William Mathis, Bloomberg

The global energy supply is turning greener.

Investment in new renewable energy is on course to total $2.6 trillion in the years from 2010 through the end of 2019, according to a study by BloombergNEF for the United Nations Environment Program and Frankfurt School’s UNEP Center published Thursday.

The boom in the capacity to generate electricity from low-carbon sources gives credibility to an effort by world leaders to slash climate-damaging greenhouse gases. Falling costs of wind and solar power plants is making more projects in new markets economically competitive with generation fed by fossil fuels.

“Investing in renewable energy is investing in a sustainable and profitable future, as the last decade of incredible growth in renewables has shown,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP. “It is clear that we need to rapidly step up the pace of the global switch to renewables if we are to meet international climate and development goals.”

The scale of investment going into clean energy represents a growing chunk of the money flowing into the power industry. Renewables such as wind, solar and hydro-electric plants will draw about $322 billion a year through 2025, according to separate forecasts from the International Energy Agency. That’s almost triple the $116 billion a year that will go into fossil fuel plants and about the same as what will be invested in power grids.

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By far the biggest contributions to new investment have been made in solar and wind farms. Global solar power capacity increased by more than 2,500% in the decade, from 25 gigawatts at the beginning of 2010 to 663 gigawatts anticipated by the end of this year.

Still, the end of the decade showed some cracks. Funds moving into solar declined in some of the biggest markets in 2018 compared with the year prior.

The cost of renewable technologies has fallen precipitously over the last few years. That’s also helped make renewables less reliant on government support. BNEF’s data shows the levelized cost of electricity is down 81% for solar photovoltaics since 2009.

“Sharp falls in the cost of electricity from wind and solar over recent years have transformed the choice facing policy makers,” said Jon Moore, chief executive officer of BloombergNEF. “Now, in many countries around the world, either wind or solar is the cheapest option for electricity generation.”

China has had by far the most investment in new renewable energy, making up nearly a third of the global total. The boom in solar hit a setback last year after the Chinese government announced restrictions on the number of new solar installations that would qualify for support. That led solar investment in China in the second half of 2018 to fall about 56% compared with the same period a year earlier.Despite the significant investment, renewables still makes up a relatively small proportion of global power generation. China led the way in buying wind and solar plants but also poured money into new coal power generation units.

Many more renewable projects will come online in the coming decades. Wind and solar are set to contribute 48% of generation by 2050, according to BloombergNEF.

Overall, there’s been a net increase of 2.4 terawatts of installed capacity globally. While much of that has been from clean sources like wind, solar and hydro, a significant portion of that came from plants fired by coal and natural gas.

Europe and the U.S. have closed down coal plants, but that has been offset by an increase in Asia, especially in India. That’s helped to increase carbon emissions from the global power industry by at least 10% from the end of 2009 through 2019.

POWERGEN is the event that showcases the energy transition. Join us in New Orleans this November 19-21 to learn about all the latest technologies and market trends affecting the energy industry today.

Gallup, an organization that conducts public opinion polls, has released an annual Values and Beliefs poll since 2001. The poll shows Americans’ views on the morality of several controversial issues. While many of the topics remained in line with last year’s findings, the current results highlight divisions along party lines.

Abortion is the most divisive issue among political ideologies, with a 50 percentage-point difference among those who say abortion is morally acceptable (23% of conservatives and 73% of liberals). Birth control is the least divisive: liberals are only three percentage points head of conservatives on this topic (93% in favor versus 90%).

More conservatives view the death penalty (66% versus 46%) and medical testing on animals (55% versus 47%) as morally acceptable, while more liberals deem physician-assisted suicide (72% versus 36%) and smoking marijuana (82% versus 49%) as okay.

Among Americans overall, more people believe abortion is morally wrong (50%) in 2019 than in 2001 (45%), while 42% found it morally acceptable in both 2001 and 2019.

There was a slight decrease in the percentage of people who say the death penalty is morally acceptable, from 63% in 2001 to 60% in 2019. The percentage of those who find it morally wrong increased from 27% in 2001 to 35%.

Physician-assisted suicide saw increases in both sides, from 49% in 2001 to 52% in 2019 for moral acceptance and from 40% to 44% in belief that the act is morally wrong. The increase in both is made possible by a decrease (from 8% to 2%) in those who answered that morality depended upon the circumstances and a decrease (from 3% to 1%) in those who gave no answer.

Fewer people believe that medical testing on animals is morally acceptable, a drop from 65% in 2001 to 51% in 2019. There is a corresponding uptick in the percentage of Americans that believe animal testing is morally wrong, from 26% to 44%.

