Climate Change Threatens US Credit Rating: The sovereign credit rating of 59 countries, including the United States, China, India, and Canada could be downgraded in the next decade without significant emissions reductions, according to a study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the University of Cambridge. The researchers simulated the impact of climate change on sovereign credit ratings for 108 countries, creating the world’s first “climate-adjusted” ratings system, and found deferring green investments now will lead to higher borrowing costs in the future resulting in higher corporate debt. Furthermore, the researchers found current finance indicators such as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings and corporate disclosures do not provide an adequate insight into how climate change affects material risk since most do not have scientific underpinning. “Ratings agencies took a reputational hit for failing to anticipate the 2008 financial crisis. It is imperative that they are proactive in reflecting the much larger consequences of climate change now,” researcher Patrycja Klusak told the economic times. While smaller nations, many with lower credit scores, are likely to bear the most direct losses and damages of global warming, it was nations with strong credit ratings that would face more severe downgrades. The United States’ credit score, for example, could fall two notches potentially costing the U.S. Treasury (and thus American taxpayers) hundreds of billions of dollars. "There are no winners," Klusak added. (Reuters $, Economic Times $)

Power Line Burial (Or Not) Reflects Broader Inequities: Burying power lines is one of the most effective ways to prevent wildfires and improve overall resilience to extreme weather, but inequitable resource allocation means low-income California communities can’t afford to bury lines, a new study published Monday in Nature Energy finds. “Distribution grids in low-income communities are in a wildfire safety deficit,” Zhecheng Wang, lead author of the study, said in a statement. Since power companies routinely shut off above-ground power lines to avoid starting wildfires, low-income communities, also less likely to have solar panels and batteries or fossil fueled-power backup are more likely to lose electricity. (The Hill)

Drax Wood Pellets Pollute Mississippi Town While Withholding Electricity From Struggling UK: A yearslong battle between a small, majority-Black, low-income town in rural Mississippi and the Drax Group, a multi-billion dollar UK-based energy company, highlights a major pitfall in EU renewable energy policy, NBC reports. Drax opened a wood pellet manufacturing plant in Gloster, Mississippi, in 2016 under the guise of providing rural jobs locally and “renewable, carbon-neutral” sources of energy to meet the EU’s appetite for biomass. Drax has significantly degraded local air quality (amounting to millions of dollars worth of fines) without actually decreasing the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s because wood pellets are a decidedly poor fossil fuel replacement – producing numerous hazardous pollutants during the manufacturing process, and emitting 150% more carbon dioxide than coal per unit energy produced. Ultimately, Drax’s “clean energy” image is based on a carbon accounting loophole that fails to address the complexity of the carbon cycle and reality of the timber industry. “They claim to be the good guys, but the industry is one of the most polluting and most damaging to the environment and to communities,” Robert Musil, head of the Rachel Carson Council, told NBC. The EU's burning of wood pellets for electricity shares obvious parallels with the cotton and Atlantic slave trade, where primarily Black and poor communities in the American South are harmed for European benefit. In addition to the pollution of communities near its manufacturing facilities, new reporting from Bloomberg shows that while UK electricity prices soared last year, Drax cut back UK electricity production during a national electricity shortage to avoid repaying taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds for exceeding profit limits on their subsidized operations there. (NBC; UK power hoarding: Bloomberg $; Drax denial: The Guardian)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: 109-year-old Tulsa massacre survivor becomes oldest woman in the world to release a memoir (The 19th* News)

• COP CITY: ‘We can’t stay silent anymore’: On Cop City and grief (Prism Reports)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Black Sea strike ramps up risks for oil supply in Russia-Ukraine conflict (Axios), China's Yanchang seen doubling Russian oil purchases - sources (Reuters)

BUILDINGS: Sweaty Europe can kill two birds with one pump (Reuters)

FOOD: The climate wrecking ball striking food supply (Axios)

