FIRST LOOK: 

The Boston Globe will host a Twitter space with climate reporter Sabrina Shankman, who will moderate a conversation with the researchers behind the recent study finding toxic pollutants in gas stoves. Tune in tomorrow at 10:00 am ET!

JOURNALISTS: 

Still in need of some expert sources to help parse the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA? We’re here to help! Contact Climate Nexus for more info. (And we promise we won't tell your editor.)

Trans People In Bangladesh Even More Vulnerable After Flooding: The devastating floods that submerged large swaths of Bangladesh over the past month have exacerbated vulnerabilities of trans people there, compounding existing stigma and social prejudice, Thomson Reuters reports. Despite legally recognizing "hijra," a word denoting people in "hijrat" or migration, as a gender identity in 2014, trans and intersex people in Bangladesh are, in practice, generally excluded from education, employment, and other legal protections. This, combined with the resulting financial hardship, make trans people especially vulnerable. The same is also true in the United States. "Transgender people cannot easily get access to the emergency shelters. They may get beaten and thrown out," Mahfuza Mala, a climate expert and gender justice activist who works for the Bangladesh-based feminist organization Naripokkho, told Thomson Reuters. Sex workers, and trans sex workers specifically, were among the most affected by Cyclone Amphan in 2020, according to a UN analysis. (Thomson Reuters Foundation; Climate Signals background: Extreme precipitation increase)

Methane Pollution Increases Globally, In US Fracking Regions: Methane pollution is increasing dramatically, globally and in major U.S. fracking regions, despite a U.S.-led initiative to cut down on emissions of the potent heat-trapping gas, a new report from Kayrros says. Methane traps more than 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a 20 year period. The data, collected by satellite, show methane emissions in the Permian Basin in the first quarter of 2022 were 47% higher than in Q1 of 2021 — an increase greater than oil and gas extraction in the region — with methane pollution from Appalachian shale regions telling a "similar story." A substantial part of the increased pollution comes from privately-owned operations under no obligation to report their methane emissions. Last fall, the U.S. was at the forefront of a global, voluntary, pledge to reduce methane pollution by 30% by 2030. (Washington Post $, E&E $, Axios)

BP, WRI Carbon Offset Scheme Paid Rural Mexican Farmers Extremely Low Prices For Carbon Offsets: BP is paying subsistence farmers across Mexico pennies on the dollar for carbon offsets in a scheme facilitated by the World Resources Institute, Bloomberg reports. The program, by which BP would pay subsistence farmers — who do not have formal education or access to the internet — to not cut down trees and to reforest parts of their land, only pays about 15% of the amount others are paying for Mexican carbon offsets. The mountain village of Coatitila in eastern Mexico, after two years of work, received its first annual payment in late 2021 amounting to $40 per person of his community — about one-third of what a recently-canceled government program had paid, and far less than the $330 per person he had hoped to receive. “It’s pretty unjust,” Álvaro Tepetla, the village's former leader, told Bloomberg. “You only find out about all this afterwards.” Benjamin Rontard, a Mexican climate researcher who wrote his doctoral thesis on Mexico’s carbon market at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí, was far more blunt. It's a "rip-off," he told Bloomberg. They are preying on “campesinos who don’t have any other option for economic activity.” (Bloomberg $)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: ‘In it for the long haul’ (The Hill), Black people more likely to live close to a quality stroke center, but less likely to receive the best care, study finds (The Grio), Anti-Black and Asian bias fuel California hate crime surge (KCRA Sacramento, The Root), Peru's Indigenous communities fear rising violence from drug traffickers (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Michigan court rules grand jury improperly indicted officials in Flint water case (The Hill, AP, Washington Post $)

AIR POLLUTION IN YOUR KITCHEN: Hazardous air pollutants found in home-use natural gas (E&E News, The Hill)

