73 Million Broken Promises; Google Failing To Enforce Policy Against Climate Disinfo Ads: A new report has found that Google is breaking its October 2021 promise to not sell ads on YouTube videos containing climate disinformation. The Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) collected 200 examples of climate disinformation YouTube videos, which collectively serve ads to over 73 million viewers. But that's "probably the tip of the iceberg," CCDH head of research Callum Hood told the New York Times. Of those videos, (with 18 million total views), 100 meet Google's very narrow definition of climate disinformation, which applies only to denial of the existence or human causes of climate change. The second set of 100 videos meets CAAD's definition of climate disinformation, which accounts for popular tactics like greenwashing. These videos amassed 55 million views, demonstrating the weakness of Google's current definition of climate disinformation. During the course of the research, only eight videos in the researchers’ dataset were demonetized by Google. "Tech companies make big promises on hate and misinformation because they know it's hard to see if they've kept them," said CCDH's Head of Research Callum Hood in a press release. "Despite Google's green grandstanding, its ads continue to fuel the climate denial industry." Brands featured in ads on climate denial included Politico, Google itself, and the new Jane Fonda movie "80 for Brady." Ms. Fonda told the Times she was "appalled that an ad for one of my movies appears on one of those videos, and hope YouTube stops this practice immediately," and found it "abhorrent that YouTube would violate its own policy [while] the earth is burning." (New York Times $; Report, For more, scroll down to the Denier Roundup.) 

SCOTUS To Rule On Major Case That Could Curb Fed Rulemaking: This fall, the justices will consider whether to overturn an oft-cited legal doctrine that tells courts to defer to the opinion of federal agencies in defining their statutory authority. Established in 1984, the “Chevron Doctrine” has made it more difficult to legally challenge federal regulations related to climate change, public health, and consumer safety, and has long been a target of conservative campaigns to shrink the size of government. “Chevron has become the crucial bulwark to protect executive branch agencies from doing the job that Congress assigned them without improper interference from courts,” James Goodwin, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform told Bloomberg. “You’ve basically just pulled the rug out from under Congress for the last 40 years.” The case heading to the high court was brought by a group of New Jersey fishermen, who argue that a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration regulation that requires them to pay up to $700 per day for a compliance contractor is beyond the authority Congress granted to the agency. The lower courts have rejected their arguments thus far, but at least four conservative members of the Supreme Court have previously questioned the validity of the Chevron Doctrine, and were willing to restrict the ability of EPA to regulate climate pollution in a ruling last June. (CNN, AP, NBC News, CBS News, CNBC, The Hill, Roll Call, Esquire, Fox News, Grist, USA Today, Washington Post $, New York Times $, Bloomberg $, Politico $, Wall Street Journal $) 

Washington Gov. Inslee To 'Pass The Torch': Known as a champion for addressing climate change, the nation’s longest serving governor announced Monday he won’t seek reelection next year. Gov. Jay Inslee has served as Washington’s governor since 2012 after representing the state in Congress for eight terms. Inslee ran a climate-centered platform in a presidential bid, before dropping out of the 2020 election race in August 2019. In a statement announcing his decision, Inslee highlighted his record on climate change, along with gun violence and criminal justice reform. Two Democrats in the state, Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, are expected to soon announce their candidacy to follow the retiring Inslee.  Both were expected to run for the governorship in 2020, but stayed out of the race after Inslee decided to seek a third term. (CNN, NBC News, Seattle Times $, Capitol Hill Seattle, Axios, E&E $, New York Times $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Greens sue FAA, alleging weak SpaceX NEPA review (E&E $)

AGENCIES: The woman in the center of Biden's climate aid puzzle (E&E $), 

EPA: As EPA readies climate rule, Obama and Trump eras linger (Roll Call), EPA proposal advances La. bid to oversee CO2 wells (E&E $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Another big Alaska fossil fuel project gets Biden team’s blessing (Politico)

THE HILL: House passes resolution to end pause on SE Asia solar panel tariffs, Sen. Manchin co-sponsors Senate version (Utility Dive), Manchin seeks to repeal parts of inflation law on debt concerns (Bloomberg $), Manchin’s ‘playing with fire’ — and some Democrats are tired of the drama (Politico) 

SENATE: Chesapeake Bay champion Ben Cardin to retire from Senate (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: New Hampshire rejects climate lawsuit against oil industry (E&E $), Mental health, roofing and job training: Illinois ‘just transition’ grants roll out (Energy News Network), NYC to reduce carbon emissions from food (EcoWatch)

~CALIFORNIA: Electrify everything, California says (Gizmodo), See rushing waterfalls and submerged roads as California floods (Gizmodo)

PUERTO RICO: ‘I thought they’d kill us’: how the US Navy devastated a tiny Puerto Rican island (The Guardian)

IMPACTS: A new study shows how seriously air pollution can affect your heartbeat (TIME), Tornadoes in Virginia and Florida, flooding in other states (AP), 15 million people at risk globally from glacial lake dam bursts, study finds (Yale Climate Connections), Global ocean temperatures spike to record levels as El Niño nears (Axios)

BIG GREENS: Sierra Club lays off equity staffers (E&E $)

BATTERIES: Ore. utility lands battery site big enough to power Portland (E&E $)

BUILDING ELECTRIFICATION: Heat pump is a dumb name for a smart appliance. Can you do better? (Clean Technica)

GAS STOVES: Fla. legislature complies with DeSantis request to block gas stove bans (E&E $)

