Charlie Munger mourned in China, where he said his best investment was made

Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., speaks during the Daily Journal Corp. shareholder meeting in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019.

Charlie Munger has died at the age of 99.Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg/Getty Images/FileHong KongCNN — 

Chinese social media users are mourning the death of billionaire investor Charlie Munger.

The vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway passed away “peacefully” on Tuesday morning in a California hospital, according to a press release by the investment firm. No cause of death was given.

The 99-year-old investor often spoke highly of China, and remained a firm supporter despite the country’s recent economic troubles.

“The Chinese economy has better future prospects for the next 20 years than almost any other big economy,” he said in an interview this year with the Acquired podcast.

On Wednesday, tens of thousands of social media users in China shared Munger’s pithy quotes on life, markets and business. Munger’s death has so far generated 32,000 posts on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of X, and 340 million views.

Business executives also paid tribute to the long-time friend and business partner of Warren Buffett.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has 1.6 million followers on Weibo, said Munger was a “titan of business and keen observer of the world around him.”

“Charlie Munger helped build an American institution, and through his wisdom and insights, inspired a generation of leaders. He will be sorely missed,” he posted in both Chinese and English.

The president of BYD Americas, the Chinese electric vehicle maker that counts Berkshire as a longtime investor and competes fiercely with Tesla, said in a statement that “Munger was not just an investor; he was a visionary who believed in the potential of electric vehicles and renewable energy long before they became global imperatives.”

Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., listens before the Daily Journal Corp. shareholder meeting in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Munger discussed investing, banks, China, and health care at the meeting.

Charlie Munger, friend and business partner of Warren Buffett, dies

“Charlie’s unwavering support and guidance were instrumental in shaping BYD into the global clean energy leader it is today,” Stella Li added.

Munger was key to Berkshire Hathaway’s decision to invest in BYD in 2008. That investment, initially valued at 1.8 billion Hong Kong dollars ($230 million), has since exploded in value.

According to a recent filing by Berkshire Hathaway to the Hong Kong stock exchange, the firm held about 7.98% of BYD by late October. Those shares are now worth 18.54 billion Hong Kong dollars ($2.4 billion).

Berkshire Hathaway has sold more than 137 million shares of BYD since the middle of 2022, according to its previous statements.

“I have never helped do anything at Berkshire [Hathaway] that was as good as BYD and I only did it once,” Munger said in February at a virtual meeting.

“BYD is so much ahead of Tesla in China.”

More recently, https://kolechai.com he praised BYD’s founder Wang Chuanfu as a “natural engineer” and compared him favorably to the CEO of Tesla.

“The guy at BYD is better at actually making things than Elon (Musk) is,” he said in an interview with the Acquired podcast published in October.

Munger often spoke highly of China’s communist government, which Western governments have criticized for human rights violations. He praised the country despite its crackdown on Chinese tech giant Alibaba, which was a top Munger investment at Daily Journal, a Los Angeles-based newspaper publisher and investment firm Munger headed from 1977 through 2022.

‘This is insane.’ Swedish workers are getting under Elon Musk’s skin

Emma Hansson, chairman of IF Metall Stockholms lan, stands on strike outside Tesla's Service Center in Segeltorp, as workshop workers at the electric car company Tesla have gone on strike demanding that the company sign a collective agreement, in Stockholm, Sweden, October 27, 2023.  Jessica Gow/TT News Agency/via REUTERS      ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. SWEDEN OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN SWEDEN.

A union official takes part in a strike outside Tesla’s Service Center in Segeltorp, Sweden, on October 27.Jessica Gow/TT News Agency/ReutersLondonCNN — 

It has taken nearly a month, but workers striking against Tesla in Sweden have finally drawn a response from the company’s famously anti-union boss. “This is insane,” CEO Elon Musk said Thursday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter that he owns.

Musk was responding to news that Swedish postal workers are refusing to deliver Tesla license plates, joining a wave of action in sympathy with mechanics who stopped servicing Tesla cars late last month.

About 130 mechanics began their ongoing strike in October after their employer, a Tesla subsidiary in Sweden, announced that it would not recognize their labor union, according to Expressen, a CNN affiliate.

