FIRST LOOK:

Second Russian Invasion Of Ukraine In 8 Years Too Much For Oil Majors To Bear: While the oil and gas industry in the US was working to exploit Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its gas-enabled leverage over large swaths of Europe, oil majors were scrambling to disentangle themselves from the Russian oil industry. None of the companies, in their statements, explained why Russia's current invasion of Ukraine made them unable to continue working with the Russian state-owned and -connected now, as contrasted to other Russian actions including its of Ukraine in 2014. On Sunday, BP announced it was dropping its 20% stake in Rosneft, Russia’s national oil and gas company, and Shell and Equinor made similar announcements Monday. Shell has around $3 billion invested in various Gazprom partnerships and is also involved in Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which it also said it would end. Norwegian national energy company Equinor holds about $1.21 billion in Rosneft investments. (Gizmodo, Reuters, The Hill, New York Times $, Politico Pro $, Reuters; Shell: Axios, Bloomberg $, Reuters, Bloomberg $; Equinor: Reuters)

Nigerian Floating Community's Experience Illustrates IPCC Report: The alarming conclusions of yesterday's IPCC report are neither abstract nor distant concerns for the residents of Makoko, a flood-prone shanty-town in the coastal lagoon of Lagos, Nigeria, Reuters reports. The community — poor, informal, and built in a low-lying coastal area — is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change-driven sea-level rise and extreme storms. Lagos, currently well under half the population of Tokyo, is set to be the world's largest city by the end of the century and more than one-third of its territory is vulnerable to flooding. Nigeria has emitted a negligible amount of the world's historic climate pollution, but the residents of Makoko are suffering the consequences of the developed world's behavior. In 2016, heavy rains destroyed Makoko's floating school specifically built to adjust to fluctuating water levels and rising sea levels are hurting fish harvests. (Makoko: Reuters; Coastal cities: Thomson Reuters Foundation; Climate Signals background: Sea level rise, Extreme precipitation increase)

US Sought To Strike Loss And Damage, Adaptation Finance From IPCC SPM: Developed nations, including the U.S., pushed to remove key phrases and figures relating to adaptation finance, nature-based solutions and solar geoengineering from the Summary For Policymakers of yesterday's blockbuster IPCC report, Climate Home reports. The U.S. led a bloc including Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Norway in pushing to replace the phrase "losses and damages" with "adverse impacts." In the context of international climate negotiations, "loss and damage" refers to a provision of the Paris Agreement in which signatories agreed to aid those hurt by climate impacts. Wealthy countries have fought hard against specific financing for those losses and refuse to accept any liability for their causation of climate change. The U.S., unsuccessfully in the face of opposition from developing nations led by India, also sought to replace "finance for adaptation" with "investment," and pushed for more focus on private funding. “The Biden administration is not only shutting their eyes to the reality of the climate crisis – they’re trying to blindfold the rest of the world too,” said Teresa Anderson, climate policy coordinator at ActionAid International. “They appear to wear a badge of climate leadership, while doing all they can to block those most in need from getting help. It’s dishonest and utterly shameful.” (Climate Home)

WAR IN EUROPE: The link between Putin and climate change (Politico Pro $), Climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: a nexus? (Yale Climate Connections), EU to urgently link electricity grid with Ukraine's (Reuters), Decades after Chernobyl, war raises nuclear fears in Ukraine (Washington Post $), Putin's war may herald a new energy era (Axios)

