ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: ‘Not actually investigating the crimes’: ex-FBI agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups says Bureau is not doing nearly enough to address the threat (Atlanta Black Star), ‘Perverse’ Supreme Court ruling ‘effectively ensures that innocent people will remain imprisoned’ (The Real News), ‘This is the most racist sh** I’ve seen this year’: Louisiana Senator says his state’s maternal deaths would not be high if Black moms weren’t counted (Atlanta Black Star), Biden to sign executive order on police reform on Floyd anniversary (The Grio), In Sierra Leone, local fishers and foreign trawlers battle for their catch (Mongabay),
- ELDER CARE: Bob Dean, notorious nursing home owner, is banned from receiving federal health care money (NOLA.com), Nursing home owner loses US funding after Ida evacuations (AP)
- FREE MARKETPLACE OF BAD IDEAS: Twitter drags Walmart for selling Juneteenth ice cream (The Grio), Walmart pulls controversial Juneteenth ice cream after online backlash (The Root)
FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Europe accepts Putin’s demands on gas payments to avoid more shut-offs (Washington Post $), How Europe’s push to cut off Russian gas is impacting steel markets (OilPrice), Hungary's Orban says EU summit should not discuss oil sanctions next week (Reuters), Saudi Arabia still sees Russia as an integral part of OPEC+ (OilPrice), Spain paints itself as the answer to Europe’s Russian energy problem (CNBC), US climate envoy Kerry says Ukraine war no excuse to let up on climate fight (Reuters)
- GERMANY: Germany expects oil embargo decision this week (OilPrice), Germany plans to put idled coal plants on standby in case of gas supply disruption (Reuters, OilPrice), Germany plans to keep coal-fired plants ready in case Russian gas is cut. (New York Times $)
- PROPAGANDA: Big Fossil’s Disaster Capitalist Response to Russia-Ukraine (Intercept) [See the Denier Roundup below for more — Ed.]
COP27: Egypt promises to allow protest, push pledges as COP27 host (AP)
CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Island states back Vanuatu’s quest for climate justice at the UN (Climate Home), Global energy and funding shocks test climate commitments (Reuters)
DENIAL: A feud over fossil fuel money (New York Times $)
FOSSIL VOLATILITY: Petrobras warns diesel shortage is looming over Brazil (OilPrice), When the windfall blows (FT $), Natural gas futures volatile ahead of prompt month expiry, but finish up near $9.00 (Natural Gas Intel)
MIAMI?: HSBC’s suspended banker taken to task by key architect of ESG (Bloomberg $)
DAVOS: At Davos, Kerry cites progress on China-US climate group (AP), Corporations pledge to buy ‘green’ at Davos gathering (New York Times $)
AGENCIES: SEC prepares to crack down on misleading ESG investment claims (FT $)
EXECUTIVE BRANCH: In a faceoff with Elon Musk, the SEC blinked (Reuters)
WHITE HOUSE: Biden calls energy crisis "incredible transition" (OilPrice), Energy crisis makes green transition an ‘unprecedented challenge’ (Bloomberg $), Seven White House climate staffers to watch (Washington Post $)
NAVY: US Navy climate plan calls to curb emissions, electrify vehicle fleet (CNBC)
TRIBES: Coordinated response needed to respond to climate change effects on tribes (Indian Country Today)
CITIES AND STATES: Central Florida ‘ghost’ candidate, other figures tied to scandal charged (Orlando Sentinel), Hochul: Cryptocurrency mining moratorium a 'balancing act' (Politico Pro $), Texans to the polls (Atmos)
- CALIFORNIA: California solar, storage projects hit hard by Department of Commerce investigation, supply chain issues (Utility Dive), California is edging dangerously close to statewide water restrictions (Gizmodo)
IMPACTS: Homeless bear the brunt of climate change’s wrath (NewsBreak Denver), A sea turtle neared extinction. A trove of eggs shows it can be saved. (Washington Post $)
HEAT: Climate change fuels heat wave in India and Pakistan, scientists find (New York Times $), Climate change made record heat in India, Pakistan 30 times more likely (Bloomberg $)
DROUGHT: Los Alamos team models drought, climate change on the Colorado River (New Mexico Political Report), Previously sunken boats are emerging at Lake Mead as water disappears (CNN), SoCal needs to keep vital trees alive despite unprecedented watering restrictions (LA Times $), Lake Mead drops below key threshold, threatening more water cuts for Southwest (CNN), How cities in the West have water amid drought (AP, explainer),
WILDFIRES: New research shows farm workers in North Bay work in unsafe wildfire conditions (KQED), Cold weather slows spread of big wildfires in New Mexico (AP), Heightened wildfire threat prompts stricter restrictions (AP), Northern California interior to see high fire danger, heat (AP), With climate change fueling wildfires, changes are needed to prevent worse scenarios (New Mexico Political Report)
WATER: As US flooding worsens, South Carolina redraws risk maps (Thomson Reuters Foundation), The US has spent more than $2 billion on a plan to save salmon. The fish are vanishing anyway. (ProPublica), San Diego pays a lot for abundant water. Tijuana pays a different price for water scarcity. (Voice of San Diego)
