Earth Track Blog

A big success at the last Conference of Parties for the Convention on Biodiversity (COP15) nearly two years was passage of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to protect and restore nature. The GBF included Target 18, the first quantitative reduction goal for environmentally...

The Permian Basin leads US oil production by a large margin and is the second-largest natural gas producing basin in the country. Production reached an all-time high of 5.8 mbpd in 2023, " out-producing even Saudi Arabia’s massive Ghawar oilfield." The economics of the region are strong, with more...

The 2023 edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR 2023) once again provides a comprehensive review of industry growth, performance, and political and economic drivers around the world. This has always been a huge undertaking, but is made ever more so by a continuing migration away...

California has a well-earned reputation as a clean energy leader, and indeed continues to make significant progress in many areas. In 2022, for example, the state generated more than 54 gigawatt-hours from wind and solar, comprising more than one quarter of in-state power generation. Including power...

Many thanks to Auden Schendler, SVP of Sustainability at the Aspen Skiing Company for the invitation to talk about energy subsidies as part of their Aspen U Speaker Series. The event was also sponsored by the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, Protect Our Winters, and Audi. The event gave me a...

Last October, I wrote about the way that arcane statutory language on what tax breaks needed to be reported in Texas resulted in the largest tax subsidy to oil and gas in the state not being reported at all. Specifically, if a particular tax does not comprise 5% or more of the state's revenues...

Our op-ed, Tax Expenditure Scrutiny Can End Trillion-Dollar Political Game, was published in Bloomberg Tax today. I wrote the piece jointly with Flurim Aliu and Agustin Redonda at the Council on Economic Policies in Zurich. Flurim and Agustin lead a hugely important effort to build a global database...

Overview Texas’ Tax Exemptions & Tax Incidence report is missing the largest individual tax break to oil and gas in the state. This provision reduced taxes on the industry by $1 billion in 2022 according to analysis by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts that was provided in response to a...

Harvard Management Company (HMC) manages the Harvard portfolio, including asset allocation, manager selection and performance evaluation. As part of the University's commitment for the endowment to be net zero by 2050, HMC publishes an annual Climate Report on the progress it is making, the second...

Translating the complexities of our government subsidies report into an accessible and inspiring summary and call to action is no easy task. This video, commissioned by Business for Nature and The B Team, does a great job.

Today marks the release of a new Earth Track analysis, Protecting Nature by Reforming Environmentally Harmful Subsidies: The Role of Business, written by Ronald Steenblik and myself. Ron and I have worked together on subsidy transparency, valuation and reform for more than a quarter century at this...

On September 9th, Harvard President Larry Bacow provided an update on how the university is addressing climate change, including in its investment portfolio. In a letter sent to all students, faculty, and alumni, he characterized the issue as "the most consequential threat facing humanity" and...

To Build Back Better, pay attention to program design, incentives, and risk allocation "Building Back Better" isn't just about what we fund; it is also about how we fund it. This holds true even for very important objectives such as decarbonizing our economy to address climate change risks. The...

While the country, and indeed the world, struggles to contain the risks of catastrophic climate change it's easy to forget that the US has subsidized fossil fuel production for more than a century, and that we continue to do so. To assess how these subsidies affect domestic industry, Earth Track...

Decarbonizing a large financial portfolio is a complicated task. Investment managers and their fiduciaries need to ensure that institutional requirements can continue to be met even with greenhouse gas constraints on investment choices. Selecting what to cull and what to keep is not always...

Harvard Management Company (HMC), which manages Harvard University’s nearly $42 billion endowment, released its first Climate Report in February 2021. As the largest university endowment in the world, decisions Harvard makes to tangibly and materially reduce the climate impact of its investments...

Reducing greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions in the United States to meet the country’s commitments under the Paris Accords is a formidable challenge. Eliminating subsidies to fossil fuels is an important component of this effort: it makes little sense to be subsidizing emissions at the same time we are...

Our article, Why Fossil Fuel Subsidies Matter, was published in the journal Nature yesterday. The piece is part of what we hope is a continuing dialog on the importance of valuing and ultimately eliminating fossil fuel subsidies at a granular level; and of more systematically integrating data on...

As the manager of the largest university endowment in the world, Harvard Management Company (HMC) faces significant challenges. The investment returns are what enable Harvard University to grow, hire top-quality professors, and cover tuition for bright students from all over the world regardless of...

Nuclear economics remain underwhelming, but the creative ways the industry pursues to shift risks onto others and to seek new subsidies for themselves continue unabated. Here's a run-down of a few recent developments. 1) NRC approves sale of closed Pilgrim nuclear reactor to Holtec. After studying...