1 big thing: Private sector needs to pony up on climate

2. Catch up fast on EVs: Tesla and Rivian

Illustration of a person charging an electric vehicle, viewed from below 

3. Bonus: Breaking down the carbon case for EVs

Illustration of a gas pump facing off against an electric vehicle plug.

4. Oilfield services giants deepen carbon biz work 

Illustration of an abacus with beads made from CO2 molecules.

5. The electric air taxi age is drawing closer

6. ⚖️ Number of the day: $553 million

🐣 Good morning! Today's newsletter has a Smart Brevity count of 1,175 words, 4.5 minutes.

🎸 Happy birthday to the great guitarist and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham. Copy editor extraordinaire Chris Speckhard chose today's intro tune...

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🙏 Thanks to Chris Speckhard and Javier David for edits to today's edition, along with the talented Axios Visuals team.

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Untangle the energy industry’s biggest news stories

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1 big thing: Canada's "hellish" wildfire season defies the calendar

Biden shows his cards on offshore drilling

2. Breaking: Biden shows his cards on offshore drilling

Illustration of a hand balancing an oil barrel. 

3. 🏃🏽‍♀️Catch up fast on policy: Critical minerals, Ford, EPA enforcement

4. ☀️ Number of the day: $3 billion

🍺 Made it! Today's newsletter has a Smart Brevity count of 1,094 words, 4 minutes.

🌍 Axios House is heading to COP28 in Dubai! Are you or someone from your company attending? Register interest to stay in the know about programming and more. Interested?

🎶 This week in 1989, Tears for Fears released the album "The Seeds of Love," which provides today's intro tune...

🙏 Thanks to Chris Speckhard and Chuck McCutcheon for edits to today's edition, along with the talented Axios Visuals team.

Key player in nascent carbon removal industry says no to oil money

1 big thing: Carbon removal player says no to oil money

Illustration of hand stopping another hand holding an oil barrel.

2. Big this week: Energy confab, auto strike, OPEC+

Animated illustration of a pair of binculars with eyes on the lenses blinking. 

New leasing policy shows Biden's delicate balancing act on oil drilling

3. The complicated politics of offshore drilling

Illustration of two hands shaking, one of the hands has an oil barrel as a suit sleeve. 

4. Catch up fast: a big hydrogen move and carbon tariffs

Illustration of the Earth as the center of a hydrogen atom. 

5. COP28 boss turns to heavy industry 

Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, President-Designate of COP28 speaks  June 8, 2023 in Bonn, Germany. 

⏩ Unlike Congress, Generate never even contemplated a shutdown. Today's newsletter has a Smart Brevity count of 1,198 words, 4.5 minutes.

🎶 At this moment in 1975, People's Choice were No. 1 on Billboard's R&B chart with today's perfect intro tune...

1 big thing: Oil spikes as political season heats up

Illustration of an oil barrel spilling oil, forming an erratic line chart. 

2. U.S. oil execs see robust long-term demand

3. Catch up fast on policy: SEC rule and shutdown impacts

4. TotalEnergies' plan captures Big Oil's vibe

Illustration of an upward trending line on a chart as a percent sign

5. Extreme weather pushes insurance costs upward

5. Bonus: White House unveils climate resilience efforts

6. ⚛️ Number of the day: 2030

💥 Let's do this! Today's newsletter has a Smart Brevity count of 1,215 words, 4.5 minutes.

👀 Breaking Thursday: Saudi Aramco is making what it calls its first international LNG investment in a bet on rising demand for the fuel.

It's buying a $500 million stake in MidOcean Energy, which is acquiring interests in four Australian LNG projects. 

🎶 This week marks 35 years since Tracy Chapman released a beautiful single that's today's intro tune...

1 big thing: September was really, really hot  

First look: Biden allies seek youth cred by boosting climate corps

2. First look: Biden allies seek youth cred by boosting climate corps

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3. First Look: Report finds 3 "super solutions" to going net-zero

4. Pope Francis seeks "change of direction" at COP28

Pope Francis puts his hand on a baby during an appearance in Vatican City.

5. $380M for green hydrogen and more tech finance notes

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6. 💬 Quote of the day

🗳️ Neither of Generate's authors will run for House Speaker — we love this gig too much! This edition has a Smart Brevity count of 1,280 words, 5 minutes.

