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WRI hosts an ACT2025 press call RIGHT NOW previewing expectations for a just and ambitious outcome at COP27.

Climate Central and the Nature Conservancy host a webinar TODAY at 11:00 am ET to help journalists catch up since last year's COP26 and prep for this year’s talks. 

🎉 HAPPY BIRTHDAY CWA 🎉

River Network has updated its Clean Water Act Owner’s Manual. The 3rd Edition provides fundamental tools for interpreting and applying the Act and highlights intersections with environmental justice, climate change, and other long-standing challenges.

🇪🇬 GET (EVEN MORE) PREPPED FOR COP 🇪🇬

Covering Climate Now will host a webinar TOMORROW at 12:00 pm ET on how reporters can connect high-level negotiations with on-the-ground realities around the world.

Banks' Previous Commitments To Act Don't Mean They Actually Have To Act, Or Something: The Net-Zero Banking Alliance told its 119 members on Monday they can continue to fund fossil fuel projects — even for coal — Bloomberg reports. The chief executives of world's biggest banks will also be largely absent from COP27 in Egypt this November. Essentially, the new guidelines allow major banks to continue to reap the reputational benefits of being able to say they are a member of the NZBA without needing to actually divest from any of the polluting industries causing the climate crisis. In turn, the NZBA avoids the embarrassment of many of its most notable members following through on threats to leave the group en masse. (Some have already begun to quiet quit.) The NZBA letter to its members — which include Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS Group AG, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America, among others — came after the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign tightened requirements for its members’ decarbonization targets. It also set off calls for the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, the world’s biggest zero-carbon finance club, to explain how its members will reach the net-zero targets to which they have committed. “NZBA is saying it is part of GFANZ and that doesn’t have anything to do with Race to Zero. But to be part of GFANZ you need be part of Race to Zero,” said Ben Caldecott, head of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Programme. “Will GFANZ ditch this requirement and if it does, what are the new criteria to be part of GFANZ? And who marks that homework?” (Bloomberg $, Finance heads absent from COP27: E&E News)

Pakistan Floods Hammer Cotton Farmers, Industry: The catastrophic flooding that killed more than 1,700 people across Pakistan this summer — submerging huge swaths of the country and setting off a crisis of waterborne disease — has devastated the country’s cotton farmers and imperiled the textile industry, Context reports. Climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, made the devastating floods more likely. The floods destroyed one-third of Pakistan's cotton crop, creating financial peril for farmers and the hundreds of thousands who work in cotton mills and other parts of the industry — domestically-grown cotton sold to the textile industry accounts for 60% of Pakistan's export earnings. "We were dreaming of earning well this time," Omar Daraz of Hasanabad, told Context. "But the rains and floods shattered all those dreams." (Context)

Big Truck Makers Lobby Against Pollution Rules Behind Closed Doors: Diesel truck manufacturers are publicly claiming they support a clean, electric future, but are lobbying hard behind the scenes to stall the transition away from polluting engines, the Washington Post reports. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks (like semis) account for nearly a quarter of greenhouse gas pollution from U.S. vehicles, and their exhaust kills thousands of people every year — disproportionately concentrated in low-income communities and communities of color, where highways and warehouse districts create so-called diesel death zones. Truck makers led a campaign against a new California rule requiring the sale of zero-emissions trucks (now adopted by five other states), and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association lobbied for weakening federal safeguards against greenhouse gas and other pollutants. “What we’re seeing from their lobbying is they want to commit to as little as possible,” David Cooke, a senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Post. “Promises in press releases don’t actually mean anything. They can say we’re setting a target, we’re spending money, but that doesn’t have to produce results.” (Washington Post $)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Close to home: A historically Black town in rural Alabama fights for change after toxic waste, dumped by out-of-state developers, impacts their health. (Environmental Health News)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: EU produces record wind and solar energy as it shirks Russian gas (CNN), Germany pushes to extend lifespan of three nuclear plants -letter (Reuters), In the Netherlands, balancing energy security against climate concerns (New York Times $), Nord Stream blasts were likely result of sabotage, German probe finds (Wall Street Journal $)

TOO EXTREME TO LEARN: 3 weeks after Ian’s landfall, students returning to school (AP), Extreme weather has devastated schools around the country. Now their students are suffering (CNN)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: EU should treat China more as a competitor, says diplomat chief (Reuters), Mexican president outlines renewable energy push ahead of Kerry visit (Reuters), Rich countries must urgently help poor nations hit by climate crisis, says V20 (The Guardian)

