FIRST LOOK: 

Gas Futures Rise As Gas Flows To Freeport LNG: U.S. methane gas futures jumped between 5% and 7% Tuesday in response to reports Freeport LNG began receiving methane gas over the weekend and predictions for cold weather across the country. The Texas gas export terminal has been shut down for more than seven months after a major explosion in June. Freeport LNG accounts for approximately 20% of the gas exported from the US, so with its closure more gas has stayed in the country and with the increased supply, domestic prices dropped. Even though many analysts expect the plant will remain closed until at least February, the potential for Freeport LNG to return to full operation and begin exporting gas overseas (where prices are substantially higher) was enough to push up domestic prices. Gas futures have repeatedly spiked on Freeport LNG's repeated (and then delayed) reopening announcements, highlighting the degree to which LNG exports are raising energy prices for American families and businesses. (Freeport & gas futures: Reuters, Reuters, OilPrice, Seeking Alpha; Energy prices: ABC) 

'State Of Calamity' Declared Amid Deadly Philippines Flooding: Torrential rains and flooding have killed more than 75 people in the Philippines since Christmas. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced an official "state of calamity" in the southern Misamis Occidental province. The flooding has displaced more than 80,000 people and destroyed millions of dollars in agriculture and infrastructure. Climate change is making the typhoons inundating the island nation more extreme; the Philippines is responsible for a negligible amount of global climate pollution and is one of the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change. (Washington Post $, CNN Philippines, AFP via Al Jazeera; Climate Signals background: Extreme precipitation increase)

Virginia Republicans Attack Climate, Clean Energy: Republicans in Virginia are working to block or undo climate action and clean energy development on multiple fronts. For the second consecutive year, Republicans in the commonwealth's legislature seek to undo Virginia's adoption of California's vehicle emissions standards, as well as its participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-state "cap-and-invest" market. Virginia's participation in RGGI has reduced carbon pollution from power plants by 12% each of the last two years. Virginia achieved these pollution reductions even as electricity-hungry data centers proliferated — an estimated 70% of global internet traffic flows through the tubes around the Washington DC suburbs and data centers consumed close to 12,000 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2020. Meanwhile, GOP Gov. Glenn Younkin has blocked plans for a $3.5 billion Ford EV battery factory in Virginia's Southside region that would have brought 2,500 jobs to one of the state's poorest areas — a move critics say was motivated by Younkin's presidential ambitions. “To deny [people in the community] jobs because you’re in last place in Republican presidential primaries [is] gubernatorial malpractice," Democratic State Sen. Scott Surovell told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. (GOP efforts: Virginia Mercury; RGGI & data centers: Energy News Network; Ford plant: Richmond Times-Dispatch)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Miami's 'Harlem of the South' tries to heal from highway scars with green spaces (NBC), EV chargers are easier to find in white, wealthy neighborhoods (Axios)

COP28: Leader of the next global climate talks defends fossil fuels (E&E $)

CALIFORNIA STORMS: California faces weeks of cleanup as 'one last' major storm lashes state (Axios, Gizmodo, AP), Death toll from unrelenting California storms rises to 20 (Democracy Now), Heavy storms have been taxing California's levees. Are they up to the task? (NPR), Flooding in California: What are 'atmospheric rivers?' (Reuters explainer)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Europeans accuse Putin of weaponizing energy but a mild winter has helped (NPR), Portugal, Spain to formally request extension of gas price cap on Wednesday (Reuters)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Italy’s climate envoy resigns, leaving diplomacy in doubt (Climate Home)

CLIMATE COMMUNICATION: How to talk to a climate denier (Reasons to be Cheerful podcast), The world’s biggest PR firm claims to be an expert on trust – but is it? (The Guardian), Can we talk about how we talk about the weather? (New York Times $)

ALABAMA TRASH FIRE: Moody landfill fire still hampering air quality (AL.com, AP), Neighbors worry about lasting health concerns as the Moody landfill fire continues (WBRC), Moody landfill fire: Class action lawsuit filed against ‘illegal unauthorized dump site’ (AL.com)