The industrial action soon spread to dockworkers who started blocking deliveries of Tesla cars at the country’s ports, to electricians who stopped maintenance work for the carmaker, and other workers in Sweden, Expressen reported.

This is about good wages, good pensions and good insurance for all our members who work at Tesla,” Sweden’s IF Metall union, which called the original strike, said on its website.

“We have been negotiating with Tesla for a long time. They have refused to sign a collective (bargaining) agreement and violate basic principles in the Swedish labor market.”

The country’s workforce is heavily unionized, with around nine out of 10 workers covered by collective agreements.

But unionizing at Tesla has proven difficult. At least three attempts by its US workers to organize have failed, mainly as a consequence of aggressive tactics by the company and weak protections for labor in the United States.

The National Labor Relations Board, a US federal agency, has repeatedly called out Tesla and Musk for illegal or improper anti-union activities, such as interrogating employees, and disciplining or otherwise discriminating against workers because they support unions.

This year the carmaker fired more than 30 supporters of a nascent union at its facility in Buffalo, New York, just days after the organizing effort was announced.

Musk, the world’s richest man, has also been vocal about his opposition to unions and caused the ire of the labor relations agency when it directed him to delete a 2018 tweet that hinted Tesla employees would lose their stock options if they formed a union.

Still, the strikes by Swedish workers may embolden Tesla’s employees in Germany, where it has a large plant manufacturing electric vehicles and battery cells.

German unions have pressured the company https://jusnarte.com/ to implement a collective bargaining agreement for its 11,000 workers at the factory near Berlin, according to Reuters.

IG Metall, a powerful German Union, says Tesla pays its workers less than other carmakers in Germany and gets rid of employees who are sick too often. More than 1,000 workers at the factory joined the union during a day of protest last month.

Earlier this year, Tesla lodged an application to double the production capacity of the plant — located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the German capital — to 1 million EVs.

If the expansion happens, the factory will overtake Volkswagen’s sprawling plant in the German city of Wolfsburg, stealing its crown as Europe’s biggest car factory.

Tesla’s Cybertruck hits the market with a higher price tag and plenty of challenges

Tesla Cybertruck delivery event on November 30.

Tesla Cybertruck delivery event on November 30.From TeslaCNN — 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk presided over the delivery of the company’s long-awaited Cybertruck, four years after it was first unveiled. But while there wasn’t much new information since the original presentation, a new price went live on Tesla’s website shortly after.

While the event had the typical Musk flash, with grandiose prognostications about “the future” and videos of Cybertrucks driving across ice, it provided very little new information. Even the price on Tesla’s website, which allowed people to place a $250 deposit to place their order, didn’t include traditional car buying experiences, like choosing options. There was no discussion of practicalities like front trunk space, or anything beyond the company’s existing 250-mile range estimate.

The website did reveal, however, that the top-of-the-line model would be dubbed the “Cyberbeast.”

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With a starting price of $60,990 before federal tax credits, the Tesla Cybertruck comes in at just over $20,000 more than the base model that was originally discussed at the vehicle’s debut in 2019. The company originally said the Cybertruck would cost less than $40,000, but a pandemic and an ensuing period of high inflation forced the company to move away from that promise.

And even then, it would only be “available in 2025,” the Tesla website said.

If you want one in 2024, be prepared to pony up nearly $80,000.

In terms of cost, alone, the Cybertruck is entering an electric vehicle market crowded with vehicles at that same price range. It’s not just pickups, but SUVs, too. It’s a factor that is already depressing sales of some electric vehicles, particularly in the luxury market, as automakers have flooded that price range as they try to start up their electric manufacturing operations.

He also boasted of its “sports-car like” performance and showed a video of the Cybertruck towing a Porsche 911 on a trailer while itself racing a Porsche 911 down a drag strip. In fairness, Porsche 911 sports cars are not sold on the basis of raw acceleration. Neither, of course, are pickup trucks, so it’s unclear how much of a selling point that will be.

But Tesla’s site gives that acceleration figure only for the Cyberbeast version of the truck costing nearly $100,000. The truck’s 11,000 pound towing capacity, something also mentioned in the presentation, is shown only in the all-wheel-drive versions costing $80,000 or $100,000.

