FIRST LOOK: 

Lingering Floodwaters Create 'Humiliating' Conditions In Pakistan: The floodwaters that submerged nearly one-third of Pakistan last summer and killed more than 1,700 people have still not entirely receded, leaving many feeling abandoned in inadequate camps, The Guardian Reports. “There is no food or help. We have been given no blankets. We’re having a harsh winter, and have been living in camps without any facilities," Hawwa, who lives with her family on an embankment in Dadu, Sindh Province. "We are poor. We can’t afford to rent another home, otherwise we could have done it to leave this humiliating life.” Some have been able to return to their homes, but stagnant water still covers local cotton fields, and financial desperation has fueled an increase in crime in the area. “People don’t have money. Most of the area is dependent on farming, and people have lost their fields and agricultural crops so they can’t afford to make ends meet,” said local shopkeeper Mushtaq Ahmed. Pakistan, responsible for a proportionally negligible amount of historic climate pollution, has already endured blackouts due to skyrocketing methane gas prices and is to some extent at the mercy of European weather patterns, which could dramatically impact the cost of methane gas next summer. (The Guardian; Gas prices: OilPrice)

TotalEnergies Latest Oil Major To Break Profit Records: French oil major TotalEnergies posted a record-breaking $36.2 billion in profits, double its 2021 figure, the company announced Wednesday. Total is the latest in a string of Big Oil announcements of record profits in 2022 as oil and gas companies took advantage of the global upheaval set off by the Russian war in Ukraine. Oil majors (Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, Equinor, and TotalEnergies) more than doubled their total 2021 profits, pulling down $219 billion in 2022. Enjoying their windfalls of war, oil majors are backtracking on their claims of transitioning from oil and gas to renewables. The record profits — and massive payouts to shareholders — are also fueling calls for (even stronger) windfall taxes on Big Oil's wartime profits in Europe and the U.S. President Biden, in his State of the Union address Tuesday, decried Big Oil's "outrageous" profits and called for quadrupling taxes on corporate stock buybacks while some in the EU are seeking to expand the bloc's war windfall tax to include stock buybacks as well. (Total: AP, Bloomberg $, Reuters, UPI, OilPrice; Combined profits: OilPrice; Backtracking: Bloomberg $; Windfall taxes: Politico Pro $, TIME)

Offshore Oil & Gas Methane Pollution Dropping Helicopters From The Sky: A growing body of evidence warns methane pollution from offshore oil and gas operations could be far greater than official statistics suggest, and can even cause helicopters to fall out of the sky, DeSmog reports. Methane traps more than 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 of a 20-year period and dramatically reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations is one of the most cost-effective ways to limit near-term global warming. A study published last year in Environmental Research Letters by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Carbon Mapper, and multiple universities found pollution from shallow water oil and gas drilling platforms is far greater than from land-based operations, with methane pollution relative to production as much as 30 times higher than Permian Basin operations. Invisible and odorless, even low levels of methane, can cause helicopter engines to fail. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, a division of DOI, efforts to require methane detectors on aircraft over offshore oil and gas operations were shot down by the oil and gas industry in 2017. (DeSmog)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: City of Jackson is close to losing control of its own water supply (Black Wall Street Times), How listening to women can boost disaster relief efforts (Yale Climate Connections), Envisioning a new world through abolition geography (Yes Magazine)

HEAT PUMPS & APPLIANCES: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback (Washington Post $), Heat pumps had their first major local test last weekend. Here’s how it went. (Boston Globe $), Are gas stoves worse than fireplaces? Here’s how some other appliances can also pollute your home. (Boston Globe $)

B(OATLOADS OF) P(ROFIT): BP: We’re making lots of money on oil, so screw the climate (Gizmodo), BP to stick to investment plan regardless of oil price, CEO says (Bloomberg $), Shell’s grand plan to fight climate change (and continue to cause it) (Bloomberg $), Oil company profits are at a record high. It won’t last. (Vox, FT $), 

POWER SECTOR: IEA: Power-sector emissions hit record high in 2022 (E&E $), Renewables growth will help stabilize power sector emissions: IEA (Politico Pro $, OilPrice), IEA forecasts power sector set for 2025 ‘tipping point’ on emissions (FT $)