(BIG) KIDS: Meet the future of the environmental movement (E&E News), A kid's guide to climate change (plus a printable comic) (NPR), Coping with climate change: advice for kids — from kids (NPR), Two climate activists, 40 years apart in age, on the movement’s future (New York Times $)

GOP vs. ESG: BlackRock US inflows dwarf $4 bln lost in ESG backlash -CEO (Reuters), DeSantis prohibits Florida state-run fund managers from considering ESG factors (The Hill)

SUPER COOL REMINDER HUMANITY LIVES IN A TOXIC SOUP OF OUR OWN MAKING: Just one meal of caught fish per year is a significant dose of PFAS (Environmental Health News, E&E News, The Hill, AFP, CNN)

GRETA IN GERMANY: Greta Thunberg carried away by police at German mine protest (AP), German police detain Greta Thunberg in German coal village protests (Reuters, Washington Post $, The Hill, Axios, Wall Street Journal $), Greta Thunberg released after brief detention at German mine protest, police say (Reuters)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: EU concerns on green subsidy law are top US priority -US trade chief (Reuters), EU readies subsidy response to US clean-tech tax breaks (Wall Street Journal $, The Hill, Politico Pro $)

AGENCIES: A risk to Biden’s climate law: Depleted agencies (E&E News)

DOE: DOE: Decision on massive Alaska LNG project coming soon (E&E $)

DOI: Biden moves ahead on two Gulf lease sales for later this year (Houston Chronicle), Interior Department reorganizes BOEM, BSEE renewable energy responsibilities (Politico Pro $)

FEDERAL RESERVE: Fed wants climate risk analysis from 6 largest U.S. banks by July 31 (Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg $, Yahoo)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Biden urged to make good on environmental equity pledges in 2023 (Bloomberg Law $)

LAWSUITS: Biden: GOP states shouldn't get court redo on climate metric (E&E $)

HOUSE: GOP committee chair launches farm bill debate at Pa. ag show (E&E $), McCarthy says Santos will be seated on committees (The Hill)

POLITIC$: Fossil fuel industry takes gaslighting to new level with dark money campaign (MSNBC), The fight to keep climate change off the back burner (NPR), The propane industry is paying tv influencers to shill for fossil fuels (Gizmodo)

CITIES AND STATES AND DISENFRANCHISED COLONIAL TERRITORIES: Arizona’s new governor takes on water conservation and promises to revise the state’s groundwater management act (Inside Climate News), N.J. says beach homes must be built 6 feet above flood levels (E&E $), Wyoming lawmakers push for electric-car ban and to limit sales by 2035 (USA Today), Puerto Rico on its way to privatizing power generation despite widespread skepticism (NBC), California greenlights more than 800 MW of storage and solar to bolster power grid reliability (Utility Dive)

FERC: Names circulating for vacant FERC spot (E&E News)

IMPACTS: As climate warms, Pittsburgh battles extreme rain, landslides (E&E $), It’s January, but tornadoes keep spinning up like it’s April (Washington Post $), World Bank adaptation funds slept through Pakistan’s record flooding (Climate Home), World falling well behind 1.5-degree climate goal, leaders say (Wall Street Journal $), World Food Program chief Somali famine slowed, not avoided (AP), 3.3 million people displaced by natural disasters in US last year (The Hill)

HEAT: Warning of unprecedented heatwaves as El Niño set to return in 2023 (The Guardian)

HURRICANES: For many Puerto Ricans who moved after Hurricane Maria, a sense of loss remains (Yale Climate Connections)

WATER: A course correction in managing drying rivers (NPR), Arizona community outside Scottsdale cut off from water (NBC), Can desalination save a drying world? (Energy Monitor)