The truck’s price range may not be that much of an issue compared to high-end trucks already on the market, said Brian Moody, executive editor at Kelley Blue Book. Tesla is limited in the range of prices it can offer.

Because Tesla has basically one version of the truck with some minor modifications, they don’t have the advantage of having a very low-price truck as well as a very high and heavy-duty, super-capable truck,” Moody said in an email.

Tesla has about 2 million reservations for the Cybertruck according to an estimate from Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who is bullish on the company. He said he would expect only 30% to 40% of those reservations will be converted into sales. The bigger problem could be the production problems that Musk admits the company faces trying to ramp up production of the truck, especially with competition from electric pickups from Ford, GM and Rivian.

“It’s a Herculean task to ramp production, but Tesla has been here before,” he said, referring to previous product introductions, like the Model 3 sedan. But he cautioned, “it’s a much more complex market for them to navigate.”

Looking like a close relative of a high-end kitchen appliance, the Cybertruck looked like nothing else on the road when it was first unveiled in 2019, and it still doesn’t. Standing out was exactly the point of its weird, angular all-metal look: Musk hoped to make a statement with something that wasn’t just another big truck.

But the Cybertruck’s capabilities, such as power and range, don’t exactly stand out. The market has shifted over the past four years during Tesla’s development and delays. That means, under its shiny skin, Tesla’s fancy new pickup is now far more ordinary even before the first one rolls into a customer’s driveway.

Behind the competition

Electric motors can provide a lot of towing and hauling power and the simple size of a truck allows for lots of batteries and long range. Tesla isn’t the only automaker to realize that potential.

Since that original debut almost exactly four years ago to the day, Ford began selling the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck, and Rivian R1T pickups have become fairly common sights on American roads. More recently, General Motors started production of the Chevrolet Silverado EV electric pickup. Stellantis’s Ram 1500 Rev electric truck will also go into production in late 2024.

This isn’t the competition-free environment it was back then, and the Cybertruck’s capabilities don’t seem as remarkable as they did four years ago. Many of these other trucks have capabilities that come close, and in some cases may even exceed, Tesla’s.

Difficult to produce

Musk has also talked, repeatedly, about how difficult the Cybertruck is to manufacture, given its radical design.

The truck is made from unpainted stainless steel, a material not generally used for vehicles, because the durability of the material that Musk has touted makes it difficult to build with, and difficult to repair. The sort of giant stamping machines typically used in auto factories to quickly bend metal into shape tend to struggle with metal as strong as stainless steel.

It also has a unibody design rather than having a separate body and chassis, as most large pickups do. Unibody construction is more typical of crossover SUVs and small, light pickups like the Ford Maverick. Generally, automakers use body-on-frame designs for heavy duty trucks because of the strength and flexibility it provides when pulling heavy loads.

“There will be enormous challenges in reaching volume production with the Cybertuck and in making the Cybertruck cash flow positive,” Musk said in a recent investor call.

Slight advantages are fading fast

One advantage the Cybertruck could have is its overall size https://kueceng.com/ . The Cybertruck is less than 19 feet long, according to Tesla, which is slightly shorter than other full-size trucks. But Tesla claims its cargo bed, at over six feet long, is a bit longer than average.

But, for that overall short body length, the Cybertruck could sacrifice front storage. It doesn’t have a long hood like other pickups, including electric ones from Ford and GM. That could mean the Tesla has less “frunk” – or front trunk – space. Ample functional front space has been a big selling point for the Ford truck, in particular.

The truck’s wedge shape – the sides of the cargo bed meet truck’s roof – could also hinder access to the bed from the sides. Pickup users often reach in over the sides to load unload items close behind the cab.

The Cybertruck’s payload capacity, the weight it can carry in its cargo bed, is also slightly higher than competitors currently in production. The Ford F-150 Lightning can carry as much as 2,200 pounds. Again, though, the Ram 1500 Rev will be able to carry up to 2,700 pounds, more than the Cybertruck.

CNN’s Chris Isidore contributed to this report.

