Water Shortages In Iran Reach Danger Point: Decades of unsustainable political maneuvering, catalyzed by climate change, are coming to a head in southeastern Iran where, officials warn, water may completely run out in as little as three months. “We will see a humanitarian disaster,” warned 200 members of parliament in an open letter last week. Agriculture subsidies in areas like Sistan and Baluchistan province — where temperatures have hit nearly 110°F in recent days — have rewarded key constituencies for the regime but have also left those regions without diverse employment opportunities. Water shortages have contributed to social unrest, suppressed by state violence, across Iran in recent years that has broadened to general dissatisfaction with the government. Residents of Sistan and Baluchistan quickly joined anti-government protests last fall over the brutal murder of a young woman by the state's morality police and protests there outlasted those in other regions. (New York Times $; Climate Signals background: Drought)

Paris Summit Takes On Global Climate Finance: Global leaders will conclude a two-day summit in Paris today where they are, broadly speaking, seeking to remake the global financial system into a tool to fight climate change and minimize its impact on the developing nations least responsible for causing it. The summit, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in close collaboration with Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and the Indian government will take on many aspects of Mottley's "Bridgetown Initiative" — a plan focused on increasing developing nations' access to money to address the climate crisis, including through debt relief. Developing countries' unsustainable debt burdens are a huge obstacle to lessening their vulnerability to climate change and many, including Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate who spoke Thursday immediately after President Macron, have called for wealthy nations to cancel large swaths of debt. Concurrent with the summit, Pakistan premier Shahbaz Sharif met with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in Paris on Thursday to discuss the release of $1.1 billion from a $6 billion IMF bailout package to keep Pakistan solvent as it struggles to recover from the climate-fueled flooding that submerged one-third of the country a year ago. (Summit: AP, New York Times $, Reuters, E&E $, Barron's, Context; Debt burdens: AP, Deutsche Welle, AP; Pakistan recover: AP; IMF meeting: AP)

States Prohibit Utility Politicking With Customer Cash: Utilities are now prohibited from spending their customers's money on lobbying activities in a win for consumer advocates who say the measures offer important transparency safeguards, the Washington Post reports. The laws passed recently in Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine, all with bipartisan support, prohibit utilities from using money from customers' bills to pay political activities including lobbying and trade association dues. The Edison Electric Institute, a trade association for investor-owned utilities, bought Facebook ads against the legislation in Connecticut and Colorado. The American Gas Association, which has pushed preemptive bans on state and local electrification measures across the country, complained the laws "silence" its voice. “What we’ve seen in the last few months is a real turning point, where public officials have become aware and alarmed — appropriately — that utilities are forcing their customers to pay for their political operations,” David Pomerantz, head of the Energy and Policy Institute, told the Post. (Washington Post $)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: ‘Women bear the biggest brunt of climate change,’ says climate scientist Susan Chomba (The Guardian), Electric vehicle tour highlights need for equitable charging access in Cleveland (Energy News Network)

PAKISTAN: After devastating floods in Pakistan, some have recovered but many are struggling a year later (AP)

MOSQUITOES: Climate change leads to growing risk of mosquito-borne viral diseases, EU agency says (AP)

SOUTHERN HEAT: Storms and searing heat grip Mexico and southern states (Grist, Inside Climate News, Axios), How the Texas power grid has dodged disaster so far (Heatmap $), 4 dead, 10 injured after tornado rips through Texas town (Washington Post $), Texas natural gas prices rally to three-month high amid heat wave (Bloomberg $), Mexico's heat wave strains energy grid with record demand (Reuters)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: The war is worsening the effects of climate change, Kerry says. (New York Times $), New EU sanctions target Russia loopholes (Wall Street Journal $), US to provide $1.3 billion of additional aid to Ukraine, says Blinken (Reuters), Western countries look for more ways to help fund Ukraine’s reconstruction (Wall Street Journal $)

MONTANA CLIMATE TRIAL: Montana youth ask judge for historic order in climate trial (Reuters)