RENEWABLES: Airborne wind energy is finally ready for lift-off (Energy Monitor), Green groups, tech companies fight $4B Iowa wind project (E&E News), Groups: ‘No evidence’ offshore wind killing whales in NJ-NY (AP, E&E $), Madagascar solar firm secures funding to connect 50,000 households (Reuters), Solar companies attracted a record $7B in venture capital, and 2023 could be even bigger (Utility Dive), Zambia, UAE to develop $2 billion solar projects (Reuters), Lobsters versus right whales: The latest chapter in a long quest to make fishing more sustainable (The Conversation), Want to solve climate change? This California farm kingdom holds a key (LA Times $)

GAS STOVES: Why some advocates are pushing for a different kind of gas stove policy (Bloomberg $)

STORAGE: Energy storage is a cost-effective alternative to transmission to integrate renewables: study (Utility Dive), Hydrostor, California community choice aggregator enter nearly $1B long-duration energy storage PPA (Utility Dive)

MINERALS: Plans for deep seabed mining pit renewable energy demand against ocean life in a largely unexplored frontier (The Conversation)

METHANE: Why methane capture is so difficult (E&E $)

OIL & GAS: Exxon preparing to launch massive $2B refinery expansion in Beaumont (Houston Chronicle), Australia's Santos faces new delay on Narrabri gas project (Reuters), Big Oil's good times set to roll on after record 2022 profits (Reuters), Can we put a price tag on nature? (New York Times $), What’s behind Wall Street and Washington’s (mostly) divergent oil forecasts? (Wall Street Journal $), Where oil and gas is headed in 2023 (E&E $)

PLASTICS: The surprising environmental benefits of single-use coffee pods (Washington Post $)

PIPELINES: 32-mile natural gas pipeline project in Dickson County [Tenn.] sparks controversy (News Channel 5)

COAL: A faked kidnapping and cocaine: A Montana mine’s descent into chaos (New York Times $)

UTILITIES: OSHA fines Eversource $333,560 over alleged workplace violations in accident that killed a Boston worker (Utility Dive)

GRID: Substation attacks may lead to new energy security rules in 2023, experts say (Utility Dive)

EVs: EVs made up 10% of all new cars sold last year (Wall Street Journal $), Thousands of cleaner, quieter electric school buses to roll out soon in districts nationwide (ABC), Will switching to electric vehicles save you money down the road? (Today Show)

DAVOS: What you need to know about the WEF on Tuesday (Reuters), Brazil lacking world aid to fight climate change, Silva says (Reuters), Saudi FM says oil price stability reflects correct OPEC+ policy (Reuters)

AGRICULTURE: Experts find modern climate resilience in ancient grains (E&E $), Brazilian meat giant under fire for allegedly misleading investors (Washington Post $)

BUSINESSES: PepsiCo CEO says companies responsible for making more-sustainable products (Wall Street Journal $)

FOOD: Afraid of high-tech food? Get over it (Canary Media)

SUCKS TO SUCK: Andrew Tate's cars and watches, worth $4 million, are confiscated by Romanian police (NPR)

FINANCE: Norway's wealth fund buys 49% stake in Iberdrola's Spanish renewables portfolio (Reuters)

FAST FASHION: Shein is the world’s most popular fashion brand—at a huge cost to us all (TIME)

RICH PEOPLE: Gates Foundation takes up question of its own power (AP)

WILDLIFE: Moving species emerges as last resort as climate warms (AP), Researchers warn of climate change impact on songbirds’ breeding season in California (The Hill), Should you worry about lichens, moss, algae on trees? (AP)

INTERNATIONAL: Minister: Cyprus exceeds renewable energy source targets (AP), South Korean president says carbon neutrality relies on return to nuclear power (The Hill), An energy crisis is seeping into south Africa’s food supply (Bloomberg $)

• The great gas stove debate has been reignited (CNN, Kirsi Goldynia op-ed)
• Gas stoves should be banned in Philadelphia (Philadelphia Inquirer, Zakaria Hsain and Erin Reagan op-ed)
• GM’s new Hummer and other EVs pose challenge to Elon Musk and Texas's oil industry (Houston Chronicle, Chris Tomlinson column)
• Excluding Russian oil from China's imports may give clearer view (Reuters, Clyde Russell column)
• There’s a climate solution in dairy cows’ stomachs (Wall Street Journal, Fred Krupp and Antoine de Saint-Affrique op-ed $)
• Extreme storms and flood events cause damage worth billions to ports – and they are most disruptive to small island developing states (The Conversation, Jasper Verschuur op-ed)
• The Fed should fight inflation, not climate change (Bloomberg, Clive Crook op-ed $)

