Congratulations to Sean Buchan of StopFundingHeat for the perfect way to describe this week's technical difficulties (and thank you all for your understanding):

The amount of COP coverage is straining our email system like the torrent of climate denial on social media platforms is straining our chances of staying alive on this planet. Follow @StopFundingHeat today!

FIRST LOOK(s):

US Doesn't Sign Pact To Quit Coal: At COP26 on Thursday, more than 40 countries announced an agreement to stop burning coal. The agreement includes 23 new countries signing on to a promise to stop building new coal plants, including some of the world’s largest coal users. “The end of coal is in sight,” said COP President Alok Sharma. The United States did not sign the pledge, however, nor did China, India, or Australia. The text of the pledge, the Financial Times reported, said signatories would cease burning coal in the 2030s “or as soon as possible thereafter” — a substantial delay compared to the original goal of 2030. American officials abstained from the agreement, the New York Times reports, out of a fear of angering West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III, who receives income from the coal brokerage he founded and his son continues to run. (FT $, New York Times $, Bloomberg $, Reuters, Reuters, Canary Media, CNBC, Reuters, WBUR, NPR)

COP's Big Accountability Question: Who Pays For The Damage?: As the first week of climate negotiations in Glasgow wrap up, and things get serious, a major sticking point is reemerging between developed and developing nations: "Loss and damage" — the unavoided or unavoidable losses many countries are experiencing due to climate change. Historically, the U.S. and other developed nations have strongly resisted any discussion of compensation, due to the legal implications of admitting liability for damages, and a potentially very large bill. On Monday, a group of small island nations began exploring whether they might have legal rights to loss and damage funding from polluting countries, and Scotland became the first country ever to pledge funding for it, though only $1.4 million. "This is a tangible way of saying that the world stands in solidarity with people who are suffering now,” Harjeet Singh, a senior advisor for climate impacts at the Climate Action Network, told Grist. “Yes, we are talking about 1.5°C, but what about people who are suffering at 1.1°C of temperature rise?” (Grist, New York Times $, Reuters)

High Traffic Deaths This Year Reflect Environmental Injustices, Lopsided Spending: More than 20,000 people died in car crashes in the first half of 2021, the highest in a six month period in 15 years and 18.4% more than in the first half of 2020, according to data released by the Department of Transportation. “There’s a fundamental problem that exists, because federal transportation funds have focused on making sure that driving is the easiest way for people to get around,” Madeline Brozen, assistant director of both the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, told Grist. Since the Regan administration, federal transportation funding has been allocated on a 80/20 ratio with public transportation receiving just one-fifth of funding while the rest goes to highways and private transportation. “It has huge negative health consequences in terms of environmental justice," Brozen added, "but it also has these huge health and safety consequences for drivers and pedestrians.” (Grist)

UNDERSTANDING COP26: What happened at COP26 – day four at a glance (The Guardian), a quick guide to the climate jargon you’ll hear at COP26 (Popular Science), with the leaders gone, COP26 negotiators take centre stage (Energy Monitor)

BOOKMARKABLE GOLD: The complete, searchable list of people and companies at COP26 (Quartz)

PARIS AMBITIONS AND PROGRESS: COP26 is haunted by the shadow of Copenhagen (FT, Pilita Clark column $), new promises at Glasgow climate talks (Reuters, Factbox), countries have failed to adapt for unavoidable climate damage, UN says (The Guardian), optimism from climate talks: warming projections down a bit (AP), UK’s most durable snow patch fully melts away, just hours from UN climate talks in Glasgow (Gizmodo), UN climate chief encouraged by progress at COP26, warns of ‘catastrophic’ consequences of inaction (CNBC), vulnerable nations send SOS as climate targets slip out of reach (Washington Post $), the UN says climate impacts are getting worse faster than the world is adapting (NPR), the world's top carbon emitters now all have net zero pledges. Most of them are too vague (TIME)

(INEQUITABLE) ACCESS: Pacific islanders struggle at COP26 climate summit as pandemic keeps leaders away (Thomson Reuters Foundation), whose voices are (and aren’t) being heard at COP26? (Yes! Magazine), link between equality and climate crisis overlooked, Welsh report finds (The Guardian)

