FIRST LOOK:

EESI will hold a congressional briefing recapping COP27 with a focus on key outcomes and what comes next tomorrow, Dec. 2, at 3:00 pm EST.

Climate, Debt Loads Fuel Africa Hunger Crisis: Skyrocketing food insecurity across Africa is being driven by the impacts of climate change, increasingly burdensome debt loads, and armed conflict (both locally and in Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February). Prolonged droughts in some areas, and severe flooding in others, have destroyed crops and plunged millions into acute food insecurity. Hundreds of thousands have already died in East Africa where 82 million are acutely food insecure (up 60% from last year) as are 42 million in West Africa (up about one-third from last year). An estimated 260,000 children under the age of five died from extreme hunger or related diseases in East Africa last year, and an Oxfam report in May estimated a person was dying of hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia every 48 seconds. The crisis is exacerbated by many countries' increasingly rising debt servicing obligations; a vicious cycle that itself is a major barrier to improving quality of life, and addressing the climate crisis, in those countries. (Reuters, Bloomberg $)

Wildfire Costs Burning Through State Budgets: Increasingly severe wildfires, supercharged by climate change, are overwhelming state budgets to fight and respond to them, a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts says. Even though state budget outlays for wildfires have increased dramatically — Washington tripled its average annual wildfire spending from the first half to the second half of the 2010s — those increases have failed to keep pace with increased wildfire costs. Some of the shortfalls are also caused by states basing budget allocations on the costs incurred in previous years, as is the case in California and Alaska. The issue is also not simply a question of total money spent, but the fire activities on which it is focused. Mitigation measures — both to prevent, or prevent the dangerous growth of wildfires — can save money in the long-run, but are often deprioritized in favor of urgent fire suppression measures, which can in turn set the stage for even bigger blazes in the future. (E&E $, Grist, Route Fifty; Washington: KUOW; California: Modesto Bee; New Mexico: KRQE)

Oil-Backed Petitioners Claim Calif. Referendum Would Do the Opposite Of What It Would Do: Canvassers working for an oil and gas industry-backed referendum campaign in California gathered signatures to overturn a law requiring larger buffer around oil and gas wells by misleadingly telling people their petition would prevent oil companies from drilling near homes and schools, Inside Climate News report. The referendum to overturn SB117, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in September, does not need to win at the ballot box to have an impact. Simply by gathering enough signatures, the oil companies backing the effort can delay enforcement (slated for Jan. 1, 2023) by almost two years, until Californians vote on the measure in November 2024. More than 2.5 million Californians — about 70% of whom are people of color — live within one-half mile of an oil and gas well. ICN's report comes as the state's Department of Water Resources’ first annual water supply and demand assessment found nearly one-in-five urban water agencies expect to not have enough water to meet demand through another seven months of drought. (Inside Climate News; Water shortages: LA Times $; Climate Signals background: Western megadrought)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: White House says it’s taking Brittney Griner’s health at Russian penal colony ‘very seriously’ (The Grio), Buckingham Palace aide resigns amid race row as Black charity boss asked ‘where in Africa are you from?’ (The Independent, The Root, New York Times $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Developing countries fight for their right to fuel growth (FT $), The case for and against more fossil fuels in developing countries (Vox), In new role as G-20 chair, India set to focus on climate (AP)

• WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS?: Giving up on 1.5C climate target would be gift to carbon boosters, says IEA head (The Guardian), How we can limit earth's warming to 1.5 degrees celsius — if we act fast (Washington Post $)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Watch out for next winter, energy chief warns Europe (Politico EU), Barclays coal plan exposes reach of Biden’s inflation reduction act (Bloomberg $), Energy crisis fuels demand for Swedish wood-burning stoves (Bloomberg $), ‘Necessary evil’: France refires coal plant amid energy woes (AP), Germany, Norway seek NATO role in undersea infrastructure (Deutsche Welle), Why finding a real Russian oil price cap is proving so hard (Bloomberg $), 

CLIMATE LITIGATION: How an early oil industry study became key in climate lawsuits (Yale Environment 360), Island nation Vanuatu sends climate resolution to UN for court opinion (Reuters, Climate Home)

(DEFENSE AGAINST) DEFORESTATION: Defending the environment can be a death sentence (Deutsche Welle), Amazon deforestation in Brazil remains near 15-year high (AP), Indigenous youths lured by the illegal mines destroying their Amazon homeland (Mongabay), Lula wants new Brazil police unit to tackle environmental crimes (Reuters)