Study Finds That Conservatives Show Less Support for Renewable Energy Policy When Also Presented with a CCS Policy

When it comes to the climate crisis, we can’t afford to lose any time ramping up renewable energy, which is still our only viable option for slashing emissions quickly enough to meet international climate goals.

However, many people still claim that a varied buffet of other energy solutions could better tackle the climate crisis. It’s always good to have a plan B, right? Well, maybe not, when it turns out that the fossil fuel industry is pushing plan B specifically to undermine plan A.

In this case, plan A is renewable energy, and plan B consists of largely unproven technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) (and even riskier geoengineering schemes).

In recent years, fossil fuel companies have increasingly publicized their CCS endeavors in order to greenwash their reputations, and conservative politicians have proposed CCS legislation as an alternative to supporting renewables.

Investments in CCS research might seem innocent or even prudent, and in an honest world, that would likely be the case. But in a world of well-funded climate denial and disinformation, ulterior motives are at play. Sociologists Thomas Marlow and Kinga Makovi, authors of a new study, explain that “as outright denial has become increasingly untenable in the face of frequent climate disasters, economic realities, and legal liabilities, fossil fuel companies and their networks of supporting organizations have piloted towards a politics of delay.”

What this means is that no, the fossil fuel industry isn’t coming around to the good side and genuinely using CCS to make up for the harm it has caused. Instead, the industry is merely trying to delay meaningful climate policies, including those that support renewable energy, in order to maintain its power and its profits.

Let us explain. The idea of sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it back in the ground might seem like a good one, and indeed, it's something we'll absolutely need to figure out eventually. But before we can make any headway in removing carbon from the atmosphere, we first need to stop burning fossil fuels that put carbon emissions there in the first place. However, Marlow and Makovi warn, “Studies on the effectiveness of CCS are sparse, with some indicating that current projects are under 50% effective and the increase in air pollution they would bring about may be even worse than doing nothing at all. Additionally, the risks of committing to pathways reliant on unproven CCS technologies are skewed towards more vulnerable populations.” Therefore, banking on CCS technology maturing and being scaled up before the global average temperature warms by 1.5 degrees or more, while simultaneously introducing no other changes in the energy economy, is a recipe for disaster.

So, as it stands now, CCS isn't even really that good for the climate. But it is good for something, Marlow and Makovi found: "Among conservatives, the presence of a CCS policy lowers support for renewable energy.”

Marlow’s and Makovi’s study asked 2,374 liberal and conservative respondents “about their support for a renewable energy policy when presented with the renewable energy policy alone, and when presented alongside a CCS policy.” While liberals were unaffected by exposures to the CCS option, conservatives apparently interpreted it as a reason not to support renewables.

The CCS policy in question was adapted from an ExxonMobil press release promoting CCS, so while ExxonMobil might not have been trying to undercut renewables, that's definitely what it's doing in practice.

The study continues, “Furthermore, despite the lack of apparent political party cues, when presented with the policy-pair, conservatives tend to view the renewable energy policy in more partisan terms, specifically, less supported by Republicans.” This is no surprise, given that Koch-funded disinfluencers continue to flood conservative media with anti-solar and wind energy propaganda.

The findings of this study confirm what we already feared: “a delaying strategy of promoting non-transformative climate change policies might effectively undermine public support for renewable energy.” In other words, fossil fuel companies promote carbon capture as another delay tactic in order to obstruct meaningful climate policies.

However, the study does give one reason for hope. “Both conservatives and liberals thought that fewer Republicans would support renewable energy than was observed; suggesting that policies to promote renewable energy are more popular across the ideological spectrum than is commonly believed.”

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