FIRST LOOK:

The World Resources Institute will hold a press call on South Korea and climate action ahead of President Moon's visit to the White House. Tomorrow at 7:30pm EDT.

IEA Says Oil & Gas Exploration, Coal Plant Construction Must Stop. Now: The International Energy Agency said the world's countries must immediately stop exploiting new oil and gas fields and building new coal-fired power plants, if global temperatures are to be kept within safe limits and 2050 net-zero targets are to be met, in a wide-ranging report issued today. This is the first time the leading energy agency, which laid out a roadmap for how to accomplish the dramatic cuts, has called for such dramatic action. “It’s a huge shift in messaging if they’re saying there’s no need to invest in new fossil fuel supply,” Kelly Trout, senior research analyst at Oil Change International, told the New York Times. IEA executive director Fatih Birol emphasized the urgent need for aggressive action to slash emissions. “If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year,” he told the Guardian. “If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year.” (New York Times $, The Guardian, Washington Post $, Energy Monitor, AP, Reuters, FT $, BBC, Wall Street Journal $, Business Green, New York Times $, E&E $)

Tauktae Slams Western India With Winds Equal To Major Hurricane: Cyclone Tauktae hit Gujarat state, north of Mumbai, on India's western coast, Monday night local time, as the nation is in the midst of a devastating wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fueled by very warm sea surface temperatures, the storm rapidly intensified over the weekend, a phenomenon occurring more frequently and linked to climate change. At about the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane, Tauktae (pronounced tau-tae) was the strongest storm to hit the region since accurate satellite data began in 1998 when 4,000 people were killed, and was the fifth-strongest cyclone ever observed in the Arabian Sea. The India Meteorological Department predicted storm surge could reach 13 feet at the head of the funnel-shaped Gulf of Khambhat. Climate change is making hurricane storm surges even higher and higher sea surface temperatures also fuel storms' power and hotter air holds more moisture, which leads to increased rainfall. At least 12 people had already been killed and hundreds of thousands evacuated before the storm made landfall. The storm has begun to dissipate since making landfall but flooding was still a major concern with over 11 inches of rain observed in some places since Sunday. (Washington Post $, Yale Climate Connections, AP, Reuters, Economic Times, Hindustan Times, AP, CNN, Al Jazeera, AccuWeather, India Today, Weather Channel, UPI, Weather Channel; Climate Signals background: Hurricanes, Intense cyclonic storm frequency increase)

Plaintiffs Dodge A Bullet In SCOTUS Ruling For Big Oil: The Supreme Court ruled narrowly in favor of oil companies seeking to avoid liability for the costs of climate change but litigation in this case, brought by the city of Baltimore, and in cases brought by states and municipalities across the country, is expected to continue. The 7-1 majority sent the case back to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to reconsider Big Oil's efforts to have the suits heard in federal court where they believe they will find a friendlier audience. The narrow ruling "was a bullet dodged" for Baltimore and other plaintiffs across the country, Patrick Parenteau, an expert on environmental law at Vermont Law School, told the New York Times. “The oil companies were looking for a kill shot,” he said, that would have sent a message to lower courts that similar cases would be received sceptically by the court, but Justice Gorsuch's ruling focused on procedural issues. Bob Percival, director of the University of Maryland's Environmental Law Program agreed. "The oil companies were hoping that the court would reach out and quash all climate litigation. And the court hasn't done that," he told E&E. (New York Times $, E&E $, SCOTUSBlog, Washington Post $, Politico Pro $, E&E $, Politico Pro $, Wall Street Journal $, Reuters, Washington Examiner)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) INJUSTICE: The St. Croix refinery that rained down oil has been shut down (Earther), the Israel-Palestine violence highlights war’s environmental injustices (Atmos), White House panel rebuts Biden on CCS, hydrogen (E&E $)

DENIAL: The draw—and deadlines—of American denial (Environmental Health News)

EFFICIENCY: Biden administration announces new Energy Star standards, plans for emissions targets for federal buildings (Washington Post $), Joe Biden dares to improve our quality of life with energy efficient appliances (Earther)