FOSSIL FUEL FUNDING: US and 19 other countries agree to stop funding fossil fuel projects abroad (Gizmodo, E&E News, Washington Post $, The Hill, Axios, E&E News, Washington Post $, Bloomberg $), why banning financing for fossil fuel projects in Africa isn’t a climate solution (The Conversation), US, UK lead pledge to end overseas oil and gas financing, but with big caveats (Politico), push to end oil and gas expansion takes off at COP26 but harder on the ground (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Italy to end overseas fossil fuel funding in late u-turn (Bloomberg $)

OIL AND GAS: Oil price soars even as the world turns against fossil fuel (FT $), US, UK lead pledge to end overseas oil and gas financing, but with big caveats (Politico), push to end oil and gas expansion takes off at COP26 but harder on the ground (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

METHANE: Farmers split on Australia’s refusal to sign up to global methane pledge at COP26 (The Guardian)

CARBON MARKETS: Carbon market talks stumble at COP26 on how to use the cash (Bloomberg $)

FINANCE: Banks’ green push requires more stick than carrot (Reuters, Liam Proud op-ed), banks with $130 trillion in assets pledge to fund climate action. activists aren’t impressed (Grist), do the maths on Mark Carney’s $130tn net zero pledge stack up? (FT $), poor nations 'squeezed' as debt surges and climate adaptation cash falls short (Thomson Reuters Foundation), the race for green cash for Latin America (Axios), UN lambasts World Bank as ‘ongoing underperformer’ on climate change (FT $), with climate pledges, some Wall Street titans warn of rising prices (New York Times $), the world doesn’t spend nearly enough preparing for climate disasters, UN report says (Washington Post $)

GREEN ENERGY: Green hydrogen gets a major boost from a cross-industry coalition at COP26 (Canary Media), U.S. calls on nations to set bold targets for offshore wind (Reuters)

DEFORESTATION: COP26 forests pact frays as Indonesia calls it ‘unfair’ days after signing up (FT $), EU VP meets Brazil's Bolsonaro, welcomes pledge to end deforestation (Reuters), Indonesia says UK misrepresented its COP deforestation pledge (Bloomberg $, Reuters), how to save the Amazon: what they are saying at UN climate talks (Reuters)

TRANSPARENCY: COP26’s key task: stamping out climate cheating (Politico EU), global rule maker created for ESG disclosure standards (Utility Dive), the world's top carbon emitters now all have net zero pledges. Most of them are too vague (TIME)

LOSS & DAMAGE: COP26 will be derailed unless the rich world meets its obligation to the poor (The Guardian, Larry Elliott op-ed), Malian villagers battle advancing sands after lake dries (Reuters), the UN says climate impacts are getting worse faster than the world is adapting (NPR)

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: Indigenous languages project urges COP26 leaders to rethink ties to the land (The Guardian), COP26 event urges partnership between religious, Indigenous leaders to save planet (Washington Post $), Haaland makes COP 26 pitch (E&E News)

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: Black in focus: COP26 with professor Gregory Jenkins (Bloomberg $)

AFRICA: Africa needs renewable power for Great Green Wall to work, AfDB head says (Reuters), Africa wants $1.3 trillion annual climate finance as rich nations miss target (Bloomberg $), Malian villagers battle advancing sands after lake dries (Reuters)

SUBNATIONAL ACTION: As nations talk climate, cities say: we deliver (Reuters)

NUCLEAR (DANGEROUS NUCLEAR?): Is it green, or forever toxic? Nuclear rift at climate talks (NBC)

MISINFORMATION: Photo claiming to show ‘400 jets’ used to fly attendees to COP26 is actually from New Orleans in 2013 (KHOU), COP26 summit puts spotlight on climate misinformation online (Washington Post $)

YOUTH ACTIVISM: Young climate activists are tired of mere lip service (FT, Mya-Rose Craig op-ed $), COP26: a letter to school strikers from ‘the physicist behind net zero’ (The Conversation, Myles Allen)

GRETA: Greta Thunberg leaves carbon offsetting meeting urging attendees to 'stop greenwashing' – video (The Guardian), Greta Thunberg says climate talks are becoming a ‘greenwash campaign’ (New York Times $)