DENIAL & DISINFO & GREENWASHING: EU sets out plan to fight greenwashing in drive for carbon clean-up (Bloomberg $, Reuters), Twitter ends enforcement of COVID misinformation policy (AP)

COLD WAR LEGACIES: Long battle against radioactive waste turns personal (Indian Country Today and Center For Public Integrity)

AIR POLLUTION: Air pollution causes nearly a million stillbirths every year, study finds (Gizmodo)

…AND FIND OUT: Oath Keepers founder's estranged wife 'beyond happy' for his Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy conviction: 'I am thrilled that he's finally facing justice.' (Business Insider), Oath Keepers Boss Guilty of Sedition—and His Fam Celebrates (Daily Beast, Washington Post $, AP, Politico, NPR, Axios, Wall Street Journal $, New York Times $, CBS, USA Today, BBC, CNN, NBC)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Biden administration pressed by allied nations to revise EV subsidy program (Wall Street Journal $), Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act makes green hydrogen profitable at scale, Goldman Sachs says (CNBC)

SCOTUS: Supreme Court presses DOJ in property rights battle (E&E News)

AGENCIES: DOJ files new lawsuit against Jackson, appoints third party to monitor water source (The Grio, NewsOne)

DOE: Biden administration makes $80M available to lower energy consumption of public schools (Utility Dive), Senators press DOE’s Granholm to help New England avoid major power disruptions, price spikes this winter (Utility Dive)

DOI METHANE DRAFT RULE: Biden administration proposes new rule targeting methane emissions on tribal lands (Grist)

TREASURY: Treasury outlines wage, apprenticeship requirements for clean energy tax credits (CNBC)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden begins new phase on climate action (E&E News), VP Harris hosts Macron at NASA to talk space, climate (E&E $), Biden hosts Macron amid friction over US climate law (AP, New York Times $)

TRIBAL NATIONS SUMMIT:  Biden team delivers energy pledges at tribal summit (E&E $), US to boost spending on tribal lands, protect Nevada sacred site (Reuters)

• MORE FORCED RELOCATION: Biden administration paying $75 million to move three tribes affected by climate change (The Hill, New York Times $, CNBC, Yahoo), Quinault Indian Nation to receive $25 million for climate change relocation (K5 News)
• PROTECTING NATIVE LANDS (PROMISES): Biden pledges new commitments, respect for tribal nations (AP), Biden vows to protect Nevada land sacred to tribes (E&E News, New York Times $, Washington Post $, The Hill)

THE HILL: Jan. 6 panel unlikely to release report until late December (Bloomberg $)

• RAILROAD WORKERS: House votes to avert rail strike, provide workers paid sick leave (The Hill, Bloomberg $), Hurdles remain to Congress preventing rail strike (E&E News), Possible rail strike could send shockwaves through energy industry (The Hill), Rail contract faces uncertain Senate future as freight shutdown looms (Politico Pro $), Sanders to force vote on sick leave for rail workers (Politico Pro $)

HOUSE: House Oversight to issue report on Big Oil investigation (E&E News), House Democrats elect new slate of leaders (E&E News), Hakeem House Democrats pick Hakeem Jeffries to succeed Nancy Pelosi, the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress (CNN, The Root, Black Wall Street Times, AP, Washington Post $, NPR, Reuters, Axios, CBS, Wall Street Journal $, Bloomberg $, BBC, NBC, New York Times $, The Hill), Congressional Democrats: Not a chance of reopening climate bill (Politico Pro $), Democrats jockey for top spot on House Science panel (E&E $), How the death of Congressman Donald McEachin will impact Virginia's district 4 (The Root), 

POLITICS: Republicans doubled down on anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in the midterms. It wasn’t a winning platform. (The 19th* News)

ELECTIONS: Stakes diminished in Ga. runoff, but fight remains fierce (E&E News)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Senate committee deadlocks on mine safety nominee (E&E $)

CITIES & STATES & DISENFRANCHISED COLONIAL TERRITORIES: East Coast’s first countywide gas ban passed in Maryland (E&E News), Solar-powered microgrids add climate resilience in rural Vermont communities (Energy News Network)

• PUERTO RICO (RICO): Puerto Rico extends power contract amid outages, objections (AP, Politico Pro $), Puerto Rican towns sue major oil companies, alleging suppression of climate science (The Hill, E&E $, Democracy Now)

• TEXAS: Texas grid still vulnerable to extreme storms — report (E&E $, Utility Dive)

• THIS WILL END WELL: San Francisco votes to approve deadly force using robots (Black Wall Street Times)

