FIRST LOOK(S):

A one-day social media campaign launches today bringing together artists, celebrities and advocates to urge Congress to pass the climate reconciliation bill. Billie Eilish, Jon Batiste, Leonardo DiCaprio and Chuck D are among those getting behind #CodeRedCongress. Learn more here.

Join the Climate Group for a panel discussion on how massive oil & gas expansion fuels the climate and extinction crises at 11 am ET today.

US, China Make Climate Announcements At UNGA: The world's two biggest economies and carbon polluters both announced steps to cut off financing that fuels the climate crisis Tuesday at the UN General Assembly. The announcements come as leaders seek to build momentum before the UN's COP26 climate conference in November. (AP)

• Xi Announces Ending Of Chinese Coal Support Abroad: China will no longer build coal-fired power plants overseas, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced Tuesday in an address to the UN General Assembly. Xi gave no timeline, the announcement is likely to mark the beginning of the end of coal plant construction in the developing world. Depending on when it is implemented, China's new policy could cut off $50 billion of foreign investment and halt the construction of up to 47 planned coal plants in 20 countries, about equal to the entire remaining German coal fleet. “It’s a big deal. China was the only significant funder of overseas coal left. This announcement essentially ends all public support for coal globally,” Joanna Lewis, an expert on China, energy and climate at Georgetown University, told the AP. “This is the announcement many have been waiting for.” Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and former climate diplomat Thom Woodroofe described the announcement as a “line in the sand” and told the Guardian, “It is further evidence China knows the future is paved by renewables. The key question now is when they will draw a similar line in the sand at home.” (The Guardian, NPR, Wall Street Journal $, Reuters, New York Times $, Politico, Axios, BBC, Reuters, Climate Home, CNET, FT $, Washington Examiner)
• Biden Pledges To Boost Global Climate Funding: President Biden promised to redouble American financial assistance to developing nations to combat and adapt to the climate crisis in his address to the UN General Assembly, Tuesday. “In April, I announced the United States will double our public international financing to help developing nations tackle the climate crisis, and today, I’m proud to announce that we’ll work with the Congress to double that number again, including for adaptation efforts,” Biden said. The persistent failure of wealthy nations to meet their own promises to help the developing world is a major obstacle to meaningful progress at the upcoming COP26 UN climate conference. Biden's pledge of  $11.4 billion annually, while much more than the current $2 billion the U.S. is contributing, is still far less than the $43.4 billion the world's largest historical polluter would need to contribute to pay its "fair share," according to the independent Overseas Development Institute. Biden also called for what he described as "relentless diplomacy" to address global crises and rejected the idea of a new Cold War with China. (Finance: Yahoo, Washington Post $, New York Times $, The Guardian, E&E News, Climate Home, Bloomberg $, The Hill, HuffPost, Reuters, Axios, Politico; Diplomacy: NPR, AP, CBS, Wall Street Journal $, NBC, New York Times $, Reuters, New York Times $, New York Times $)

All The Injustice: Multiple new reports continue to reveal how historically excluded groups were hurt by systemic inequities exacerbated by Hurricane Ida. Entergy, the utility that supplies electricity to much of southeastern Louisiana, raked in a record $1.4 billion profit in 2020 but has for years resisted calls to prepare its infrastructure for a storm like Ida, an NPR and ProPublica investigation revealed. When that infrastructure failed, plunging all of New Orleans and much of the surrounding area into the dark — thousands are still without power — residents like Wilma Banks were left stranded and literally suffocating without power for critical medical equipment. Incarcerated individuals were also left exceptionally vulnerable as the state, routinely battered by hurricanes, has no statewide guidelines for protecting them during disasters. Those included the more than 300 people left in the Nelson Coleman Correctional Center in St. Charles Parish through the storm despite the parish being under a mandatory evacuation order. Indigenous communities are also on the front lines of the climate crisis, and none more so than the United Houma Nation, which is still fighting a 35+ year battle for federal recognition, in what is now southeast Louisiana. “We have land that’s washing away every day. We’re running out of land in our area for our people to run to,” August Creppel, the principal chief of the United Houma Nation, told Vice. “With federal recognition, we would’ve had federal people on the ground right away helping us out. Ninety percent of the stuff we get, we have to get it ourselves.” (Entergy failures: NPR and ProPublica; Continued outages: WDSU; Incarcerated people: Grist; United Houma Nation: Vice; Climate Signals background: 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: A Black town’s water is more poisoned than Flint’s. In a white town nearby, it’s clean (The Guardian), after horrific photos surface, Black leaders demand president Biden take action for asylum seekers now (NewsOne), before Gabby Petito, hundreds of Indigenous girls went missing in Wyoming to little media attention (NewsOne)