PUT THE FUN BETWEEN YOUR LEGS: Driving less may be as easy as riding a bike — a big electric one (Canary Media)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: US lawmakers stopped visiting China. Is climate cooperation at risk? (E&E News), NATO wants to fight climate change. Its chief tells AP the trick is to make armies green but strong (AP), Global Citizen's Power Our Planet event is set for Paris (MSNBC)

BENZENE IN YOUR BEDROOM: Cooking on gas stoves is like standing over a car tailpipe, ‘breathing in its pollution,’ research finds (San Francisco Chronicle), Cooking with a gas stove may be as bad as breathing secondhand cigarette smoke, study finds (LA Times $), Gas stoves are even worse for our health than previously known, new study finds (Yale Climate Connections), Gas stoves emit benzene levels above secondhand smoke, US study finds (The Guardian), Pollution from gas stoves can be worse than secondhand smoke (The Verge)

MEDIA: Propublica, lauded journalism nonprofit, is latest newsroom to unionize (Washington Post $)

BIG GREENS: Why the Sierra Slub's Ben Jealous is targeting red states (TIME)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Startup gets cash to unlock climate law credits (Axios)

SCOTUS: Justice samuel Alito took luxury fishing vacation with GOP billionaire who later had cases before the court (ProPublica, Bloomberg $, USA Today, Politico, The Guardian, CNBC, New York Daily News), Propublica asked about Alito’s travel. He replied in the Wall Street Journal. (Washington Post $, Jezebel, Above the Law, Slate, New York Times $, NPR, Axios, CNN, Vanity Fair, Business Insider, NBC, FT $, Reuters), Alito struggles to explain away difficult new ethics questions (MSNBC, HuffPost), 'Beyond parody': Experts pound Alito for pre-buttal op-ed defending luxury trip with GOP billionaire (Salon)

AGENCIES: AmeriCorps pledges aid to tribal-led climate solutions (Axios)

EPA: Environment groups ask Biden to crack down on methane emissions from landfills (The Hill), Coolant smuggling is a problem. The EPA’s power to tackle it was just cut down. (Washington Post $), EPA boosts use of biofuels but holds steady for corn-based ethanol production (AP, Politico Pro $), EPA tables plan to include electric vehicles in ethanol blending program (The Hill)

DOI: Biden administration moves to restore endangered species protections dropped by Trump (AP, The Hill)

DOT: Proposed rule requires railroads to notify first responders in 10-mile radius of derailments (The Hill)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: SEC to accelerate rule-making in three main areas (Reuters)

WHITE HOUSE: In ‘Cancer Alley,’ a key Biden climate push draws fire from environmentalists (Washington Post $)

HOUSE: House GOP appropriators release details on Energy-Water funding (Politico Pro $)

SENATE: Sen. Whitehouse & Katy Tur talk dark money, climate disasters, and the Justice Alito ethics scandal (MSNBC), Senate fails to override Biden veto of truck pollution resolution (Politico Pro $)

ELECTIONS: ‘Terrible idea’: Fellow Dems try to stop Manchin's presidential flirtation (Politico Pro $), Abortion rights group unveils first 2024 endorsements (The Hill)

TRIBES: A nuclear site is on tribes’ ancestral lands. Their voices are being left out on key cleanup talks (AP), Tribes unite in defense of culture and forests (Atmos)

CITIES AND STATES: Statehouses debate who should build EV charging networks (Minnesota Reformer), Bill to save New Jersey's first offshore wind farm expected soon (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: Flooding hits American towns far from oceans and big rivers (Wall Street Journal $), A year after Yellowstone floods, fishing guides have to learn 'a whole new river' (NPR), Melting Himalayan glaciers pose serious dangers to humans, report finds (CBS), WHO prepares for El Nino-linked spread of viral disease (Reuters), To save Alpine glaciers, Swiss team monitors the escalating melt (AP PHOTOS), Ambitious Saudi plans to ramp up Hajj could face challenges from climate change (AP)

HEAT: Crematorium fills up as heatwave scorches northern Indian town (Reuters), 

HURRICANES: Lesser Antilles prep for Tropical Storm Bret (Yale Climate Connections, AP, Washington Post $)

DROUGHT: How the Panama Canal is adapting to the worst drought in a century (Wall Street Journal $)

