FIRST LOOK:

On Thursday, June 16 at 12:00 PM EDT the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) invite you to a briefing on regenerative agriculture. Regenerative agriculture, or farming in sync with the local environment and climate, produces multiple economic, climate, and societal benefits. Live webcast will be streamed at www.eesi.org/livecast.

Explosion at Texas methane gas terminal rattles residents and sends Europe closer to an energy crisis. The Freeport LNG terminal in Quintana along the Texas Gulf Coast - one of the world’s biggest suppliers of liquid methane gas - is shut down for at least 3 weeks following an explosion and fire that shook nearby buildings and scared local residents. “It makes me feel like we are daily living with high risk of explosion, release of gas, (and) public health issues,” Melanie Oldham, a physical therapist and co-founder of Citizens for Clean Air and Clean Water of Freeport and Brazoria County told the Associated Press. “We don’t know what could have been released into the air or even the water.” The incident report filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found that the explosion led to more emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds. The shutdown will likely take 1 million tonnes of LNG off the market, which is forecast to especially impact Europe where an energy crisis looms as the bloc tries to wean itself off Russian-produced fossil fuels. European methane gas prices are trading up to a fifth higher and U.S. methane gas inventories remain nearly 15 percent below the five-year average for this time of year. (AP, CNN, Reuters, Washington Post $, Wall Street Journal $, Bloomberg $ Offshore Energy, Common Dreams, The Guardian)

Researchers call foul on companies reporting cleaner electricity use. A study  published in Nature Climate Change shows companies are increasingly relying on “renewable energy certificates” (RECs) to prove they are cutting their electricity emissions, but REC sales have little to no effect on whether or not wind and solar farms are built, according to the researchers. “Too many consumers, media, even investors might actually think that the company is physically using 100 percent renewables. And that is just not the case,” says Anders Bjørn, a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University and lead author told the Verge. Bjørn and his colleagues looked at 115 companies across a range of industries and found the companies reported reducing climate pollution by over 30 percent between 2015 and 2019, but the actual emissions reductions were closer to 10 percent. “What we can see in our study is that companies in most cases are buying certificates that are not doing much, if anything, for the climate, whether they know it or not,” Bjørn concluded. (The Verge, Global News, Bloomberg $, Grist, The Conversation, Cosmos)

'Evolving' disinformation tactics are slowing climate action. *Editor's note: more on this story in the Denier Roundup below* A new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition finds social media companies are not doing enough to combat climate disinformation, which has outperformed science-based content across platforms over the past 18 months. “The failure to stem mis- and disinformation online has allowed junk science, climate delayism, and attacks on climate figures to become mainstreamed,” the authors concluded. Michael Khoo, co-chair of the Climate Disinformation Coalition at Friends of the Earth U.S., emphasized that "governments must require social media companies to be transparent and accountable about the harms their products create, as they do with every other industry from airlines to cars to food processing." Twitter carried the most false content by volume, while Facebook drove more exposure to climate disinformation than exposure to its own Climate Science Center. The study also found Facebook's fact-checking policies to be severely under-enforced.  (Protocol, Guardian, Newsweek, The Hill, Common Dreams)

AGENCIES: NASA, FEMA Release Comprehensive Climate Action Guide (NASA)

THE HILL: Bipartisan bill targets entities doing business with Russian energy industry  (The Hill)

WHITE HOUSE: Three open questions about Biden’s new environmental justice tool (Grist), Texas LNG plant explosion poses challenge to Biden-EU energy supply deal (Politico $)

AMERICAS SUMMIT: At summit of the Americas, Biden seeks unity on climate change (Washington Post $), The White House will “partner” with caribbean countries on climate change—just as long as they don’t ask for too much money (New Republic), White House announces international efforts to combat climate change at Americas summit (NBC News), John Kerry says clean energy transition is the largest market the world has ever seen (CNBC)

REPUBLICANS: Red voters for green energy? Conservatives say they support solar and wind power too (USA Today)

CITIES AND STATES: Supporters rally as Delaware Senate sends climate change bill to the House (WDEL), Global warming is on the local ballot this year (New Republic), New York lawmakers abandon bill to grow renewables as state’s grid operator warns margins tightening (Utility Dive)

TRIBES: The Leading Edge: What Inuit Can Teach Us About Climate Monitoring And Adaptation (Forbes)