• GAS (IN)DEPENDENCE: How US-made heat pumps could help weaken Russian power over Europe (Electrek), EU could survive without Russian gas next winter, study says (Bloomberg $), Nord Stream 2 investor OMV to hold crisis team meeting on Monday (Reuters)
• RUSSIA: Key Russian sovereign and corporate bond payment deadlines in coming days (Reuters factbox)
• GERMANY: Germany aims to get 100% of energy from renewable sources by 2035 (Reuters, Bloomberg $, Reuters)
• Germany backs new LNG plants to cut Russian gas dependence (Bloomberg $), Could Germany keep its nuclear plants running? (Reuters, explainer)
• ITALY: Joining sanctions on Russia, Italy risks more than most (New York Times $), Italy to get more gas from Algeria, foreign minister says (Reuters)
• US IMPACTS: Vulnerable US electric grid facing threats from Russia and domestic terrorists (CBS, CBS)
• WHITE SUPREMACY: Ukraine: African migrants say they’re facing discrimination while trying to flee war zone (The Grio), ‘Not allowing any Black people’: videos show Africans stranded in Ukraine, blocked from getting on transportation while some were forced to walk hours to the border in the cold (Atlanta Black Star), 'You're on your own': African students stuck in Ukraine seek refuge or escape route (Reuters), #AfricansinUkraine reportedly face racism and obstacles trying to flee war (The Root), African students struggling to flee Ukraine spotlights racial bias amid growing refugee crisis (NewsOne)

ATLAS OF HUMAN SUFFERING: New un climate report is shockingly grim (Gizmodo, Inside Climate News, E&E News, Democracy Now, FT $, Yale Climate Connections, NBC, ABC, Democracy Now, Yale Environment 360, Grist, CBS), The IPCC to humanity: We can’t wait for carbon dioxide removal to save us (Protocol), World poverty to rise as climate change hits food supplies-UN panel (Reuters), IPCC report: the climate crisis requires solutions that do it all (Atmos, NPR, Reuters), What is the IPCC climate change report – and what does it say? (The Guardian, New York Times $, The Guardian), How climate change will impact the world's regions differently (Reuters, Factbox, The Guardian), IPCC scientists warn climate change losses becoming 'difficult to avoid' (Thomson Reuters Foundation), ‘Every second counts’: Global reactions to UN climate report (AP), Business world gets fresh prod to prepare for physical climate risk (Reuters, Bloomberg $), ‘Crisis’: Climate panel flags Great Barrier Reef devastation (AP)

VERY LEGAL AND VERY COOL: Ohio judge helped write a bailout that led to arrests; now he’s blocking outside probes (Ohio Capital Journal)

(ANOTHER) ATMOSPHERIC RIVER: Atmospheric river slamming pacific northwest; floods, 'very large' avalanches possible (USA Today, Washington Post $)

SOTU: Biden State of the Union to cast climate bill as anti-inflation (Bloomberg $), Big to-do list as Congress girds for State of the Union (E&E News), In State of the Union, Biden plans to tout his climate agenda despite challenges in congress and the courts (Washington Post $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: German envoy to raise energy security, climate on US visit (AP)

PLASTICS: ‘Failure’ or solution? EPA weighs plastics recycling plan (E&E News), Biden could score a climate victory in a single word: plastics (Inside Climate News)

ELECTRIFICATION: Ithaca, New York, aims to phase out residential appliances that burn fossil fuels (Yale Climate Connections)

SCOTUS: Ketanji Brown Jackson could affect fight over climate metric (E&E News), The jury’s out on Jackson’s climate views (E&E News), Supreme Court pick Jackson to begin making Hill rounds (E&E News)

• WEST VIRGINIA v. EPA: ‘It’s bigger than EPA’: Greens rally at Supreme Court (E&E News), Justices wrestle with EPA power to curb carbon emissions (AP), Supreme Court conservatives seem skeptical of EPA’s authority for broad emissions regulation (Washington Post $, E&E News, The Guardian, HuffPost, Inside Climate News, New York Times $, Politico, Reuters, The Hill)

AGENCIES: NOAA senior adviser gets waiver from Biden's ethics pledge (E&E $)

EPA: Texas lawsuit says EPA vehicle rule will hurt oil, gas industry (Politico Pro $)

DOE: Natural gas industry sues DOE over efficiency rule (Politico Pro $)

DOI: Biden administration won’t appeal judge’s ruling revoking Gulf of Mexico drilling leases (Washington Post $)

WHITE HOUSE: White House ditching ‘Build Back Better’ brand: 'it's not about the name of the bill' (HuffPost)

SENATE: Committee to question FERC members on natural gas projects (E&E $)