Cristiano Ronaldo faces $1 billion class-action lawsuit for endorsing worthless NFTs

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - OCTOBER 28: Cristiano Ronaldo looks on from ringside prior to the Heavyweight fight between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou at Boulevard Hall on October 28, 2023 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Cristiano Ronaldo in a October 2023 picture.Justin Setterfield/Getty ImagesNew YorkCNN — 

Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is facing a $1 billion class action lawsuit for his promotion of Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a Florida court, said that Ronaldo “promoted, assisted in, and/or actively participated in the offer and sale of unregistered securities in coordination with Binance,” including selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of himself, which led to substantial financial losses for investors.

Binance didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. A representative for Ronaldo declined to comment.

In November 2022, Ronaldo partnered with Binance to sell unique NFTs depicting “an iconic Ronaldo moment immortalized in the form of a digital statute,” the company said during its highly publicized launch, including on his social media.

NFTs are a crypto-related phenomenon that went mainstream, essentially transforming digital works of art and other collectibles into one-of-a-kind, verifiable assets that are easy to trade on the blockchain.

The lawsuit accuses Ronaldo of making “deceptive statements” and claims he “allowed his name and likeness to be used in connection with Binance’s deceptive statements in promotions of its product,” notably selling unregistered crypto securities prone to wild volatility.

Plaintiffs also accuse Ronaldo of not disclosing “the form or amount of his compensation by Binance,” which is required by US law, and allege that Binance and Ronaldo “knew that these advertisements targeted consumers unfamiliar with crypto.”

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler has said celebrities must “disclose to the public from whom and how much you are getting paid to promote investment in securities,” the lawsuit said. The SEC fined Kim Kardashian more than $1 million last year for a similar issue.

The class action lawsuit is for a “sum exceeding” $1 billion. Notably, Ronaldo is still promoting the company, including posting a Binance ad as recently as November 28 on his X account, which has 110 million followers.

Celebrities sued

Other celebrities have also been the target of similar lawsuits. Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen and others were sued last year by an FTX investor for their endorsement of the now-defunct crypto platform. The lawsuits allege that these public figures did not properly disclose their own involvement with digital financial institutions. Brady, Bundchen and other defendants have denied the allegations in the complaint and moved to dismiss the case.

David Ortiz Jimmy Fallon Tom Brady Gwyneth Paltrow SPLIT

Why Tom Brady, David Ortiz, Jimmy Fallon and other celebrities are getting sued over crypto

Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather, Jr., are other celebrities who faced another crypto lawsuit early last year that claimed cryptocurrency EthereumMax executives schemed with celebrity promoters to entice investors to buy the EMax token, driving up its price and allowing them to sell their own tokens at a profit. The suit was later dismissed by a federal judge who said it was not clear that the investors who sued actually saw the promotions.

Plugging crypto has different implications than, say, endorsing a sports drink or athletic wear, Charles Whitehead, professor at Cornell Law School, previously told CNN.

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Lawsuit says celebrities were paid to fuel hype behind these NFTs

07:29 – Source: CNN

“Selling an asset that is a financial instrument … is not the same thing as selling sneakers,” Whitehead said. “All these celebrities who are running around and doing these sorts of sponsorships should stop and ask a securities lawyer.”

Binance problems

Binance has also found itself the center of attention. Last week, the company agreed to pay more than $4 billion in fines and other penalties. Its founder Changpeng Zhao agreed to step down as CEO from the exchange that he founded, and he will pay $200 million in fines.

Following a multiyear investigation, US authorities said Binance allowed bad actors on the platform, enabling transactions linked to child sex abuse, narcotics and terrorist financing.

KRAKOW, POLAND - 2023/09/12: In this photo illustration a Binance logo displayed on a smartphone with programing code on the background. (Photo Illustration by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

What is Binance, why is it in so much trouble, and what does it mean for crypto?

Zhao faces a maximum of 10 years behind bars https://kerasnya.com/ , though his ultimate sentence will likely be far lower. He also agreed to pay a $50 million criminal fine and a $150 million civil penalty.

“I made mistakes, and I must take responsibility,” Zhao posted on X. “This is best for our community, for Binance, and for myself. Binance is no longer a baby. It is time for me to let it walk and run.”

US officials described this as the biggest-ever corporate resolution that includes criminal charges for an executive.

– CNN’s Jennifer Korn and Allison Morrow contributed to this report.