MENTAL HEALTH: Study: climate anxiety is spreading all over the planet (Grist)

GOP vs. ESG: BlackRock creates Transition Capital unit to tap climate opportunities -memo (Reuters)

AGENCIES: Clean Water Act at 50: Environmental gains, challenges unmet (AP)

EPA: EPA adds legal reinforcement as it braces for GOP oversight (E&E $)

TREASURY: The surprising new climate agency (E&E News), Treasury Dept. to ask insurers for data on climate risks to measure coverage affordability (New York Times $)

THE HILL: Solar energy passed its hurricane test. Now come the lobbying fights. (Politico Pro $), Dingell readies bill to rein in 'Erin Brockovich' chemical (E&E $), Senate bill aims to improve care for pregnant women and babies in federal prisons (The 19th* News)

ELECTIONS: Can focusing on climate change help win elections? (FiveThirtyEight), 5 state-level races that could alter the energy transition (E&E News), Biden gave young voters a win on student debt, but abortion tops midterm motivations (NPR), Statehouse control, climate goals slip from Ariz. Democrats (E&E $)

TRIBES: Feds rework rules to return human remains to tribes (E&E News)

CITIES AND STATES: In Texas, a new study will determine where extreme weather hazards and environmental justice collide (Inside Climate News)

FERC: Coaltrain Energy agrees to pay $4M to settle FERC allegations the company manipulated PJM’s market (Utility Dive), Dems to FERC: Shield consumers from utility lobbying expenses (E&E $), FERC chair on his nomination, renewables, Fox News (E&E News), Tesla, Google, other corporate power buyers back FERC interconnection reform plan but see pitfalls (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: Climate Questions: How much has the climate changed already? (AP), What will the world look like at 1.5 degrees Celsius? (Context), Climate Questions: What's going on with climate change? (AP), How eroding beaches led to a Calif. commuting nightmare (E&E $), Scientists are using microphones to determine how fast glaciers are melting (NPR), Sea level rise now menaces even a Viking bastion of uplifted land (Context)

• AUSTRALIA: Australian floods could inundate or isolate 34,000 homes (AP), First came the fires. Now Australia is facing devastating floods. (Washington Post $), Flood-hit Australian communities warned 'a lot more rain is on the way' (Axios)
• NIGERIA: Flooding in Nigeria has killed more than 600 people, the government says (NPR, Black Wall Street Times, New York Times $, BBC)

HEAT: Historic October heat shatters records in the Pacific Northwest (Washington Post $)

WILDFIRES: Wildfires in US West causing extreme weather in other states, study finds (The Guardian), Thousands evacuated in Washington state as 66 large fires burn in US (Axios), What to know about the Nakia Creek Fire forcing thousands to evacuate (Washington Post $)

HURRICANES: Forecasters feared the worst for Ian’s storm surge. They were right. (Washington Post $), Faster, wetter hurricanes are on the way, say Department of Energy scientists (The Hill)

BOOZE: Hot summer drives bumper harvest for English winemaker Chapel Down (Reuters)

RENEWABLES: Hurricanes Fiona and Ian gave solar power its time to shine (Politico), Clean energy transition gains speed, despite global tumult (E&E News), Mercedes-Benz in preliminary offshore wind deal for electricity from 2027 (Reuters), Powering England with the world's largest offshore wind farm (CBS), Thanks to fossil fuel crisis, wind and solar payback time drops to one year (Climate Home)

"RENEWABLES": BP to buy US biogas producer Archaea for $4.1 bln (Reuters, Wall Street Journal $, Houston Chronicle)

BUILDINGS: Will tough standards for heat pump tax credits hurt adoption? (Canary Media)

STORAGE: 'Water batteries' could power 135,000 homes in San Diego (Gizmodo)

LNG: Dozens of LNG-laden ships queue off Europe's coasts unable to unload (Reuters)

OIL & GAS: Ever since the oil: Part one (Latino USA), Billionaire Mo Ibrahim attacks ‘hypocrisy’ over Africa’s gas (The Guardian), Oil steady as recession woes counter positive Chinese signals (Reuters)

NUKES: Nuclear milestone: Southern loads fuel into Vogtle reactor (E&E $)

PLASTICS: All that plastic in the ocean is a climate change problem, too (Grist), Plastic pollution litigation could spark billions in payouts (E&E $)

PIPELINES: Enbridge to pay millions in fines for Line 3 water quality violations, aquifer breaches (CBS)

COAL: Safety of Turkish mines questioned after blast kills 41 (Reuters)