🎶 This week in 1994, the Cranberries released the album "No Need to Argue," which provides today's beautiful intro tune...

Plus: Allies push Biden's green bonafides

National

Data: IMF; Note: Exclusion of project finance refers to coal mines, plants and infrastructure; Chart: Deena Zaidi/Axios Visuals

The International Monetary Fund warned Monday that countries cannot rely exclusively on public funds to cut greenhouse gas emissions, stating the effort needs a big boost from the private sector.

Why it matters: In two new reports kicking off high-level meetings in Washington and Morocco during the next two weeks, the IMF pointed to how far off track the Group of 20 largest industrialized countries are from their own 2030 emissions targets and emphasized the need for far more private sector money. 

The big picture: The IMF laid out its conclusions as parts of larger analyses. Taken together, the fund warns that nations are likely to face significant limits on public sector spending for the climate fight. 

In particular, the IMF cites growing debt burdens from weaker economic growth, rising interest rates and other economic headwinds during the 2023 to 2028 period. 

This is expected to complicate tapping national coffers to pay for the transition to a low-carbon economy, the IMF wrote. 

A major theme is the need to draw in far more private capital to pay for steep increases in cleaner energy spending in emerging markets and developing countries.

Of note: The IMF concludes that the private sector will need to supply about 80% of the needed investments for the developing world's energy transition through 2030, but this share rises to 90% when you exclude China. 

The findings cited International Energy Agency figures indicating emerging market and developing economies will need about $2 trillion per year by 2030 to reach net-zero emissions by 2050; that is five times the current level.

Between the lines: One obstacle standing in the way of more private financing is the need to reform the ways that the World Bank and IMF make money available for climate and other priorities, and the need to align major private sector banks with their own net zero emissions targets. 

The research noted that "most major banks," out of a total of 30 examined, are not yet on track with net-zero targets, despite many of them having commitments to do so.

The proliferation of sustainability-focused funds has not translated into more money going into developing countries to support their emissions reduction efforts, the analysis noted. Instead, there needs to be more explicit ties made between fund objectives and climate targets.

Zoom in: The IMF describes leaders as facing decisions that are only getting harder. Climate change is being addressed mainly through spending measures, which runs the risk of raising debt levels to unsustainable heights; The alternative involves pursuing more modest, less costly climate actions, which would not fulfill the Paris targets.

Or, the IMF notes, they can implement politically unpopular measures, such as carbon pricing. That can include fossil fuel subsidy reform, emissions trading or carbon taxes, though some of these options are political nonstarters in certain countries such as the U.S.

The authors come down on the side of carbon pricing accompanied by other policy tools, such as subsidies for renewable forms of energy, that could further reduce emissions and cushion the economic blow to citizens whose costs might increase. 

It notes that nearly all of the emissions cuts that would need to happen before 2030 in order to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature targets could be made using existing technologies, yet the Group of 20 wealthiest industrialized countries are "significantly" short of this track. 

The bottom line: While an exercise in fiscal analysis, the IMF's findings will be a major focus of the upcoming UN Climate Summit in Dubai, which begins late next month. 

Multilateral development bank reform, the need for more financing for developing countries, and other topics have gained new momentum as the scale and speed of the climate challenge have become clear. The current year has featured devastating extreme weather events globally.  

Group of 20 wealthiest industrialized countries

Paris targets need big private climate spending boost: IMF

Countries face growing constraints on their ability to tackle the climate challenge alone.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Climate change

The International Monetary Fund warned Monday that countries cannot rely exclusively on public funds to cut greenhouse gas emissions, stating the effort needs a big boost from the private sector.Why it matters: In <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="two new reports" data-vars-click-url="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/10/02/countries-must-contain-global-warming-while-keeping-debt-in-check" data-vars-content-id="28285f8a-9eae-4ce3-8fca-c37a71369fc1" data-vars-headline="Paris targets need big private climate spending boost: IMF" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/10/02/countries-must-contain-global-warming-while-keeping-debt-in-check" target="_blank">two new reports</a> kicking off high-level meetings in Washington and Morocco during the next two weeks, the IMF pointed to <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="how far off track" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/08/countries-need-faster-emissions-cuts-report" data-vars-content-id="28285f8a-9eae-4ce3-8fca-c37a71369fc1" data-vars-headline="Paris targets need big private climate spending boost: IMF" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/08/countries-need-faster-emissions-cuts-report" target="_self">how far off track</a> the Group of 20 largest industrialized countries are from their own 2030 emissions targets and emphasized the need for far more private sector money.