‘Tesla of the seas’ will take students to school in Sweden

The microcar movement offers a smaller, greener future for urban driving. Tipping the scales at less than 800 pounds (compared to an average vehicle at <a target=

E-bikes, scooters and now even cargo bikes are also helping travelers, commuters, and delivery drivers cover shorter distances in urban areas without needing a fossil fuel-powered vehicle. German company Onomotion created the E-Cargobike (pictured) to help replace conventional delivery vans.
X Shore Pro is a high-performance electric boat which could help transition the boating industry to electric vehicles. <strong>Scroll through the gallery to see more innovative vehicles that are helping to make transport greener.</strong>

X Shore Pro is a high-performance electric boat which could help transition the boating industry to electric vehicles. Scroll through the gallery to see more innovative vehicles that are helping to make transport greener.X Shore

Zeabuz is a small <a href=

Swedish startup Candela has designed <a href=

Driven by a solar-powered, hybrid-electric propulsion system, Mayflower 400 is an autonomous research vessel that <a href=

It's not just boats that are seeing eco-friendly innovation. For traveling around cities, Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVOTL) vehicles may be a solution. In November 2022, German company Volocopter successfully flew a crewed mission of its all-electric air taxi in regular air traffic conditions in Paris (pictured).
For coastal areas, REGENT is creating a seaglider, which is part-boat, part-plane, and all-electric. The company's Viceroy, pictured here in a rendering, is a 12-passenger seaglider with a current range of <a href=

In September 2022, the world's first all-electric passenger commuter plane, named "Alice," successfully completed its <a href=

Zoox, tech giant Amazon's driverless transportation company, <a href=

Self-driving electric minibuses (pictured here during a trial run in July 2022) are already available to the public in Guangzhou, China. Created by WeRide, the Robobus -- like the Zoox robotaxi -- has no steering wheel, brake or accelerator.
The microcar movement offers a smaller, greener future for urban driving. Tipping the scales at less than 800 pounds (compared to an average vehicle at <a target=

E-bikes, scooters and now even cargo bikes are also helping travelers, commuters, and delivery drivers cover shorter distances in urban areas without needing a fossil fuel-powered vehicle. German company Onomotion created the E-Cargobike (pictured) to help replace conventional delivery vans.
X Shore Pro is a high-performance electric boat which could help transition the boating industry to electric vehicles. <strong>Scroll through the gallery to see more innovative vehicles that are helping to make transport greener.</strong>
Zeabuz is a small <a href=

Innovations for greener transport

1 of 11PrevNextCNN — 

In Värmdö, a municipality of 10,000 small islands near Stockholm in Sweden, the school commute is about to get a whole lot more exciting for a few lucky students.

Starting in December, the archipelago’s four schools will be the first users of the X Shore Pro, a new electric boat by a Swedish manufacturer that’s been described as the “Tesla of the seas.”

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The boat is 26 feet (8 meters) long and seats up to 10 people, has a top speed of 30 knots (about 35 mph) and a range of about 100 nautical miles (about 115 miles), only achievable at a lower cruising speed of around 20 knots and heavily dependent on load and sea conditions. Fully electric, it produces no emissions or noise, resulting in a smoother ride that it says is far kinder to marine habitats.

“We believe in prioritizing the health and well-being of our students and the environment,” says Maria Niläng, principal of the Värmdö Archipelago Schools. “With this innovative electric school shuttle boat, we’re not just providing efficient transportation; we’re pushing for a cleaner society, and a brighter, healthier future for our students.”

“The Model 3 moment”

Founded in 2019, X Shore had previously released two electric leisure boats, the high-performance Eelex 8000 and the smaller X Shore 1. The X Shore Pro, which is meant for commercial operations or coast guards, is based on the former and shares most of its specifications.

“I think the reason why we are being compared to Tesla is that when we released our X Shore 1, that was the first time you could buy a high-performance electric boat at the same price level as a car,” says Jenny Keisu, X Shore’s chief evangelist officer. “The media started referring to that as the Model 3 moment of the boating industry,” she adds, citing Tesla’s most affordable car. The X Shore 1 costs upwards of €109,000 (about $119,000), but the more expensive models in the lineup start at €195,000 (about $213,000).