9:37 🚂 TO THE PETROCHEMICAL DYSTOPIA: East Palestine 6 months later: Health issues persists and answers are elusive (Environmental Health News)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Amazon nations summit faces fault lines on oil, deforestation (Reuters, Climate Home), An Indigenous leader has inspired an Amazon city to grant personhood to an endangered river (AP)

SO, ABOUT LAST MONTH … : European scientists make it official. July was the hottest month on record by far (AP, CNBC, FT $, CBS, Politico EU, CNN, France24, Le Monde, The Times), 2023 is on track to be the hottest year on record (Washington Post $)

DENIAL: In DeSantis’ Fla., schools get OK for climate-denial videos (E&E News), What is PragerU? The conservative education platform now in Florida schools (The Hill)

THE KIDS THESE DAYS: Big Oil’s talent crisis: High salaries are no longer enough (Wall Street Journal $)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Democrats trumpet climate bill passage anniversary (E&E $), Year after Biden’s climate bill sees spike in renewable energy investment, industry says (The Hill), 7 in 10 say they’ve heard little or nothing about Inflation Reduction Act since passage: poll (The Hill), Clean energy investments top $270B in the past year, report says (Politico Pro $)

EPA: EPA aims to boost environmental justice in lead paint enforcement (E&E $), States sue EPA to force year-round E15 fuel sales (E&E $)

DOE: EPRI, DOE launch effort to prepare grid for future EV growth (Politico Pro $)

DOI: Interior deepens review of Mont. coal mine expansion (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden heads west for a policy victory lap, drawing an implicit contrast with Trump (AP, Reuters), Biden heads to sweltering Southwest to tout climate work (E&E $), Biden will tout long-sought Grand Canyon monument designation during Arizona visit (AP, New York Times $), Grand Canyon monument won’t end fight over uranium mining (E&E News)

THE HILL: Field hearings focus on Western wildfires, disasters (E&E $), GOP lawmakers allege China ties to green groups (E&E $)

HOUSE: House Dems urge ‘strong’ SEC climate disclosure rule (E&E News)

POLITICS: Democrats see Michigan and Minnesota as guides for what to do with majority power (AP)

TRIBES: Tribes hope Biden’s Arizona visit means long-sought Grand Canyon monument designation (AP)

CITIES AND STATES: As feds look to cut red tape, more local governments are curbing wind and solar (HuffPost), In Youngstown, a downtown tire pyrolysis plant is called a ‘recipe for disaster’ (Inside Climate News), New Jersey's top lawmakers say they worry about offshore wind (Politico Pro $)

FERC: APS interconnection reforms should be rejected, RWE Clean Energy, trade groups tell FERC (Utility Dive), FERC rejects requests from Entergy, others for waivers of MISO’s seasonal capacity rules (Utility Dive), FERC strains to get big transmission plan moving (E&E News)

IMPACTS: Mississippi River careens from floods to low water, threatening barge traffic (Wall Street Journal $), Record glacial flooding swept away two homes in Alaska’s capital (Washington Post $, Reuters, AP, Fox Weather), Algae blooms: Everything you need to know (EcoWatch), NATO and the EU send aid to Slovenia after floods that killed at least 6 and left many homeless (AP), Toll from landslide in Georgia mountain resort up to 17 dead, 18 missing (AP), Train derails and roads flood as Sweden, Norway hit by torrential rain (Reuters), Stay inside as dangerous stormy weather lashes northern Europe, officials say. 2 people have died (AP), Urgent effort underway to save coral reefs from rising ocean temperatures off Florida Keys (CBS), Bursting ice dam in Alaska highlights risks of glacial flooding around the globe (AP)

HEAT: Electricity rates in Texas skyrocket amid statewide heat wave (CBS), Heat wave partly to blame for surge in gas[oline] prices (CBS), In Phoenix, emergency room doctors confront the dangers of extreme heat (Grist), The science behind heat domes (CBS), Weather watch extended through Friday as heat strains Texas power grid, ERCOT says (Austin-American Statesman), Intense heat wave baking south from Texas to Florida to last all week (Washington Post $)

