Ocean heat is at record levels, with major consequences

January 13, 2022

A tropical storm’s rain overwhelmed a dam in Thailand and caused widespread flooding in late September. It was just one of 2021’s disasters. 

Chaiwat Subprasom/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The world witnessed record-breaking climate and weather disasters in 2021, from destructive flash floods that swept through mountain towns in Europe and inundated subway systems in China and the U.S., to heat waves and wildfires. Typhoon Rai killed over 400 people in the Philippines; Hurricane Ida caused an estimated US$74 billion in damage in the U.S.

Globally, it was the sixth hottest year on record for surface temperatures, according to data released by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in their annual global climate report on Jan. 13, 2022. But under the surface, ocean temperatures set new heat records in 2021.

As climate scientist Kevin Trenberth explains, while the temperature at Earth’s surface is what people experience day to day, the temperature in the upper part of the ocean is a better indicator of how excess heat is accumulating on the planet.

The Conversation spoke with Trenberth, coauthor of a study published on Jan. 11, 2022, by 23 researchers at 14 institutes that tracked warming in the world’s oceans.

Hurricane Ida did $74 billion in damage from Louisiana to the northeastern U.S. in 2021. RAMMB/CIRA/Colorado State University

Your latest research shows ocean heat is at record highs. What does that tell us about global warming?

The world’s oceans are hotter than ever recorded, and their heat has increased each decade since the 1960s. This relentless increase is a primary indicator of human-induced climate change.

As oceans warm, their heat supercharges weather systems, creating more powerful storms and hurricanes, and more intense rainfall. That threatens human lives and livelihoods as well as marine life.

The oceans take up about 93% of the extra energy trapped by the increasing greenhouse gases from human activities, particularly burning fossil fuels. Because water holds more heat than land does and the volumes involved are immense, the upper oceans are a primary memory of global warming. I explain this in more detail in my new book “The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System.”

Ocean heat content in the upper 2,000 meters of the world’s oceans since 1958, relative to the 1981-2010 average. The units are zettajoules. Lijing Cheng

Our study provided the first analysis of 2021’s ocean warming, and we were able to attribute the warming to human activities. Global warming is alive and well, unfortunately.

The global mean surface temperature was the fifth or sixth warmest on record in 2021 (the record depends on the dataset used), in part, because of the year-long La Niña conditions, in which cool conditions in the tropical Pacific influence weather patterns around the world.

There is a lot more natural variability in surface air temperatures than in ocean temperatures because of El Niño/La Niña and weather events. That natural variability on top of a warming ocean creates hot spots, sometimes called “marine heat waves,” that vary from year to year. Those hot spots have profound influences on marine life, from tiny plankton to fish, marine mammals and birds. Other hot spots are responsible for more activity in the atmosphere, such as hurricanes.

While surface temperatures are both a consequence and a cause, the main source of the phenomena causing extremes relates to ocean heat that energizes weather systems.

Scientists are concerned about the stability of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, which holds back large amounts of land ice. NASA

We found that all oceans are warming, with the largest amounts of warming in the Atlantic Ocean and in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. That’s a concern for Antarctica’s ice – heat in the Southern Ocean can creep under Antarctica’s ice shelves, thinning them and resulting in calving off of huge icebergs. Warming oceans are also a concern for sea level rise.
In what ways does extra ocean heat affect air temperature and moisture on land?

The global heating increases evaporation and drying on land, as well as raising temperatures, increasing risk of heat waves and wildfires. We’ve seen the impact in 2021, especially in western North America, but also amid heat waves in Russia, Greece, Italy and Turkey.

The warmer oceans also supply atmospheric rivers of moisture to land areas, increasing the risk of flooding, like the U.S. West Coast has been experiencing.
2021 saw several destructive cyclones, including Hurricane Ida in the U.S. and Typhoon Rai in the Philippines. How does ocean temperature affect storms like those?

