Equilibrium/Sustainability — Deliberate burning shielded historic Southwest, study finds

Equilibrium is a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. Sign up here or in the box below.

Historic burning by Native American tribes in the American Southwest shielded landscapes from prior episodes of climate-induced wildfires, a new study has found. 

Deliberate use of fire by Apache, Navajo and Jemez communities between 1500 and 1900 protected large swaths of their desert homelands from destructive climate-induced fires, according to the paper published on Wednesday in Science Advances.

During that period, the Southwest saw patterns of a few years of above-average rainfall followed by a year of significant drought, the scientists found. 

But in areas where local communities practiced regular low-intensity burning, this pattern was largely broken, the study’s authors, from Southern Methodist University, explained in a statement. 

Old trees from regions managed by the Apache, Navajo and Jemez don’t display the characteristic scars from the wet-dry fire cycle of the unmanaged regions, according to the study. 

This strongly suggests that regular low-intensity fires — used by all three groups to aid grazing and hunting — kept away more infrequent and more serious ones, the scientists found.

“What’s remarkable is that this impact of Native American fire management was evident across hundreds of square kilometers,” lead author Christoper Roos said in a statement.  

“That is across entire mountain ranges,” Roos added.

Welcome to Equilibrium, we’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Today we’ll check in on the results of the unprecedented West Coast wind energy auction, followed by why some investors want stricter protections for nature. Plus: How shifting to a “circular bioeconomy” could make the plastics sector more sustainable.

West Coast’s first offshore wind sale tops $750M

The first-ever auction for wind development off the country’s Pacific coast concluded on Wednesday — raking in a total of $757.1 million after two days of fierce bidding.  

A milestone moment: The auction, which was the third major offshore lease sale this year, will enable five companies to develop about 4.6 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, according to the Department of the Interior.  

• That’s enough to power more than 1.5 million homes. 
  
• The sales mark a significant leap forward in efforts to promote wind energy by President Biden, who set a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of total offshore wind capacity by 2030.    

Another significant first: The auction was also the first-ever U.S. sale to support the development of commercial-scale floating offshore wind, which is a relatively new technology. 

• The Biden administration has set a goal of deploying 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035. 
  
• Because West Coast waters deepen more quickly than those of the East Coast, using floating infrastructure is more practical than attaching foundations to the seafloor.    

Sustainable future ‘within our grasp’: “Today’s lease sale is further proof that industry momentum — including for floating offshore wind development — is undeniable,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.  

“A sustainable, clean energy future is within our grasp,” Haaland added. 

Sprawling opportunity: The auction, conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, offered five lease areas covering 373,268 total acres off the shores of Northern and Central California.  

The lease sales included multiple credit programs for bidders who pledged to engage in workforce training programs, domestic supply chain development and discussions with impacted communities and tribes. 

North Coast: The winners in the Northern California zones, located off the coast of Eureka: 

• California North Floating, LLC, with the highest bid of $173.8 million, for the 69,031-acre zone OCS-P 0562.   
  
• RWE Offshore Wind Holdings, LLC, with a bid of $157.7 million for the
  63,338-acre OCS-P 0561.   

Central Coast: The winners in the Central California zones, located off the coast of Morro Bay: 

• Central California Offshore Wind, LLC, at $150.3 million, for the 80,418-acre OCS-P 0564.  
  
• Invenergy California Offshore LLC , with a bid of $145.3 million, for the
  80,418-acre OCS-P 0565, situated in that same zone. 
  
• Equinor Wind US, LLC, at $130 million, for the 80,062-acre OCS-P 0563.  

For more on the results of the auction and future of U.S. offshore wind, click here.

VIRTUAL EVENT INVITE

The Hill’s A More Perfect Union 2022 — Dec. 7-9 — Daily programming starts at
1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT

The Hill’s second annual multi-day festival explores and celebrates America’s best big ideas through the lens of American Reinvention. We will convene political leaders, entrepreneurs, policy innovators and disruptors, and thought provocateurs to debate and discuss some of the most urgent, challenging issues of our time. No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy, former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, Forward Party co-chair Andrew Yang, American Enterprise Institute CEO Robert Doar and more will join. RSVP now.

Business leaders want clearer COP15 protections

Business leaders and investors are calling for clearer and more stringent regulations around how to treat nature at the U.N. biodiversity summit (COP15) in Montreal.

• Business leaders are pushing representatives at the summit, which started Wednesday, to deliver concrete specifics, including what goals to focus on.
  
• In particular, investors want more detail on how to mandate risk reporting and how to regulate corporate activity — so that they can avoid moral and financial risks from supply chains that harm nature. 

Target-rich environment: “We want to see a framework that’s really providing clear targets, clear definitions to enable action to be taken,” Tamsin Ballard, of the U.N.-backed Principles for Responsible Investment network, told Reuters. 

That is the first step to implementing “a pipeline of nature-positive projects and investments,” Ballard added.

Top goal: One of COP15’s headline goals is to see the extent of “nature” — which has been in a long period of decline for most of settled human history — begin to increase again by 2030, according to a draft agreement signed in June.

• That will require substantial new sums of money, as well as a recasting of the very idea of what constitutes a financial asset. 
  
• “Nature needs to be thought of as an asset – and we invest in assets,” Tony Goldner, of the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures, told Reuters.

By the numbers: According to financial news site Morningstar, only $1.6 billion in funds are invested directly into biodiversity and natural capital. 