Birth control is still almost entirely considered morally acceptable in 2019 (92%) compared to 89% in 2001, while slightly fewer people (6% versus 8%) believe contraceptives are be morally wrong.

Gallup has only polled on smoking marijuana in 2018 and 2019. Moral acceptance has remained the same (65%), while those who believe it to be morally wrong have increased from 31% to 33%.

A new law in Mississippi (SB 2922) bans the use of certain descriptive words traditionally associated with meat products on labels for vegetarian and vegan plant-based products. As of July 1, 2019, words such as “burger” and “hot dog” can only be used if the product is made of animal meat. That means the name “veggie burger” is no longer permitted on labels for plant-based patties. The ban also applies to food made from insects and meats made in a lab from cultured animal cells (as opposed to slaughtered livestock).

Andy Berry, Mississippi Cattlemen’s Association Executive Vice President, stated last year, “We’re concerned about how those products are labeled… People have a choice, and we don’t want them to be mislead or maybe even tricked into buying something that is ‘meat’ that has no meat in it.” The new law is meant to protect consumers from confusion and manufacturers from unfair competition with plant-based products, according to proponents.

The ban is being challenged in court by the Institute for Justice and the Plant Based Foods Association, among other groups. Missouri passed a similar law in 2018, which is also being challenged in court as a First Amendment violation by groups including the Good Food Institute and the ACLU.

Jessica Almy, Director of Policy at the Good Food Institute, said, “There is no evidence that consumers are confused by plant-based bacon or veggie burger labels, and federal laws are already in place that prohibits consumer deception. This law is a tremendous overstep of state powers.”

Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson defended the law, saying, “It’s not a free speech violation to require the truth in consumer products. And to claim that something is meat that isn’t meat is not true.”

A US District Court in California previously ruled that consumers were not being tricked into mistaking plant-based products for animal-based products in a 2013 case regarding the use of the word “milk.” The ruling stated, “The crux of the claims is that a reasonable consumer might confuse plant-based beverages such as soymilk or almond milk for dairy milk, because of the use of the word ‘milk.’ The Court finds such confusion highly improbable because of the use of the words ‘soy’ and ‘almond.’ Plaintiffs essentially allege that a reasonable consumer would view the terms ‘soymilk’ and ‘almond milk,’ disregard the first words in the names, and assume that the beverages came from cows. The claim stretches the bounds of credulity.”

Vegan and vegetarian products have come under labeling scrutiny in other places as well. In Canada, Blue Heron Creamery can no longer use the word “cheese” for their plant-based dairy-free products as of Feb. 2019. Words like Cheddar and chèvre are also prohibited. A German court ruled similarly against cheese-substitute manufacturer TofuTown in 2016. In the European Union, “veggie burgers” may soon be called “veggie discs” following the European parliament’s agriculture committee approval of a ban on using meat-related terminology on vegetarian food.

Sales of plant-based “meats” increased 42% from 2016 to 2019; the market for these products is worth an estimated $12.1 billion in 2019 and could reach $27.9 billion by 2025. Beyond Meat, a plant-based food manufacturer, almost doubled its net revenue from $32.6 million in 2017 to $87.9 million in 2018. Fast food restaurants such as Burger King and Del Taco now offer plant-based “fake meat” substitutes in some locations.

Sources:

AP, “Mississippi Lawmakers Have Real Fears about ‘Fake Meat,'” wreg.com, Mar. 4, 2019

Daniel Boffey, “‘Veggie Discs’ to Replace Veggie Burgers in EU Crackdown on Food Labels,” theguardian.com, Apr. 4, 2019

CaseText.com, “Ang v. Whitewave Foods Co.,” casetext.com, Dec. 10, 2013

Melissa Kravitz, “Should Plant-Based Proteins Be Called ‘Meat,'” salon.com, Dec. 22, 2018

LegiScan, “Mississippi Senate Bill 2922 (Adjourned Sine Die),” legiscan.com (accessed July 8, 2019)

Baylen Linnekin, “Mississippi Sued for Awful ‘Veggie Burger’ Ban,” reason.com, July 6, 2019

Alex Lowery, “Fake Meat Bill Passes House, Heads to Senate,” msfb.org, Jan. 25, 2019

Bettina Makalintal, “Vegan Creamery Can’t Call Its Product ‘Cheese’ Anymore,” vice.com, Feb. 21, 2019

MarketsandMarkets, “Plant-based Meat Market Worth $27.9 Billion by 2025 – Exclusive Report by MarketsandMarkets™,” prnewswire.com, May 23, 2019

Niamh Michail, “German Court Rules against ‘Vegan Cheese’- but What Should Plant-Based ‘Alternatives’ Be Called?,” dairyreporter.com, Apr. 28, 2016