SOUTH ASIA: Climate migration pushes Bangladesh’s megacity to the brink (Bloomberg $), Large parts of northeastern India still underwater after record rains (Washington Post $)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Total shutdown of Russian gas pipelines to Europe ‘is not inconceivable’ (CNBC), Liquefied natural gas comes to Europe’s rescue. But for how long? (New York Times $), Denmark launches energy saving campaign; European gas supply 'under pressure' (S&P Global), Germany's LNG terminals completion could be delayed, sector lobby says (Reuters), WWF chief: 'Short-term' moves over Ukraine war could imperil climate fight (Reuters), Europe’s plans to replace Russian gas are deemed ‘wildly optimistic’ — and could hammer its economy (CNBC), Norway helping plug Europe oil gap as Russian barrels head east (Reuters), War in Ukraine is driving demand for Africa's natural gas. That's controversial (WRVO)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: EU climate talks head into overtime as countries scrap over funds (Reuters), NATO moves to tackle military greenhouse gas emissions even while girding against Russia (Inside Climate News), The ocean takes center stage at a UN conference (Washington Post $), London’s mayor to UN: make way for the ‘doers’ (New York Times $)

GEE SEVEN: G7 commits to decarbonizing electricity by 2035 but leaves wiggle room for fossil fuels (CNN, Reuters, E&E News), From Scholz to Biden, a GG7 scorecard of how each leader got on (Bloomberg $), G7 accused of ‘backsliding’ on climate goals over energy security fears (FT $), G7 agrees to explore price cap on Russian oil (Politico Pro $, FT $), G7 buys into Scholz’s Climate Club idea (Politico Pro $, The Hill, CNBC), G7 leaders just made success at COP27 even harder (Bloomberg $), G7 leaders united behind Ukraine, aim at Kremlin oil money (AP), Germany, Italy push G7 into watering down pledge to end overseas gas finance (Climate Home), Watered-down G7 climate commitments dismay activists (Reuters)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Court won't revisit Big Oil's loss in Calif. climate case (E&E $)

SCOTUS: ‘Stomach-churning mornings’: Lawyers await SCOTUS climate case (E&E News), How the US Supreme Court could hobble Biden's climate efforts (Reuters explainer), The 4 remaining Supreme Court cases of this blockbuster term (CNN), The Supreme Court has delayed creating a majority Black voting district in Louisiana (NPR)

EPA: EPA reconsidering 2008 permitting rule (E&E $), EPA regional ozone proposal threatens electric reliability: RTOs, state utility regulators (Utility Dive), Petition seeks EPA civil rights review of Texas enviro agency (E&E $)

DOE: Energy sector job growth outpaces overall US economy, with strength in transportation, renewables: DOE (Utility Dive), DOE: Here’s what’s happened to EV, renewable, fossil jobs (E&E News)

DOI: Biden admin to hold first onshore drilling auctions in blow to climate agenda (Reuters, The Hill)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Banks to SEC: Climate rule poses ‘real-world’ problems (E&E News), Hybrid tanks? Congress pushes military to confront climate (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: Nations can no longer be 'prisoners of petrostate dictators' -US envoy Kerry (Reuters), White House announces $700M in private investments for EV charging (Axios, Protocol), White House brushes off GAO on minerals recycling (E&E $), Biden administration officials offer few details on medication abortion protections (The 19th* News)

HOUSE: Appropriators urge Reclamation to keep the lights on (E&E $), House appropriators post Interior-Environment committee report (Politico Pro $), House Appropriations advances FY2023 Energy-Water bill (Politico Pro $), House energy, water project earmarks on the rise (E&E News), House releases DOE spending details — and scolds White House (E&E $), Lowenthal reflects on climate legacy, rues missed chances (E&E News)

CITIES AND STATES: Urban gardening creates a path for food sovereignty for Black people in New Orleans (Prism Reports)

FERC: Senators urge FERC to hurry up on transmission rule (E&E $)

IMPACTS: Climate change is driving 2022 extreme heat and flooding (Reuters), It’s not just climate: are we ignoring other causes of disasters? (Yale Environment 360), Bonnaroo, a leader in green fests, faces climate change risk (AP), More extreme weather events expected to pummel China in July, August (Reuters)

HEAT: A heat wave derailed a train outside San Francisco (Gizmodo), It's only June, but heat records around the world are falling (NBC), Italy hits record June temperatures as another heat wave sweeps Europe (Washington Post $), Japan tells millions to save electricity as record heat wave strains power supply (CNN)

OCEANS: Extreme heat in Europe led to “brutal” rise in sea temperatures (Bloomberg $)