HYDROGEN: Hype builds around hydrogen energy, but is it for real? (Houston Chronicle)

UTILITIES: Midwest utility outlines $1.3B in climate law tax benefits (E&E $)

GRID: How to make sure your solar-plus-battery system works in a blackout (Canary Media)

EVs: Inside Pilot’s massive EV-charging initiative (Utility Dive), Minnesota rate case a test for EV charging (Politico Pro $), Tesla steps up job ads as recession clouds gather (Reuters), The magnetic pull of electric vehicles is slowly drawing Texas in (Texas Climate News)

ACTIVISM: Fresno youth train as community environmental advocates (Yale Climate Connections)

AVIATION: UN countries adopt 'aspirational’ net-zero goal for aviation (Gizmodo)

CARBON CAPTURE: Global carbon capture project pipeline swells 44% in past year-report (Reuters)

WILDLIFE: ‘Badasses of the mountains’: goats clash with sheep as key US glaciers melt (The Guardian), Calif. salamanders feel the heat from climate change (E&E $)

INTERNATIONAL: Australia and Singapore strike agreement to achieve net-zero (AP), China vows to step up capacity of energy supply, reserves (Reuters), Official: China mining more coal but increasing wind, solar (AP), What has happened to China’s global coal financing? (Energy Monitor)

• California’s far-reaching climate law will usher in a zero-carbon economy. Now the state needs a follow-up plan. (Utility Dive, Armond Cohen and Michael Colvin op-ed)
• My end of the world (Atmos, Danez Smith essay)
• How to begin fixing the ‘nonsensical’ humanitarian financing system (The New Humanitarian, Danny Sriskandarajah and Abby Maxman op-ed)
• Queer Brown Vegan wants to make the climate movement more inclusive (Teen Vogue, Isaias Hernandez interview)

Denier Comes Dangerously Close To Getting It, Complains Army Can't Find Recruits, Prioritizes Climate Change

Sometimes deniers get really close to "getting it" — writing something that's so wrong it's gone all the way around and is just about right. But not quite. 

That was the case with a recent opinion piece by Thomas Spoehr, a retired Army lieutenant general now working for the industry-funded Heritage Foundation, which owns the DailySignal blog, that published his complaint about the "Army's Misplaced Priorities: Recruitment Shortfall vs. Climate Change."  

Spoehr is concerned about the 465,600-strong U.S. Army because it "was authorized" to have 485,000 active-duty soldiers this year. It's "a bona fide crisis," Spoehr writes, linking to a piece he wrote back in July that calls (but in now way justifies) the Army's inability to recruit 20,000 new soldiers a crisis. 

The real crisis, of course, is climate change, but Spoehr is mad because "the same week that the Army fails to achieve its recruiting goal—a direct measure of its health—it released a major news announcement trumpeting the release of its climate change remediation plan."

The 50-page plan is "an incredible amount of organizational effort" that "seemingly should have been first applied to its current recruiting crisis." Because if any government agency is underfunded, it's definitely the Pentagon. Certainly not enough money there to do more than one thing at once! 

"It’s about priorities. It’s also about optics." Spoehr continues, "At the time when the Army most needs the support of the nation to persuade young people to join its ranks, it is busy releasing climate strategies. What message does that send?"

Well gee whiz, maybe it sends the message that the Army wants the young people it's trying to recruit to know that, like them, it cares about the climate crisis! (At least when ordered to produce such a plan by the President, as is the case here.) Then there's also the fact that the climate crisis will almost-certainly increase the danger faced by those recruits. 

That the climate crisis is a consideration for the would-be Army recruits doesn't seem to enter into Spoehr's calculations (to use the word figuratively, there's no actual evidence, of anything, in the piece). But he does mention that "perhaps we should take comfort in the knowledge that while the Army plummets in size and capacity, what is left will at least be producing less carbon dioxide." 

… yeah, man! Pretty much! The Department of Defense is the world's largest institutional emitter, polluting more than almost 140 entire countries, so having a plan to address such a situation may be greenwashing, but at least it's something!

Spoehr gets so very, very close to understanding the reality of the issue: Kids who are aware of and engaged with the world around them care about the climate crisis, and the Army needs them to want to join the Army if it's going to address that so-called recruitment crisis. 

But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades — which is perhaps why close to getting it was the best retired Army lieutenant general Spoehr could do. 

Though with the example Spoehr's setting, it's not a shock that more young people aren't signing up for the service to follow in his footsteps.

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