OUTSIDE THE CENTER: Climate protesters block roads outside UK Parliament (AP), COP26 protesters urge Sturgeon to act over ‘intimidating’ policing (The Guardian), Glasgow diary: Wonkery meets star power (Axios)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Ahmaud Arbery’s accused killers get nearly all-white jury (The Root, NewsOne), climate change forces Native American tribes to relocate (CBS), ensuring Indigenous rights seen as key as forest carbon investments grow (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Indigenous activists on tackling the climate crisis: 'We have done more than any government' – video (The Guardian), climate change forces Native American tribes to relocate (CBS)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: How a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty can guide a global just transition & emission cuts (Democracy Now)

DENIAL: Report: climate misinformation on Facebook viewed 1.4 million times daily (Grist), climate misinformation on Facebook ‘increasing substantially’, study says (The Guardian, The Verge), Facebook under pressure to curb climate misinformation (The Hill)

FOSSIL VOLATILITY: Gas and coal will be tightest since 2014 this winter, Duke says (Bloomberg $)

FACT CHECKS: Comparisons of glacier counts are not a reliable indicator of climate change (Reuters, fact check), Statue of Liberty photos do not prove sea level rise is a myth (Reuters, fact check)

POST-PANDEMIC EMISSIONS: ‘Business as usual’: Emissions return to pre-COVID levels (E&E News, InsideClimate News), global carbon emissions on the rise after dropping during the pandemic (CBS)

CLIMATE ANXIETY: Amid feelings of hopelessness, some turn to 'climate-aware' therapists for help (USA Today)

TICK TOCK: Earth has 11 years to cut emissions to avoid dire climate scenarios, a report says (NPR)

CLIMATE COMMUNICATIONS: Effort to reframe climate change as a health crisis gains steam (New York Times $)

STICK TO YOUR BELIEFS: Meet the climate lawyer who helped write 2015 Paris agreement & superglued herself at Shell’s UK HQ (Democracy Now)

BUT MAKE IT FASHION: Woke-washing: what is it and how does it affect the fashion industry? (Teen Vogue), for fashion brands, green is the hardest color to sell (Wall Street Journal $)

AGENCIES: Biden administration, stakeholders to host interagency event on economic equity (The Hill), Biden admin revives talks on endangered species and pesticides (E&E News), racial barriers to disaster aid are falling, FEMA says (E&E $)

EPA: EPA proposes rules that would target methane releases from existing gas sites (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette $), activists are hopeful that EPA proposed methane regulations will reduce emissions (New Mexico Political Report), New Mexico environmentalists, industry debate impact of EPA oil and gas methane rule (Carlsbad Current Argus), North Dakota Republicans blast Biden's methane proposal; Dakota Resource Council lauds plan (Bismarck Tribune)

DOI: Haaland: Reconciliation bill will pass but may 'take a little bit more time' (The Hill)

THE HILL: Democrats call on Biden to sanction climate change contributors (The Hill)

HOUSE: Pelosi tells Democrats she wants a vote on Build Back Better on Thursday and infrastructure on Friday (CNN), House Democrats hunt for votes to pass Biden’s domestic agenda (New York Times $), tax hikes total $1.5T in House reconciliation plan, analysts say (Politico Pro $), top Dem [Johnson] seeks probe of Trump EPA’s handling of Yazoo Pumps (E&E News), top Democrat [Hoyer] moves on Biden's COP26 deforestation pledge (Axios)

SENATE: Protesters demand Manchin lose Energy Committee gavel (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: Experts bemoan Biden’s mixed messages on old-growth forests (HuffPost)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Democrats update reconciliation bill as they prepare to vote (E&E News), Biden, Congress aim to fill gap from clean electricity plan's demise (Utility Dive), Yellen says investments, revenue provisions of social package to raise over $2 trln in offsets (Reuters)

POLITICS: Virginia election underscores Biden’s energy challenge (E&E News)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Senate confirms Connor to oversee Army Corps (Politico Pro $, E&E $), Senate confirms EPA general counsel nominee (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: California, again, leans on natural gas to shore up energy supplies (Reuters)

FERC: FERC's Christie calls for fixing interconnection 'chaos' as first step in transmission reform (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: ‘Sacred places burn’: living on the frontline of global heating (The Guardian), a father and son's Ice Age plot to slow Siberian thaw (Reuters), after debt crisis, Greek economy faces climate change threats (Reuters), Earth’s lakes are warming at a feverish pace, with the Great Lakes leading the way (Washington Post $), Tunisia's lagoon farmers cling on as sea level rises (Reuters), why Christmas trees may be harder to find this year (and what you can do about it) (NPR), yacht full of climate scientists plots giant sea gate to save Manhattan (Bloomberg $), climate change is acidifying and contaminating drinking water and alpine ecosystems (Scientific American), the world doesn’t spend nearly enough preparing for climate disasters, UN report says (Washington Post $)