Warmer oceans provide extra moisture to the atmosphere. That extra moisture fuels storms, especially hurricanes. The result can be prodigious rainfall, as the U.S. saw from Ida, and widespread flooding as occurred in many places over the past year.

The storms may also become more intense, bigger and last longer. Several major flooding events have occurred in Australia this past year, and also in New Zealand. Bigger snowfalls can also occur in winter provided temperatures remain below about freezing because warmer air holds more moisture.

A resident in the Philippines looks at a vehicle swept away by flood water during Typhoon Rai. Cheryl Baldicantos/AFP via Getty Images

If greenhouse gas emissions slowed, would the ocean cool down?

In the oceans, warm water sits on top of cooler denser waters. However, the oceans warm from the top down, and consequently the ocean is becoming more stratified. This inhibits mixing between layers that otherwise allows the ocean to warm to deeper levels and to take up carbon dioxide and oxygen. Hence it impacts all marine life.

We found that the top 500 meters of the ocean has clearly been warming since 1980; the 500-1,000 meter depths have been warming since about 1990; the 1,000-1,500 meter depths since 1998; and below 1,500 meters since about 2005.

The slow penetration of heat downward means that oceans will continue to warm, and sea level will continue to rise even after greenhouse gases are stabilized.

The final area to pay attention to is the need to expand scientists’ ability to monitor changes in the oceans. One way we do this is through the Argo array – currently about 3,900 profiling floats that send back data on temperature and salinity from the surface to about 2,000 meters in depth, measured as they rise up and then sink back down, in ocean basins around the world. These robotic, diving and drifting instruments require constant replenishment and their observations are invaluable.

Argo floats keep tabs on ocean changes around the world. Howard Freeland, 2018, CC BY-ND

Author

Kevin Trenberth
Distinguished Scholar, NCAR; Affiliated Faculty, University of Auckland

'Indescribable' sighting of ultra-rare 'rainbow-like' octopus off Australian island

Alan Granville08:48, Jan 14 2022
The most striking feature of the Blanket Octopus is its vibrant and almost fluorescent ‘rainbow-like’ cape.

When marine biologist Jacinta Shackleton first saw the rainbow-coloured flicker out of the corner of her eye in a dive off Lady Elliot Island at the southern end of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, she thought it was just a regular juvenile fish.

But on closer inspection she realised she was having what she believes is a once-in-a-lifetime experience –seeing an extremely rare female blanket octopus.

Shackleton admitted she couldn’t contain her emotions.

“I had this overwhelming sense of joy and excitement. I kept yelling through my snorkel, ‘it’s a Blanket Octopus!’ I was so excited I was finding it difficult to hold my breath to dive down and video it,” said Shackleton.


@JACINTASHACKLETON/SUPPLIED
The octopus mainly spends its lifecycle in the open ocean.


@JACINTASHACKLETON
A rare sighting of the Blanket Octopus.

Sightings of this particular octopus are rare. A male was first spotted 21 years ago further north on the Great Barrier Reef. Since then there’s been just three other sightings of the blanket octopus at Lady Elliot Island until this latest discovery.

The name “blanket octopus” comes from the webbed “cape” or “blanket” that trails behind the female, a feature the males do not display. One of the most unusual features of this marine mollusc is that the species has the largest gender size discrepancy in the marine world. A female blanket octopus can grow up to two metres in length, whereas the much smaller males grow to around 2.4cm.

@JACINTASHACKLETON
The name ‘Blanket Octopus’ comes from the webbed ‘cape’ or ‘blanket’ that trails behind the female, a feature the males do not display.

The octopus mainly spends its lifecycle in the open ocean and most of the images of it have come at night making this day-time reef appearance even more unusual.

“Seeing one in real life is indescribable, I was so captivated by its movements, it was as if it was dancing through the water with a flowing cape. The vibrant colours are just so incredible, you can’t take your eyes off it,” said Shackleton.

