Unending stimulus stalemate, clean energy cheaper than COVID-19 recovery, and more

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House traded blame for the latest stall in negotiations on a new coronavirus stimulus as pessimism built at the Capitol that anything could be accomplished before Election Day.

Pelosi said the burden is on President Donald Trump to push forward on stimulus talks and get reluctant Republicans to go along with any eventual deal reached with the White House on a nearly $2 trillion aid package.

The amount of funding that governments are throwing at the economic recovery from COVID-19—more than $12 trillion announced so far, or 15% of the global GDP—is unprecedented. How much of that would it take to put the global energy system on track to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement? With only a fraction of the pandemic recovery money, we could fund the transition to clean energy.

To keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, by one estimate, the energy system needs a cleantech investment of about $1.4 trillion annually between 2020 and 2024, or around a tenth of what has been committed for the recovery. 

Oil fell nearly 2% on Friday, finishing lower for the week, in anticipation of a surge in Libyan crude supply and demand concerns caused by surging coronavirus cases in the United States and Europe.

Crude prices sank after Libya’s National Oil Corp (NOC) said it lifted force majeure on exports from key ports and output would reach 1 million barrels per day in four weeks.