CALIFORNIA: Drought, wildfire and commerce prompt massive forest thinning plan for Big Bear Lake (LA Times $), California breaks record by achieving 100% renewable energy for the first time (Earth Day)

IMPACTS: Great lakes ice coverage declines as the climate warms (NPR), From Dhaka to Freetown, climate migration puts cities on alert (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Climate change tipping the gender balance of some species (ABC-7 Denver)

EROSION: ‘The inevitable’: people living on the coast could be forced to move due to climate change, UK warns (CNBC)

COMMITTED WARMING: What is ‘committed warming’? A climate scientist explains why global warming can continue long after emissions end (The Conversation) 

HEAT: Indian workers suffer as heat waves turn factories into 'furnaces' (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

DROUGHT: Austin residents ordered to limit water usage as dry spell sweeps region (Gizmodo)

FLOODING: Torrential rains kill 25 people in southern China as climate change amplifies flood seasons (CNN)

RENEWABLES: Renewable power still in the crosshairs of UK windfall tax (Bloomberg $)

BATTERIES: How a battery shortage is hampering the U.S. switch to wind, solar power (Reuters), US increases production to catch China in global battery race (The Hill), Inside clean energy: solid-state batteries for EVs make a leap toward mass production (Inside Climate News)

GAS EXPORTS: US firms secure 19 deals to export liquified natural gas, driven in part by the war in Ukraine (Inside Climate News)

AVIATION: Aviation can meet Paris targets — if it makes massive changes (Grist), Airlines blast EU plan to expand emissions rule for flights (AP)

OIL & GAS: LNG boom could add over 90 million tons of annual emissions (Common Dreams), Louisiana is bracing for an LNG boom. The projects will emit millions of tons of greenhouse gasses. (The Advocate), US, European allies try to restrain global oil prices (Wall Street Journal $), Russian gas deliveries to Europe via main routes remain steady (Reuters)

PLASTICS: Interior Department to phase out single-use plastics on all public lands (Grist)

NUCLEAR: France probes EDF nuclear plant over safety complaint (Wall Street Journal $)

GASOLINE: Pain at the pump: gas reaches $5 per gallon milestone (Washington Examiner), The more gasoline rises above $5, the greater risk there is of recession (CNBC)

HYDROGEN: DOE secures $504 million loan guarantee for world's largest hydrogen storage facility (Washington Examiner), DOE closes on $504M loan guarantee for Utah hydrogen storage project with 150 GWh seasonal capacity (Utility Dive)

EVs: Biden administration to set rules of the road for charging electric vehicles (New York Times $), EV tax credits ‘on the table’ as Democrats try reviving parts of Build Back Better (The Hill), Biden administration announces national standards for electric vehicle charging networks (The Hill)

WIND: How wind-prediction tech will change clean energy (Bloomberg $)

ACTIVISM: Indigenous rights leader, Nobel nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier to speak at climate change summit (CU Boulder Today), Petition demands Biden DOJ 'end opposition to youth climate justice' (Common Dreams)

COFFEE: To survive climate change, coffee must embrace new and resilient beans (Washington Post $)

REEFER: Climate change will affect where and how cannabis is grown (MJBiz Daily)

REEFS: A deadly disease is wiping out Caribbean coral, researchers find (Washington Post $)

DARK MATTER: How ‘viral dark matter’ may help mitigate climate change (Ohio State News)

FINANCE: Wealthiest green entrepreneurs lose $141 billion as market turns (Bloomberg $)

PEOPLE POWER: Climate change is all about power. You have more than you think (Vox)

INTERNATIONAL: Billionaire Razon plans massive solar panel array in Philippines (Bloomberg $), Poland's PM pushes for more coal to lower heating costs (AP)

• What environmental justice looks like (and why it matters)  (Newsweek, Raul Grijalva and Kesha Ram Hinsdale op-ed)

• Switching from natural gas to electricity will reduce Colorado’s smog (The Colorado Sun, Eric Reinhardt op-ed)

• Biden wields presidential powers for climate — he should, but shouldn’t have to (The Hill, Andreas Karelas column)

• Move America’s offshore wind energy from potential to power (The Hill, Amy Trice and Ted Boling op-ed)

• That Chevy feels a lot better than a Tesla right now (Bloomberg, Anjani Trivedi op-ed $)

• How the U.S. turned the tables on OPEC (Wall Street Journal, Paul M. Dabbar op-ed $)