ELECTIONS: Midterm primary season begins with Texas showdown (E&E News), [Friends of the Earth Action] endorses 14 House Democrats (E&E $), Women have been sounding the alarm ahead of Texas’ first-in-the-nation primary (The 19th* News)

CITIES AND STATES: Mass. revives gas ban battle with Boston-area ‘smackdown’ (E&E News), War in Ukraine bolsters case for climate action in Maryland, environmental groups say (DCist)

IMPACTS: Catastrophic floods pile pressure on Australian government (FT $), After deadly floods, Malaysia king urges protection of forests (Bloomberg $), 

WILDFIRES: Smoke from [2019-2020 Australian] bushfires depleted ozone layer, study finds (The Guardian)

DEFORESTATION: Deforestation emissions far higher than previously thought, study finds (The Guardian)

SCIENTISTS: These climate scientists are fed up and ready to go on strike (New York Times $)

RENEWABLES: $4.4B wind auction broke records. Here's why it matters (E&E $, Reuters), Aurora solar gets $4 billion valuation on backing led by coatue (Bloomberg $), Cheap South African solar projects face cost challenge to close (Bloomberg $), France's TotalEnergies wins 3 GW offshore wind deal on New Jersey coast (Reuters), Manila electric eyes wind, nuclear to boost coal-free push (Bloomberg $), Shell's Australia unit to buy 49% stake in local wind farm developer (Reuters), Solar panels: a ray of hope as UK energy prices go through the roof (The Guardian)

BATTERIES: Chinese company removed as operator of cobalt mine in Congo (New York Times $)

BUILDING BLOCKS: Startup raises $65 million to 'grow' cement (Axios)

OIL & GAS: Energy transition set to shrug off oil price surge (Energy Monitor), Chevron to buy biofuel company for $3.15 billion (Wall Street Journal $, Reuters, Bloomberg $, Reuters), The workers searching for gas in the icy Russian Arctic – a photo essay (The Guardian)

COAL: Colombia Cerrejon's coal output soars 89% in 2021 to 23.4 mln T (Reuters)

HYDROGEN: 'Not the new oil.' Report maps barriers for clean hydrogen (E&E $)

UTILITIES: Texas regulators direct utilities to file emergency operations plans (Utility Dive)

AVIATION: Etihad chief warns climate change costs could hit airlines harder than pandemic (FT $)

BUSINESS: ‘Greenwashing’ warnings accelerate drive for business sustainability standards (FT $)

CARBON CAPTURE: Exxon finalizes plans for Wyo. CCS expansion (E&E $)

FINANCE: HSBC, BlackRock shed light on hidden role of financed emissions (Bloomberg $)

INTERNATIONAL: Egypt plans sukuk to finance government investment projects (Reuters), Tax energy firms' windfall profits to raise green cash, EU to tell countries - sources (Reuters)

• Heat pumps for peace and freedom (The Crucial Years, Bill McKibben column)
• The IPCC climate report is grim – but there is still room for hope (The Guardian, Alice Bell op-ed)
• Making corporate net-zero rhetoric real in 2022 (Utility Dive, Chris Deri and Sasha Mackler op-ed)
• BP abandoning Russia shows disruption to commodities will be profound (Reuters, Clyde Russell column)
• IPCC finds climate impacts are in our backyards — time for Congress to act (The Hill, Dan Lashof op-ed)
• The Guardian view on the IPCC report: inaction has cost the world dearly (The Guardian, Editorial Board)
• New Mexico wants it ‘both ways,’ insisting on environmental regulations while benefiting from oil and gas (Inside Climate News, Isabel Koyama, Sarah Suwalsky, Jimmy Cloutier and Zach Van Arsdale op-ed)
• A shift to clean energy would halt Russia's petro-thuggery and more (The Hill, Jonathan Overpeck op-ed)
• The rightwing US supreme court has climate protection in its sights (The Guardian, Laurence Tribe and Jeremy Lewin op-ed)
• As extreme weather ravages the Pacific, there is much to do and no time to waste (The Guardian, Mark Howden and Ofa Ma’asi-Kaisamy op-ed)
• Southwest Gas is putting profits over people (Nevada Independent, Mary House and Elspeth DiMarzio op-ed)
• The Supreme Court case that could limit the EPA’s power to fight climate change (Boston Globe, Naomi Oreskes op-ed $)
• Why are Republicans fighting to pollute the air we breathe? (The Hill, Rep. Kathy Castor op-ed)
• Fully reckoning with the legacy of American slavery requires more than removing Confederate monuments (Prism Reports, Trevor Smith op-ed)
• We asked a New York solicitor about the SCOTUS climate case (E&E, Steven Wu interview $)