UNGA: ‘The world must wake up’: Tasks daunting as UN meeting opens (AP), António Guterres ‘sounds the alarm’ over global inequalities in UN speech (The Guardian, Democracy Now), Brazil committed to protecting environment, Bolsonaro tells UN; activists unconvinced (Reuters), Turkey’s Erdogan: refugee crisis from climate change coming (AP)

PIPELINES: Line 3 pipeline resistance continues as activists ask Biden admin to shutdown project (ABC), Dakota Access asks [Supreme Court] to reverse decision requiring environmental review (The Hill, E&E News, Politico Pro $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Why are BMW and Daimler being sued over climate change? (Reuters explainer), judge dismisses Greenpeace lawsuit against Walmart (The Hill)

EDUCATION: Teaching climate change in the classroom (NPR)

SHOCKING: Big tech’s pro-climate rhetoric is not matched by policy action, report finds (The Guardian)

AGENCIES: 'We need to put all of our tools to work if we're going to meet this moment': Michael Regan on combating climate change (MSNBC), DOE stirs up climate fight over building codes (E&E News), Biden administration shuns IPCC report in argument to expand offshore drilling (Truthout)

THE HILL: ‘The biggest mashup we’ve ever had’: Dems scramble on agenda (E&E News), committee to review building, home electrification push (E&E $)

• HOUSE: Stopgap spending bill tags billions for disaster recovery, resilience (Politico Pro $, E&E News), debt-limit suspension set to pass House, face standoff in Senate (Wall Street Journal $, Politico Pro $), Rep. Bush: I won’t vote for bipartisan infrastructure bill that comes before reconciliation (MSNBC)
• SENATE: Follow the money into Joe Manchin’s pockets (New Republic), Angus King’s moment: ‘I plan to be an activist chairman’ (E&E News)

CLEAN ENERGY BENEFITS: Study sees renewables boosting Appalachia (Axios)

WHITE HOUSE: White House Climate Adviser: ‘Sen. Manchin is not the enemy’ (MSNBC)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Dems can’t agree on how to keep racism out of the biggest climate jobs program in history (Mother Jones)

POLITICS: Biden administration faces critical moment ahead of climate talks (TIME), Biden wants union jobs and clean air. Delivering both might be tough. (Politico), Biden set to play peacemaker for warring Democratic factions (Politico Pro $), Democratic infighting threatens Biden’s big agenda (Washington Examiner), Dems fear Biden’s domestic agenda could implode (Politico), progressive poll finds support for solar energy tax credit legislation (The Hill)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Biden Interior and Reclamation nominees glide through Senate hearing (Politico Pro $), Manchin presses Interior nominee on leasing program review (The Hill), Schumer sets vote on environment, judicial nominees (E&E $), U.S. Senate to vote soon on Chopra's move to top consumer watchdog (Reuters)

CITIES AND STATES: Michigan plans 1st U.S. charging road for electric vehicles (AP), Massachusetts utilities propose plans to ramp up electric vehicle infrastructure (Energy News Network), Ohio’s SB 52 raises profile for upcoming workshops on solar siting issues (Energy News Network)