“I’ve truly never seen anything like it before and don’t think I ever will again in my life.”

For more details on Lady Elliot Island go to at queensland.com/greatbarrierreef.

60 Million Fish Nests in Antarctica Found in Single Largest Breeding Colony to Date


Icefish nests guarded by an adult, holding an average of 1,700 eggs. (AWI OFOBS team)
NATURE


CAMERON DUKE, LIVE SCIENCE
14 JANUARY 2022

Scientists onboard an icebreaker in Antarctica were blown away when they spied a trove of 60 million icefish nests dotting the floor of the Weddell Sea. The bonanza of nurseries – each guarded by a ghostly looking parent – represents the largest known breeding colony of fish.

Autun Purser of the Alfred Wegener Institute was on the bridge of the German icebreaker, called the RV Polarstern, keeping watch for whales when his graduate student, Lilian Böhringer, who was monitoring the camera feed called up to the bridge.

One of the ship's missions was to monitor the seafloor of the Weddell Sea, and specifically, Böhringer was watching a live video feed from the Ocean Floor Observation and Bathymetry System (OFOBS), which is a one-ton camera towed behind the ship.

On the video feed, Böhringer could see fish nests pockmarking the seafloor about every 10 inches (25 centimeters) in all directions and covering an area of 93 square miles (240 square kilometers).

"The camera was moving [across the seafloor] and it just didn't stop. They were everywhere," Böhringer told Live Science.

The nests were modest bowls carved in the mud on the seafloor by notothenioid icefish (Neopagetopsis ionah), which are native to the chilly southern oceans. They are the only known vertebrates to completely lack hemoglobin in their blood. Because of this, icefish are considered "white-blooded."

"We realized after ringing up the home institute the next day that we had found something spectacular," Purser said.

After the initial discovery, the team made subsequent passes over the site, towing the camera at a shallower depth to get a wider view of the colony.

Icefish tend to nest in groups, but "the most ever seen before was forty nests or something like that," said Purser. This nesting site, after extensive surveying, has an estimated 60 million nests. "We've never seen anything like this," Purser added.

Most of those nests were attended by one adult fish watching over an average of 1,700 eggs.

The researchers were in the general area because they were studying an upwelling of water that was 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than the surrounding water. "Our aim was to see how carbon goes from the surface to the seafloor and what communities are in the water column," said Purser.

Intermixed with the nests were fish carcasses. (AWI OFOBS team)

Inside the upwelling column of water, they found microscopic zooplankton near the surface, where young icefish, after hatching, swim to feast on the floating buffet before returning to the seafloor to breed. Because of the food, the presence of icefish in the upwelling was to be expected. A breeding colony many orders of magnitude larger than ever seen before, however, was not.

In addition to living fish guarding nests, the team found that the area was littered with fish carcasses as well, suggesting that this massive icefish colony is an integral part of the local ecosystem, most likely serving as prey for Weddell seals.

The discovery of the colony has led to an effort to make it a Marine Protected Area under the international Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

Oddly, the icefish colony seems to have a distinct border. "[The colony] went from very, very dense to nothing, much like penguin colonies," said Purser. "It was like a line in the sand."

That "line in the sand," they found, was the outer edge of the warm upwelling. While more research is needed to determine whether this is coincidental, the upwelling seems to create a rare and ideal environment for the icefish to breed.

Before leaving the area, the crew of the Polarstern left two cameras to observe the inner workings of this rare ecosystem. Purser plans to return to the Weddell Sea in April 2022.

"There's certainly lots to be discovered," said Purser.

This study was published online January 13 in the journal Current Biology.

Related content:

Scientists uncover Antarctic sea creatures 'trapped under ice' for 50 years

Rare wispy ice formations streak across the sea near Antarctica

New expedition will search for Shackleton's Endurance deep below Antarctic waters

This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.