WATER: Phoenix's plan to keep the water flowing (Axios), The trillion-gallon question: what if California’s dams fail? (New York Times $)

AIR POLLUTION: Particulate matter is not ‘junk science.’ Decades of research show it affects human health (PolitiFact)

RENEWABLES: Axfood, Alight sign power purchase deal for Sweden's biggest solar park (Reuters), Blackstone raises investment in Invenergy Renewables to $4 billion (Reuters), NYISO picks $3.3B transmission project to deliver 3,000 MW of offshore wind power from Long Island (Utility Dive), Solar and wind generated more electricity than coal for record 5 months (CBS), South Korea says 6 European firms to invest $929 million in wind power, batteries (Reuters)

BATTERIES: Proposed Minnesota nickel mine begins environmental review, would supply Tesla if approved (AP)

BUILDINGS: Lunar Energy bets on a seamless ​‘ecosystem’ for home electrification (Canary Media, The Verge)

METHANE: 'Gateway to hell' leaks so much methane scientists want it plugged (Newsweek)

OIL & GAS: US oil refiners again expand fuel capacity after big shrink (Reuters)

UTILITIES: FlexCharging rolls out managed EV charging solution designed for smaller utilities (Utility Dive)

GRID: Build begins on Wyoming-to-California power line amid growing wind power concern (AP), Four non-transmission solutions for clean energy with new power lines in the permitting ‘Valley of Death’ (Utility Dive), Western transmission line breaks ground after 18-year wait (E&E News)

AVIATION: Aviation emissions targets in focus at Paris Airshow (Reuters factbox), Sasol and Topsoe plan sustainable aviation fuel venture (Reuters)

HEALTH CARE: Doctors are quietly teaching Americans about climate change (Heatmap $)

FOOD: Lab-grown chicken can now be sold in the US but good luck finding some to buy (TIME, Wall Street Journal $, AP)

CARBON PRICING: Fossil fuels, planes, ships and shares – What will be taxed for climate funds? (Climate Home)

FINANCE: Are debt-for-nature swaps the way forward for conservation? (The Guardian)

WILDLIFE: The secret in the spots on monarch butterflies’ wings (New York Times $), Alaska salmon season back on after court halts closure that sought to protect orcas (AP), Hundreds of sea lions are dying. I(s an algal bloom to blame? (New York Times $)

INTERNATIONAL: Brazil's Amaggi to push regenerative agriculture at large-scale suppliers (Reuters), Colombia will export fossil fuels for a long time, finance minister says (Reuters), France disbands climate movement over ‘eco-terrorism’ allegations (Politico Pro $), Germany's green party wants people to use heat pumps to save energy. Some are balking (NPR), Greenpeace protests mass logging of old-growth forests in Carpathian Mountains (AP), Lead EU lawmaker pushes zero-CO2 trucks target for 2040 (Reuters), Transgrid to invest $11 billion to ready Australian state for 100% renewables (Reuters), UK's Labour vows to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030 (Reuters)

• Don’t worry about the government taking your gas stove — worry about the pollution inside your home (LA Times, Lisa Patel op-ed $)
• Clean energy, green jobs as keys to securing Ukraine’s energy security (The Kyiv Independent, Svitlana Romanko op-ed)
• Preparing for a Future of Supercharged Storms (Route Fifty, Hilton Kelley and Harriet Festing op-ed)
• No rain in Panama means more pain in LNG (Bloomberg, Liam Denning column $)
• The conservative Supreme Court’s decisions restrict young Americans’ rights and freedoms (Teen Vogue, Tristin Brown and Chelsey Davidson op-ed)
• The price of making friends with Modi (New York Times, Maya Jasanoff op-ed $)
• Repealing the Inflation Reduction Act would drive the economy into a ditch (The Hill, Ben Evans op-ed)
• State Farm abandons Californians by canceling fire coverage (Sacramento Bee, Caroline Nagy op-ed $)
• Multilateral banks’ investments in industrial livestock undermine their Paris climate commitments (Climate Home, Kelly McNamara and Kari Hamerschlag op-ed)
• Macron summit can revamp global finance for a safer future (Context, Laurence Tubiana op-ed)
• Hydropower, America’s first renewable industry, could help achieve net zero — if Treasury allows it (Utility Dive, Malcolm Woolf op-ed)
• Strengthening the MDB system to meet the climate challenge (Devex, Jin Liqun op-ed)
• A Republican governor does the climate policy tap dance (New York Times, Michelle Cottle column $)
• The problem is the socializing, not the reporting (Washington Post, Philip Bump column $)
• Samuel Alito’s ethics defense is even less persuasive than his legal rulings (New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait column)