According to Keisu, the experience of riding an X Shore boat is radically different to a traditional one. “On a normal motorboat you have fumes, so it smells like you’re standing behind a car, which can make you feel sick,” she says. “We don’t have anything like that. We also don’t have any noise, so you can get out to sea and talk to people, or listen to your favorite music.”

On board the X Shore Pro.

On board the X Shore Pro.X Shore

The batteries that power the boat are similar to those found on electric vehicles.https://bukanlah.com/ “They are lithiumion batteries, but they are certified for the marine environment, so they need to be much safer around water,” Keisu says. “They use normal automotive charging, so with a supercharger they can charge in 30 minutes, but they can also charge on [equipment] that is typically present in all marinas. That way, our different models charge somewhere between two hours to five hours.” Using a household electric outlet is also possible, but with vastly increased charging times.

According to Keisu, the charging infrastructure for boats already exists, because even vessels with internal combustion engines need to charge batteries that power electric systems and appliances on board. “The only difference is that we [X Shore] use our batteries also for propulsion, so we have much larger battery packs,” she says. “The boating industry should do more to transition [to electric vehicles] because boating is much worse for the environment than cars — the average leisure boat emits around four times as much CO2 as the average car.”

The battery problem

Electric propulsion in boats, just like in cars, isn’t new. “It has existed for well over 100 years,” says Timothy McCoy, an engineering professor at the University of Michigan, in the US, who is not involved with the project. “Using batteries as the main energy storage medium is also not new: diesel-electric submarines have been using lead acid batteries for over 100 years to operate when submerged, cruise ships have been using diesel-electric propulsion since the 1980s,” he explains, adding that many other ship types now use either hybrid or fully battery-electric propulsion systems.

This unmanned lifeboat could rescue drowning people on its own

However, technological constraints may be slowing down the electrification of boats, including small leisure boats such as those manufactured by X Shore. “Mainly it is the energy density of the batteries,” explains McCoy. “This is the same issue that the auto industry is struggling with presently.”

Brandon Taravella, an engineering professor at the University of New Orleans, agrees. “Batteries are currently just too heavy for the amount of energy that they provide,” he says. “Boats and ships are very weight sensitive. For every kilogram of diesel or gasoline, a boat needs to carry 40 kilograms of batteries to have the same energy output. Boats and ships have to carry all of their energy with them, so carrying around 40 times the weight of their energy is cost prohibitive as well as design prohibitive.”

Boats and ships with combustion engines are now starting to face scattered bans in lakes and waterways across the world — for example, diesel and gasoline engines will be banned from Amsterdam’s canals from 2025, and Norway is planning zero emissions requirements for cruise ships, tourist boats and ferries in its UNESCO World Heritage fjords by 2026.

“I think this is an area where we could make a huge difference in terms of both CO2 [emissions] and helping marine wildlife very, very quickly if we get some assistance,” Keisu says. “We need politicians and governments to push either with subsidies or with bans, because this needs to happen.”

The world has ground to make up at climate summit in Dubai after a year of ‘backsliding’

BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA - JULY 10: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY "MANDATORY CREDIT - BC WILDFIRE SERVICE" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) An aerial view of wildfire of Tatkin Lake in British Columbia, Canada on July 10, 2023. (Photo by BC Wildfire Service/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

An aerial view of wildfire of Tatkin Lake in British Columbia, Canada on July 10, 2023. Canada experienced an unprecedented fire season in 2023.BC Wildfire Service/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesCNN — 

Climate chaos spared no region this year. Canada burned, the US Southwest boiled, a Libyan city was swept away by floods and global heat was, as one scientist said, “gobsmackingly bananas.”

Climate records fell like dominoes, and more are predicted — it is all but certain that 2023 will be the hottest in recorded history.

And yet, even as the climate crisis inserts itself viscerally into people’s lives, experts say the year has seen alarming backsliding on climate action. Green policies have been watered down, huge new oil and gas projects have been greenlit and coal has had something of a resurgence.

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A slew of new reports showed countries are wildly off track on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Instead, the world is on course for warming of up to a catastrophic 2.9 degrees, according to the United Nations Environment Programme — and that’s even if current climate policies are met.

As countries gather in Dubai for the UN’s COP28 climate summit, there are “high expectations,” said Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at nonprofit Climate Action Network International. “At the same time, we are seeing much lower commitment from countries.”