January 6 — a day that scarred US 'democracy'

By Xing Ping | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2022-01-14 

A protester breaking into the US Capitol building is captured on a screenshot 

in a video feed from NBC news seen in Arlington, Virginia,

the United States, Jan 6, 2021.

 [Photo/Xinhua]

More than one year since the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, the country is still feeling the pain of political division. The attacks ripped off the Band-Aids on US democracy all at once, exposing its wounds and vulnerability. Indeed, the bomb threats, the storming and looting and the gunshots culminated in great skepticism about US democracy at home.

The latest poll by Quinnipiac University on the the first anniversary of the assault showed 58 percent of those surveyed believe the nation's democracy is in danger of collapse, and 53 percent said they expect political divisions in the country to worsen over their lifetime. The poll also brought bad news for President Joe Biden, whose approval rating has tumbled to 33 percent. That is a real wake-up call for many still obsessed with the supremacy of US democracy.

One year after the confirmation of his election, Biden is still looking over his shoulder, fearing someone from the Republican Party may take his seat in the Oval Office. His worries are well-founded. About 21 million Americans still believe Biden did not win the presidency, but stole it. Legal challenges to the election results are still filed from time to time. States have leveraged public distrust to enact laws that empower partisan legislatures to intervene in election processes.

The first anniversary turned out to be a platform for the US President to put one man and one party in the crosshairs. Biden came just short of directly calling Trump a loser when identifying him as "a defeated former president". He accused his predecessor of rallying and orchestrating the assault and watching all the violence happening on a TV screen. He labeled the mob as "insurrectionists" defying the will of the people.

Those rioters were designated as extremists, terrorists or militia affiliates, while in fact around 90 percent of the rioters have no link with militia or far-right organizations according to a professor at the University of Chicago. About 26 percent of those charged were business owners; an additional 28 percent were white-collar workers. In this incident, democracy is used more like a tool for political fighting.

America has been against America long before the Capitol riot and all the political drama unfolding in year since. Red and blue states have taken separate paths and denounced each other in the fight against COVID-19, with one based on science and confidence in masks and vaccines and the other riddled with conspiracy theories. The Build Back Better Act proposed by Democrats to upgrade essential infrastructure failed to pass in the Congress even after multiple attempts to reconcile with the GOP. While going to any lengths to win, the parties are also forcing Americans to think and act along party lines, leading to diametrical views on almost every major issue.

Americans have come to learn the progress in life touted by politicians is nothing but a walk on the treadmill. Almost $770 billion will be pumped into the defense industry of this unrivaled military power with the passing of the new National Defense Authorization Act, even as more than 7.5 million people are living without federal jobless benefits.

Cases of gun violence hit new highs year after year, taking more than 120 lives on a daily basis. Ordinary people vent their anger on other races and politicians. About 40 percent of Republicans now believe violent action against the government is sometimes justified.

The "City Upon a Hill" may find itself fighting an uphill battle. According to the Quinnipiac University poll, 53 percent of Americans think it is either very likely or somewhat likely there will be another attack like the one that happened at the US Capitol. If history teaches anything, there is simply no solution other than earning the trust of the people.

"They failed," Biden said during the anniversary event. But what really failed is US "democracy" itself.

US Congress should discuss Putin-Biden agreements instead of sanctions — Duma Speaker

According to Vyacheslav Volodin, "sanctions don’t scare anyone, they only destroy relations"

ANTI-RUSSIAN SANCTIONS

14 JAN, 2022

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. US Congressmen should discuss and implement the agreements, achieved by Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin instead of threatening new sanctions against Russia, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin opined Friday.

"Two weeks ago, Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden had a phone call," Volodin said in his Telegram channel adding that "the leaders of Russia and the US agreed to have a serious and substantial dialogue on the mentioned issues in order to achieve real results."

"We all thought that common sense would prevail and Washington would make a sound decision. Instead, the US parliament is making hysterical statements about sanctions against our country," the speaker continued. "The presidents of our countries agreed to begin consultations on global security. In this regard, it is necessary to discuss and implements the presidents’ agreements instead of insulting, threatening and intimidating."