WILDFIRES: How can we prevent wildfire disasters? (Context, Explainer), Multinational force fights stubborn wildfire in Cyprus, including Lebanon, Greece and Jordan (AP), Three dead after midair firefighting helicopter collision in California (Gizmodo), Thousands of firefighters battle Portugal wildfires (AP), Wildfire closes highway through Washington’s North Cascades National Park (AP)

DROUGHT: Drought forces Spain to source drinking water from the sea (Wall Street Journal $)

(DE)FORESTATION: Brazil courts private sector help to reforest the Amazon, minister says (Reuters)

RENEWABLES: How a former oil guy is using fracking tech to boost geothermal energy (TIME, Tim Latimer interview), Canada's Heliene plans new US solar panel and cell factory (Reuters), Just how fast will clean energy grow in the U.S.? (Yale Climate Connections), Solar power to the rescue as Europe's energy system weathers extreme heat (Reuters), Vena Energy, Suntech, others explore solar panel parts production in Indonesia (Reuters)

• OFFSHORE WIND: Atlantic’s biggest offshore wind turbine to rise next week in US (Bloomberg $), Wind industry in crisis as problems mount (Wall Street Journal $), CEOs: Offshore wind down but not out (E&E $), Offshore wind runs into rising costs and delays (New York Times $), US offshore wind faces headwinds, but outlook is strong: DBRS Morningstar VP (Utility Dive), The future of East Coast wind power could ride on this Jersey beach town (Washington Post $)

OIL & GAS: Big Oil holds more federal leases than previously known — report (E&E $), Natural gas closes sharply higher on heat, LNG hopes (Wall Street Journal $), Rising oil prices are bad news for drivers—and the Fed (Wall Street Journal $), Saudi oil giant Aramco reports $30B in profits, down nearly 40% from last year due to lower prices (AP, Wall Street Journal $), The unholy alliance between ‘certified’ clean natural gas producers and the certifying companies (American Prospect), Alaska Division of Oil and Gas plans geothermal lease sale for volcano near Anchorage (Alaska Beacon)

PIPELINES: North Dakota rejects permit for CO2 pipeline developer (E&E $)

UTILITIES: Regulators blast Minn. utility for pulling EV-charging plan (E&E $), US utilities oppose Biden efforts to make gas power plants cleaner (The Guardian)

GRID: Microgrids are giving power to the people (New York Times $), Northeast grid operator weighs first EJ position (E&E $), The grid isn’t ready for the EV boom. Can better data fix that? (Canary Media)

EVs: The true cost of ‘refilling’ an EV in every state (Washington Post $)

FUN EVs: Why e-bike companies are embracing recycling while fighting repair (Grist)

ACTIVISM: Obama alum [Jody Freeman] targeted by climate activists quits ConocoPhillips (E&E $)

BUSINESSES: How Amazon’s HQ2 pushes the (building) envelope on embodied carbon (Energy News Network)

POP CULTURE: ‘Oppenheimer’ is a window into one of the greatest climate debates (Heatmap $)

THERE'S A METAPHOR HERE SOMEWHERE: Gas mogul who redrew energy map clings to Aspen ranch after loans come due (FT $)

ZOOS: Extreme weather is coming. Someone has to tell the chimps. (New York Times $)

INTERNATIONAL: Australia sets climate target for aid programme, pledges more local jobs (Reuters), Can’t stand the heat: how can UK workplaces adapt to the climate crisis? (The Guardian), Climate justice through climate finance? Australia’s approach to climate finance in the pacific (Nature), Italy earmarks 2.9 million euros to tackle blue crab invasion (Reuters), Australian aid policy to focus on climate — and countering China (Washington Post $), New Zealand is partnering with BlackRock in aim to reach 100% renewable electricity (AP)