They are “backtracking,” he told CNN.

While one year alone cannot determine the success or failure of global climate action, said Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the non-profit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, “the world is still not treating this as an emergency, and that’s the fundamental problem.”

Huge oil and gas projects approved

Fossil fuels had a strong year in 2023, with several major projects approved, despite a warning from the IEA two years ago that there can be no more investment into new fossil fuel projects if the world is to meet international climate goals.

“If you’re expanding fossil fuels, you are backtracking,” said Singh.

Yet in March, the Biden administration approved the massive and controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska. The area to be drilled holds 600 million barrels of oil, enough to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-heating pollution, according to the administration’s figures. That’s equivalent to adding 2 million gas-powered cars to the roads.

The decision “moved us in the opposite direction of our national climate goals” Erik Grafe, an attorney for environmental law group Earthjustice, said in a statement at the time.

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 17: Climate activist hold a demonstration to urge President Biden to reject the Willow Project at the US Department of Interior on November 17, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Sunrise AU)

Climate activists hold a demonstration to urge US President Joe Biden to reject the Willow Project at the US Department of Interior on November 17, 2022 in Washington, DC.Jemal Countess/Getty Images

On the other side of the Atlantic, the UK announced plans for an expansion of oil and gas in the North Sea in July. The government pledged to grant hundreds of new drilling licenses, in a move one climate advocate described as sending “a wrecking ball through the UK’s climate commitments.”

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Fossil fuel expansion by wealthy countries is set to continue long into the future. Just five developed countries — the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Norway — are responsible for 51% of oil and gas expansion planned between 2023 and 2050, according to a September report from campaign group Oil Change International.

“If this oil and gas expansion is allowed to proceed, it would lock in climate chaos and an unlivable future,” the report noted.

Weakened climate policies

An unexpected battle in Europe in early spring over a ban on the sale of new gas and diesel powered cars set the tone for a fraught year for getting new climate policy on the books

The bloc’s law had seemed like a done deal, but Germany objected at the last minute, and added a loophole that would allow the sale of combustion engine cars beyond the 2035 deadline — as long as they run on synthetic fuels.

It sent worrying signals about climate backtracking, said Elisa Giannelli, a senior policy advisor at climate think tank E3G. “It’s not just about cars,” she told CNN in March. “It’s about the political signals that that [dispute] sends.”

WHITEWATER, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 22: Wind turbines operate at a wind farm, a key power source for the Coachella Valley, as vehicles drive on February 22, 2023 near Whitewater, California. Wind turbines in California provide enough energy to power more than 2 million homes while the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts renewable energy will account for 35 percent of worldwide power generation in 2025. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

‘An agenda to control you’: How climate solutions got sucked into a fevered culture war

Across Europe, there has been pushback on green plans. An attempt in Germany to introduce a law to replace fossil fuel-powered heating systems with more efficient systems that can be run on renewable energy was watered down after widespread opposition was stoked in part by the far right.

In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a dilution of climate pledges in September. The government’s own independent climate advisory body responded by saying it “made meeting future targets harder.”

While many countries insist they are still committed to net zero by 2050 — meaning they plan to remove at least as much planet-warming pollution from the atmosphere as they produce — “targets are only valuable if they are followed up with implementation,” said Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London.

And “in terms of implementation … there is definitely a backsliding,” he told CNN.

A coal bonanza

Global consumption of coal — the single biggest contributor to climate change — reached an all-time high in 2022, and demand is set to remain near record levels this year, according to the IEA.

In the first half of 2023, China was approving new coal projects at a rate equivalent to two large coal plants every week, according to an analysis from Global Energy Monitor. This coal “spree,” as the report called it, was partly triggered by concerns over power shortages during blistering heat waves.

China has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and while the country has made giant strides on renewable energy, experts say its continued reliance on coal threatens its climate progress.

“China is making the path towards its energy transition and climate commitments more complicated and costly,” Flora Champenois, co-author of the report and research analyst at GEM, said in a statement.

It’s not just China. The US may have reduced its domestic coal consumption, but it has ramped up exports. In the first eight months of this year, US thermal coal exports reached their highest level since 2018, driven by demand from Asia.

