As the market for the electric buses, cars, trucks, and trains that help curb the climate crisis continues to grow globally, the battery supply chain faces increased scrutiny. Minerals like lithium, nickel, graphite, and cobalt are too often mined and processed in ways that contribute to harming communities and ecosystems, while the batteries often face wasteful end-of-life disposal.
To address this challenge and identify solutions, Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) and ClimateWorks Foundation founded in 2022 the Global Forum for Sustainable Batteries, a worldwide network of nonprofit leaders, experts, and advocates committed to transportation electrification and mining justice.
In 2024, the Forum developed a 2040 Sustainable Battery Vision that we’re releasing publicly today, with the aim of guiding policymakers, organizations, companies, and the general public on the key elements of what a truly sustainable battery should be by 2040. The 2040 Sustainable Battery Vision covers all aspects of the supply chain and beyond, including:
- Sourcing of raw and recovered minerals and materials
- Battery manufacturing
- Battery end-of-life
- Battery value chain traceability
The Vision has received the endorsement of leading environmental and mining justice organizations from around the world, along with supportive quotes. You can view the full list of signatories and their quotes here. And if you represent an organization that would like to endorse it as well, please contact me.
Our hope is that pursuing this 2040 Vision will not only benefit affected communities and stakeholders, it holds the promise of ensuring that the world can meet the transportation electrification challenge both more sustainably and rapidly.
On tonight’s State of the Bay: could warnings on social media platforms help protect young people’s mental health? We’ll discuss with:
- James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media
- California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda)
- Author and psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge explore the potential impact of AB 56, a new bill aiming to hold platforms accountable.
Then we’ll talk to Shomik Mukherjee of the Bay Area News Group about into Oakland’s deepening budget woes and the challenges facing its leadership.
Finally, step into the holiday season with a festive preview of the Bay Area’s beloved Great Dickens Christmas Fair, featuring insights from CEO Kevin Patterson and actor Shelby Bond!
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live tonight at 6pm PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
On today’s Your Call Media Roundtable, I’ll be guest hosting a discussion of an investigation by the San Francisco Public Press: Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point. It details how the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, based at a shipyard in San Francisco, exposed at least 1,073 dockworkers, military personnel, lab employees and others to radiation in technical exercises and medical experiments early in the Cold War.
Joining us for the hour will be Chris Roberts, award winning investigative journalist.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guest? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
I’m guest hosting today’s Your Call, when we’ll start with a debrief on San Francisco’s election results with the reporting team of Mission Local – and look ahead to 2025.
Daniel Lurie assumes office as San Francisco’s 46th mayor on Jan. 8. He’ll arrive to find a $867 million budget deficit on his doorstep. And that could spike to $1 billion if Trump decides to withhold federal funds promised to the city.
Lurie beat out incumbent mayoral candidate London Breed by 10 percentage points in the second round of ranked choice voting. The new mayor-elect and Levi Strauss heir’s campaign was largely self-funded, and this will be his first time ever holding political office. So what glimpses has he shown the public so far of how he will govern?
Joining us will be Joe Eskenazi, managing editor for Mission Local, and Kelly Waldron, reporter at Mission Local.
Then later in the show, we’ll talk about about rising hunger and a drop in donations to Bay Area food banks. The leaders of 5 major food banks — San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, Redwood Empire Food Bank and Alameda County Community Food Bank — held a joint press conference last week. Together, those organizations provided enough food for 270-million meals last year.
We’ll discuss with Lauren Lathan Reid, CEO of the California Association of Food Banks, and Liz Gomez, chief impact officer at the Alameda County Community Food Bank, and 2023 Bay Area Jefferson Award winner.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guest? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
I’m guest hosting today’s Your Call at 10am PT, when we’ll discuss what Donald Trump’s return to the White House means for US nuclear policy and worldwide anti-proliferation efforts.
The US has over 5,000 nuclear warheads, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Just one of those bombs could destroy a city. Trump’s allies want to build more.
Project 2025, the playbook led by the Heritage Foundation to guide Trump’s second term, recommends significantly ramping up the nation’s nuclear arsenal. It also wants Trump to pave the way to restart nuclear bomb testing in Nevada — something the US hasn’t done since 1992.