EACOP: Why a major insurance firm is under fire for backing an East African oil pipeline (The Hill), Uganda's EACOP pipeline: Insurer Marsh targeted by complaint filed with OECD (Le Monde)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Moscow considering windfall tax to cover plunging oil revenues (OilPrice), Britain’s biggest gas supplier accused of ‘profiteering’ from energy crisis (The Guardian)

(CLIMATE) LITIGATION: How Disney’s Sierra Nevada ski resort changed environmentalism forever (LA Times $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Mexico expects US to finance 4 wind power plants (AP), Europe proposes mass exit from energy treaty (Climate Home)

BUSINESSES: Fewer than one in 200 companies have credible climate plans, says CDP (Reuters)

DENIAL: UK urged to sack Tony Abbott as trade adviser for joining climate sceptic group (The Guardian)

GOP vs. ESG: House GOP is about to beat the ESG drum even harder (Bloomberg $)

STOVES: Video: NYC residents have cleaner air after ditching gas stoves (Canary Media), DeSantis proposes sales tax exemption for gas stoves (E&E $), Gas stoves are hazardous. Are induction stoves better? (Atmos), Will most chefs ever trade gas stoves for induction? It’s complicated. (Washington Post $)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Can individuals solve climate change? New federal cash makes it more possible than ever (Washington Post $)

• CLEAN ENERGY INVESTMENT RACE: France, Germany protest US green subsidies on Washington trip (Reuters), Europe moves from anger toward acceptance of US climate law (Politico), France and Germany claim assurances from US over green subsidies (FT $)

SCOTUS: Supreme Court rulings undermine Indian law (Prism Reports)

AGENCIES: Vilsack touts climate-smart ag on heels of Biden speech (E&E $)

EPA: Regan gets utilities on board electric school bus push (E&E $)

TREASURY: Yellen touts battery investments in Tennessee after Biden speech (Reuters)

WHITE HOUSE: The climate problem VP Harris cares most about (E&E News), White House details ‘buy American’ plan (E&E News), Vice President Kamala Harris to tout electric vehicle investment in St. Cloud visit (Star Tribune $)

• SOTU: Biden’s oil comments spark debate over energy production (AP), Biden goes off-script to concede oil demand will last for years (Bloomberg $), Three climate takeaways from Biden’s second State of the Union (Bloomberg $), 5 takeaways from president Biden’s state of the union speech (Blavity), Biden climate Cabinet embarks on post-SOTU 'blitz' (E&E $), Black organizations applaud Biden’s State of the Union, push for more (The Hill), Biden’s big push for land conservation gets brief spotlight (Bloomberg $), Biden aims to win back white working-class voters through their wallets (New York Times $)

THE HILL: Calls grow for a farm bill that serves ‘all of us, not just corporations’ (Civil Eats), Proposal would reward cities that take cops out of traffic stops (Bloomberg $), Carbon removal project planned for Kevin McCarthy’s district (E&E News)

HOUSE: House committee OKs oversight plan over climate objections (E&E $), House hearing holds little promise for bipartisan action (E&E $)

SENATE: Senators back petition against utilities' 'abusive practices' (E&E $)

POLITICS: The GOP's failed Obamacare repeal effort holds lessons for the climate law (Washington Post $)

TRIBES: Black Creeks return to Muscogee Nation court to end apartheid (Black Wall Street Times)

CITIES AND STATES: Oregon sees first-ever gas ban (E&E $), Minnesota power co-op wants to invest in flexibility for fossil fuel peaker plant (Energy News Network), Proposal to increase royalty rates for oil and gas production on state lands advances (New Mexico Political Report), Vermont to become first state to ban CFL lightbulb sales (The Hill), A new winter storm and old problems raise questions about Austin leaders’ response to crises (Texas Tribune), ‘They get the big picture’: The Swedish tech startup helping cities go green (The Guardian), Gov. Greg Abbott tells state agencies to stop considering diversity in hiring (Texas Tribune)

• CALIFORNIA: Soaring California natural gas prices could bring higher electricity bills this summer (LA Times $)

