Columbia Energy Exchange Columbia University

Recent elections in the European Union shook up the continent’s climate politics. Far-right parties performed well in both the EU’s parliament and national governments, and the Greens lost nearly all of their gains over the past five years in the European parliament. Voters pointed to energy costs, security, and economic competitiveness as key factors in their decision-making.
 
So what do these elections indicate about the shifting political ideology of the European Union? How will they impact Europe’s relations with the U.S. and China? And what do these elections mean for European climate and energy policy?
 
This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with Ann Mettler, vice president for Europe at Breakthrough Energy, a network of investment funds, philanthropies, and nonprofits dedicated to scaling low-carbon technologies. She previously served as director-general at the European Commission, where she ran an in-house think tank called the European Political Strategy Centre. Prior to that, she was the executive director of the Lisbon Council, an economic policy think tank she founded in 2003.
 
Jason and Ann discuss the results of the recent European elections, the economic competitiveness challenges facing the European Union, and Ann’s views on Europe’s new tariffs on China.

 In the next few months, heat waves, droughts, thunderstorms, and hurricanes will wreak havoc on regions around the world. Climate scientists say these events are becoming more extreme and dangerous thanks in part to the changing climate. 
For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s outlook for the 2024 hurricane season, which just started June 1, anticipates an exceptionally high number of storms this year. 
So, why are extreme weather events worsening? How is climate change contributing to this development? And what measures are being taken to adapt to this new reality? 
This week host Bill Loveless talks with Radley Horton about the outlook for extreme weather events across the globe this summer, and why the intensity and severity of them is expected to increase.
Radley is a professor at the Columbia Climate School, where he teaches and researches climate extremes, risks, impacts, and adaptation. He was a convening lead author for the United States’ Third National Climate Assessment, and he is currently a principal investigator for NOAA, focusing on climate risk in the urban U.S. Northeast.

The elections for the European Parliament will take place in a couple of days, and polls currently suggest the Parliament will undergo a rightward shift. 
The last elections five years ago in 2019 saw major electoral gains for the environmentalist parties and popular support for ambitious energy transition plans. But the upcoming elections come following a tumultuous few years for the continent that included an energy crisis and an economic crisis.  
So how will the upcoming elections impact Europe's energy transition? And how will Europe balance the needs for more rapid climate action, energy security and economic competitiveness?
This week host Jason Bordoff talks with Dominique Ristori about how Europe will accelerate its clean energy progress and enhance its energy security.
Dominique is the former director general energy of the European Commission. He currently is a senior advisor at Dentons Global Advisors. Dominique began his career at the European Commission in 1978 and held several senior positions throughout his career. Prior to his role as director general energy, he was director-general of the Joint Research Center.

On May 8th, the U.S. Department of Energy proposed ten new “national interest electric transmission corridors” – a designation that allows the federal government to accelerate projects in areas where consumers are harmed by lack of transmission. 
Days later, on the 13th, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released Orders 1920 and 1977. Both of the new rules aim to expedite the build out of the nation’s electric grid by tackling major issues such as cost allocation and long-term planning. 
So, how will these actions from the federal government impact transmission projects? What are critics of the FERC rules saying? And why are these long-awaited reforms happening now? 
This week host Bill Loveless talks with Rob Gramlich about the impact the new FERC rules will have on current and future transmission projects. 

Rob is the founder and president of Grid Strategies, a consulting firm focused on transmission and power markets. He has co-founded multiple organizations focused on power systems reliability and sustainability, including Americans for a Clean Energy Grid and the Working for Advanced Transmission Technologies Coalition. From 2001-2005, Rob served as an economic advisor to FERC chairman Pat Wood.

Industry accounts for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, a share that will only increase in the coming years. 
Other high-emission sectors, like electric power and transportation, are cutting emissions  through renewables and electrification. But the pathways to reducing emissions from manufacturing materials such as iron, steel, chemicals, cement, and concrete are still unclear. 
A new book by Jeffrey Rissman, titled Zero-Carbon Industry: Transformative Technologies and Policies to Achieve Sustainable Prosperity., dives into the nuances of industrial decarbonization and lays out a roadmap for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions between 2050 and 2070. 
So, what are some of the pathways for reducing manufacturing emissions? And how can policy support decarbonization? 
This week host Bill Loveless talks with Jeffrey about his book and its look at the workings of heavy industrial polluters and the ways to affordably decarbonize manufacturing. 
Jeffrey is the senior director of the industry program at Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan energy and climate policy firm, where he leads the company’s work on technologies and policies to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the industry sector. 
Zero-Carbon Industry is part of the Center on Global Energy Policy’s book series, and is published by Columbia University Press. 

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency passed four new rules to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
One of the new rules requires many new gas and existing coal power plants to control 90 percent of their carbon pollution if they plan to operate beyond 2039. The other three rules specifically target coal, requiring the industry to clean up various parts of the value chain including toxic metal emissions from power generation, wastewater pollution, and coal ash management.
And while the Biden Administration and other proponents consider the new rules a step in the right direction, opponents argue they will undermine the reliability of energy systems.   
So, how will the EPA’s new regulations impact the energy industry? What makes these standards different from previous attempts to regulate energy emissions? And how might opponents try to overturn them?
This week host Bill Loveless talks with Jody Freeman about the technicalities of the new EPA power plant rules, and the legal avenues opponents might pursue to overturn them.
Jody is the Archibald Cox professor of law and the founding director of the Harvard Law School Environmental & Energy Law Program. From 2009-2010, she served as a counselor for energy and climate change in the Obama White House. Jody has also previously served on the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute and as an independent director of ConocoPhillips.