'Face the Music'— Big Oil Lawsuits Move Closer To Discovery, Trial: The roughly 30 lawsuits brought by cities, states, and tribes across the U.S. seeking to hold the oil and gas industry accountable are moving closer to trial as evidence of industry deception and the impacts of climate change have increased during years of delay, Grist reports. Oil and gas firms and their trade associations have repeatedly sought to move the state and municipal lawsuits to federal courts where they believe they will have a tactical advantage, but the Supreme Court's decision not to hear cases brought by California cities and the state of Minnesota means those cases can proceed toward the discovery phase. The potential for multiple states and suits to proceed to discovery is “really what the industry fears the most,” said Alyssa Johl of the Center for Climate Integrity. “They don’t want anyone digging through their archives and divulging their innermost thoughts and secrets.” The discovery process unearthed much of what the public learned about the tobacco industry's coverup of the cancer-causing effects of smoking, and the oil and gas industry has drawn directly from Big Tobacco for lawyers, marketing inspiration and tactics to avoid perjury before Congress. “Last year was a really pivotal year in terms of getting past the industry’s big push and their delay tactics,” Johl said. "Now they have to face the music.” (Grist)

Accidental Gas Pipeline Leaks To Be Counted, Punished Under Proposed EPA Rule: Pipeline leaks have spilled nearly 10 billion cubic feet of methane gas pollution into the atmosphere, Reuters reports, warming the climate as much as running four coal power plants for a year. But pipeline operators are virtually immune from consequences and those emissions are omitted from U.S. greenhouse gas pollution totals. A proposed EPA rule, however, would crack down on large, accidental leaks with fines of $900 to $1,500 per metric ton methane pollution and include those emissions in the country's official greenhouse gas pollution totals. Methane traps over 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a 20 year time scale and its emissions from oil and gas operations have been undercounted by the EPA. An EDF analysis last year estimated gas pipelines across the U.S. spilled 1.2 million and 2.6 million tons of methane per year; 3.75 to 8 times greater than EPA estimates. (Reuters)

Activists Target Insurance Firms: The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Thursday it had reached an agreement with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners under which state insurance regulators will collect and share data about how climate change is affecting insurance companies, a compromise after companies complained about a requirement for federal disclosure of climate risks. The increasing frequency and severity of climate-fueled disasters is causing rising concern nationwide as insurers flee uninsurable markets, and activists urge the insurance industry to stop financing operations that exacerbate the climate crisis. Insure Our Future’s global week of action (from Feb. 26-March 3) included actions in 31 countries calling on the insurance industry to stop underwriting fossil fuel projects. “The insurance industry is the one that is sustaining this climate crisis,” Hillary Innocent Taylor Seguya, an activist with Stop EACOP, a group fighting the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, told Inside Climate News. “If they pull out of insuring these carbon bombs—the oil, gas and coal projects—there is no way that the fossil fuel industry will survive.” (Treasury: E&E $, Bloomberg $; Data collection: New York Times $; Protests: Inside Climate News)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: New lake will fuel petrochemical expansion on Texas coast (Inside Climate News)

COP29: Azerbaijan vulnerable to climate change, host of UN summit says (FT $)

MAPLE SYRUP: Maple syrup season came weeks early in the Midwest. Producers are doing their best to adapt (AP), At Northwestern, students watch climate change through maple trees (AP)

DENIAL & DISINFO: Livestock industry co-opts academics to downplay its climate impact, study says (Washington Post $)

DOE: DOE opens up $425M for clean energy supply chains in coal communities (Politico Pro $)

SEC: Conflicting views on SEC’s authority set the tone for climate disclosure rule vote (Utility Dive), States join legal fray over landmark SEC climate rule (E&E $), The SEC and the rise of the climate risk industry (Axios)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden backtracks on climate plans and ‘walks tightrope’ to court both young voters and moderates (The Guardian), What Biden's State of the Union revealed about his climate plans (Axios), Why Biden talked up the IRA without saying its name (Heatmap $), Biden seeks to triple Climate Corps program (The Hill), Biden signs 6-bill funding package, after Senate averts shutdown (Politico Pro $), As the presidential election looms, John Kerry reckons with the country’s climate past and future (Inside Climate News), Biden highlights efforts to reverse the climate crisis in the US (NBC)

POLITICS: Republicans tap former oil lobbyist for national chair (E&E News, Politico Pro $, Politico Pro $)

ELECTIONS: Anticipating the climate impact: The next presidency’s influence (Black Wall Street Times), Amid white supremacist scandal, far-right billionaire powerbrokers see historic election gains in Texas (Texas Tribune)

TRIBES: Tribes meeting with Inter-American Commission on Human Rights describe harms uranium mining has had on them, and the threats new mines pose (Inside Climate News)