FERC: Feinstein, Newsom press FERC on potential Western gas market manipulation as energy prices spike (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: Northeast heat wave and tornado storms — a month of weird weather across the US (The Hill), Europe’s hottest new year’s day is another climate warning (Bloomberg $), Are you feeling water whiplash? (LA Times $), UN eyes revival of millets as global grain uncertainty grows (AP)

DROUGHT: In drought-stricken states, fossil fuel production jeopardizes limited water supplies (The Hill), Drought may have doomed this ancient empire — a warning for today’s climate crisis (Washington Post $), California storms left behind a ‘generational snowpack.’ What that means. (Washington Post $)

WATER: California plays ‘hardball’ with Colorado River states over cutbacks (The Hill), Breaking the Brazos (Texas Observer), ‘A national scandal’: How US climate funding could make water pollution worse (The Guardian)

WETLANDS: A fifth of the world’s species-rich wetlands have been destroyed (Bloomberg $), Half the wetlands in Europe lost in past 300 years, researchers calculate (The Guardian)

RENEWABLES: This is how heat from a volcano can be used to power an entire town (ABC), Leap in efficiency of solar cells predicted by inventor (FT $), In charts: Are governments doing enough to back green energy research? (FT $), European wind industry attacks ‘absurd’ Danish halt to approvals (FT $)

"RENEWABLES": BP CEO describes Archaea acquisition as a ‘game changer’ for boosting biogas volumes (Utility Dive)

BATTERIES: Judge declines to block Nevada lithium mine but says feds violated law (The Hill), Cobalt from artisanal mines key to global output, study says (Bloomberg $)

BUILDINGS: How to get contractors on board with heat pumps and electrification (Canary Media)

LNG: With years of high prices ahead, LNG buyers covet long-term deals (Reuters)

OIL & GAS: Fall in petrol use in gas-guzzling US heralds shift for global markets (FT $)

COAL: India's poor coal 'thieves' forced to scavenge for survival (Context),Feds: US coal exports jump as gas production hits record (E&E $), Australia rejects a coal mine near Great Barrier Reef due to risk of ‘irreversible damage’ (CNN, Bloomberg $, Reuters), Zimbabwe to start operating new coal power unit by March (Reuters)

HYDROGEN: EverWind gets approval for North America's first green hydrogen facility (Reuters), Cheap clean hydrogen? Not so fast, energy giants say. (E&E News)

UTILITIES: Dominion 'on track' with $9.8 bln Virginia offshore wind farm (Reuters)

GRID: Want your home to help the grid? These startups are making it happen (Canary Media), Value of new transmission jumps in 2022 on high power prices, extreme weather: Berkeley Lab report (Utility Dive), US microgrid market to grow 19% annually through 2027, Wood Mackenzie projects (Utility Dive)

EVs: The electric car revolution hinges on equitable, affordable charging (Axios), Cities race to add EV charging stations — pronto (Axios), What electric car buyers need to know about charging (Axios)

FOOL ME ONCE…: The world's largest carbon capture plant gets a second chance in Texas (Bloomberg $)

CARS: Auto industry risks missing climate goal by 75% -industry-backed study (Reuters), Major plug-in hybrid cars pollute more than official measures suggest (The Guardian)

RIGHT TO REPAIR: How big tech rewrote the nation’s first cell phone repair law (Grist and The Markup)

FINANCE: ESG bond sales hit 12-month high; debut deals pile up (Bloomberg $)

RICH WHITE GUYS: ‘I am not part of the problem’: Gates on using private jet despite climate activism (CNN)

GEOENGINEERING: With cash infusion, developing nations boost sun-dimming research (Context), These researchers want to launch dust from the moon to help cool earth (Washington Post $, The Guardian)

WILDLIFE: Why helping whales to flourish can help fight climate change (LA Times $)

INTERNATIONAL: Sri Lanka president prescribes bitter pill for economic revival (Reuters Factbox), Brazil pushes illegal miners out of Yanomami territory (AP), Farmers drive tractors to Paris to protest pesticide ban (AP), Eskom air pollution puts almost 80,000 lives at risk, study says (Bloomberg $), Poland moves ahead to unlock EU funds with onshore wind bill (Bloomberg $), South Africa's consumer goods firms warn of much higher prices as power cuts bite (Reuters)