HOPE: New study offers a glimmer of hope for climate solutions success (Yale Climate Connections)
RENEWABLES: America has a solar red-tape nightmare. Here’s how to fix it (Bloomberg $), Arcadia buys Urjanet to tap its global and commercial energy data (Canary Media), Going solar? Here's what you need to know. (New York Times $, New York Times $), Report: Growth in clean power sector slows as project delays mount (Politico Pro $)
BATTERIES: Battery startup eschews costly metals for thermodynamic storage (Bloomberg $), Industry heavyweights unite in US battery push (Axios)
METHANE: Gas wells leak explosive levels of methane in Bakersfield (AP)
OIL & GAS: Do not work for ‘climate wreckers’, UN head tells graduates (The Guardian, AP), "We will stop you!": Singing climate protesters disrupt Shell shareholder meeting (CNN), Burning gas to produce electricity is ‘stupid,’ the CEO of power giant Enel says (CNBC, OilPrice), Shell suffers drop in investor support for climate strategy (FT $)
PLASTICS: Environmentalists meet in South Africa to stem plastic waste (AP), Net-zero plastic is possible by 2050 with massive investment (Bloomberg $), Plastics industry, facing crackdown, targets Democrats with mailers deemed deceptive (LA Times $), Some elephants are getting too much plastic in their diets (New York Times $)
PIPELINES: Campaigners disrupt East African pipeline plan (Africa Confidential), Natural gas pipeline from the Permian Basin to Katy is a step closer to becoming reality (Houston Chronicle)
COAL: China coal expansions threaten higher methane levels worldwide (Bloomberg $), Coal India to open big, new mine this year to fight power crisis (Reuters), India tells utilities to expect less domestic coal in June (Reuters)
UTILITIES: Duke Energy, North Carolina solar installers reach agreement on net metering case (Utility Dive), New York utilities fear ‘potentially unlimited’ obligation under proposed refund rules for prolonged outages (Utility Dive),
GRID: Xcel Energy time-of-use rate pilot shows only slight impact on peak demand (Energy News Network)
EVs: Electric vehicles are in short supply. Here’s what you can find as gas prices soar (CNBC), EV sales boom despite supply chain constraints (E&E $), Stellantis and Samsung to spend $2.5 billion on an electric vehicle battery plant in Indiana. (New York Times $, FT $)
ACTIVISM: Can K-pop fans save the planet? (Atmos), Climate worries galvanize a new pro-nuclear movement in the US (Washington Post $), Three arrested at Shell AGM as protesters chant ‘We will stop you’ (The Guardian)
AVIATION: Climate group sues Dutch airline KLM over ‘greenwashing’ adverts (The Guardian), Qantas says synthetic fuel could power long flights by mid-2030s (Inside Climate News)
AGRICULTURE: Billionaire Steyer backs climate tech firm Regrow Ag (Reuters), Kim Kardashian to promote Beyond Meat as new ‘chief taste consultant’ (Bloomberg $)
ARCHITECTURE: Meet the first class of Harvard Climate Justice Design Fellows (Architect.com)
CARBON REMOVAL: Carbon dioxide removal has a new club (Protocol), Direct air capture coalition launches (Axios)
FINANCE: Think climate action is expensive? Inaction could cost $178 trillion. (Grist),, Maybe there’s no such thing as an ESG stock (Bloomberg $), Namibia sees green bonds as way to fund hydrogen export buildout (Bloomberg $), Sierra Club warns BlackRock it may pull $12 mln over climate stance -letter (Reuters), Signs of change at ExxonMobil a year after hedge fund proxy fight (FT $)
IN MEMORIAM: Donald Ross, leader of public advocacy groups, dies at 78 (Washington Post $)
WILDLIFE: Iconic Hawaiian bird faces possible extinction (Yale Climate Connections), To kill or not to kill: Butterflying during the “insect apocalypse” (Vox)
INTERNATIONAL: Climate change and food mark Africa Day in Rwanda (Prensa Latina), Brazil's Bolsonaro may backtrack, boost environmental fines to protect Amazon (Reuters), India's Andhra state in $16 billion pacts involving Adani, GIC-backed Greenko -officials (Reuters),
- UK: Limits on renewables ‘will keep UK energy bills higher this winter’ (The Guardian), UK energy bill cap expected to rise to around £2,800 — regulator (CNBC), UK banks face up to £225bn in climate-related credit losses, stress test finds (FT $), Bank of England tells banks to take climate action now or face profit hit (Reuters, Bloomberg $), UK finance ‘faces £340bn in losses’ without action on climate change (The Guardian), UK keeps longterm renewables focus as Africa seeks gas funding (Bloomberg $)
|
Ad'ing Insult to Injury: Big Oil Ran 761 Ads Exploiting Russian Invasion Of Ukraine To Push Agenda
Today InfluenceMap released its latest report, looking at how the fossil fuel industry has exploited the Russian invasion of Ukraine to "advocate for long-standing policy asks relating to the continued expansion of oil and gas. This has happened across social media, traditional media, public presentations, investor calls, and direct interactions with America’s policymakers."