CITIES AND STATES: New York's cap-and-trade proposal threatens state's climate goals (Politico Pro $), Republican-led states lose bid to block EPA rule expanding water permit veto powers (Reuters), Why New York is suing the world’s biggest meat company (Vox)

• TEXAS: Texas sues EPA over methane rule (E&E $), Texas challenges US EPA limits on oil and gas industry methane emissions (Reuters), Texas sues Biden administration over finalized methane rule (The Hill)

FERC: Federal lawmakers urge FERC to adopt ‘shared savings’ incentive for grid-enhancing technologies (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: 'Widespread' coral bleaching threatens iconic reefs, NOAA warns (Axios), Cherry blossoms are halfway to peak bloom and much sooner than normal (Washington Post $), Climate change’s impacts on coastal cities could be heightened as those cities sink: Study (The Hill), Does climate change trigger earthquakes? (Vox), Fifth mass coral bleaching event in eight years hits Great Barrier Reef, marine park authority confirms (The Guardian), Study assesses effect of climate change at early ages in Cuba (Prensa Latina), The Oregon coast inspired the novel ‘Dune.’ Does the sci-fi tale foreshadow its fate? (Inside Climate News), Venezuela’s last glacier (CNN)

LOST WINTER: The warmest winter in US history leaves its mark (Yale Climate Connections),  Much of America asks: Where did winter go? Spring starts early as US winter was warmest on record (AP), Winter is over, and it was the warmest on record. Here’s what the US missed out on this season (CNN), Skiers head north to snow-sure Scandinavia as the alps heat up (Bloomberg $)

WILDFIRES: After winter storms, California can expect a late start to the wildfire season (LA Times $), Rains are scarce in the Amazon. instead, megafires are raging. (New York Times $)

DROUGHT: A religious procession in Barcelona celebrates rain during a severe drought in northeast Spain (AP)

WATER: ‘We can do better’: Western states divided over long-term plans for Colorado River water (LA Times $), A Saudi business is leaving Arizona valley after it was targeted by the state over groundwater use (AP)

(DE)FORESTATION: Can carbon offsets save a fragile band of Belize's tropical rainforest? (Inside Climate News)

PUT THE FUN BETWEEN YOUR LEGS: As bikeshare struggles elsewhere, promoters hope Youngstown, Ohio, can make it work (Energy News Network)

RENEWABLES: California offshore wind prospects hit snags (Politico Pro $), Chart: US smashes record for climatetech investment in 2023 (Canary Media), How one of the coldest, darkest towns on earth is trying to get more energy from the sun (Washington Post $), Louisiana colleges aim to build state’s offshore economy into a nerve center for wind energy (Utility Dive), Solar project at Fort Lauderdale park keeps basketball players cool (Yale Climate Connections)

BATTERIES: How changes to Hawaiʻi’s home battery program could hinder its clean energy transition (Grist and Honolulu Civil Beat)

LNG: Aramco in talks for US LNG projects as mideast gas race heats up (Bloomberg $)

OIL & GAS: BP's carbon emissions rise for the first time since 2019 (Reuters), Exxon-Chevron battle in Guyana roils hedge funds (Bloomberg $), US Coast Guard says no remaining recoverable oil sheen seen off California (Reuters, AP)

COAL: China coal industry doesn't expect imports to rise this year (Reuters)

UTILITIES: Texas slows development of annual $1B performance credit mechanism designed to boost grid (Utility Dive)

EVs: GM resumes sales, cuts price of Chevy Blazer EV after software issue (Reuters), The R2 is the Rivian that matters (Heatmap $), Toyota’s hybrid-first strategy is delivering big profits (New York Times $)

AVIATION: Aviation industry likely to miss net zero target, warns former Schiphol boss (FT $)

AGRICULTURE: African drought and Europe’s farming troubles (Bloomberg $), The precarious future facing Brazil’s new boomtowns (FT $), They want to make palm oil in a lab. Without palm trees. (New York Times $)

CAFFEINE: Coffee, courtesy of the "electrify everything" movement (Axios)

POP CULTURE: Film studio from Oscar-winning director aims to stir up ‘populist anger’ over climate crisis (The Guardian)

INTERNATIONAL: EU delays stricter rules on imports from deforested areas (FT $), Labour says it would aim for zero-waste economy by 2050 (The Guardian)

• We can’t pretend we’re doing enough if we want to give the Great Barrier Reef a chance to survive (The Guardian, Adam Morton column)
• Carbon capture isn't the future; it's more of the same (The Advocate, Autumn Hanna and James Hiatt op-ed)
• We’re thinking about ‘the apocalypse’ all wrong (Heatmap, Emily Raboteau interview $)
• The fate of the hydrogen tax credit is now in Treasury’s hands (Utility Dive, Zane McDonald op-ed)

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