While the tropical Atlantic looks quiet through much of the rest of August, predictions of a hyperactive 2024 hurricane season are still on track, forecasters warn.

Why it matters: Meteorologists have been unanimous in expecting an extremely active hurricane season, and the majority of storms are likely still ahead.

• The heart of hurricane season comes in September into October.

Zoom in: The Atlantic has already given rise to five named storms, compared to the average of four to date. Two of them — Hurricanes Beryl and Debby — have made landfall in the U.S.

• "Each year like clockwork around this time, we hear rumblings of 'Where are the hurricanes?'" said Michael Lowry, hurricane specialist and storm surge expert at WPLG TV in Miami. "Apparently, even in years [that] we've had plenty of hurricanes."
• Even though the U.S. "has not yet had a truly 'mega' sized impact/loss event, let's not overlook that it's still mid/late August and there have already been two landfalls," Steve Bowen, chief scientist at Gallagher Re, told Axios via email.

The big picture: Of the season's five named storms, Beryl in late June into early July set numerous records, including the earliest Category 5 storm in Atlantic history.

• There are questions regarding how prepared utilities, homeowners and public officials are for landfalling storms.
• Beryl plunged large parts of Houston into darkness as the electrical grid failed to withstand Category One hurricane-force winds.

Threat level: The North Atlantic is still near record warm for this time of year, which is partly attributable to human-caused climate change.

• Global warming made ocean temperatures in some parts of the Gulf of Mexico at least 500 times more likely to occur as of Aug. 16, the most recent date with available data.

The intrigue: Inhibiting factors have kept a lid on Atlantic hurricane activity in the so-called Main Development Region, where some of the most fearsome storms tend to form.

• According to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Philip Klotzbach, as well as Lowry, one factor is an unusually high amount of dust and dry air blowing from east to west off the coast of Africa.
• This layer of air inhibits storm formation and can choke existing storms.
• In addition, the area where clusters of thunderstorms — known as tropical waves — form and move off Africa has been displaced to the north of its typical position. This means they fizzle over cooler Atlantic waters to the north of the Cape Verde Islands.
• Lastly, easterly winds associated with an unusually active African monsoon have been stronger than average for this time of year, which has also kept a lid on storm activity.

What's next: These checks on Atlantic storms are forecast to dissipate by early September.

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Prominent marine scientists and environmentalists are pressing House and Senate leaders to boost R&D funding for ocean-based carbon removal methods.

Why it matters: Marine-based tech could become a strong climate tool but faces big questions around safety, scalability, and public acceptance.

🗞️ Driving the news: A new letter to leaders from both parties urges legislation and money to gauge the "efficacy and impacts" of marine carbon dioxide removal, or mCDR.

• The nine signatories include the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the nonprofit Carbon to Sea Initiative, and the Environmental Defense Fund.
• The ask comes as a new Congressional Research Service report outlines potential Hill options to address the technology, including creating a new program or designating a federal agency such as NOAA to coordinate research.

🖼️ The big picture: The U.S. government has invested less than $100 million to date in mCDR — a small fraction of the resources steered into other removal technologies, letter organizers say.

• The pitch to Congress notes that the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, in a 2022 report, urged a 10-year investment of $2.4 billion for R&D and demonstration projects.

Catch up quick: There are several mCDR technologies and ideas.

• They include enhancing ocean alkalinity to increase CO2 uptake while fighting acidification; sequestering CO2 removed through seaweed cultivation; electrochemical methods, and more.
• Climate policy is often the stuff of partisan fights, but carbon removal has some buy-in among both parties.

What we're watching: Whether the letter moves the needle in the 2025 appropriations cycles.

Former National Economic Council director Brian Deese is pitching a new U.S. financing agency to spur global uptake of low-emissions tech — and boost U.S. industry and geopolitical leverage in the process.

Why it matters: While Deese wrote his new Foreign Affairs essay wearing his MIT innovation fellow hat, he's also advising the Kamala Harris campaign.

• And Deese is a boldface name in wonk and political circles.
• He was a senior economic and budget aide to President Obama, then BlackRock's sustainable investing head before joining the Biden White House.

State of play: Deese argues that while the IRA can help support global clean tech adoption, this international spread "is not self-executing" or happening fast enough.

• "Unfortunately, the United States has yet to offer a full-throated answer to China's Belt and Road Initiative, the $1 trillion infrastructure project Beijing designed to expand its influence across the globe."

The intrigue: He's suggesting a "Clean Energy Finance Authority" that would "subsidize foreign demand ... and put American innovation and industry at the front of the line."

• The Treasury Department-managed body would be more "nimble" than current authorities like the U.S. Development Finance Corporation.

The big picture: It's part of Deese's wider case for a "Clean Energy Marshall Plan" that has around 10% of funding via federal grants, with the balance from equity, debt, export credit and more.

And he's urging a new "Clean Energy Resilience Authority" to create a more robust, less China-centric energy transition supply chain.

🔍What we're watching: Whether these ideas help inform Harris' policies if she's elected.

⚖️ President Biden's lawyers hope to convince the Supreme Court to reject red state and industry requests to stay the EPA CO2 standards for power plants.

• What they're saying: "This case ... does not involve the type of fundamental statutory-interpretation issue that might warrant this Court's intervention, whether on the merits docket or the emergency docket," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in a new filing.
• The other side: Applicants say the rules violate the high court's 2022 "major questions" decision and allege EPA misstates the viability of carbon capture.

⚛️ Via Bloomberg, "China approved 11 nuclear reactors across five sites on Monday, a record amount of permits as the government leans even more heavily on atomic energy to support its push to cut emissions."

🚗 Via Reuters, "The European Union has slashed its planned extra tariff on Tesla electric vehicles imported from China by more than half, the bloc's executive said on Tuesday, following further investigations requested by the company."

"Imagine wrapping yourself up in a hot wet towel and sitting in a sauna. That basically sums up how the short-term weather will feel."