Energy & Environment — Europe strikes deal on gas cap

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk - 12/19/22 6:53 PM ET

FILE – Morning light lights the landfall facility of the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline and the transfer station of the OPAL gas pipeline, the Baltic Sea Pipeline Link, in Lubmin, Germany, on July 21, 2022. Europe is staring an energy crisis in the face. The cause: Russia throttling back supplies of natural gas. European officials say it’s a pressure game over their support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

The European Union reaches an agreement on a temporary natural gas price cap. Meanwhile, the Biden administration proposes a phase-out of compact fluorescent lightbulbs, and almost 200 countries announce a new biodiversity deal.

This is Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here or in the box below.

EU nations agree on temporary gas price cap

European Union (EU) energy ministers agreed on Monday to set a cap on natural gas prices, a temporary measure aimed at protecting citizens from excessive costs during winter.

What does that mean? The new regulation seeks to curb episodes of excessive gas prices that do not reflect world market prices while guaranteeing security of energy supplies and financial stability, the European Council said.

“We have succeeded in finding an important agreement that will shield citizens from skyrocketing energy prices,” Jozef Síkela, Czech minister of industry and trade, said in a statement.
“We will set a realistic and effective mechanism, which includes the necessary safeguards that will steer us clear from risks,” added Síkela, whose country currently holds the EU Council presidency.

What activates it? The EU Council said the price cap will be activated if gas prices exceed 180 euros ($191) per megawatt-hour on the Dutch Title Transfer Facility — a primary European benchmark — for three working days and if they are 35 euros ($37) higher than a reference price for liquefied natural gas on global markets in the same period.

The price-cap mechanism is set to take effect on Feb. 15, 2023, and will apply for 20 working days once activated, the EU Council said.
The price ceiling is much lower than the 275 euro ($282) per megawatt cap proposed last month.

“With such a mechanism in place, Europe will be better prepared for the next winter season and for a new round of storage filling, which will be more challenging than it has been this year,” Kadri Simson, EU’s commissioner for energy, said Monday.

Feds propose phaseout of compact fluorescent bulbs

A proposed Department of Energy rule would phase out the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to remove less energy-efficient bulbs from the market.

Current standards require light bulbs to be at least 45 lumens, the unit used to measure brightness, per watt. Under the proposed update, first reported by CNN, the standard would be more than doubled to more than 120 lumens per watt.
Commonplace 60-watt equivalent lightbulbs would only require a maximum of 6.5 watts, according to an analysis by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP).

“Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of more than 110 energy efficiency actions taken by the Administration to help lower energy costs and keep money in the pockets of American families while reducing our nation’s carbon footprint,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

The story so far: Standards aimed at phasing out incandescent bulbs in general were first passed by Congress during the Bush administration and put into practice during the Obama administration. However, in 2019 the Trump administration unwound the rule. The Biden administration resumed implementation of the rule, finalizing it in April.

Energy Department estimates project that the proposed rule announced Monday would save about $20 billion in collective consumer costs and prevent about
131 million metric tons of carbon emissions in the next three decades.

Countries agree to conservation goal

Nearly 200 countries reached a biodiversity agreement over the weekend in which they agreed to conserve nearly a third of the world’s lands and waters within a decade.

Specifically, they agreed to a target of conserving 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030.

This would be a significant step up from how much land and water is currently protected. A UN report from last year found that as of 2020 about 17 percent of land and inland water ecosystems were protected. The report also found just 8 percent of coastal waters and oceans were protected.
“A global agreement to protect a third of the planet by 2030 is monumental,” Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “My whole life, habitat loss has been a key driver of decreasing biodiversity.”

How the US factors in: The biodiversity conference included all of the countries that are parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, a global biodiversity treaty, a list that notably excludes the U.S.

While then-President Clinton in 1993 signed the treaty upon which the summit was based, Congress never ratified it. The U.S., therefore, is not part of the treaty and is not subject to the agreement.

However, the Biden administration set its own 30 percent conservation goal by 2030 last year. In response to the agreement, a White House press release characterized the agreement as the world following the U.S.’s lead.
“Under President Biden’s leadership, the United States will continue our progress towards broad, equitable, and strong environmental stewardship, with continued global cooperation as our shared goal,” Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement.

On finance .

The agreement also calls for $200 billion in spending per year by 2030 — with $20 billion going to poorer countries by 2025 and increasing to at least $30 billion by 2030.
This amount — far less than what poorer countries had asked for — led to an awkward scene as the agreement was agreed upon.
The Congolese representative called for wealthier countries to agree to provide more resources for causes like forest protection. Cameroon and Uganda also objected to the conclusion, as did delegates of Latin American countries, which also host large, threatened wildlands.

Read more here from Rachel and The Hill’s Saul Elbein.

Global coal use hits all-time high: report

Global coal usage has reached an all-time high in 2022 amid the disruption of traditional trade flows, soaring costs and increased demand, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA said in a report that worldwide coal usage is set to surpass 8 billion metric tons for the first time this year following the chaos of a global energy crisis. A metric ton is equivalent to 1,000 kilograms.

The report states that fossil fuel prices, particularly for natural gas, have substantially increased throughout the year, causing “a wave” of consumers switching fuels from gas. This has caused an increase in demand for fuel sources with more competitive prices, including coal in certain regions of the world.

The amount of coal used in producing electricity is expected to increase by roughly
2 percent compared to last year, according to the agency.

But the IEA noted that higher coal prices, the deployment of renewable energy sources and weakening global economic growth are limiting the overall increase in the demand for coal.
China accounts for just more than half of all coal consumption, according to the report, but its “prolonged and stringent” COVID-19 policy — known as the country’s “zero COVID” effort — has hurt economic activity and undermined the demand for coal.