• CALIFORNIA: California is sued over its rule on solar power installers. (New York Times $) (Politico Pro $)
• NEW YORK: New York nearly doubles goal for distributed solar installations on success of existing incentives (Utility Dive), New York OKs underground and underwater transmission lines to deliver upstate clean energy to NYC (Canary Media)

IMPACTS: Climate change ravaging crops in Guatemala, leaving millions on brink of starvation (NBC), as Italy’s glaciers recede, a stunning world of ice is being lost (Yale Environment 360), climate change is killing trees and causing power outages (NPR), U.S. flood insurance rates to rise for 77% of policyholders -study (Reuters)

HEALTH: Miami psychiatrist helps people cope with mental health toll of extreme weather (Yale Climate Connections), floods have swamped the US. the next health problem: mold (Wired), fires fuel new risks to California farmworkers (InsideClimate News)

DROUGHT: Amid drought, billionaires control a critical California water bank (Forbes), why can’t we just move water to solve a drought? (WANE), California’s water crisis is real. What are the solutions? (Capital and Main), Southwest US drought, worst in a century, linked by NOAA to climate change (Reuters)

WILDFIRES: Devastating wildfires led to record-high emissions this summer (Bloomberg $), inside the race to save world’s largest tree from wildfire (NBC)

HURRICANES: After Ida, U.S. cities eye more equal resilience plans (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

DEFORESTATION: As Amazon destruction continues, Brazil faces future of floods, drought (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

RENEWABLES: Wind farm draws fire for interfering with WWII incarceration site (E&E News)

STORAGE: A Colorado coal plant could help solve renewable energy's storage problem (NPR), Investors are whipping up an irrational frenzy in the long-duration energy storage sector (Canary Media)

LNG: Trade group wants restrictions on U.S. natural gas exports (Reuters), Industrials group points to winter gas price increase to push for limits on US LNG exports (S&P Global)

OIL & GAS: Electric vehicles may cut global refining capacity demand by half in 2050 - Rystad (Reuters)

• SHELL GAMES: Shell's big sale of Texas oil and gas holdings is a climate bait-and-switch (Gizmodo), Conoco kicks off oil industry’s carbon Shell game (Wall Street Journal $), making sense of Shell's exit from the Permian Basin (Axios)

ORPHANED WELLS: Will taxpayers bear the cost of cleaning up America’s abandoned oil wells? (The Guardian)

UTILITIES: After Ida outages, utility proposals include city takeover (AP), US can meet Paris climate commitments but will need to rely heavily on electric utilities: report (Utility Dive)

ACTIVISM: Student activists to lead global climate strike on Friday (Democracy Now)

BUSINESS: Salesforce says it has reached net-zero emissions (Axios), how more than 100 beauty brands are teaming up to address climate change (Bustle, Fashionista), McDonald's plans to 'drastically' reduce plastic toys in its Happy Meals by 2025 (CBS, The Hill), Walmart to tag 2,000 products deemed healthier for planet and people (CBS)

FINANCE: Climate disclosures linked to capital (Axios), thinking of investing in a green fund? Many don't live up to their promises, a new report claims (TIME), Vanguard says it supported more environmental and social resolutions (Reuters)

INSERT JOKE HERE: The things we don't know about our toilet paper (Axios)

WILDLIFE: Australia has lost one-third of its koalas in the past three years (Reuters)

FURBABIES: Pets can help fight climate change with an insect-based diet. Owners just need to come around to the idea. (Washington Post $)

INTERNATIONAL: British export finance agency aims for net zero emissions by 2050 (Reuters), five things to watch for from Canada's Liberal minority government (Reuters factbox), One in five carbon credits under Australia’s main climate policy are ‘junk’ cuts, research finds (The Guardian), IEA calls on Russia to ‘do more’ to ease energy crisis (Politico Pro $)