• Countries must unite around a new economy to save the Amazon (Context, Ani Dasgupta and M. Sanjayan op-ed)
• Wildfires and Indigenous ways to stop them (Context, Michael Shank op-ed)
• It’s lights out for incandescent bulbs. Did anyone even notice? (LA Times, Editorial Board $)
• Home heat pumps deserve louder cheerleaders (Bloomberg, Lara Williams column $)
• Climate is now a culture war issue (New York Times, Paul Krugman column $)
• The imperative of free, green and secure wires reform (Utility Dive, Devin Hartman and Jennie Chen op-ed)
• Michael Mann responds on wildfires and climate change (Wall Street Journal, letter to the editor $)
• The politics and science of jet fuel (Wall Street Journal, Fred Krupp op-ed $)
• State must electrify new construction in every community to meet climate change goals (Boston Globe, Lisa Cunningham and Kannan Thiruvengadam op-ed $)
• Biden’s fuel economy standards mean higher prices and reduced choices for drivers (Washington Examiner, Alex Gage op-ed)
• Washington has energy production all wrong (Wall Street Journal, Harold Hamm op-ed $)

Big Oil Exploits Ukrainian Refugees For PR, Puts Them To Work For The Industry Funding The War

Would you want to work for a company that's profiting off destroying your future? What about an industry that's already destroying your present? Obviously not — but for a select few, it's not much of a choice. 

On the first question, the fossil fuel industry is struggling to hire new talent as college graduates are apparently increasingly reluctant to seek employment with the industry destroying their (present and) future by profiting off of unconstrained carbon pollution. 

“People are concerned they won’t have a job in 10 to 20 years,” one petroleum engineering student told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). A recent graduate now employed at BP said she “sometimes prepares talking points in case someone attacks the industry” while she’s socializing with friends. 

It's a problem that fossil fuel companies are addressing — not by actually transitioning to clean fuels, of course, but by greenwashing. 

“Oil-and-gas companies are pouring money into fellowships and other programs designed to cultivate a new generation of talent,” the WSJ reported. BP, for example, has “launched a new $4 million fellowship program with U.S. universities to provide students with exposure to the energy industry,” while also investing a *b*illion more dollars a year than expected on producing climate-warming fuels. 

And these polluters are getting creative. Not content to merely exploit those whose futures will be ruined by their profits, the fossil fuel industry is also exploiting people whose present lives have been destroyed by fossil-fueled profits. 

Last Sunday, the AP ran with this headline: “Ukrainians move to North Dakota for oil field jobs to help families facing war back home.” Sounds like a heartwarming news story, but like so many others, the feel-good sheen covers a sinister reality. 

As part of the U.S. government’s Uniting for Ukraine program to provide citizenship to Ukranians escaping Russia’s invasion, the North Dakota Petroleum Council’s Bakken Global Recruitment of Oilfield Workers program is graciously inviting refugees to fill the oil jobs that the industry is otherwise struggling to fill because the industry is dirty and work incredibly dangerous.

(The fact that accepting overwhelmingly-white Ukrainian refugees is so uncontroversial you’ve probably never heard of the numerically unlimited Uniting for Ukraine program — contrary to … say, Syrian refugees, the specter of migrants in so-called "caravans" that didn't even really exist, or other immigrants from "shithole countries" — is worth mentioning.)

So, as Big Oil reaps billions in windfall profits as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which in turn is funded by Russia's oil industry, the industry is using the war for a PR push. 

"This is a fossil fuel war," Ukrainian climate scientist Svitlana Krakovska declared last year. Surely refugees deserve better than being graciously given the opportunity to work for the industry bankrolling the bombs destroying their country. 

Continental Resources, a Bakken heavyweight, made $1.01 Billion in profits in just the 3rd quarter of 2022. Maybe if the industry wanted to help refugees more than it wanted PR about how it's a beneficial job creator, it could just give them 0.01% of just three months of just one company's profits? Just round that number down to an even $1 billion? 

Or maybe the industry could divert some of the $125 million they spent lobbying?  

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to receive Hot News every morning!

Send updates or feedback to nkauffman@climatenexus.org
Submit events and other items for consideration for a First Look using this form
Some articles require logins or subscriptions ($)