NUKES: Smaller, cheaper, safer: The next generation of nuclear power, explained (Vox), Oliver Stone’s new movie makes the case nuclear power is the obvious solution to climate change (CNBC)

BIOFUELS: US government may delay decision on electric vehicles biofuel program (Reuters)

H2: This power plant offers a peek of the future (Washington Post $)

STORAGE: Renewable energy is here. But how do we store it for the future? (NPR)

FINANCE: More green investment hasn’t softened red resistance on climate (CNN)

CARBON CAPTURE: As oil output peaks, US Gulf of Mexico makes room for carbon capture (Reuters)

RAINFORESTS: The world’s best rainforest guardians already live there (Washington Post $)

TRUCKS: How quickly can trucking decarbonize? California is about to find out (Canary Media)

SHIPPING: More fog may slow new Arctic shipping routes (E&E $)

SATELLITES: Satellites can help the world reach net zero by 2040 (Energy Monitor)

PFAS: Federal study details extent of PFAS in firefighters' gear (E&E $)

ACTIVISM: Helpful hand? Activist glues palm to podium on live Swiss TV (AP)

FOOTY: Barça ditching private jet for train points to greener football (Bloomberg $)

WILDLIFE: New 50-year study offers insight into effects of climate on bird reproduction (Phys.org)

INTERNATIONAL: Beijing says it cares about climate but prioritizes growth (Forbes), How climate change is affecting Africa (Yale Climate Connections), Many Europeans want climate action – but less so if it changes their lifestyle, shows poll (The Guardian)

• Climate change and crumbling infrastructure create a 'perfect storm' for Americans living in flood zones (The Hill, William S. Becker op-ed)

• Gas stoves emit greenhouse gases, can contribute to asthma, heart disease, cancer (Asheville Citizen Times, Richard Needleman op-ed)

Google's Greenwash: YouTube Violating Climate Disinfo Ad Policy With Over 73 Million Monetized Views

In October 2021, when Google announced a new policy against putting ads on climate disinformation, we called it a "small but serious win," before our checks last fall and other research showed enforcement was lacking, to say the least. But that was just a glimpse.

Ads are being sold on climate disinformation YouTube videos with over 73 million total views, according to a new report by the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). Among them? Ads for climate activist Jane Fonda's latest film, prompting the actress to tell the New York Times that she is "appalled that an ad for one of my movies appears on one of those videos, and hope YouTube stops this practice immediately."

Researchers compiled 200 YouTube videos that included climate denial and ran advertisements, including ads for major brands like Nike and even nonprofits like the Rainforest Trust. Over the course of the research, only eight of the 200 videos had their ads removed, demonstrating just how little Google is actually doing to enforce its policy. 

100 of the videos break Google's very specific definition of climate disinformation, which applies only to denial of the existence or human causes of climate change. Those videos got some 18 million total views, proving that Google is still selling numerous ads on climate disinformation videos on YouTube. 

But it gets worse! Google's definition excludes other forms of climate disinformation like greenwashing, false claims about climate solutions, and denial of climate impacts. CAAD researchers gathered another 100 YouTube videos with content that meets CAAD's definition of climate disinfo. Those videos got nearly three times as many views — over 55 million of the 73 million total views. So even if Google were effectively enforcing its policy, it'd still be exempting a much bigger portion of the problem. 

Climate disinformation on YouTube didn’t come out of nowhere: The energy industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on a network of disinformation producers. Furthermore, fossil fuel advertisers like ExxonMobil and Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future deliberately avoid blatant climate denial, instead creating more sophisticated greenwashing content. (And as a reminder, disinformation about a product’s harm is false advertising that is not protected by the First Amendment.)

Enforcing Google's policies is Google's responsibility. Google and YouTube employ thousands of people and have budgets bigger than most organizations can even imagine. Surely, if CAAD and CCDH can find tens of millions of views on content that breaks Google’s rules, the tech wizards employed by Alphabet are smart enough, and well-resourced enough, to find it too. 

And Google certainly did find some of the videos, because it put ads on them! According to the researchers, 19% of the channels that posted the 200 climate disinfo videos are not part of YouTube's Partnership Program that allows them to split ad revenue with Google. That means YouTube put the ads on the videos and is getting all the revenue from the climate disinformation therein. Over a year after unveiling its policy that supposedly “aligns strongly with the work [Google has] done as a company over the past two decades to promote sustainability and confront climate change head-on,” Google is still actively profiting off of blatant lies about climate change.

Callum Hood, Head of Research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said in a press release that “despite Google’s green grandstanding, its ads continue to fuel the climate denial industry. Whether it’s taking cash to target users with climate disinformation, or running ads that make climate denial content profitable, the company is selling out. Tech companies make big promises on hate and misinformation because they know it’s hard to see if they’ve kept them. We need to force Google to open up the black box of its advertising business.”

“Google is supporting the climate disinformation they say they want to stop,” Friends of the Earth Climate Disinformation Spokesperson Erika Seiber added. “Disinformation persists because it’s profitable, and Big Tech needs to remove that incentive. Their business model relies on user engagement at the expense of the truth. Since Big Tech can’t answer the call from researchers and advocates for full transparency and accountability, lawmakers need to mandate it.”

Google’s failure to demonetize climate disinformation is not just an issue of corporate hypocrisy: It undermines the very future of human civilization on this planet. Climate disinformation is a direct threat to climate action, and Google must do its part to stop making it profitable to spread false claims about climate change.

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