DROUGHT: ‘Where there’s bodies, there’s treasure’: a hunt as Lake Mead shrinks (Washington Post $), California drought, bark beetles killing the oldest trees on Earth. Can they be saved? (LA Times $), Devastating drought to push Somalia’s inflation to near double digits (Bloomberg $), Far from Lake Powell, drought punishes another Western dam (LA Times $)

WILDFIRES: People near central Washington wildfire told to leave homes (AP), Interstate 84 closed in eastern Oregon due to wildfire smoke (AP)

HURRICANES: Hurricanes decreasing everywhere but North Atlantic, study finds (The Hill, CNN), Cyclone frequency fell 13% since 1850, but they’re stronger (E&E $), A tropical wave could become Tropical Storm Bonnie in Caribbean (Washington Post $), Two coast-hugging tropical systems poised to dump heavy rain (Yale Climate Connections), Northern California wildfire threatens 500 buildings (AP)

WATER: Data centers are a secret water scourge (Protocol), Will a Nile canal project dry up Africa’s largest wetland? (Yale Environment 360)

DEFORESTATION: Curb deforestation or you won't hit net-zero targets, U.N. group tells firms (Reuters, Bloomberg $)

RENEWABLES: Shifting America to solar power is a grueling, low-paid job (Vice), US renewable energy employment rose in 2021, fossil fuel employment slipped (Politico Pro $), Former Bethlehem Steel facility reopens to make solar trackers (CBS), How rooftop solar got big: Sunrun hits milestone of 5 gigawatts installed (Canary Media), IEA: Energy transition picks up speed, but trouble looms (E&E $), Solar developer Intersect gets $750 mln investment from private equity firm TPG (Reuters)

BUILDINGS: New manufacturing process stores carbon pollution in concrete (Yale Climate Connections), Tips for making your rental home more energy-efficient (Washington Post $)

STORAGE: Energy Dome is on the brink of a long-duration storage breakthrough (Canary Media)

LNG: LNG explosion shines light on 42-year-old gas rules (E&E News)

OIL & GAS: BP data show world embraced fossil fuels again after COVID slump (Bloomberg $)

PIPELINES: Evacuation lifted after pipeline explosion in south DeSoto Parish (WestCentral's Best), D.C. Circuit upholds FERC approval of Mountain Valley Pipeline expansion (Politico Pro $)

COAL: New Mexico’s coal transition law still faces an uncertain timeline (Energy News Network)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen-powered trains to be used in Germany’s capital region (CNBC)

UTILITIES: NextEra's critics question costs and conservation goals in zero carbon plan (Politico Pro $)

EVs: Tesla among firms targeted by investors over climate reporting (Bloomberg $), Tesla lays off some staff in closing San Mateo, Calif., office (Wall Street Journal $)

WORLD BANK: One way to make a huge difference (New York Times $)

AVIATION: Airliners powered by sustainable fuel remain a distant goal (New York Times $)

BUSINESS: How much carbon could a Google doc really emit? (Gizmodo), Listed companies on track to cause nearly 3 degree climate 'chaos' - MSCI (Reuters)

CARBON PRICING: Prices triple in Brazil's lopsided market for carbon credits (Bloomberg $)

CARBON REMOVAL: Climate tech firm to launch scaled-up plant sucking CO2 from air (Reuters), Exxon CEO says carbon removal is climate cure with oil perks (E&E News)

FINANCE: More investors call on firms for environmental transparency - disclosure charity (Reuters)

INTERNATIONAL: Britain failing to deliver on net zero emissions climate promise – advisers (Reuters), Rishi Sunak cooling on windfall tax on UK electricity generators (FT $), UK coal mine’s climate impact is ‘indefensible,’ watchdog says (Bloomberg $), Australia prioritizes reducing emissions and cheaper EVs (AP), Dutch PM condemns farmers’ protests at minister’s home (AP), For India and Japan’s green ambitions, the heat is on (Wall Street Journal $)

• Why climate justice is queer justice (Rappler)
• Frequent gas leaks put the public at risk (Herald/Review, Tony Dutzik and Diane Brown op-ed)
• Ukraine, security and renewable energy (The Hill, Sen. Tim Kaine and Scott Brown op-ed)
• Puerto Ricans have built the largest renewable peaker plant in the world. Let’s use it. (Utility Dive, Javier Rúa-Jovet op-ed)
• In the face of war and pestilence, clean energy keeps growing (Bloomberg, Liam Denning and Mary Duenwald op-ed $)
• The decline of fossil fuels is going to be expensive (Bloomberg, Justin Fox column $)
• We need racial solidarity to restore abortion rights (Yes Magazine, Loretta June Ross op-ed)
• No miracle tech needed: How to switch to renewables now and lower costs doing it (The Hill, Mark Jacobnson op-ed)

