kiely said. “This dual focus on curbing global climate pollution and local air pollution makes Washington’s program the gold standard for climate policy.”

New York announced in January that it will join Washington, California and Oregon, which use similar cap-and-trade programs. Still, some experts have argued that it’s unlikely these types of programs will be widely adopted across the country.

Danny Cullenward, policy director at CarbonPlan, a nonprofit working on climate solutions, said he doesn’t expect a “wave of these programs anytime soon.”

“Although there’s a lot of appeal around market-based climate policies, in practice the politics to set these things up are much more difficult,” Cullenward said.

Environment

LiveWire Alpinista unveiled as newest electric motorcycle from Harley offshoot

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1 hour ago

January 16, 2025

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LiveWire Alpinista unveiled as newest electric motorcycle from Harley offshoot

LiveWire, the electric motorcycle brand spun out of Harley-Davidson, has just announced its latest electric motorcycle model. The new LiveWire S2 Alpanista is built on the same platform as the brand’s last two models, leveraging the Arrow platform as a versatile foundation for several diverse bikes.

The Arrow platform first received its debut with the LiveWire S2 Del Mar, which was then followed by the S2 Mulholland.

LiveWire announced that a high-performance electric maxi-scooter would be produced on the Arrow platform, but not before the company rolled out the S2 Alpinista. “The Alpinista is LiveWire’s first sport standard,” explained the company, “equipped with 17” wheels and tires, blending the best of street, sport, and hyper-tourer characteristics.”

The recently unveiled S2 Alpinista is mechanically quite similar to the two previous models sharing the platform. The 10.5 kWh battery that serves as the main structure of the bike will offer a maximum range of 120 miles (193 km) per charge under city riding conditions. It can be recharged with a Level 2 charger from 20-80% in just 1 hour and 20 minutes.

The 433 lb (196 kg) bike can achieve a 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) time of just 3.0 seconds, thanks to its powerful 63 kW (84 hp) motor. The S2 Alpinista can also reach an electronically limited top speed of 99 mph (159 km/h).

Priced at US $15,999 and already available at LiveWire dealerships in North America and Europe, the S2 Alpinista officially becomes the most affordable LiveWire electric motorcycle available to date, undercutting the $16,249 S2 Del Mar electric street tracker and the $16,499 Mulholland electric sport cruiser.

“Alpinista reimagines the S2 by combining the urban agility of a supermoto with the do-it-all nature of a touring bike, creating a practical and thrilling sport standard,” explained the brand.

The smaller 17″ wheels help reduce the seat height of the bike, and combined with the Dunlop Roadsmart IV tires, the street-optimized bike is ideal for “both daily commutes and spirited rides through winding roads.”

The S2 Alpinista comes with 6-axis IMU from Bosch providing cornering-enhanced antilock braking and cornering-enhanced traction control systems, in addition to four preset ride modes and two custom modes.

Now the third model launched on the Arrow platform, the S2 Alpanista underscores the versatility of LiveWire’s workhorse. The approach was intended to allow the e-motorcycle offshoot to quickly innovate with multiple styles of motorcycles all sharing key structural and drivetrain components. The move has largely been seen as an engineering success, with three models hitting the road in under three years. However, sales have yet to reach targets set by LiveWire as the more premium electric motorcycle industry has experienced a rocky few years.

As a LiveWire S2 Del Mar owner myself, I can attest to both the performance and enjoyable experience of bikes built on the platform, though I do find myself in a somewhat smaller community than LiveWire had likely hoped for. With the backing of its powerful older brother H-D, which retains a controlling stake in the company, LiveWire has enjoyed the relative freedom to cruise for its first few years and focus on motorcycle development and rollouts, with profitability hopefully coming over the horizon in due time.

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Environment

Oil major BP to cut thousands of jobs in cost-saving drive

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2 hours ago

January 16, 2025

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Oil major BP to cut thousands of jobs in cost-saving drive

British oil and gasoline company BP (British Petroleum) signage is being pictured in Warsaw, Poland, on July 29, 2024.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

British oil major BP on Thursday said it is planning to cut thousands of jobs as part of a major cost-reduction exercise.

“Today, we have today told staff across bp that the proposed changes that have been announced to date are expected to impact around 4700 bp roles – these account for much of the anticipated reduction this year,” BP said in a statement.

“We are also reducing our contractor numbers by 3000,” the company said.

The measures, which were designed to lower costs, come after BP CEO Murray Auchincloss said last year that the company intends to deliver at least $2 billion of cash savings by the end of 2026.

BP’s workforce currently stands at around 87,800.

Shares of the company traded 1.4% higher on Thursday morning.

Strategy in focus

BP has underperformed its European rivals of late as energy market participants continue to question the firm’s investment case.

In a trading update published Tuesday, BP said weaker refinery margins and turnaround activity will deliver a $100 million to $300 million blow to its fourth-quarter profit, while further declines are expected in oil production.

The energy firm is scheduled to report quarterly and full-year earnings on Feb. 11.

BP said in the same update that it had postponed an event for investors next month so that its chief executive can fully recuperate from a “planned medical procedure.” Auchincloss was said to be “recovering well” from the procedure, which had not been previously disclosed.

The capital markets event, which had previously been scheduled to take place in New York on Feb. 11, will now take place in London on Feb. 26.

— CNBC’s Ruxandra Iordache contributed to this report.

Environment

Biden’s $635M good-bye, Trump’s DOT pick will investigate Tesla, and a look ahead

Published

13 hours ago

January 15, 2025

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Biden's 5M good-bye, Trump's DOT pick will investigate Tesla, and a look ahead

On today’s episode of Quick Charge we explore the uncertainty around the future of EV incentives, the roles different stakeholders will play in shaping that future, and our friend Stacy Noblet from energy consulting firm ICF stops by to share her take on what lies ahead.

We’ve got a couple of different articles and studies referenced in this forward-looking interview, and I’ve done my best to link to all of them below. If I missed one, let me know in the comments.

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