This week your intrepid hosts cast their attention abroad to the historic passing of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US and the $370 Bn odd of investment into climate action it contains. Now just waiting for the stroke of Joe Biden’s many pens, this will be a relief for many Democrats seeking re-election in the upcoming midterms.

For our deep dive report we go FULL METAL WONK and attempt to average an orange, a picture of an apple and a mandarin-shaped eraser… no wait, that’s what Integrated Assessment Models do and underpin little-read things like the IPCC’s reports on climate mitigation and adaptation! We read climate economists of note Nicholas Stern, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Charlotte Taylor’s paper and critique of IAMs,“The Economics of Immense Risk, Urgent Action and Radical Change: Towards New Approaches to the Economics of Climate Change” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Are these guys the Avengers to Nordhaus’ Thanos? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Luke’s One More Thing was a shout out and tribute to the Australian Energy Foundation (formerly Moreland Energy Foundation Limited) who have announced they are closing their doors after more than 20 years of working to improve everyday Australians’ lives through programs to improve home energy performance.

Frankie’s One More Thing is the anticipation of a decision by the Building Ministers Meeting coming up on 26 August on whether to adopt proposed increases to the minimum energy efficiency requirements for new homes in the National Construction Code. It’s been over a decade since these were last increased and there is lots of interest in seeing this get over the line.

Tennant’s One More Thing was to claim a win for the pod out of the recent Energy Ministers’ Meeting committing to a truckload of work, including what is effectively a supercharged ISP as part of the wide ranging National Energy Transformation partnership! See the full deets in their communique.

That’s all folks, see you next time! Please keep tweeting your thoughts to us at @LukeMenzel, @TennantReed and @FrankieMuskovic and email us your suggestions for papers to read at [email protected]!