Sarah Min, “Beyond Meat Stock Price More than Doubles as Fake Meat Company Goes Public,” cbsnews.com, May 2, 2019

Sarah Min, “Fake-meat Fans Sue Mississippi over Labeling Rules for ‘Meat,'” cbsnews.com, July 3, 2019

Kelsey Piper, “Mississippi Is Forbidding Grocery Stores from Calling Veggie Burgers ‘Veggie Burgers,'” vox.xom, July 3, 2019

Kate Welsh, “Vegan ‘Meat’ Shouldn’t Be Called Meat, According to Meat Lobby,” myrecipes.com, Feb. 7, 2018

A June 17, 2019 study published in Nature Climate Change found that 38% of primates are threatened by climate change, including lemurs, langurs, and orangutans.

The researchers found that these animals are threatened by extreme weather conditions caused by rising temperatures related to climate change. 16% of the primates are endangered by cyclones, especially those in Madagascar, and 22% are endangered by droughts, especially in the Malaysia Peninsula, North Borneo, Sumatra, and West Africa.

Among the 607 types of primates examined by the peer-reviewed study, 100 types were vulnerable to cyclones, 134 were impacted by droughts, and 19 were troubled by both cyclones and drought.

Over 90% of the primates threatened by cyclones and 65% of those vulnerable to drought were listed as “threatened with extinction” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Twenty-three species impacted by cyclones are “critically endangered,” and 26 are vulnerable to drought.

The study stated, “As the pressures exerted by extreme climatic events on primates are not preventable or controllable, it is critical to maintain primate populations’ resilience to catastrophic mortality and habitat loss caused by these events.” Ways to do this include creating sustainable land-use projects to limit conflicts between primate and humans and strategies to improve human living conditions to reduce illegal hunting of primates.

Permanent daylight saving time means that when clocks are adjusted to “spring forward” by an hour from March to November, they would never “fall back,” thus creating more sunlight in the evening hours.

A permanent daylight saving time (DST) bill, HB 1196, was signed into law in Washington state on May 8, 2019. The law would enact DST year-round if Congress were to amend the Uniform Time Act to allow the change. Currently, states may opt-out of the time change only if they remain on standard time all year. Arizona and Hawaii are the only two states that stay on standard time throughout the year, so residents never change their clocks.

Many other states are considering similar laws or appeals to Congress, including California, New York, and Texas. In Illinois, a group of high school students lobbied State Senator Andy Manar (D) to introduce SB 533 to end daylight saving time after learning about the issue in civics class.

Bills to move to permanent daylight saving have died in Idaho, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming this year.

At the federal level, Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL), and Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL) introduced the Sunshine Protection Act on Mar. 6, 2019, which would switch the whole country to permanent DST. Florida enacted a permanent DST law in 2018, the first state to do so. In a Mar. 15, 2019 opinion piece, Rubio and Buchanan noted that permanent DST could benefit the economy, lower health risks, and reduce crime.

Heidi May Wilson, a spokesperson for the National Parent Teacher Association, stated, “National PTA is opposed to daylight saving time during the winter months because of the safety factor.” Not changing the clocks in the fall would make winter mornings even darker and colder for kids walking to school or the bus stop.

Internationally, the European Union (EU) got rid of the twice-yearly time switch, and will allow member states to choose to stay on “permanent winter” or “permanent summer time,” essentially standard time and daylight saving time respectively, in 2021.

In 2019, DST runs from Sunday, Mar. 10 to Sunday, Nov. 3 in the United States.

Sources:

Joel Achenbach, “Springing forward to Daylight Saving Time Is Obsolete, Confusing and Unhealthy, Critics Say,” washingtonpost.com, Mar. 8, 2019

Ballotpedia, “California Proposition 7, Permanent Daylight Saving Time Measure (2018),” ballotpedia.org (accessed May 13, 2019)

Daniel Boffey, “European Parliament Votes to Scrap Daylight Saving Time from 2021,” theguardian.com, Mar. 26, 2019

Cassie Buchman, “These High School Students Want to End Daylight Saving Time in Illinois. Lawmakers Are Listening,” pjstar.com, May 12, 2019

LocktheClock, “Current Legislation,” sco.tt/time (accessed May 13, 2019)

Marco Rubio, “Senators Rubio, Scott, Representative Buchanan Introduce Bill To Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent,” rubio.senate.gov, Mar. 6, 2019

Marco Rubio and Vern Buchanan, “Trump Is Right. Daylight Saving Time Should Be Permanent,” washingtonpost.com, Mar. 15, 2019

Reid Wilson, “Dozens of States Consider Move to Permanent Daylight Saving Time,” thehill.com, May 12, 2019