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Ominous forecasts about the impact of climate change serve as the backdrop for the world — led by U.S. lawmakers and companies — to debate big action on the problem, which could upend energy systems and our way of life.

Energy & Environment

Data: JRA-55 data via Zeke Hausfather; Chart: Tory Lysik/Axios Visuals

The planet has shattered heat records in recent months, but even by the standards of a sizzling summer, September's temperature anomaly stands out. 

The big picture: Following the hottest June through August on record, and the globe's hottest ever month in July, last month's preliminary data has astonished climate researchers who anticipated such extremes eventually. 

The figures show a temperature anomaly of about 0.9°C (1.6°F) above the 1991-2020 average. Converted to the preindustrial era, this amounts to a departure from average of 1.7°C (3.06°F), temporarily exceeding the Paris Agreement's temperature target of 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels. 

The Paris Agreement, however, refers to long-term average temperatures over a few decades, not a single month or year. 

In data from the Japan Meteorological Agency, September 2023 beat the previous warmest September by 0.5°C (0.9°F). Typically, monthly records are beaten by fractions of a degree, with such narrow margins that different climate centers around the world can rank them differently. 

"We've never seen a record smashed by anything close to this margin," climate scientist Zeke Hausfather told Axios. "It's frankly a bit scary."

Between the lines: The data comes from computer modeling systems that use separate, well-tested methods (known as reanalysis) to estimate the planet's weather and climate conditions during the previous month. 

Data from three different reanalyses show that the planet spiked a far hotter fever in September, all but ensuring that 2023 will be the warmest year on the books. 

"This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas," Hausfather posted on X.com.

September featured numerous extreme weather events, including heat waves in Europe, devastating and deadly flooding in Greece and Libya from an unusually powerful Mediterranean storm system, record heat in Japan and continued anomalously large wildfires in Canada. 

In the U.S., the month ended with a record-breaking deluge on New York City and surrounding areas, bringing parts of the region to a halt.

The intrigue: The extreme heat this summer and fall is the result of a combination of factors, starting with long-term, human-caused climate change. In addition, an increasingly intense El Niño event is underway in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which is drawing more heat out of the deep oceans. 

Yet global oceans are setting warming records for a variety of natural and human-caused reasons, sending global temperatures even higher. 

Scientists are also investigating what role additional water vapor in the stratosphere is playing, along with a decrease in certain types of shipping emissions as a result of new marine shipping pollution rules. 

The water vapor was vaulted into the stratosphere during 2022's explosive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai undersea volcano in the southern Pacific Ocean.

Also on the list of suspects is the high speed with which the tropical Pacific shifted from a cooling La Niña to an El Niño, which jerked the climate into more rapid warming. 

What they're saying: "While a fraction of a degree might not initially strike us as significant," Texas A&M climate professor Andrew Dessler told Axios via email, "Even small increments in global temperatures have far-reaching consequences."

Dessler noted that during the last ice age, Earth was only 6°C (10°F) cooler than it is today. 

He also emphasized that climate change impacts are not linear, so "The harm caused by each additional tenth of a degree of warming is much larger than the harm caused by the previous tenth of a degree." 

What's next: Additional monthly data, including some stemming from global surface observations, will come out from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, NASA and NOAA during the next two weeks; however, the September temperature rankings are not expected to be different. 

decrease in certain types of shipping emissions

"Gobsmackingly" warm September was Earth's hottest on record

The month blew away the previous record September by an unheard of magnitude.