GRID STABILITY: Growing power outages pose grave threat to people who need medical equipment to live (NPR)

YOU'RE NOT JUST IMAGINING IT: How climate change is making allergy season even worse (ABC)

COLONIAL PIPELINE: The Colonial Pipeline was fine, but it was shutdown to make sure its owner could still get paid (Jalopnik), Colonial pipeline has been a lucrative cash cow for many years (Bloomberg $), does Colonial's proactive pipeline shutdown illustrate a new cybersecurity threat to utilities? (Utility Dive)

COLONIAL PIPELINE, TAKEAWAYS & AFTERMATH: 3 takeaways from the Colonial pipeline hack (E&E $), a dry pipeline asks: who wants an electric car now? (Bloomberg $), as Colonial Pipeline returns to service, Congress looks to bolster utility-government security efforts (Utility Dive), oil sector praises Biden's Colonial response, but wary of new cyber mandates (Politico Pro $), how vulnerable is U.S. energy infrastructure to future cyberattacks? (Wall Street Journal $), lawmakers to question Granholm about pipeline hack (E&E $), oversight, homeland security committees ‘extremely concerned’ after pipeline attack (HuffPost)

YOUR TAXE$ AT WORK: Oil CEOs laid off workers and gave themselves raises during the pandemic (Earther)

AGENCIES: 'It's a mess': Groups pan Regulations.gov overhaul (E&E $), Blinken brings Biden’s anti-Trump climate policy to Iceland (AP), EPA issues federal plan to curb methane from landfills (Politico Pro $), Regan bows out of 5 air and water cases (E&E $)

THE HILL: Here’s why Congress is recognizing Hazel M. Johnson, the ‘mother of environmental justice’ (Grist), forest management's climate role gets Hill scrutiny (E&E $), lawmakers will vet higher flood insurance rates (E&E $), climate hearings to focus on science, energy, defense (E&E $)

HOUSE: Fossil fuel CEOs will be no-shows at hearing (E&E $), House leaders put acidification bill on fast track (E&E $), House Republicans will release their own infrastructure proposal (Politico Pro $), panels set votes, hearings on cybersecurity concerns (E&E $), Foreign Affairs panel takes on mineral supply chains (E&E $)

SENATE: Contentious Schumer research bill hits the Senate floor (E&E $), Heinrich pushes Haaland on Chaco mineral withdrawal (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: [John Kerry] climate envoy criticised for optimism on clean tech (BBC)

AMERICAN JOBS PLAN: 'Blind spot' in Biden's infrastructure plan: Lead paint (E&E $)

POLITICS: Chamber of Commerce draws fire after a risky bet on Democrats (Washington Post $), quest for 'common ground' [on infrastructure] continues as clock ticks (E&E $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Committee to question 3 top Interior picks (E&E $), Senators take up White House science, NOAA picks (E&E $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: At Vatican, Kerry appeals to pope’s ‘moral authority’ to combat climate change (Religion News Service)

CITIES AND STATES: 'A terrible idea': Texas legislators fight over renewables' role in power crisis, aiming to avert a repeat (Utility Dive), at long last, a new Illinois energy bill is likely imminent (Energy News Network), Polis defiant as models show 'big gap' in Colorado climate push (E&E $), Washington state tells businesses to eliminate emissions by 2050 (Bloomberg $, AP)

TRIBES: Klamath tribes rally to defend their water and fish (Jefferson Public Radio), tribe faults Democrats' plan for Northwest salmon (E&E $)

CALIFORNIA: California’s volunteer ‘Climate Action Corps’ helps fight climate change (Yale Climate Connections), budget surplus means $11.8B more for climate programs (E&E $)

FERC: FERC pressed on connecting offshore wind to the grid (E&E $), FERC push on Southeast grid plan stirs renewable debate (E&E $)

IMPACTS: Extreme heat risks may be widely underestimated and sometimes left out of major climate reports (InsideClimate News), Brazil's pandemic-weary Manaus flooded by rising Amazon rivers (Reuters)

