Equilibrium/Sustainability — Russia could torpedo Antarctic conservation pact

International delegates have gathered this week to decide the fate of Antarctica’s marine environment amid escalating fears that Russia could blow conservation efforts off course. 

The 27 members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources — which includes both Russia and Ukraine — are meeting in Hobart, the capital of Australia’s Tasmanian island state.  

That commission, which regulates fisheries around Antarctica, will be deciding whether to protect three new marine zones from exploitation, Time magazine reported.

The proposed areas — a total of 1.4 million square miles — are located around the Antarctic Peninsula, in the Weddell Sea and along the continent’s eastern coast, according to Time.  

Yet conservationists have expressed fears that Russia might “use its veto-like powers” to block any such progress from occurring, The Associated Press reported.  

The 27-member commission, which also includes the U.S., the EU and China, have always struggled to reach consensus, according to the outlet.  

With Moscow and Kyiv at war, coming to agreement has become even more difficult — particularly after a Russian bomb hit Ukraine’s Antarctic research center earlier this month, the AP reported.

Yet warring nations have previously been able to set aside conflict on behalf of the South Pole. At the height of the Cold War in 1959, nations agreed to the Antarctic Treaty, which eliminated mining, harvesting and hunting on the continent, according to Time.  

Monica Medina, a State Department assistant secretary attending the Hobart summit, described Antarctica as “a really fragile, crumbling part of the planet,” in an interview with the AP.  

The continent, she continued, requires “all our help to withstand the challenges we face with climate change.” 

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin.

Today we’ll start with a nationwide effort to electrify school buses, followed by a look at a U.S.-brokered deal that will facilitate gas extraction in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Plus: Why the Treasury Department might call upon states to ramp up protections for homeowners.

Hundreds of school districts to get electric buses

The headache-inducing reek of diesel will no longer bombard bus-bound schoolchildren in hundreds of districts across the country, thanks to new federal grants.

Thousands of buses: The Biden administration released about $1 billion on Wednesday night to purchase 2,500 “clean buses” for 400 districts, according to the White House.

• The disbursement comes from last year’s bipartisan infrastructure bill law. This is the first 20 percent of what will be $5 billion to be doled out over five years.
  
• About 95 percent of the new buses will be electric, per the White House. 

Unhealthy fumes: The low prevalence of electric buses is concerning to parents, policymakers and public health care workers because of what most children ride instead: diesel-powered buses.

Diesel buses currently transport more than 20 million American children to school every — despite the known health impacts of diesel fumes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

• These impacts are worse for children, who breathe more rapidly than adults, and whose lungs aren’t yet fully developed — both factors that create more opportunity for lung damage, per the EPA.
  
• Diesel emissions from buses are linked to higher rates of asthma and lower test scores, according to a 2019 study in Economics of Education Review. 

A small step on a vast project: While a significant investment, the funding pales against the scale of both need and demand.  

The EPA, which oversees the program, chose the 389 winning districts from a pool of 2,000 applications, requesting 12,000 buses at a cost of $4 billion — money this year’s program simply does not have.

• The new vehicles will add about 20 percent on top of the existing national fleet of 12,000 electric school buses, according to the World Resources Institute.
  
• The new funds will approximately double the amount of districts who have electric buses, data from the Institute stated. 

Even with those additions, only about 3 percent of the current national bus fleet will be electric, and fewer than 5 percent of all national districts will have buses. 

Trailblazing in Colorado: With demand outstripping federal funds, districts are turning to other options to raise the money for electric buses.

• For example, one public charter school in Colorado just became the state’s first to boast an all-electric fleet, according to Denver-based Nexstar affiliate KDVR.
  
• In addition to federal and state grants and local property taxes, the school requested a $2 per day donation from parents to cover the cost of the four new buses.
  
  

Israel, Lebanon finalize US-brokered gas deal

President Biden praised Israel and Lebanon on Thursday for finalizing a U.S.-brokered maritime deal that will facilitate the extraction of eastern Mediterranean gas, our colleague Laura Kelly reported for The Hill.

Biden called the deal “historic,” as it settles Israeli and Lebanese claims to offshore natural gas reserves and “sets the stage for a more stable and prosperous region.” 

Together but separate: Israeli and Lebanese leaders took part in a signing ceremony in the Lebanese city of Naqoura, at the headquarters of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, Kelly reported. 

The signing was overseen by Amos Hochstein, Biden’s special envoy for energy security.

• Hochstein had traveled earlier to Beirut as Lebanese President Michel Aoun — whose country does not recognize Israel’s right to exist — signed the deal.
  
• The U.S. envoy then went to Jerusalem to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who had signed the agreement earlier in the day.  

What’s in the deal? This maritime agreement is nearly a decade in the making and draws a boundary in the territorial waters between Israel and Lebanon, Kelly reported.

• The deal gives Israel claim to the Karish gas field and Lebanon claim to the Qana field.
  
• Israel will receive a percentage of the profits from Qana, as part of that field falls within Israel’s waters.  

Not an everyday event: “This is a diplomatic achievement,” Lapid said in Thursday remarks at a special cabinet meeting.  

