Spin, a San Francisco-based scooter-sharing startup, is finishing up a $125 million “security token offering,” Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Some of the startup's competitors, namely Bird and Lime, have already raised hefty amounts of venture capital, while Spin has only disclosed $8 million in funding so far.
July is typically the hottest month of the year, for both the U.S. and the planet as a whole. However, this year it is going to start off particularly hot across the country, as a dangerous heat wave stretches from Arizona to Maine.
Why it matters: The heat and humidity will combine to create life-threatening conditions in many cities, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, where heat advisories and excessive heat warnings are in effect.
An influential conservative organization is rallying like-minded interest groups to voice opposition to a carbon tax, largely in response to a new initiative launched last week urging support for such a policy, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The American Energy Alliance is among several such conservative groups with sway among Republicans on Capitol Hill. This influence is likely to hold strong despite former Republican leaders voicing support for a carbon price, including former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.
Last year saw the second-largest tropical tree cover loss on record since 1999, in large part because of human-caused fires in the Amazon, a new analysis from the World Resources Institute and University of Maryland found.
What it means: Trees absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide annually, preventing even more global warming. Losing tree cover means there's the potential for accelerating warming, as well as a range of other effects, including damage to biodiversity.
The Arctic Ocean's boundaries are getting fuzzier as Atlantic waters push further northward and sea ice thins and melts more with each passing year, a new study finds.
Why it matters: If this trend continues, it could have wide-ranging impacts on lucrative marine fisheries, and may already be altering the weather patterns affecting your daily life in ways researchers are only now discovering.
Pope Francis is hosting environmental leaders, researchers and activists next week at the Vatican to advocate for more aggressive action on climate change, according to multiple officials and an agenda viewed by Axios.
Why it matters: It’s the latest move in Francis’ strategy pushing a worldwide discussion on climate change and comes just a few weeks after he hosted a very different crowd on the same topic: big oil and investment firm executives.
Scooter startup Bird confirmed on Thursday that it has raised $300 million in new funding led by Sequoia Capital, just months after raising its last round.
Why it matters: Scooters are the latest smartphone-enabled transportation craze, reminiscent of the ride-hailing wars a few years ago, and Bird's strategy resembles Uber's—raise more money than the competition and rapidly expand.
The retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy — and a replacement that will most likely move the court further to the right — could help weaken federal regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The big question: Whether there's an opening for revisiting 2007's Massachusetts v. EPA, the 5-4 decision where Kennedy joined the majority to clearly enable regulation of CO2 emissions.
Oil-and-gas giant BP announced Thursday that it's buying the U.K.'s largest electric vehicle charging network, Chargemaster, for roughly $170 million.
The big picture: The move comes amid efforts by European regulators to bolster the share of EVs on roads. BP estimates that by 2040 there will be 12 million EVs on U.K. roads, up from 135,000 last year.
More broadly, it's the latest sign of European-based oil majors making increasing investments in the electricity and EV space, although it remains a very small part of their overall budgets.
