Almost 30% of waterways in Pennsylvania were deemed "impaired" in 2020, and the situation has only gotten worse since then, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection's 2022 Integrated Water Quality Report. Restoration efforts have helped improve the status of some waterways, but new ones have joined the impaired list, the report says.

Louisiana plans to spend more on coastal restoration and hurricane protection projects in fiscal 2023 than it has in any previous year. The $1.28 billion in spending by the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority would be spread over 76 projects as part of a $50 billion, 50-year coastal Master Plan.

China plans to use only artificial snow for the Winter Olympics in Beijing next month, and experts are concerned the approach will further strain water supplies in nearby Zhangjiakou, where water is already hard to come by. Experts say producing artificial snow for the Olympics may require up to 71 million cubic feet of water.

China is the leading economy for clean energy metal processing and leads the way on rare earth metal production, which gives the nation a clear advantage when it comes to supplying materials needed to fuel the energy transition, according to this infographic based on International Energy Agency data. The infographic illustrates the geopolitical implications of the green revolution, as well as clean energy supply chain insights.

The US is having trouble keeping two-wheeled electric bikes on the shelves, with almost 790,000 imported in 2021 -- a significant jump from 2020's 463,000 and comparing with 652,000 electric and plug-in hybrid cars sold in the same period, according to the Light Electric Vehicle Association and Bloomberg NEF. The US will have to pedal faster if they want to lap Asia and Europe, however, which see approximately 35 million and 3 million e-bikes, respectively, sold per year.

Scotland's Orkney archipelago may be in a remote corner of the UK, but its rich natural resources are ideal for clean energy and the area has become a hotbed for emerging solutions that span everything from wind and marine energy to energy storage and new grid management techniques. "You can try things out here at a meaningful scale... and if they work you can learn from that and then apply it more widely elsewhere," said Neil Kermode of Orkney's European Marine Energy Center.

The US loses $2 billion in economic activity every month Congress fails to advance the climate provisions within the Build Back Better Act and their passage would boost US investment in clean energy to $750 billion over the next decade, wrote the American Clean Power Association and more than 300 other industry leaders in a letter to congressional leaders. "The clean energy initiatives represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Congress to take big, bold action to deliver the clean energy future Americans want and deserve," they wrote.

Orsted and RWE have sent separate letters to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management praising its work vetting the Louisiana coast for an offshore wind leasing round. Texas has the greatest potential for offshore wind, but the industry would also be an asset to Louisiana where offshore fossil fuel jobs have been declining, according to a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study on the US Gulf Coast's offshore wind potential.

Financial institutions issued more than $1.6 trillion worth of sustainable debt mechanisms in 2021, bringing the global market to more than $4 trillion, per Bloomberg NEF in its 1H 2022 Sustainable Finance Market Outlook report. Green bonds saw the most significant growth, with volumes more than doubling from 2020 to 2021 and surpassing $620 billion.

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero pledged to direct up to $100 trillion toward the energy transition during COP26, but critics have questioned whether that goal, as well as the climate commitments of its member companies, are realistic. Oliver Gordon discusses what it'll take for the finance industry to achieve net-zero emissions, as well as different investment priorities for GFANZ.