• Congress must commit to electric vehicles (Utility Dive, Ben Prochazka, Shelley Francis, Jeff Allen, and Joel Levin)
• I rode Specialized’s fancy new e-bike, and now I see the light (Gizmodo, Molly Taft testimonial)
• A new UN climate architecture is emerging focused on need for speed (The Hill, Durwood Zaelke op-ed)
• Canada’s liberal conservatives lose (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• America's climate change conclusion (The Hill, Joseph Chamie op-ed)
• New flood insurance program to cut premiums for a million policyholders (The Hill, Laura Lightbody op-ed)
• Energy Department's loan program helped Tesla; now it needs to help low-income communities (The Hill, Mark Wolfe and Kerry O'Neill op-ed)
• Democrats may be on the verge of climate disaster (The Atlantic, Robinson Meyer commentary)
• Johnson says he has changed his mind on the climate – but he’s still dragging his feet (The Guardian, Adrienne Buller op-ed)
• Fueled by climate change, costly Southwest drought isn’t going away (Washington Post, Rong Fu, Isla Simpson, Justin Mankin, Andrew Hoell and Daniel Barrie commentary $)
• We don’t have time for another fossil fuel bridge (Environmental Health News, Seth Mullendore op-ed)
• Do you have a glossy green front lawn? What is this, the 1950s? (The Guardian, Tayo Bero op-ed)
• The loss of trees has had devastating consequences. Here's how we can still create a sustainable planet (TIME, Jane Goodall and Jeff Horowitz op-ed)

Abraham-Lincoln-Created National Academies Advising on Climate and Security Apparently Proves Climate Research Is Political

“Does science drive climate policy or do politics drive climate research?” 

So begins a recent post at tobacco/fossil fuel/rightwing billionaire-funded Heartland Institute’s google-obsessed ClimateRealism blog by Heartland president James Taylor, whose own brother has more or less exposed that professional deniers like James know full well that they’re lying about climate change. 

“The Democrat-controlled Congress,” Taylor wrote, “is answering that question for us with a new directive telling the National Academies to establish a Climate Security Roundtable to spoon-feed talking points to climate-activist politicians.” Is it though? Let’s find out! 

Apparently, per Taylor, bringing intelligence experts together with climate scientists is “unnecessary and counterproductive” because it’s actually climate activism that poses a national security threat, not what Taylor describes as “Earth’s modest recent warming.” (If nothing else, nice to see him admit that global warming is already happening!) 

He concludes by claiming that “when Congress directs and funds organizations to convene specific new entities to address specific topics of political interest, the organizations receiving the money will produce results that will please Congressional funders and ensure perennial funding for the new entity. No entity deliberately provides ‘answers’ to congressional inquiries that will strip away the entity’s funding, jobs, and status. Expect the National Academies to produce results showing similar corruption by political funding.” 

(Again, if nothing else, great to see Taylor admit that funding can bias people’s work! If only he stopped to consider whether a profit-seeking corporation in constant need of ever-rising levels of revenue would have more or less pressure than a publicly-funded institution to inject bias into their funding recipients' work.) 

But here’s the thing: the experts already have day jobs, and aren’t going to be getting paid for their expertise. The people who will sit on the roundtable are, per the call for nominations, “volunteer experts drawn from academia, the private sector, and civil society, as well as government.” Why would volunteers be motivated by an organization’s funding, when they’re not receiving any of that money? 

Still though, perhaps Taylor thinks that the volunteers will only give answers that would prolong the life of the body which they offer their time for free, which is, to be generous, not impossible. But a slightly more reliable source than Heartland when it comes to science and government, the Union of Concerned Scientists, notes in its coverage of the roundtable that it is explicitly short-term, and “set to terminate September 20, 2025.” 

So even if Taylor had a semblance of a point about institutions being self-reinforcing, it’s rendered entirely moot by the pre-set expiration date. 

And of course regarding the bigger picture, Taylor’s suggestion that the National Academies asking experts about climate and security is something in any way unique or unusual or somehow politicizes the issue flies in the face of a century and a half of history. 

Maybe James Taylor thinks that when Abraham Lincoln signed the National Academies into being back in 1863, it was all part of the grand political plan that’s secretly driving climate research here in 2021. 

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