| By Zahra Hirji Jane Fonda, one of Hollywood's most outspoken actors and campaigners, has urged fresh action to tackle failures in politics and progress on emissions reduction. "We have two essential crises and for both, it's now or never: democracy and climate," 87-year-old Fonda told the Bloomberg Green Seattle conference on Monday. "We're losing the democratic infrastructure and norms to deal with climate, and we're losing the climate stability that is essential for democracy. We have to solve them together." Fonda's climate activism started in 2019, when she launched what she called "Fire Drill Fridays," a series of weekly protests near the US Capitol building in Washington, DC. She started her protest to denounce climate inaction and to call for the end of fossil fuel use, and was arrested more than once. "I turned 82 in jail," said Fonda.  Jane Fonda speaks at Bloomberg Green Seattle. Photographer: David Ryder/Bloomberg She became more directly involved in politics in 2022, launching the Jane Fonda Climate Political Action Committee, or PAC, to support political candidates and other groups. The PAC raised nearly $2 million in the 2022 election cycle and more than $5.7 million for 2024, according to data compiled by nonprofit Open Secrets. To make the biggest impact, Fonda said, her PAC is laser-focused on supporting down-ballot state and local elections, including for mayors, city councilors and state legislators. The group has exclusively backed Democrats. "The most important thing is to elect climate champions up and down the ballot, all over the country, starting yesterday," she says. The PAC has already endorsed or supported some 170 candidates who won their races, according to Fonda. In Seattle on Tuesday, the Trump administration's rollback of climate regulations and funding will take center stage. Speakers including Union of Concerned Scientists President Gretchen Goldman and US Representative Yassamin Ansari will consider the impact of cuts to key programs. The Texas floods have put a spotlight on disaster response and mitigation — including the role of the federal government. Industries including electric vehicles and renewable energy will be reshaped in the US as a result of President Donald Trump's recently signed tax bill. Ford Chief Sustainability Officer Bob Holycross and Puget Sound Energy Senior Vice President of Energy Operations Michelle Vargo will discuss the potential impacts. We'll have an update in tomorrow's newsletter on what we learned from these speakers and more. Check out the agenda and subscribe to Bloomberg.com to watch the event live. Read the full Fonda interview on Bloomberg.com. The tax bill's beneficiaries | By Michelle Ma President Trump's sweeping $3.4 trillion fiscal package is already creating opportunities for segments of the energy and climate industries that had fallen out of favor, struggled to grow or haven't managed to break through. The tax and spending law signed on July 4 provides a lifeline to a coal industry that's long been squeezed by cheaper renewable and natural gas-fired power. The law provides a boost to nuclear — a sector that had regained investor and political support before Trump's return to the White House, but has yet to translate that enthusiasm into much domestic growth in electric capacity. And the law may actually help advance an unproven and risky planet-cooling system that has lived in the shadows for decades — geoengineering. CoalWhile Trump has consistently supported coal, the industry struggled during his first term. The new law, however, directly and indirectly takes steps to arrest its decline. The legislation phases out tax credits for wind and solar, which may diminish their economic edge over coal. It also adds metallurgical coal that's used to make steel to the list of critical minerals qualifying for tax credits. The law is the latest Trump move to prop up the fossil fuel. In April, he signed an executive order pushing for coal-fired electricity for data centers.  Coal on barges in Pittsburgh. Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg NuclearJust a few years ago, aging nuclear reactors were facing extinction. Now, the AI boom has revived interest in carbon-free power plants capable of providing round-the-clock electricity, leading to efforts to revive two shuttered plants. But only two new traditional reactors have been added in recent years, and none are in the works. Trump's law extends support for nuclear while hurting clean competitors wind and solar, boosting atomic's competitiveness. The law follows Trump's May executive order calling for reforms at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a move intended to nudge the slow-moving agency to act with alacrity to approve plants. Soon after, New York Governor Kathy Hochul — a Democrat — announced the state would push to build a nuclear power plant. Still, a lot will have to go right for nuclear to scale up successfully, even with policy support. Part of the challenge includes a provision in Trump's law limiting projects from receiving tax credits if "foreign entities of concern" are involved, which creates uncertainty for investors. GeothermalThe Earth's heat is clean and abundant, and harnessing it can provide electricity without interruption. But it's proven difficult and expensive to find sufficient resources for it to make inroads on the grid. Some startups are now using fracking techniques pioneered by the oil and gas industry. That's helping expand the geography of potential projects. Like nuclear, geothermal is exempt from the tax credit phase-out that applies to wind and solar. It also enjoys the support of US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who has said a mature geothermal industry "could help enable AI, manufacturing, reshoring and stop the rise of our electricity prices." (Wright formerly ran Liberty Energy Inc., which invested in geothermal startup Fervo Energy during his tenure as chief executive officer.) Because of its technological overlap with fossil fuel industries, "it is an area where you can use people and technology and patents and skills" to boost renewable energy, says Leah Stokes, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who specializes in energy and climate change. That transferability is an appeal for Wright, she adds. GeoengineeringIn a note about the law's impacts, research firm ClearView Energy Partners said the law boosts the chances the world will move to dim the sun to cool the Earth, a technique known as geoengineering. It's an idea that's long been fringe, and the majority of science shows there are many risks to the untested technology. But rising temperatures and Trump's fossil fuel push could change perceptions. "A warming world could present mounting challenges for elected officials," the analysts at ClearView wrote. "In response to public discontent with a rising incidence of fires, floods and freezes, leaders might become increasingly willing to intervene directly in the climate system via stratospheric aerosol injection and other geoengineering protocols." While ClearView didn't suggest Trump will pursue the intervention, it said geoengineering would enable the US to power AI with fossil fuels and still try to limit temperatures. "To the extent that policymakers are still concerned about the implications of climate change and with transitions not transitioning fast enough, the once verboten subject of geoengineering may become more of a reality," says ClearView Energy Partners Managing Director Timothy Fox. Read the full story on Bloomberg.com. | 
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