Extreme weather

The planet has <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="shattered heat records" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/15/global-warming-extreme-heat-record" data-vars-content-id="3fbb8fdd-6dc8-4f9a-bdcc-72c52c1267b2" data-vars-headline="&quot;Gobsmackingly&quot; warm September was Earth&#x27;s hottest on record" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/15/global-warming-extreme-heat-record" target="_self">shattered heat records</a> in recent months, but even by the standards of a sizzling summer, September&#x27;s temperature anomaly stands out. The big picture: Following the <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="hottest June" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/07/05/warmest-june-global-temperatures-hottest-day" data-vars-content-id="3fbb8fdd-6dc8-4f9a-bdcc-72c52c1267b2" data-vars-headline="&quot;Gobsmackingly&quot; warm September was Earth&#x27;s hottest on record" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/07/05/warmest-june-global-temperatures-hottest-day" target="_self">hottest June</a> through <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="August on record" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/05/world-record-hottest-summer" data-vars-content-id="3fbb8fdd-6dc8-4f9a-bdcc-72c52c1267b2" data-vars-headline="&quot;Gobsmackingly&quot; warm September was Earth&#x27;s hottest on record" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/05/world-record-hottest-summer" target="_self">August on record</a>, and the globe&#x27;s hottest ever month in <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="July" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/04/heat-wave-july-climate" data-vars-content-id="3fbb8fdd-6dc8-4f9a-bdcc-72c52c1267b2" data-vars-headline="&quot;Gobsmackingly&quot; warm September was Earth&#x27;s hottest on record" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/04/heat-wave-july-climate" target="_self">July</a>, last month&#x27;s preliminary data has astonished climate researchers who anticipated such extremes eventually.

A look at the scientific breakthroughs changing the world, explorations in space and in worlds beyond our own and the threats posed to us by our own planet, both out of our control and of our own making.

Science

The sizzling summer of 2023 may be over, but now the U.S. is seeing the reemergence of summer-like heat for tens of millions from Minneapolis to Maine. 

The big picture: Temperatures this week have already broken records, including a monthly high of 92°F in Minneapolis on Sunday, which forced the cancellation of the Twin Cities marathon for health reasons. 

The cause of the heat is a strong ridge of high pressure that has formed out ahead of a plunge of cooler-than-average conditions across the Pacific Northwest. 

On Sunday, temperatures in the 80s and 90s extended from the Gulf Coast to the northern Plains and Canadian border, which is an unusual occurrence for the beginning of October. 

Temperatures of 15 to 25-degrees above average for this time of year are expected for the next few days from the Upper Mississippi River Valley and Great Lakes to the East Coast. 

Details: This U.S. warmup will be relatively fleeting. Areas stretching from the Northeast into parts of Quebec and Ontario later this week are expected to see the greatest temperature departures from average.

Day by day, cooler air will be marching south and east into the Plains and Midwest, courtesy of a cold front that may set off some severe weather as it advances.

Cities from Washington, DC, to Boston are likely to be in the upper 70s to low 80s through much of the workweek.

Between the lines: The heat this week comes at the same time as record highs are falling in Europe and Africa, too. 

A provisional national monthly record was set in Spain on Sunday, with a high of 100.8°F in Montoro, Spain, with record highs also occurring in France and Portugal. It comes as Europe also faces abnormally hot weather, which claimed monthly records on the Iberian Peninsula Sunday. 

Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Morocco set heat records in recent days, too.

Context: The unseasonable heat follows the planet's hottest summer on record, with the hottest month on record occurring in July. 

Last month was the hottest September, and October may be on track to set a similar milestone given record warm ocean temperatures worldwide. 

The blazing start to October in the Northern Hemisphere follows what was almost certainly the warmest September on record for the planet by a large margin.

U.S. Midwest and East say hello to a second summer

Monthly high temperature records have already been set in some locations.

Map showing forecast high temperatures on Monday from the National Weather Service. Image: Pivotal Weather.

Heat waves

The <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="sizzling summer of 2023" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/05/world-record-hottest-summer" data-vars-content-id="52742aa2-1389-4cca-b38a-dfa888595c00" data-vars-headline="U.S. Midwest and East say hello to a second summer" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/05/world-record-hottest-summer" target="_self">sizzling summer of 2023</a> may be over, but now the U.S. is seeing the reemergence of summer-like heat for tens of millions from Minneapolis to Maine. The big picture: Temperatures this week have already broken records, including a monthly high of 92°F in Minneapolis on Sunday, which forced the <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="cancellation of the Twin Cities marathon" data-vars-click-url="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/01/us/twin-cities-marathon-canceled-weather/index.html" data-vars-content-id="52742aa2-1389-4cca-b38a-dfa888595c00" data-vars-headline="U.S. Midwest and East say hello to a second summer" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/01/us/twin-cities-marathon-canceled-weather/index.html" target="_blank">cancellation of the Twin Cities marathon</a> for health reasons.

Latino

Axios Latino

Religion and race shape views on whether climate change is caused by human activities — with less than a third of white evangelicals saying it's driven by people, according to a new survey.