The Supreme Court: Systemic Racism, Voter Suppression, and Climate Change

As the polluter-packed Supreme Court readies its final decisions for this term, one of the last among them is West Virginia v. EPA. Like the abortion ruling, it's both the culmination of decades of careful and concerted conservative political machinations, and just the start of the damage this Court is going to do to the United States. 

While there remains some hope for climate action even in a worst-case scenario, a Supreme Court that has so eagerly overturned Roe v. Wade is clearly a partisan body not even pretending to follow the law. What that means is that it's time for an intersectional organizing push for justice.

As the Chisholm Legacy Project details in a new report, there are dozens of ways that Black children are still harmed by systemic racism. What's more, 

Real solutions call for radical systems change. We won’t be successful if we merely tweak or even reform a system that is doing exactly what it is designed to do, which is to enclose wealth and power in the hands of a few through extraction and exploitation. We must build new systems that center regeneration, cooperation, deep democracy, and caring for the sacred -- including our relationships with each other and with Mother Earth.

They provide a "Just Transition Framework" to guide the creation of these new systems, which will need to "deconstruct societal and systemic racism" with "anti-racism and pro-Black Liberation principles/standards/accountability measures." 

Second is to "Establish a solid, unassailable system for environmental protection," followed by dismantling "the corporatocracy and advanc[ing] deep democracy," centering human rights to economic well being, land sovereignty, food, energy, water, healthcare, immigration, education and more, and finally, to "uphold healing justice/restorative justice." 

The Chisholm Legacy Project also isn't the only group calling for democracy protections.The Global Center for Climate Justice also has a new report out on "Voter Suppression, Climate Justice, and the Polluter-Industrial Complex", explaining "How the Corporate Assault on American Democracy and the Climate Are Connected."

Clocking in at nearly 80 pages, the report details the history, starting with the present. Enabled by the Supreme Court's ruling in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, "the past five years have witnessed the greatest rollback of voting rights since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965." And of course, "these laws are meant to disproportionately impact people of color and young voters. Those being disenfranchised are also overwhelmingly Democratic, pro-environment, and pro-climate action voters." 

Across the country, the report explains: 

Republican state lawmakers are pushing what can only be described as a 'tidal wave' of restrictive voting legislation and anti-democratic state laws. These laws include: (1) the adoption of harsh voter ID requirements; (2) making voting by mail and/or early voting more difficult; (3) purging legitimate voters from the rolls; (4) limiting the number, location, and/or availability of mail ballot drop boxes in Democratic districts; (5) dramatically reducing the hours and number of polling places in low-income communities of color; and (6) making voter registration more difficult. 

And the racism is part of the point: 

The nastiness of these efforts is symbolized by Georgia’s criminalizing (S.B 202) the passing out of water to people waiting in long lines to vote – a situation created by the state’s intentional reductions of polling stations located in communities of color. Georgia counties with large Black populations were systematically reduced to having only one polling place, and consequently had some of the longest lines in the country.

As always, the enforcement of these voter suppression laws amplifies the racism. 

The report then goes through the history of voter suppression, explaining how polluters "operate through a complex and sometimes untraceable network of foundations, trusts, institutes and advocacy groups" in order to "maintain their power structures by silencing communities who may vote against their economic interests." 

Then it explores how non-fossil fuel "corporations fund organizations that advocate for voter suppression or donate to politicians that seek to curtail the right to vote," and the larger context of how "the polluter-industrial complex needs neoliberal, business-friendly politicians to remain in power. At the heart of this strategy is an effort to suppress the voting rights of Indigenous peoples, citizens residing in low-income communities of color, students, and progressive sectors of the White working class." 

Finally, there are the solutions, the "various reforms" that "can be made to improve the representation of the public over corporate power" because "when we get closer to ensuring that all Americans can vote, we also get closer to action on climate change that will serve us all." 

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