And in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some countries have turned to coal in the scramble to replace Russian oil and gas. Germany temporarily reopened coal plants and in October, the government approved bringing coal plants back online over winter to avoid shortages.

ESCHWEILER, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 17: Water vapour rises from cooling towers of the Weisweiler coal-fired power plant on November 17, 2023 near Eschweiler, Germany. Demands are rising that countries participating in the upcoming UNFCCC COP28 climate conference in Dubai agree on a roadmap for phasing out the use of fossil fuels. Meanwhile the United States and China have agreed to triple global renewable energy production by 2030, raising hope that real progress on mitigating climate change will be possible at COP28. (Photo by Bernd Lauter/Getty Images)

The Weisweiler coal-fired power plant on November 17,https://ditanggung.com/2023 near Eschweiler, Germany.Bernd Lauter/Getty Images

Experts say this scramble for coal — even if short term — has also strained relations between the West and the Global South.

“The first time that the developed world has a bit of a challenge, they immediately backtrack and they say ‘oh, because it’s exceptional, we’re going to reopen coal-fired power plants,’” Rogelj said.

Fossil fuel companies dialed down green plans

Big oil companies made eye-popping profits in 2022. BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total pulled in a record $199.3 billion that year as they benefited from soaring oil and gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But the windfall did not translate into huge boosts for clean energy plans. Instead, many announced expansion of fossil fuels and, for some, a dialing down of green pledges.

BP scaled back the ambition of a commitment it had made only three years ago to slash oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. In February, it announced it would instead aim for a roughly 25% reduction by the end of the decade.

Despite record profits, Shell announced in February that it would keep renewables spending steady, despite having increased it in previous years.

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 02: A Shell petrol station is pictured on February 2, 2023 in London, England. The British multinational oil and gas company reported profits of $39.9 billion (£32.2 billion) in 2022, double the prior year's total. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Big Oil faces scrutiny after huge jump in profits

And at a June conference, Exxon head Darren Woods said he aimed to double the amount of oil produced from the company’s US shale projects over five years. The company also dropped a years-long project to develop fuel from algae, previously a much-touted part of its green ambitions.

The three companies maintain they are committed to the clean-energy transition.

BP did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, but in a February statement, then CEO Bernard Looney said: “We need continuing near-term investment into today’s energy system — which depends on oil and gas — to meet today’s demands and to make sure the transition is an orderly one.”

A Shell spokesperson told CNN “global energy demand will continue to grow and be met by different types of energy, including oil and gas,” and that Shell “aims to play its part in a balanced energy transition, where the world achieves net-zero emissions.”

An Exxon spokesperson said the company was “embracing” the challenge to reach net zero. “We’re doing our part by investing $17 billion in lower-emission initiatives through 2027.”

But according to a November IEA report, the oil and gas industry must rapidly scale up its ambitions. Around 50% of its total capital spending needs to go toward clean energy projects by 2030, according to the report. At the moment, they commit just 2.5%.

“The oil and gas industry is facing a moment of truth at COP28 in Dubai,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement. “With the world suffering the impacts of a worsening climate crisis, continuing with business as usual is neither socially nor environmentally responsible.”

Glimmers of hope

It would be a mistake to suggest everything is going in the wrong direction, Guilanpour said. “You need to think about trajectories, and on those trajectories, you’re going to get bumps in the road.”

The relationship between the US and China has long been bumpy, but its cooperation on climate change has been a glimmer of hope. In mid-November, the countries pledged a major ramp-up in renewable energy, and agreed to economy-wide reduction of all greenhouse gases — not just carbon dioxide — the first time China officially stated its intent to do so.

While 2023 did see backsliding, the long-term pathway is heading in the right direction — albeit much too slowly, said Claire Fyson, co-head of the climate policy team at Climate Analytics, a climate science and policy institute.

Ultimately, the momentum is in favor of a green transition, she told CNN. “In spite of policy rollbacks in many places, the economics just win out,” Fyson told CNN, pointing to the acceleration in renewables like wind and solar.

But, she added, “we’re still in very dangerous territory.”

CNN’s Ella Nilsen, Ivana Kottasová and Nectar Gan contributed to this report.