Why it matters: There's virtually no debate among scientists over what is causing climate change.

Persistent divisions on climate change's causes threaten to make political consensus on action impossible to reach.

The big picture: Nearly everyone in the U.S. experienced hotter temperatures driven by human-caused climate change this summer, according to a new Climate Central analysis.

Zoom in: Three-fourths of Hispanic Catholics and all religiously unaffiliated Americans (76%) believe climate change is caused by human activity, a survey released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found.

But less than half of Latter-day Saints believe climate change is caused by human activity (48%), and just three in 10 white evangelical Protestants (31%) believe so.

A slim majority of white Catholics (56%) and white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (54%) say climate change is human-caused.

Meanwhile, most Americans (61%) believe climate change is caused mainly by human activity such as burning fossil fuels.

The intrigue: More than eight in 10 Democrats (83%) say climate change is caused by humans, compared to 64% of independents and 28% of Republicans.

Republicans are more likely than independents and Democrats to believe that climate change is caused by "natural patterns in the Earth's environment" — 50%, 28% and 12%, respectively.

35% of Americans agree that the severity of recent climate disasters is evidence that we are in what the Bible calls "the end of times," compared to 63% who disagree.

Between the lines: 19% of white evangelical Protestants say there is no evidence that climate change is happening — the largest percentage of any religious group in the survey.

Reality check: This year is expected to be the warmest on record globally, driven by the combination of an El Niño event in the Pacific Ocean and human-caused global warming, Axios' Andrew Freedman has reported.

The summer was the warmest such season on record, with July becoming the warmest month of any month in instrument data.

Longstanding climate research has shown the central role played by greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, in driving an increase in global temperatures.

Between the lines: Despite their growth, Hispanics — especially Catholics — are severely underrepresented in most state and federal elected offices.

White evangelicals hold enormous influence over the Republican Party platform and often block climate change legislation.

What they're saying: "A lot of white evangelicals believe that the second coming could be imminent so why bother with fighting climate change," Andrew Chesnut, the Bishop Walter F. Sullivan chairman in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, tells Axios

Chesnut said there's a whole industry of books, films and lectures interpreting wars and natural disasters as signs of the End Times while dismissing science.

Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical climate scientist at Texas Tech and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, tells Axios nothing in the Bible gives an excuse not to believe that climate change is caused by humans.

"For many people, their identity is written, first of all, by their politics and their ideology, and only a distance second by their theology," she said.

Methodology: The Faith Factor in Climate Change survey was conducted online between June 8-28. The poll is based on a representative sample of 5,192 adults (age 18 and older) living in all 50 states who are part of Ipsos' Knowledge Panel®.

The margin of sampling error is +/- 1.62 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample.

Survey: Religion and race shape views on cause of climate change

Survey shows only less than a third of white evangelical beliece climate change is human caused

Share of U.S. adults who say climate change is mostly caused by human activity, by select religion

Policymaking

Oil companies

Religion and race <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="shape views on whether" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2022/12/05/religious-americans-climate-change-diverse" data-vars-content-id="56ae253f-0746-4b61-897f-d77eebf09091" data-vars-headline="Survey: Religion and race shape views on cause of climate change" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2022/12/05/religious-americans-climate-change-diverse" target="_self">shape views on whether</a> climate change is caused by human activities — with less than a third of white evangelicals saying it&#x27;s driven by people, according to <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="a new survey" data-vars-click-url="https://www.prri.org/research/the-faith-factor-in-climate-change-how-religion-impacts-american-attitudes-on-climate-and-environmental-policy/" data-vars-content-id="56ae253f-0746-4b61-897f-d77eebf09091" data-vars-headline="Survey: Religion and race shape views on cause of climate change" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.prri.org/research/the-faith-factor-in-climate-change-how-religion-impacts-american-attitudes-on-climate-and-environmental-policy/" target="_blank">a new survey</a>.Why it matters: There&#x27;s virtually <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="no debate among scientists" data-vars-click-url="https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ " data-vars-content-id="56ae253f-0746-4b61-897f-d77eebf09091" data-vars-headline="Survey: Religion and race shape views on cause of climate change" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ " target="_blank">no debate among scientists</a> over what is causing climate change.

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

Data: ICF Climate Center; Chart: Axios Visuals

The U.S. could meet its net-zero-emissions target by 2050 through three key portfolios of actions on electric vehicles, buildings and scaling clean energy, a new report finds. 