• Cancer alley is real, and Louisiana officials helped create it, researchers find (Inside Climate News, Gianna St. Julien interview)
• Biden’s nod to enduring oil demand sets stage for COP28 (Bloomberg, Javier Blas column $)
• The tragedy of Tyre Nichols and the state of policing in America (Ebony, Amanda Seales op-ed)
• Greta Thunberg: ‘The world is getting more grim by the day’ (New York Times, David Wallace-Wells column $)
• India's economy - and emissions - primed for big jumps in 2023 (Reuters, Gavin Maguire column)
• Selling the inflation reduction act is Joe Biden’s next test (Energy Monitor, Justin Gerdes column)
• How utilities can prepare for Inflation Reduction Act impacts via bipartisan infrastructure law planning (Utility Dive, Michael Jung op-ed)
• This winter, more than ever, we’re skiing straight to hell (New York Times, Paul Hockenos op-ed $)
• Windfall taxes are not the only option for fossil fuel profits (FT, Pilita Clark op-ed $)
• Q&A with an Idaho teen who ran for school board — and won (Yale Climate Connections, Shiva Rajbhandari interview)

Fossil-Fueled Front Group Disinfo Spins Up NIMBY Opposition to Offshore Wind 

Is there currently a "nasty fight between environmental groups" over right whales, as a recent Washington Times headline suggests? Or is there a nasty fight between environmental organizations and fossil fuel-backed NIMBY groups opposed to offshore wind? 

The first would be a surprising story of conflict within a normally united advocacy space. The second is an all-too-familiar rerun of the well-known disinformation playbook. 

As you may guess, The Washington Times story falls into the latter camp, as it turns out that there's less fun, dramatic in-fighting between environmentalists than there is an attempt to convince reporters as much to distract from the fossil fuel ties that are polluting the debate. 

Environmentalists aren't opposing offshore wind development over the risk to right whales for a very simple reason: There's literally no evidence that offshore wind development is the reason for any of the recent whale strandings! Instead, federal investigations have put the blame on the usual suspects: vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. Those are the threats that the real environmentalists are worried about and that the Not-In-My-Back-Yard and fossil-fueled groups all seem to ignore in favor of yelling about wind. 

And an even bigger threat is that fossil fuel pollution is warming the climate, causing ocean temperatures to rise and disrupting marine ecosystems. In fact, a 2021 study pointed to climate change as the cause of increased right whale deaths!

This is why the opposition to offshore wind isn't coming from any long-established green groups but rather from fossil fuel-affiliated spokespeople or citing their materials. For example, groups with anodyne names like Protect our Oceans NJ, Save Long Beach Island, and Nantucket Residents Against Turbines (ACK RATS) are involved in lawsuits to block offshore wind, brought by the American Coalition for Ocean Protection. The coalition is actually backed by the Caesar Rodney Institute, a think tank led by David Stevenson, a former member of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team.

Stevenson's not the only disinfo expert at work on the issue. The polluter-funded Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is financing a lawsuit that challenges the Massachusetts Vineyard Wind project and is also based on fishing and wildlife concerns. 

That's not to say that everyone opposed to offshore wind is always an industry shill. NIMBYs have bedeviled development projects of all shapes and sizes, and we want to be very clear that public input is an absolutely vital tool for protecting marginalized communities from further environmental racism. 

But what we're seeing here is that the fossil fuel industry is so pervasive that even when people aren't deliberately working for the industry, their opposition relies on the industry's disinformation. If not for Fox News clips, TPPF papers, and other products, grassroots NIMBYs would run out of content to share and imagined impacts to get mad about. If not for the industry's outsourced disinformation and public relations machine, those local voices would never be planted in prominent news stories. 

And if not for the teams of lawyers earning fossil-fueled salaries, small local NIMBY groups certainly wouldn't have the financial resources to bring lawsuits.

So while not everyone opposed to offshore wind is doing it solely because they work for the fossil fuel industry, the industry's disinfo producers are certainly working for all of them!

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