While obviously the industry is always voicing its opinion, InfluenceMap program manager Faye Holder said in a statement that, "what's changed in recent months is the intensity of that message. The sector has quickly mobilized around the war in Ukraine and high gas prices to promote the need for more ‘American-made energy’, often relying on potentially misleading or questionable claims.”
Specifically, the false narrative that high oil and gas prices are due to Biden thinking scary thoughts about climate policy, and therefore we should de-regulate the industry.
“It took the industry no time at all to twist the dangerous situation in Ukraine into a financial boon for oil and gas executives and their shareholders," Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said in a press release, "deploying misinformation to capitalize on an international crisis is straight out of the fossil fuel industry’s well-worn, nasty playbook.”
On Facebook, the American Petroleum Institute ran "761 individual ads between January 26th and April 1st, which have been seen over 23 million times." And they're not even doing it in their own name, instead for the most part "these ads have been run through its auxiliary group, Energy Citizens," the report explains, and "while the Energy Citizen’s name and output are designed to look like a grassroots organization that directly represents citizens, it is controlled by the API and can therefore be understood as an ‘astroturf’ group."
So an ad policy at Facebook that prohibits front groups from placing ads could be valuable, but of course that would prohibit Facebook from using front groups to place ads, so we're not holding our breath for any Meta policy changes.
And of course API's not alone, with the National Association of Manufacturers getting nearly a half million impressions for its $6,999 ad spend blaming Washington for its members profits, the Consumer Energy Alliance netting 100,000 views for its Line 5 pipeline promotion, and the Western States Petroleum Association's ads directing people to Fox Business story on how US oil and gas is the solution to oil and gas prices, and an interview with WSPA's CEO attacking climate policies.
When it comes to the actual policy, lawmakers and regulators are probably not persuaded by social media posts, which is why Big Oil's also lobbying through traditional channels like CEO statements and direct appeals to lawmakers. The industry engaged in a full-scale messaging push, with pre-war messaging laying the groundwork on blogs and the like, CEOs making a big push at CERAWeek in early March, sending letters to lawmakers and filing lawsuits. And it's the latter two where they've found the most immediate success, InfluenceMap found.
API also sent a letter to the US Department of Energy asking for approval of liquid natural gas applications, two of which were granted just weeks later.
And the American Gas Association "sent a letter to Joe Manchin and John Barrasso of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee opposing FERC's proposed policy to consider the impacts of new fossil fuel pipelines on the climate and local communities." In a later hearing he convened on the FERC policy, "Senator Joe Manchin used many of the same arguments" and ultimately "the FERC policy was rolled back."
Similarly, the American Gas Association "reportedly filed a legal challenge to FERC climate plan, which would have considered the impacts of new gas projects to climate and the local community in the approval process," and not long later "it was announced FERC had scaled back its plans to consider climate change and environmental justice."
"As InfluenceMap's analysis reveals," Clean Creatives founder Christine Arena said, "the kind of climate disinformation proliferating since the invasion of Ukraine is more misleading, widespread, and dangerous" than traditional climate denial, and this version is happening "with direct participation from industry CEOs and a nearer-term impact on public policy.”
Ukrainians are dying, Russia's making nuclear threats, and consumers are straining under the crush of energy prices, but hey, at least the 20 biggest of Big Oil companies made $30 billion in profits! |
|