FERC: Glick recusal may signal exit, former FERC officials say (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: 2 dead after storms sweep South (The Hill), Dutch startup begins production of world’s first solar car (Bloomberg $), Unusually warm Pacific Ocean waters contributed to devastating storm in Alaska (Yale Climate Connections)

SCIENCE: Mauna Loa volcano eruption halts recording of key climate data (Axios, Washington Post $)

HEAT: Lessons from the World Cup: How a changing climate is changing sports (Grist), Qatar official estimates migrant worker deaths ahead of World Cup between 400 and 500 (NBC)

HURRICANES: Hurricane season was tamer than expected and horrific all at once (Washington Post $), The bizarre and destructive 2022 hurricane season ends (Yale Climate Connections), After a slow start, the 2022 hurricane season roared in with memorable and destructive storms (CNN), Atlantic hurricane season ends with 14 named storms (AP)

DROUGHT: The Salton Sea’s feral splendor (Atmos), Whirlpools, Blackouts, predator fish: What happens on the Colorado river’s descent to ‘dead pool’ (Washington Post $)

WATER: UN: 5 billion people will face water insecurity by 2050 (E&E $)

RENEWABLES: 'Build up – and right': New US offshore wind advocacy body launches to speed first 100GW (Recharge News), Rising prices and supply chain risks threaten Europe’s renewable aims (FT $)

BATTERIES: Kore Power raises $75M to build lithium-ion battery cells in Arizona (Canary Media), Promises of outstanding aqueous zinc-ion battery performance are overstated, researchers say (Utility Dive)

STORAGE: New energy storage technologies hold key to renewable transition (FT $)

OIL & GAS: Dave Andrew, ExxonMobil vice president of new market development (Politico Pro, interview $), Colorado: Capital of ‘responsibly sourced’ oil and gas (E&E News), 'Gasland' driller pleads no contest to criminal charges (E&E $), OPEC oil output drops in November after cut pledged -survey (Reuters), Saudi Arabia makes more unconventional gas discoveries (OilPrice), US crude oil, oil products exports hit all-time high (OilPrice)

COAL: Energy giants lose bid to win compensation for forced coal plant closures (Bloomberg $), UK-listed Contango plans thermal coal exports from Zimbabwe in 2023 (Reuters),

UTILITIES: California moves to up PG&E energy storage contract prices amid ‘unprecedented’ market conditions (Utility Dive), Exelon, Duke, Southern, PG&E still the top utilities on Fortune 500; most show revenues up but rankings down (Utility Dive)

NUKES: Three companies vie to build new Czech nuclear plant (Reuters)

EVs: Tesla has California to thank for its first semi truck delivery (Bloomberg $), The electric vehicle boom in a quiet Hungarian town (FT $)

CRYPTO: Crypto lenders’ woes worsen as bitcoin miners struggle to repay debt (Bloomberg $)

AN OK BOOMER: Jane Fonda opens up on the return of ‘Fire Drill Fridays,’ Trump and Biden 2024 (The Hill)

AVIATION: Airbus develops fuel-cell engine for hydrogen plane (Reuters), Airbus warns lack of infrastructure may delay hydrogen plane (Bloomberg $), United plans to electrify airport operations with sodium-ion batteries (Canary Media)

AGRICULTURE: Elephants on the rampage: Can insuring Kenyan farmers keep the peace? (Context)

CARBON CAPTURE: What's the best way to regulate CCS? 2 competing visions. (E&E $)

FINANCE: Australia’s banks likely to reduce lending to regions and sectors at risk of climate change impacts, regulator says (The Guardian, Reuters), How central banks could help close the green investment gap (Energy Monitor)

TRASH: EU targets big plastic with rules to cut packaging waste (Bloomberg $), EU unveils plan to slash waste by nearly a fifth by 2030 (FT $)

WILDLIFE: In an ancient reindeer forest, one woman has found a way to slow climate change (Washington Post $)

INTERNATIONAL: ‘No going back’ to oil and gas despite new UK exploration licences (FT $), China is leading the world on heat-pump adoption (Bloomberg $), Egypt seals $1.1 bln solar and wind deal with AMEA Power (Reuters), German economy ministry plans subsidies for climate-friendly production -document (Reuters), What is Prince William's earthshot prize? (New York Times $)

• It was sedition (The Atlantic, David Graham essay)
• Carving a better tomorrow out of a worsening today (Yes Magazine, Frida Berrigan op-ed)
• Heat pumps hyped up on holiday wish lists in European households (Reuters, Gavin Maguire column)
• Anti-woke Republicans aren’t making business sense on climate (Bloomberg, Liam Denning column $)
• Silicon Valley made big promises in Africa. Where are the results? (New York Times, Ifeoma Ajunwa op-ed $)
• He sold a message of climate doom. he has regrets. (New York Times, Steven Guilbeault interview $)
• How to think about policy in a polycrisis (FT, Martin Wolf column $)

Big Tech's 'Surveillance Advertising' Business Model Is Incompatible With Climate Action

A month ago, Google's Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt published a blog post about how "Google is committed to reducing our own emissions and using technology to help everyone make sustainable choices." 