• The U.N. has said that at least $384 billion is necessary by 2025 to fund nature projects, as we reported. 
  
• To put these numbers in perspective, more than half of global GDP — about $44 trillion — is dependent on nature and its systems, according to the World Economic Forum.

UNREALISTIC GOALS?

The COP15 headline goals — of reversing nature’s decline by 2030 — may not be realistic, an international group of scientists wrote in in the journal OneEarth. 

• They said that the earliest date possible to reverse biodiversity loss is likely 2050 — a date by which the Montreal conference already expects humans to be living “in harmony” with nature. 
  
• Even a 2050 target to reverse nature loss is “based on the most simplistic assumptions, it doesn’t even accommodate climate change,” David Obura at Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean told New Scientist. 

Necessary ambition: But further delaying biodiversity goals simply contributes to risks of world governments “kicking the can down the road in terms of the fundamental systemic change we need,” E.J. Milner-Gulland at the University of Oxford told New Scientist. 

“Even if we can’t make it, we need to start to put serious effort into trying, and I don’t believe that a delayed target will provide the urgency that we need,” Milner-Gulland added. 

To read more about what international business leaders want to see from COP15, please click here.

Blasting BlackRock over ESG ‘hypocrisy’

A leading activist investment firm is calling on BlackRock’s chief executive to resign over his “apparent hypocrisy” in the use of sustainability goals. 

• The chief investment officers of the U.K.-based Bluebell Capital Partners accused CEO Larry Fink in a letter on Tuesday of repeatedly failing to live up to his stated sustainability commitments. 
  
• Bluebell’s chief investment officers, Giuseppe Bivona and Marco Taricco, slammed BlackRock for increasing its rhetoric around sustainability while continuing to fund fossil fuels.

Bluebell is concerned about “the gap between what BlackRock consistently says on ESG and what they actually do,” Bivona told CNBC, referring to environment, social and governance-focused (ESG) investing. 

“We see BlackRock endorsing a number of bad practices from a governance, social and environmental perspective which is not actually in tune with what they say,” Bivona added. 

Tough timing: The letter comes amid a widespread reaction from U.S. Republicans against ESG investing in general and BlackRock in particular.

• Florida just followed Texas, Missouri and Louisiana in pulling billions of dollars in state assets from management by BlackRock, our colleague Chloe Folmar reported. 
  
• In a January letter to investors, Fink defended the company against accusations by conservatives that BlackRock was using its economic power for political ends.

To read more about why BlackRock’s attempts to thread the sustainability needle have made both progressives and conservatives unhappy, please click here. 

‘Circular bioeconomy’ could transform plastics sector

The plastics sector’s environmental impacts could be drastically reduced by shifting to a so-called “circular bioeconomy,” a new study has found. 

Becoming a ‘carbon sink’: Such closed-loop systems — fueled by bio-based raw materials — could help transform the industry by allowing it to absorb more carbon than it releases, according the study, published Wednesday in Nature. 

• “They could theoretically act as a medium or long-term carbon sink,” lead author Paul Stegmann wrote in his Utrecht University doctoral thesis, the basis for the Nature article. 
  
• Thus far, none of the pathways to achieve global climate targets have considered the potential of carbon storage in products, according to Stegmann, who is now at the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. 

Enormous emitter: Today’s plastics sector is already responsible for about
4.5 percent of global emissions, while production is expected to triple by 2100, Stegmann and his colleagues warned. 

Circular isn’t enough: Representatives of the plastics industry have long touted the merits of what’s known as a “circular economy.”  

• This is a system in which plastic products retain their value through multiple uses and higher-quality design. 
  
• But while acknowledging the merits of a circular economy, the study authors argued these efforts would still fail to achieve global climate targets. 

Why existing plans won’t work: By the year 2050, there would not be enough plastic waste available from recycling to meet the growing demand for the material, according to the researchers. 

• In addition, plastic’s capacity for carbon storage would also be underutilized — limiting an opportunity for further emissions reductions. 
  
• Using bio-based raw materials, however, would maximize this possibility. 

How so? By sequestering carbon within biological materials — or keeping carbon in plastic products for long-term use, Stegmann explained in his thesis. 

Taking such an approach would prevent the release of about 275 gigatons of carbon dioxide —equivalent to nine times current annual energy-related emissions, according to the study. 

To find out how the researchers drew these conclusions, click here for the full story.

Worker Wednesday

Workplace fumes may raise the risk of rheumatoid arthritis, climate risk extends to worker health and a pivotal union election comes to a major electric vehicle (EV) plant.

Inhaling workplace fumes may increase rheumatoid arthritis risk: study 

• Breathing in certain workplace fumes may heighten the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, according to a new study, published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases. The authors found that such conditions can also worsen the impacts of smoking and genetic susceptibility to the autoimmune disease — effects examined in the full Hill story. 

Probing how climate risk extends to US worker wellbeing 

• A prominent British-American insurance and brokerage advisor, Willis Towers Watson, has expanded its tools for managing climate risks to include U.S. employee health and wellbeing. The tool highlights how social and clinical needs of families may be affected by a changed climate across the country, a statement from the group said.

Ultium workers to vote on a union 

• Workers at a Cleveland-area EV-battery plant began voting on Wednesday over whether to join the United Auto Workers union, Reuters reported. The plant — which is dedicated to producing the standardized Ultium drivetrain — is part of a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy, according to Reuters.

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.