Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Home countries of major rainforests agree to work together to save them

Summary: Representatives from countries that house the world’s three major rainforests—the Amazon, the Congo basin, and the forests of Southeast Asia—have agreed to safeguard biodiversity in these areas, and to reduce or eliminate deforestation.

Context: These countries were not able to agree on a concrete alliance for these efforts, but they did come up with a seven-point plan of action, which experts have said is desperately needed as these basins are home to about two-thirds of the planet’s biodiversity and they serve as vital climate sinks—they pull in and store a huge amount of CO2—but deforestation in these areas increased by 4% in 2022, despite prior pledges to halt and reverse such losses by 2030; one of the primary challenges faced by these countries is a lack of sufficient funding to help with environmental efforts, and to make up for the money their economies could have made by cutting down these rainforests and replacing them with money-making efforts, which is something global governments expect to address at the COP28 climate talks next month.

—Reuters

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Ørsted halts New Jersey wind power projects in blow for Biden's energy plans

Summary: The world’s largest wind energy developer, Ørsted, has announced that it will cease work on two major US offshore wind projects located off the New Jersey Coast due to changes in macroeconomic conditions.

Context: Among those changes are high inflation rates, rising and sustained interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks that are making it difficult for this and similar projects, globally, to proceed along their expected timelines; wind power projects, especially offshore wind power projects, have experienced numerous setbacks of this kind in recent months, which contrasts substantially with solar power projects, some of which have been deployed so fast and so inexpensively that solar developers are considering raising their prices, as some of their developments are churning out more energy than can be used, leading to wastage.

—Axios

Real estate industry takes fresh hit with verdict on commissions

Summary: Shares of real estate company Zillow and similar platforms have dropped on the news that a Missouri court has found that the National Association of Realtors colluded to keep brokerage commissions artificially high; the court divvied out not quite $1.8 billion in damages.

Context: This is just the most recent case related to how real estate agents in the US make money, and the Justice Department is now looking into the commission-sharing system that results in sales agents and buyer’s representatives netting an additional 5-6% of the sale price on homes, alongside other fees; this is being seen as one more piece of bad news for an industry that’s already essentially frozen due to high mortgage rates that are approaching 8%, with sales of existing homes plummeting as a consequence.

—Bloomberg

A recent survey of Americans has shown that a significant chunk of the population does not own a single book (9% don’t own any physical books and 45% don’t own an ebook), with ownership primarily stratified based on formal education attainment and age.

—YouGov

$150

Price, per barrel, that the World Bank has warned oil could reach if the conflict between Israel and Hamas expands to encompass other groups and nations.

This warning is based on a scenario similar to the oil crisis in the 1970s, which was sparked by a cut in exports by Arab nations to those that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

This remains purely speculative at the moment, but the goal was to remind decision-makers that the global economy could be significantly damaged if this currently ultra-regional battle grows even a little bit beyond its current confines.

—BBC News

Trust Click

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