With an impressive goal of net-zero emissions by 2030, and an industry lead in buying renewable energy offsets, Brandt had plenty on which to base an honest conclusion that the company's "aim is to make every day more sustainable" and that Google is "more motivated than ever to do our part to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable future for all." Other Big Tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, have similar expressions of sincerity about addressing the climate crisis. 

Unfortunately, all of those token efforts and feel-good PR is absolutely swamped by the emissions inherent to their toxic business model. 

A new report by human rights lawyer Susie Alegre "details how Big Tech companies are systematically exacerbating the climate crisis by driving emissions, driving consumerism, driving division and driving out democracy," according to the press release.

We've spent plenty of time here talking about the second two issues. Digital algorithms written to maximize engagement are "driving division," giving new life to climate disinformation while also "driving out democracy" as "big Tech's lobbying power now outstrips the oil and gas sector" while the data from social media "is being harnessed by political campaigns in ways that pose a serious threat to the climate agenda," Alegre writes in the report.  

Of course, "Big Tech did not invent climate denial" or extremist views. "But through use of algorithms that profile and target individual users, Big Tech is turbocharging and profiting from climate harms." The efforts to deny, distract and delay climate solutions "become so damaging when they harness Big Tech's business model to spread and amplify." 

And it's the discussion and distillation of that business model that Alegre said in a statement that "should serve as a wake-up call to the climate movement," because "Big Tech billionaires are the oil barons of the 21st century and their impact on climate change is no less destructive."  

How? Because companies like Google, Amazon, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Twitter and TikTok make their millions and billions of dollars off of selling user data to advertisers. (Remember: If it's free, you're the product.) Not only is all that computational power expensive in terms of energy, but its even-bigger impact is from its use. 

For starters, a 2016 estimate of online ad energy consumption suggested that "1% of total energy consumption on this planet is used just to serve online ads." And since then, the report notes, "global ad spend has increased by 258%." Which means that all those annoying ads cluttering up your feed are actually responsible for as much climate pollution as the global aviation industry (2% of global emissions).

But it gets worse. Because behind those eye-scratching ads is a complicated and extensive Real-time bidding (RTB) process, where advertisers bid on your particular eyeballs, based on the reams of data collected from your browser and email and texts and voice commands and smartphone and smart watch and smart car and smart TV and smart fridge and smart thermostat... "The machinery behind this system," Alegre writes, "has a rapacious appetite for energy: 178 trillion RTB transactions each year in the US and Europe alone are processed through data centres that use an estimated 200 terawatt hours each year – more than the entire national energy consumption of a medium sized country." 

And it gets worse. Because it turns out this type of advertising is particularly wasteful. "In any single RTB auction, only one bid ultimately leads to an advert, but the trillions of unsuccessful bids still surge around global data centres burning energy and heating the planet for no reason at all."

And. It. Gets. Worse! Because not only are all those wasted bids eating energy for nothing, the ones that do land are, "to a large degree," Alegre writes in summary of Dr Augustin Fou's findings, "enabling nothing but large-scale fraud." But what's $40 billion dollars between Facebook friends? 

Surely that's as bad as it gets, right?

Wrong! It GETS EVEN WORSE! 

Because there is still the impact of the ads that are seen, and do actually convince someone to buy something. And while "its precise impact is hard to know," Alegre points to a recent calculation from Purpose Disruptors that the advertising industry "added an extra 32% to the annual carbon footprint of every single person in the UK in 2022 through the greenhouse gas emissions that result from the uplift in sales generated by advertising." 

Between Big Tech's emboldening and amplification of climate deniers and election deniers, its energy consumption, and its surveillance advertising business model selling people crap they don't need, the report concludes that "Big Tech’s toxic business model presents a systemic digital roadblock to effective climate action. Climate campaigners cannot afford to look away." 

We're inclined to agree, though we may need to see some pop-up ads to really be sold on the idea!

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