| | Economic competition between the US and China is playing out in Latin America’s mineral mines.͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ |
| |  Panama City |  Washington |  Tokyo |
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 - Big Copper turns to Trump
- New US climate target
- Europe braces for gas spike
- Big grid investment
- EV makers’ catchup plan
 Trump’s EV choice, and Saudi Arabia joins the lithium rush. |
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 The energy transition is in for a rocky year ahead. The palpable frustration I felt at COP29 in Baku over governments’ collective inability to adequately address the climate crisis could become the new normal, at least for a while. The gradual adoption of renewable energy, EVs, and other clean tech is running up against the biggest increase in power demand in more than a generation, putting fossil fuels back into a position of power, with the help of US President-elect Donald Trump and other leaders looking for someone to blame for volatile energy prices and lost jobs in their preferred sectors. On the other hand, there’s never been more money invested in clean energy and climate tech, so a total reversal is unlikely. We’ll be here next year to keep a close eye on the bull market for electricity, the first days of the second Trump administration, and all the other big climate stories of 2025. In the meantime, we’re off for the holidays for the next week and a half. And starting in the new year, we’re shifting our publishing schedule: Net Zero will hit your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of Wednesdays and Fridays. See you then! |
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A mine in Panama turns to Trump |
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 Tarina Rodriguez/ReutersThe CEO of the company running one of the world’s largest and most embattled copper mines wants US President-elect Donald Trump to help rescue the project before the legal battles over its future turn uglier. Tristan Pascall, who leads First Quantum Minerals, told Semafor that the Cobre Panama mine — a $10 billion project deep in the Panamanian jungle that has been shuttered by the government since November 2023 because of disputes related to tax rates and other issues — could be a vital source of raw materials for US companies chasing clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence. But first it has to reopen. With the firm spending about $12 million a month just to maintain the mine’s physical integrity, time is running out to reach a deal with Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino Quintero before Pascall says First Quantum will have to pursue arbitration. With Trump looking to take a hawkish stance on China — the world’s top copper consumer — and a secretary of state nominee, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has close ties to Latin America, Pascall aims to pitch the administration for its support in reviving the mine. “There’s a huge opportunity for the incoming administration in this space,” he said. “There’s absolutely a deal for Trump to do on copper that lines up with the strategic interests of the US and of Panama.” |
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The Biden administration set new, significantly more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.  They carry little legal weight, since they’re certain to be ignored by the incoming Trump administration. But they’ll serve as the informal guideposts for companies and sub-national governments that will need to carry the torch on decarbonization for the next four years. The plan will require the US to cut all emissions across the economy by 61-66% relative to 2005 levels by 2035, cut methane by at least 35%, and reach net zero by 2050. As of 2023, US emissions have fallen about 17% since 2005 and researchers recently estimated that Washington is on course to cut emissions by 38-56% by 2035. So the pace of the energy transition will need to accelerate if the new target is to be met. “The 2035 emissions reduction target is at the lower bound of what the science demands,” said Debbie Weyl, US acting director for the World Resources Institute. “And yet it is close to the upper bound of what is realistic if nearly every available policy lever were pulled.” |
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Europe braces for gas spike |
 Gleb Garanich/ReutersEurope’s natural gas market is bracing for the looming shutoff of Russian gas transiting through pipelines in Ukraine. A longstanding deal under which Ukraine pockets royalties in exchange for letting Russian gas cross its territory is set to expire on Jan. 1. This week, leaders of both countries said that an agreement to extend the deal, which benefits the Kremlin’s finances more than Kyiv’s, was unlikely. An arrangement by which gas in Ukraine’s pipeline continues to flow from Russia but is nominally designated as originating in Azerbaijan is also unacceptable, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, unless payments could be kept in escrow until after the war. If the gas does get cut off, energy prices in Europe will spike, so gas traders are watching the last-minute negotiations with bated breath. |
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 Semafor announces the launch of The CEO Signal from Semafor Business, an exclusive, invitation-only membership for chief executives of the world’s largest companies. Helmed by veteran Financial Times editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, the initiative builds on the success of Liz Hoffman’s Semafor Business and sets a new standard for how global leaders connect, learn, and navigate future challenges. Focusing on exclusivity over scale, the platform will debut as a weekly briefing in January 2025 offering candid, practical insights and interviews tailored for global CEOs who are short on time and seeking actionable intelligence. |
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 The size of a loan announced this week by the Biden administration to the California utility company PG&E. It’s the largest of its kind from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, which is scrambling to offload its enormous warchest of climate cash before Trump takes office. The money will help PG&E adapt to climate change impacts — for example, by burying power lines to protect them from wildfires — and expand the grid to accommodate more EVs and data centers. And it will save the company about $1 billion in debt costs it would have faced borrowing a similar sum from the private market, LPO said. The second-largest LPO ever was also finalized this week: $9.6 billion for a Ford EV battery factory. |
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 Toya Sarno Jordan/ReutersJapan’s automakers are scrambling to respond to anticipated tax credit cuts under Trump and mounting competition with China. Nissan and Honda are in talks to merge, which would help both cut production costs. Nissan was an early EV pioneer with the popular Leaf model, but fell behind its rivals in introducing hybrids and is losing market share across all of its key global markets. As a Guardian columnist put it, “cost-cutting is a poor substitute for innovation, but, in theory, it buys some time to try to get back into the EV race.” Toyota, meanwhile, cut $6,000 from the price of one its popular new EV models, hoping to keep prices level if buyers lose access to the $7,500 tax credit that Trump is likely to axe. |
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 Brendan McDermid/ReutersWill Carlos Watson’s conviction change the digital media business? On Monday, the founder of Ozy Media was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for fraud. Today, in Ben’s first extensive conversation about Ozy since Watson’s arrest, he and Nayeema discuss the company, the scandal, and what it reveals about the broader digital media and advertising business. They are joined by Madison and Wall analyst and former GroupM Global President for Business Intelligence, Brian Wieser, to explore why marketers and investors were duped by Watson, what changed in the aftermath, and what the next digital media scam might be. |
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 New EnergyTechMinerals & Mining- Saudi Arabia is getting into the lithium game as it looks to develop industries for a world with declining future oil demand, including one led by Saudi Aramco to extract lithium from waste liquids from oil fields.
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