GREENLAND: Melting of Greenland ice may accelerate as glaciers get shorter - study (Reuters), Greenland ice sheet on brink of major tipping point, says study (The Guardian)

GULF COAST: Heavy rains hammer western Louisiana with more to come (AP, Washington Post $)

DROUGHT: California’s relentless droughts strain farming towns (InsideClimate News), dry soils and drought mean even normal snowpack can’t keep up with climate change in the west (Colorado Public Radio)

WILDFIRES: Warning shot for California: a Los Angeles wildfire in may (New York Times $), climate change ‘behind alarming spread of wildfires’ (The Times UK)

HURRICANES: A sunken river valley could hold the key to protecting the Texas coast (Grist)

PERMAFROST: Arctic fires, thawing permafrost pose growing threat to climate - study (Reuters, The Hill)

NEW THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT: ‘Tree farts’ increase carbon emissions in ghost forests (Scientific American)

RENEWABLES: China uses Uyghur forced labour to make solar panels, says report (BBC), Australian grid used the least coal on record last summer as renewables shone (Sydney Morning Herald), optimism for renewable energy as recovery, infrastructure bill take shape (Houston Chronicle), Swinerton goes big on solar-plus-storage, navigates Biden and unions (Canary Media)

OIL & GAS: BP's lobbying for gas shows rifts over path to net-zero emissions (Reuters), US will use less natural gas-fired electricity this summer, EIA forecasts (Houston Chronicle)

HYDROGEN: California coalition aims to make hydrogen power cost-competitive by 2030 (Utility Dive), Australia’s first fully renewable ‘hydrogen valley’ slated for NSW coal heartland (The Guardian)

UTILITIES: Arizona's largest utility restarts battery build-out after fire (Canary Media), bipartisan Maine lawmakers push to create first statewide, publicly-owned utility in US (Utility Dive), Activist investor [Elliott Assoc.] wants Duke split into thirds (E&E $, Wall Street Journal $)

EVs: A year after Trump's visit, Biden finds a different Ford (E&E $), Stonepeak and charging company Nuvve want to electrify school buses (Wall Street Journal $)

TRANSIT: After showing its worth during pandemic, momentum builds for free or reduced-fare transit (Washington Post $)

BUSINESS: Mitsubishi UFJ pledges net zero emissions in finance portfolio by 2050 (Reuters), Snap[chat] to cut emissions, achieves carbon neutrality in new climate strategy (Reuters)

CARBON PRICING: Britain's carbon market to launch - with missing EU link (Reuters), offshore energy group embraces Paris treaty, carbon pricing (E&E $)

CARBON CAPTURE: Priming the pump for high-priced, high-promise carbon removal tech (Canary Media)

SHIPPING: Cargo ships are cleaning up smog — by dumping pollution into the seas (Grist)

FINANCE: A third of euro zone corporate loans exposed to climate hazards: ECB (Reuters), as coal retreats, climate finance battle targets gas (E&E $), Britain's pension fund USS invests 225 million euros in Spanish renewables (Reuters), EU reassessing role of natural gas in green finance rules, Commission says (Reuters), the big money is going vegan (New York Times $)

BITCOIN NFTs: NFTs may be the future of art — but are they threatening the future of the planet? (CBS)

INTERNATIONAL: Activists and South African gov't lock horns over coal pollution (Reuters), Britain to treble tree planting by 2024 to fight climate change (Reuters), Climate change could spark clashes between China, India (E&E $), EU to tighten rules on ship recycling, restore areas of seas and oceans (Reuters), European climate group says EU needs far tougher van CO2 targets (Reuters), German Greens want more rail travel, fewer domestic flights (AP, Reuters), in lockdown, Tunisia's cyclists fight for space (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Senegal architects ditch concrete for earth in revival of old techniques (Reuters), UK aims to secure G-7 pledge to end subsidies for fossil fuels (Bloomberg $)