Biden White House, IPCC Report Acknowledges Misinfo Menace Behind The Climate Crisis

Climate misinformation is having a moment! With an ample selection of news stories deserving attention, you might have to look pretty closely to notice. But hey, that’s what we’re here for, right? 

Because tucked into the latest IPCC report are a few key mentions of climate misinformation. Flipping through to page 2,515, Section 14.3 covers the “perception of climate change hazards, risks and adaptation in North America,” describing how the “consensus that mean global temperature has increased and human activity is a major cause” is “the context for public policy action.” 

But “despite expert scientific consensus,” there is still “ongoing debate… in the public and policy domains,” because “rhetoric and misinformation on climate change and the deliberate undermining of science have contributed to misperceptions of the scientific consensus.” 

And though the report doesn’t use the word “disinformation,” it does address it, describing how “vested economic and political interests have organized and financed misinformation and ‘contrarian’ climate change communication.” (If the misinformation is deliberately “organized and financed” by “vested economic and political interests,” then it’s not false content innocently and unknowingly shared as misinfo, it’s intentionally deceptive disinformation!) 

As Geoffrey Supran told press, “these two paragraphs in the latest IPCC report are significant because they are the first-of-their-kind, finally throwing the weight of the global scientific community behind the mountain of social science scholarship on climate obstructionism.” 

In past reports, “the history of climate disinformation, lobbying, and propaganda by fossil fuel interests has been consistently ignored,” Supran explained. 

That’s why the WGII report, meant to summarize the latest climate science, dips back all the way to the mid-00’s when referencing studies about, the report states, how “the journalistic norm of ‘balance’ (giving equal weight to climate scientists and contrarians in climate change reporting) biases coverage by unevenly amplifying certain messages that are not supported by science, contributing to politicization of science, spreading misinformation, and reducing public consensus on action.” 

These days the problem is more social media than legitimate outlets, and more up-to-date studies reflect that, the report finds: “Much online social media discussion of climate change … takes place in ‘echo chambers’’ – a social network amongst like-minded people in communities dominated by a single view that contributes to polarization (Williams et al., 2015; Pearce et al., 2019), and the spread of misinformation (Treen et al., 2020).” 

The IPCC report's inclusion of misinformation is important, Supran said, “because the IPCC reports are the most visible climate reports in the world. They frame the climate problem, its significance, and its solutions for the public and policymakers worldwide.” 

And indeed, as international negotiators and scientists were in the home stretch of finalizing the Summary for Policymakers for the report (which didn’t happen to fit misinformation into its 36 page summary of the 3,675 page full report) some policymakers in the White House were getting a misinformation briefing of their own. 

According to an official press release, the “2-hour virtual roundtable” brought together “White House leaders and 17 scientists and communications experts” in order “to discuss the scientific understanding of why arguments for delaying action on climate change are appealing and how they can be countered effectively.” 

Among the participants was Naomi Oreskes, whose studies the IPCC referenced. According to the readout, she noted that extreme weather “made worse by climate change” is making it harder and harder to deny the reality of the climate crisis. “People may say ‘let’s wait and see.’ The truth is, we have waited, and we have seen.” 

To put it in decidedly less White House-appropriate terms, thanks to Big Oil’s disinformation, we’ve spent decades fucking around. And now, the latest IPCC report makes clear, we’re finding out.

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