“It is not every day that an enemy country recognizes the State of Israel, in a written agreement, in view of the international community,” the prime minister added.   

Still at war: Supporters of the agreement describe it as a monumental shift for Lebanon that provides de factor recognition of Israel as a sovereign state, Kelly reported.

The two sides are technically at war, although Israel views the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah — which control’s Lebanon’s southern border — as a greater threat.  

Cracking open a window: But Lebanese officials likewise hailed the deal’s outcome following the president’s separate signing of the document.

• “We have heard about the Abraham Accords. Today there is a new era. It could be the Amos Hochstein accord,” said top Lebanese negotiator Elias Bou Saab, according to Reuters.
  
• The Abraham Accords were agreements facilitated by the U.S., which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020. 

Proceeding with caution: Yet while officials from the U.S., Lebanon and Israel all touted the historic nature of the agreement, Reuters stressed that the chance of a broader diplomatic breakthrough is minimal.   

Aoun later described the deal as purely “technical,” stressing that it would have “no political dimensions or impacts that contradict Lebanon’s foreign policy,” translated from Arabic by Reuters.  

ECONOMIC WIN ON BOTH SIDES OF BORDER

Israel’s Lapid, who is up for reelection in less than a week, discussed multiple benefits of the agreement in his Thursday remarks — describing the deal as “an economic achievement.”

• “Yesterday, gas production began from the Karish Platform,” Lapid said, noting that Israel will also receive 17 percent of profits from Lebanon’s Qana field.
  
• “This money will go into Israel’s economy and will be used for health and welfare, education and security,” he added.  

Pumping has begun: British company Energean began pumping gas from the Karish reservoir on Wednesday after Israel gave the company the go-ahead, The Wall Street Journal reported.  

The field is now that country’s third operational offshore gas rig, according to the Journal.  

And in Lebanon? The agreement will allow Lebanon, through French energy company TotalEnergies, to develop the Qana field and extract any gas that might be there, The Jerusalem Post reported.  

While Hezbollah had threatened to attack Karish in recent months, the Iran-back group stood down after the deal was signed, according to the Post.  

Awkward for Hezbollah: Opposition to Israel may be central to Hezbollah’s identity, but the group has refrained from criticizing the deal since it was proposed earlier this month, The Washington Post reported.  

Financial distress in Lebanon made it clear to the group “the only pathway to get out of the economic collapse is our gas fields,” a spokesman for Hezbollah told the Post.

Insulating states from climate risk

The Department of Treasury could call on states to do more to protect homeowners who are vulnerable to climate risk, legal experts told Bloomberg Law on Thursday.

• Millions of homeowners nationwide lack sufficient insurance coverage to weather the coming risk from extreme weather.
  
• To identify the highest risk areas, the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office recently proposed a comprehensive audit of the past five years of payouts from large insurers, as we reported. 

In need of a referee: Rising climate risk is creating continual tension between insurers and the insured, insurance lawyer Ben Fliegel told Bloomberg. 

“Insurers don’t want to carry the risks of the economy all on their backs. And policyholders don’t want to fight with carriers for coverage all the time,” Fliegel said. 

Possible options: Based on what the Treasury finds, the Federal Insurance Office could call on states to forbid insurers from cutting off homeowners, according to Bloomberg.

• They could also set up their own insurance companies, as California has to deal with the threat from earthquakes.
  
• The nonprofit California Earthquake Authority currently has 1 million policyholders. 

A wave of dropped policies: Facing large-scale wildfires, California insurers began in 2019 to stop renewing policies for the state’s highest-risk homeowners according to Insurance Journal.

• In ZIP codes with moderate-to-very-high fire risk, non-renewals reached 61 percent the following year.
  
• In a similar development, Florida homeowners could see rates rise 40 percent as insurance companies leave the state, according to analysis from Orlando-based station WKMG. 

More insurance companies have gone insolvent in the past five years than in any other period, per Bloomberg. 

Thursday Threats

Kerry calls for emitters to mitigate climate threats to Africa, a global oil watchdog notes the upside of high fuel prices and saltwater flows up the Mississippi into southern Louisiana. 

Kerry: major emitters must address climate impacts on Africa 

U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry on Thursday stressed the need for major emitters to mitigate climate change, specifically citing the risk to African nations, our colleague Zack Budryk reported. Although 17 African nations are among the countries most affected by the climate crisis, Africa only generates 2.5-3 percent of global emissions, Kerry said. 

Energy crisis speeds adoption of renewables 

The energy crisis brought by the Russian invasion of Ukraine is slowing the growth of fossil fuels while catalyzing a faster transition to renewables, according to our colleague Julia Mueller. “Governments around the world are responding to the crisis by doubling down on clean energy – in the US, EU, Japan, China, India & elsewhere,” International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol tweeted on Thursday. 
 

Gulf waters advance up dwindling Mississippi River 

Drought in the Midwest has cut the volume of the Mississippi River so much that salty water from the Gulf of Mexico is pushing upstream, NPR reported. The saltwater intrusion is forcing parishes in southern Louisiana to build underwater levees and invest in desalination — the removal of salt to create potable water, according to NPR.  

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