DROUGHT: As climate talks put focus on water crisis, the Colorado River provides a stark example (LA Times $)

HURRICANES: Entergy CEO outlines path to secure $2.5B to repair damages from Hurricane Ida (Utility Dive)

GREAT BARRIER REEF: Great Barrier Reef’s future dealt blow as study finds only 2% escaped coral bleaching (The Guardian), Australia's Great Barrier Reef will survive if warming kept to 1.5 degrees (Reuters)

STRANDED ASSETS: Half world’s fossil fuel assets could become worthless by 2036 in net zero transition (The Guardian)

RENEWABLES: How schools are combatting climate change, from green schoolyards to solar power (ABC), ‘elephant in the room.’ Feds ponder new solar tariffs (E&E News), Build Back Better, FERC actions on infrastructure could  trigger 'monumental' renewable energy deployments (Utility Dive), floating wind farms are about to transform the oceans (The Atlantic), groups join to support New Jersey offshore wind power (AP), NextEra eyes offshore New Jersey wind-power transmission lines (Bloomberg $), report highlights key challenge for Calif. renewables program (E&E $), he U.S. invented solar but makes few panels. Sen. Jon Ossoff wants to change that. (HuffPost)

BATTERIES: Texas: Broad Reach Power brings 200MW of battery storage plants online (Energy Storage News)

LNG: Natural gas powerhouse Venture Global signs largest-ever supply deal by an American company (CNBC)

METHANE: It’s time to freak out about methane emissions (Vox)

OIL & GAS: The dark secrets behind big oil’s climate pledges (The Guardian), world urged to slash gas use by a third to avoid climate disaster (The Guardian), Exxon warns investors of climate risk to its oil and gas assets (Houston Chronicle), OPEC+ rebuffs Biden's demands to speed up oil production (Axios, CNBC), shale king Hamm enters Permian Basin with Pioneer deal (Bloomberg $), Southwestern Energy extends gas-buying spree with $1.85 billion deal (Yahoo)

COAL (COUNTRY): The cost of coal in South Africa: dirty skies, sick kids (Reuters), new funding for developing nations' coal exit needs better planning for workers (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

HYDROGEN: DOE, Exelon eye nuclear-to-hydrogen plant (E&E $), Industrial companies boost target for green hydrogen in climate fight (Reuters)

UTILITIES: PG&E to spend $125M for igniting massive California fire (AP)

GRID: Battle in Maine woods reflects challenge for US clean power ambitions (Reuters)

EVs: A tale of two automakers (Axios), 'all hands on deck': EVs have a charging problem (E&E $), electric vehicle adoption poised to surge, say experts, if Congress OKs $100B in purchase incentives (Utility Dive), rental vehicle stocks pop after turn to electric vehicles (Axios), why the electric car era is a threat to Uber and Lyft (Axios)

FASTER: How fast do we need to cut carbon emissions? (The Guardian)

NEW TECH: How should we account for emerging technologies in the push for net-zero? (InsideClimate News)

AGRICULTURE: Ammonia from farms behind 60% of UK particulate air pollution – study (The Guardian), it’s not weird, it’s nuts: Farmers graze cows in groves of trees (E&E News), scientists develop heat-tolerant pumpkins to withstand climate change — and ‘save a particular way of American life’ (CBS), while other sectors experience strikes, farm workers are still fighting for basic human rights (The Real News)

BOOKS: New book delves into 300 years that changed humanity … and the planet (Yale Climate Connections)

BUSINESS: Climate promises by businesses face new scrutiny (Wall Street Journal $)

CARBON REMOVAL: Exxon would like you to invest in its $100-billion carbon capture scheme (Gizmodo)

FILM: Burning review – the searing black summer documentary that Australia deserves (The Guardian)

CONCRETE: Are concrete makers moving fast enough to switch to lower-carbon products? (Canary Media)

RICH GUYS: Bill Gates: some oil giants won't make it (Axios)

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT: Young climate activists warn their elders: Stop destroying the planet (LA Times $)

INTERNATIONAL: Guyana, facing an existential threat from climate change, welcomes the oil industry (NPR)