Our guest will be national security expert Joe Cirincione, who writes that we’re embarking on a new and dangerous nuclear era worldwide, one in which Trump will once again have “the unfettered ability to launch nuclear weapons whenever he wants, for whatever reason.”
Mr. Cirincione is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former president of Ploughshares Fund, and author of “Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late.”
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guest? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Tonight on State of the Bay, we’ll hear from CLEE’s Louise Bedsworth and Isabel Rewick, both of whom took part in this year’s United Nations climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.
AND we interview Assemblymember Damon Connolly, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, and Senator Scott Wiener about how new Trump administration policies might impact life here in the Bay Area.
PLUS, we’ll get advice from Luisa Smith of Book Passage on the perfect gift for the booklover on your holiday list.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live tonight at 6pm PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Trump is promising to roll back the $7500 tax credit for electric vehicles. CBS News covered the story last night, where I talked about the potential impact:
I appeared on CBS News Bay Area last week talking about what the Trump administration might do to try to gut California’s electric vehicle requirements:
And a similar story on Monday from CBS News Sacramento:
Yesterday I appeared on two radio shows, now available for streaming or podcast download. First, on KQED Forum, I was on a panel discussing what climate efforts may look like during a Trump Administration, and how California will respond. Joining me was:
- Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk, New York Times
- Jesse Jenkins, assistant professor, engineering, Princeton University
- Aru Shiney-Ajay, Executive Director, Sunrise movement, a grassroots organization of students and young people focused on climate change
You can stream it here.
Then last night I hosted State of the Bay on KALW, where I spoke to UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Omar Yaghi about a newly developed carbon-capturing material that has the potential to transform how we address climate change.
Then, we broke down local election results and discussed what they tell us about the priorities and concerns of Bay Area residents with San Francisco Chronicle opinion columnist and editorial writer, Emily Hoeven.
And finally, we talked with Rae Black of Oakland’s For the Win Boxing, a boxing gym that offers professional coaching for women and non-binary people who want to pursue “the sweet science” of boxing.
You can listen to that show here.
California will need a significant build-out of new high-voltage transmission lines to meet state goals for renewable energy deployment and a decarbonized grid by 2045, which requires quadrupling its current in-state solar and wind capacity. But if this new infrastructure is paid for solely through electricity rates, it could increase them significantly, when they have already increased roughly 50% over the past three years for investor-owned utility customers.
In response, UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) is releasing today the policy report Improving Transmission Financing in California: Alternative Models and Policy Strategies to Increase Affordability. It contains a variety of strategies available to policymakers for financing new high-voltage power transmission in California, with the dual goals of 1) reducing costs to ratepayers and 2) accelerating transmission development. The report was developed with the support of Net-Zero California and Clean Air Task Force.
Among the key findings:
- Some form of public-private partnership (P3) could provide significant benefits to deploying lower-cost transmission, due to cost-savings potential and the ability to leverage existing institutions and structures. A number of possibilities and considerations exist, and the form of P3 may depend on the particular transmission line, developers, and other project-specific circumstances.
- Policymakers could endow an existing entity with transmission financing and related P3 authorities, rather than create a new entity. Currently, California has multiple entities with at least some role in transmission. Creating a wholly new public entity, or endowing an existing agency, in California to finance and oversee transmission would entail administrative and procedural changes, which may be more significant for a new public entity.
- State leaders could focus on demonstrating alternative financing arrangements for four to six key transmission regions and lines in the California Independent System Operator’s 20-year transmission outlook that most stakeholders agree are essential. The Governor’s Office could designate a coordinator for high-priority lines and support a process to speed implementation and financing.
- State leaders could minimize risk for the entity or entities owning new transmission lines, including establishing a liability backstop and developing insurance, contract, indemnity, and first loss protection, and other mechanisms, subject to negotiation and legislation.
These and other findings, as well as more detail on selected financing options and their specific challenges, can be found in the new report.
To learn more, register for the CLEE webinar “Financing California’s Transmission Needs” on Wednesday, November 13, from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Pacific. Keynote remarks will be provided by:
- Le-Quyen Nguyen, Acting Senior Advisor for Energy for Governor Gavin Newsom
- Cliff Rechtschaffen, California Air Resources Board member and former California Public Utilities Commissioner
In addition, CLEE will discuss the report findings, along with representatives from Net Zero California, Clean Air Task Force, and DH Infrastructure.