• The Colonial Pipeline crisis is a taste of things to come (Foreign Policy, Jason Bordoff op-ed)
• Wastewater recycling got derailed in Los Angeles. Now it’s back on track (LA Times, Marc Haefele op-ed $)
• How we talk about the climate crisis is increasingly crucial to tackling it (The Guardian, Susanna Rustin op-ed)
• Stagecoaches could fix our electric car problem (Washington Post, Woody Holton commentary $)

Democracy Dies in Denial: Washington Post Gives A Platform To Steve Koonin’s Debunked Climate Denial Via Dark Money Columnist Marc Thiessen

Why would a far-right, UK-based climate denial organization repost something about climate science from the Washington Post, about an “Obama scientist,” in 2021? Because it’s climate denial, of course. 

Steve Koonin wants you to think Obama trusted him, so I should too when he tells you that climate change is no big deal, but also that the science is still too uncertain to know for sure. Either way, don’t worry about it. He’s hoping Obama’s name will make you look past those two contradictory premises, and be dazzled by all the science he cites from mainstream reports. He doesn’t want you to read those reports yourself, though, because then you’ll see, as scientists who fact-checked his claims showed, he’s cherry-picking and using outdated references older than his Obama-era appointment to try and rebut today’s science. 

But Koonin wants you to think that actually, the fact that a team of scientists had to spend 4,500 words unpacking all the disinformation in the WSJ’s 900-word review of his book is a justification for why the book is right, as he wrote in a WSJ op-ed Monday where he complained about Facebook slapping a warning on the review. Of course it’s not an endorsement, it’s an assessment of how Koonin uses out-of-date reports and cherry-picks fresher ones to use things that, while perhaps narrowly and individually true on a technical level, can be put together in a misleading fashion to deceive audiences. 

This is how disinformation works best. Use the appearance of facts and reliability to get consumers to lower their defenses and accept the lies. Why does the cover of his book, released in 2021, prominently describe him as an Obama advisor, a position he held from 2009-11? Why did Thiessen’s headline describe Koonin by that decade-old 2-year position, calling him an “Obama scientist?” Probably because if it mentioned that he’s been doing nothing but climate denial since then (for example trying to get the Trump administration to undercut climate science) no one would be fooled into thinking he’s acting in good faith. 

(Reminder: in 2013 Koonin started an effort to stage exactly the sort of debate he claims is needed. The American Physical Society allowed him to lead an effort to review their consensus statement on climate change. He heralded the best deniers he could muster. He lost the debate, and APS didn’t water down its statement. Instead of respecting the outcome of the debate he convened, he quit, and now pretends it never happened and says debate is needed all over again.) 

Calling himself an Obama advisor is a marketing ploy to present Koonin as an unexpected messenger for climate denial. But according to his boss Stephen Chu, someone who probably actually met with the President instead of just attaching his name to marketing materials for the rest of his life, Koonin was hired as a devil's advocate. Koonin’s a contrarian, and he’s serving up climate contrarianism of the most common variety. 

And that’s his real audience. As Media Matters shows, Koonin's been promoting his book on the conservative opinion circuit. Unsurprisingly, the Washington Post columnist responsible, Marc Thiessen, is also employed by the tobacco and fossil-fuel-funded American Enterprise Institute. 

AEI isn’t merely funded by dirty energy, it’s in fact the single largest recipient of money from the Koch et al. dark money machine, according to a study published the day after AEI fellow Thiessen’s column went up on the Washington Post. (Psst, unpaywalled preprint here.) The organization raked in some $380 million, beating out other big names like Heritage ($275m) Hoover ($157m) and Cato ($144m) and making up a significant portion of the on-average $600 million a year spent on climate denial organizations. (One can only wonder what sort of benefits come with Thiessen’s fellowship position.) 

So the people who professionally lobby on behalf of polluters, like Thiessen and the Global Warming Policy Foundation, promote Koonin, while the same places that traffic in what’s now being referred to as the “Big Lie” about the Biden election are the primary outlets that take Koonin seriously. 

Why, then, is it showing up in the outlet like the Washington Post that claims to stand opposed to such disinformation?

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