• Big Oil misleads Congress about its role in the climate crisis (Boston Globe, Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes op-ed $)
• The end of hurricane season is not the end of climate disaster season (The Hill, Alice Liu op-ed)
• 3,000 miles from Glasgow, a town and its polar bears face the future (New York Times, Binyamin Appelbaum op-ed $)
• Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed on climate risk & surviving assassination attempt (Democracy Now, interview)
• As warming and drought increase, a new case for ending big dams (Yale Environment 360, Jacques Leslie op-ed)
• The White House’s new climate strategy: let businesses solve it (New Republic, Kate Aronoff column)
• Ten humanitarian takes on the climate crisis (The New Humanitarian)
• At this late hour, will the US deliver on climate action? (Seattle Times, KC Golden op-ed)
• The grim stakes of climate crisis for my generation are undeniable (The Guardian, Maya Ozbayoglu op-ed)
• It is climate inaction that will lead to people living more difficult lives (Austin-American Statesman, Michael Mann op-ed)
• Extreme weather is a climate change inevitability; our responses shouldn't worsen the problem (The Hill, Michael Panfil and Romany Webb op-ed)
• Climate depression is real. And it is spreading fast among our youth (The Guardian, Peter Kalmus op-ed)
• We can beat climate change if we do one thing fast (TIME, Saul Griffith op-ed)
• Apple must embrace this word in tackling climate change (Bloomberg, Tim Culpan op-ed $)

Facebook Drives A Million Views Of Climate Disinformation A Day

Facebook’s response to the frequent and well-deserved criticism that it’s a cesspool of climate disinformation (among other degradations) has been to point to its supposed deference to fact checkers,and rating the posts they assess, and its Climate Science Center, a page of accurate information that it touts is getting a hundred thousand views a day. 

While all that may sound impressive, and is quite nice and better than nothing, it unfortunately is rendered irrelevant by the fact that more than ten times as many people are exposed to climate disinformation on Facebook, every single day. 

A new report from StopFundingHeat tracked 48,700 Facebook posts from nearly 200 accounts between January and August of 2021, and found that on any given day, climate disinformation gets somewhere between 818,000 and 1.36 million views. That's over 13 times more than Facebook directs to its climate science information center. 

And the fact checking? Only 3.6% of the tracked posts were fact checked, so even by Facebook’s own standards, which deflect the burden of responsibility for protecting its users onto journalists, it’s failing.  

Going deeper, the report looked at some pages and groups that were focused entirely on climate disinformation, and found that they’re growing, with the average interaction per post increasing by 76.7%. And the content from these single-issue pages rack up between 119,000 and 197,000 views a day. Facebook wants you to think its climate science center is fixing its climate denial problems, but scrappy shitposters are driving more traffic. (Sounds like Facebook's trademark attorneys aren't the only ones who need to up their game.)

But the real problem, in terms of views, are the rightwing media and political pages. Posts from outlets like Fox News and Breitbart accounted for only 4% of the total of the content tracked, but that subset of accounts drove an outsized 67% of the estimated total interactions with climate denial content. 

This content, from “news and media personalities,” is likely exempted from fact checking by Facebook’s many loopholes, as only 1.4% of this content was labeled. And politicians? Never fact checked at all. 

But hey, maybe you think that this is fine, and Facebook should be able to enjoy a reputation as a climate champ based on their many grand pronouncements. After all, it’s not like they’re profiting off of pollution or disinformation, right? 

Wrong! 

The report documents how Facebook got paid to run over a hundred climate misinformation advertisements between January 1 and October 17, 2021, driving 11.7 to 14.1 million views to content with messages like “climate change is a hoax.” 

A handful of accounts pay Facebook to deceive users, as 56 of the 113 ads and 78% of the ad revenue came from just 7 accounts, which an August report from InfluenceMap alerted Facebook to. The biggest spender, by far? PragerU, which made up 70% of the ad spend and 61% of the estimated climate denial views. 

“The majority of the problem is fixable in a few hours,” the report says, “but it remains ignored by Facebook.” 

That’s why they’re launching a petition calling on the company to publicly define what it considers to be deceptive climate misinformation, to be transparent about the research it’s done internally on the problem, and then to make a plan to actually address the fact that people are using Facebook to mislead the public about a problem that imperils the entire planet. 

And, of course, “bring in a total ban on climate misinformation in paid advertising on your platform.” 

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