• With Elon Musk, the drama is the point (New York Times, Farhad Manjoo commentary $)

• Wrong turn: America’s car culture and the road not taken (Yale Environment 360, Bill McKibben op-ed)

• Increasing oil and gas well inspections is a crucial step toward addressing climate change (Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board) 

• Fighting climate change in Utah will take political courage (Casper Star-Tribune, Nate Blouin op-ed)

• Climate change: are reports of our doom making matters worse? (Baltimore Sun Editorial Board)

• The climate crisis disproportionately impacts women (NJ.com, Elizabeth Cerceo op-ed)

• It’s Time for Democrats to Stop “Clapping for Tinkerbell” (The Nation, Vanessa Williamson and Dana R. Fisher commentary)

Diving Into 'Deny, Deceive, Delay': Climate Disinfo Report's Four Main Narratives and Two Key Networks

Yesterday we wrote about the toplines of a new report on digital climate disinformation and its potential solutions, but today (and perhaps through next week, we'll see what happens…) we're going to go in-depth on the extensive body of evidence assembled. 

At 116 pages, there's a lot of ground to cover in "Deny, Deceive, Delay: Documenting and Responding to Climate Disinformation at COP26 and Beyond," but we'll start with Part 1: Discourses of Delay, the 20-page discussion on the most prominent climate disinformation narratives monitored during COP26. The four discourses of the opposition’s delay tactics were that (1) elite climate alarmists are hypocrites for flying, (2) "we" shouldn't take action unless some other "they" does first, (3) renewables are unreliable, and (4) electric vehicles are stupid. 

Content attacking people as hypocrites for living with a system they're trying to change (e.g tweets criticizing COP delegates for flying) was tweeted/retweeted 199,676 times on Twitter, and over 4,000 Facebook posts with this narrative were shared more than 100,000 times between October 10th and November 19th, 2021. 

What the report terms the "absolution narrative" – that the US shouldn't take action because of China or India's pollution – got more Facebook posts (over 6,000) but fewer tweets at "only" 72,356 instances. 

Then there's the classic stand-by, that renewables aren't reliable enough to keep the lights on, but it was only found some 14,400 times on Twitter and only 855 posts on Facebook during the COP. The report notes that one: 

viral piece of disinformation alleged that diesel generators were powering Glasgow, and continued to gain traction even after the COP Presidency issued an official fact-check. The first tweet making this claim garnered 8.7k likes and 3k retweets, in stark contrast to the Presidency comment which had fewer than 100 interactions overall. This demonstrates how fact-checking may not achieve desired outcomes, whether via labels, prompts or evidence-based responses; unless content is downranked or removed by platforms and action taken against repeat offenders, disinformation often remains at large.

Finally, there were the anti-electric vehicle posts, which were relatively fewer at only 1,612 Facebook posts and 22,421 tweets. But there was a spike at the beginning of COP26, particularly on Twitter, as disinfo spread about COP negotiations relying on electric cars being recharged by diesel generators, and then died down before peaking on Facebook towards the end of the period studied. 

Those are the narratives, but disinformation isn't an actor, it's a message - so who's spreading it? The next section covers a network analysis of Twitter accounts spreading climate disinformation, demarcating 13 different sub-groups, like anti-science conspiracy theorists and various right-wing politicians and pundits in the US, UK and Australia, and a small but mighty showing from the Crypto community. 

Analysts at Graphika, who compiled this section, found there was clear overlap between the political right and climate and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists. And while they're buddies, it does appear there are more rightwing grifters occasionally talking about climate than there are dedicated climate disinfo spreaders. 

As a result:

Due to the relative volume of these groups and their geographical focus, some of the most popular content across the network, even during a prominent event like COP26, pertained to unrelated topics such as the origin of COVID-19, ‘cancel culture’, critical race theory and LGBTQ+ education in schools. These are all issues high on the agenda of right-wing pundits and activists, the latter two particularly in the US. This further suggests that the audiences of US climate-skeptic influencers are also engaging in other ‘hot button issues’ and could be cross-pollinating communities with their content. 

That mostly wraps up the 40 pages of big-picture data analysis in the report. The next 60 pages go over the 7 ways that the UN, IPCC, EU and Big Tech can start to reduce the imminent public harm of climate disinformation, and maybe we'll get to those next week!

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