Why it matters: The analysis, made by the ICF Climate Center, offers an optimistic take on what the U.S. can do with available technologies and policy levers to slash emissions. The Climate Center is a research arm within global consulting firm ICF.

Zoom in: The Climate Center's findings were provided first to Axios and show that taking major steps on electric vehicle deployment, building decarbonization and clean energy could take the country to near or at net-zero emissions by 2050. 

The report calls for an increase in EVs on the road by 100 times current levels by 2050. This would include not only cars and light trucks but also heavy-duty buses and trucks, the report states.

That sounds like a tall order, especially given the increasing politicization surrounding EVs, requirements for advances in battery technology, and critical mineral supply chains. 

Yes, but: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Biden's climate Law will take the U.S. close to 100 million EVs by 2050. The report pushes for a goal of 240 million EVs, which is an increase of two and a half times compared to where current policies are taking U.S. EV deployment. 

What they're saying: "It's actually within grasp," Michael Jung, executive director of the ICF Climate Center and report coauthor, said in an interview.

The report cautions that flagging consumer sentiment and a needed scale-up of battery manufacturing, among other challenges, may stand in the way of achieving the more ambitious EV goals.

Between the lines: Zero emissions electric vehicle mandates could achieve the scale-up described in the report, as could mixes of other policies like tax incentives, the firm notes. 

As other reports have concluded, current U.S. policies would significantly cut emissions through 2030 and by 2050, but they would not be enough to meet the Biden administration's emissions reduction goals. 

But combined with current policies, the ICF proposals could cut 40% of emissions by 2030, and get to nearly 90% of emissions cuts by 2050 relative to 2005 levels, the report states. 

The 2050 emissions would not quite hit net zero, in part due to hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement manufacturing and aviation. Still, they would get the country closer to that all-important target compared to existing policy paths. 

Zoom out: The report drives home the speed and scope of the decarbonization challenge facing the country. 

When it comes to buildings, for example, the authors concluded that by 2050, nearly all U.S. buildings would need to undergo some type of energy efficiency and electrification measure by 2050. 

And with the power sector, the report's scenarios show the need to boost renewables to 85% of total electricity generation by 2050. 

This would put more emphasis on battery storage technologies, given the intermittent nature of solar and wind power. Storage would have to increase into the hundreds of gigawatts by 2050 in order to accomplish such large emissions cuts. 

The scenario laid out by in the ICF report envisions no role by 2050 for fossil fuel plants whose emissions are not captured and stored somehow (also known as "unabated" fossil fuels). 

Reality check: The report envisions a level of collaboration between citizens, federal and local officials that may not be feasible.  

For example, the Biden administration's efforts to cut emissions further are running up against supply chain complications and higher costs when it comes to building offshore wind installations. 

And EVs are threatening to become a political wedge issue, given the United Auto Workers' strike, and Republican attacks on policies aimed at making these cars more attractive to consumers. 

Neither of these developments were anticipated when the climate law was passed more than a year ago, and they illustrate that the path to net zero will not be smooth. 

U.S. could reach net-zero target through these key steps: Report

The U.S. could get to net-zero carbon emissions using mainly existing technologies, new report says.

The U.S. could meet its <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="net-zero-emissions target by 2050" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/26/paris-agreement-climate-target-iea" data-vars-content-id="93405d05-b430-4865-885a-9ecb3fc59d4a" data-vars-headline="U.S. could reach net-zero target through these key steps: Report" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/26/paris-agreement-climate-target-iea" target="_self">net-zero-emissions target by 2050</a> through three key portfolios of actions on electric vehicles, buildings and scaling clean energy, a new report finds. Why it matters: The <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="analysis" data-vars-click-url="https://www.icf.com/insights/climate/3-super-solutions-US-path-to-net-zero" data-vars-content-id="93405d05-b430-4865-885a-9ecb3fc59d4a" data-vars-headline="U.S. could reach net-zero target through these key steps: Report" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.icf.com/insights/climate/3-super-solutions-US-path-to-net-zero" target="_blank">analysis</a>, made by the ICF Climate Center, offers an optimistic take on what the U.S. can do with available technologies and policy levers to slash emissions. The Climate Center is a research arm within global consulting firm ICF.

Andrew Freedman

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