BP Joins Propaganda Push For UAE's Hosting Of COP28

Welcome to what is apparently the latest in a series of posts on how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is using all the tools in the propaganda ("public relations") handbook to launder its reputation. On top of the sexual harassment allegations facing COPs and the UN writ large, the petrostate has a serious conflict of interest with COP28, and it's got an oil boss using the summit to rehab the image of war criminals under the guise of "inclusion."

But according to fake accounts on Twitter, having the UAE's national oil company’s CEO Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber calling the shots of a climate negotiation is apparently a good thing, because he's also in charge of a clean energy company, which apparently cancels out his conflict of interest… as if most oil companies don't also have token clean energy profit streams or shiny PR distractions. 

And if you think using AI-generated headshots on fake accounts promoting the UAE and praising al-Jaber would be as low as the PR team could go in terms of obvious shilling, we have some shocking news. It turns out there's a spokesperson even more transparently unbelievable than literally fake people: the very real CEO of BP, Bernard Looney. 

In a letter to the Financial Times, Looney offers a 15-sentence master class in disinformation and how to sound like a fake bot on Twitter in the pages of a prestigious media outlet. It starts with the obligatory reference and deference to the editorial Looney’s letter is responding to, before launching into a defense of the man the Financial Times criticized as an "unwise choice of an oil man as COP president."

The second paragraph describes the UAE's "transformational intent," its "plans to spend" billions on "green innovation" in the future, and the fact that it "already invested nearly $17bn in low-carbon energy." Okay, so it's, like, totally gonna pay for clean energy ... in the future though. 

For now, Looney says that "the UAE sits on prolific oil and gas resources – and is committed to net zero." Okay, well, if that last part were true, then it would continue to simply sit on those resources and not exploit them and instead spend 100% of its energy budget on zero-carbon energy. Buuuut that's not what's happening. Weird!

Looney goes on to cite al-Jaber's "challenges" to the oil and gas industry to clean up its act, despite the fact that both Looney and al-Jaber are overseeing oil companies that are continuing to operate as they would in a world where fossil fuels weren’t causing climate change. Looney also praises the UAE because it "understands" the Big Oil talking point that “the energy system of the future has to be more secure and more affordable as well as lower carbon." 

Did you catch the rhetorical sleight of hand that lets one Big Oil CEO praise a state-run oil company boss as a climate champ? We'll give you a hint: It's the same tactic al-Jaber used when calling for a "phase out of fossil fuel emissions" instead of a phase out of fossil fuels, which prompted UN Secretary-General António Guterres to call for leaving "oil, gas and coal in the ground where they belong" because there are "far too many willing to bet it all on wishful thinking, unproven technologies and silver bullet solutions." 

Okay, back to Looney! By referencing "lower carbon" energy, Looney can describe methane gas and even oil as supposed climate solutions, because they're lower carbon than, say, burning the dirtiest coal possible, or just directly lighting climate textbooks on fire. 

And while Looney acknowledges the need to "[invest] much more in the energy transition," he then advocates for "continued investment in today's mainly hydrocarbon energy system” before adding, “In this, the UAE is an exemplar – maybe uniquely so." 

Looney is literally just describing the status quo and paying lip service to critics who think that it's a bad idea for an oil boss to run climate negotiations, while also making it clear to shareholders that they don't intend to actually change anything about their business. 

To conclude, Looney claims that "if people want a truly transformative COP28, let's get behind a country of action on climate change and support the UAE and Dr Al-Jaber's leadership of this vital process." 

How is a "continued investment in today's mainly hydrocarbon energy system" supposed to lead to a "truly transformative" outcome? 

It's not. But it sure sounds good! 

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