The politician proposed to think about the consequences.

"Your hysteria won’t lead to anything good. For the US, first and foremost," he believes. According to Volodin, "sanctions don’t scare anyone, they only destroy relations."

"There is an abyss ahead. It would be better to stop before it’s too late. Don’t invent problems for yourselves," he added.

The speaker underscored that, although Russia has weapons that no other state has, this advantage is not being used in the dialogue with NATO.

"Russian citizens see outbursts against President Vladimir Putin as an insult against our country," he noted, calling on US lawmakers to use the opportunity for negotiations.

Some 700,000 households without electricity amid intense heat in Buenos Aires

Wednesday, January 12th 2022 - 

High temperatures and no electricity are a deja-vu for those who recall how in 1989 Alfonsín had to resign the presidency

Power cuts hit over 700,000 households in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA) as intense heat resulted in extra demand of electricity for air conditioning devises from a network that has been enduring poor maintenance for ages, thus resulting in numerous protests from people who in addition to putting up with those temperatures were forced to dispose on tons of unrefrigerated food.

A few minutes past 1 pm, with temperatures between 39 and 40 degrees Celsius, that power supply was cut off in serveral areas of the Argentine capital and beyond the city limits. This time it was apparently “an accident external to the electrical system” that produced the collapse. Or so they said.

Two contradicting versions say that in the San Martín district (a suburb northwest of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires) a high voltage line went out of service due to a fire in a house under construction or due to the installation of antennas. Whether it was due to the smoke from the fire or the radiation from the antennas, this event did alter the operation of the power line, setting off a kind of alarm due to excess heat or radiation. The line went out of service when it caused the interruption of transmission, thus “unhooking” three generators at the Central Puerto plant.

Fifteen minutes later, around 1.30 pm, a second high-voltage line parallel to the previous one also went out of service, “unhooking” two other Central Puerto generators. At that point, 700,000 households had been affected.

Both cuts affected mainly northern suburbs of Buenos Aires, such as Tigre, San Fernando and San Martín, Vicente López and San Isidro as well as some neighborhoods in CABA such as Recoleta, Saavedra and Núñez.

By 5 pm, Edenor announced service had been restored to at least 80% of the users and by 8 pm it was back to normal.

Opposition politicians such as former President Mauricio Macri and former Governor of Buenos Aires María Eugenia Vidal tried to use the blackout for their own political gain on social media, hinting these type of incidents were unthinkable in their days (after a 3,000% rise in utility rates).

Power cuts have been hitting Buenos Aires since the last days of 2021. In the summer of 1989, when then President Raúl Alfonsín was unable to finish his 6-year term, it all began with power cuts and then evolved into hyperinflation. Hence, the question of high temperatures and no electricity goes beyond all the inconveniences of a bad days. For many, it is indeed some sort of deja-vu.

Human Rights Watch criticises Biden, others for weak defense of democracy

13 January 2022 - BY MICHELLE NICHOLS

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch.
Image: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

Human Rights Watch on Thursday criticised US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders for a weak defense of democracy and for failing to meet challenges from the climate crisis and Covid-19 pandemic to poverty, inequality and racial injustice.

In contrast to what Human Rights Executive Director Kenneth Roth described as former US President Donald Trump's “embrace of friendly autocrats”, Biden took office in January 2021 with a pledge to put human rights at the center of his foreign policy.

“But he continued to sell arms to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel despite their persistent repression,” Roth wrote in Human Rights Watch's annual World Report, released on Thursday.

“Other Western leaders displayed similar weakness in their defense of democracy,” Roth wrote, naming French President Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Roth also said that during key summits Biden “seemed to lose his voice when it came to public denunciation of serious human rights violations.”

“The US State Department has issued occasional protests about repression in certain countries, and in extreme cases the Biden administration introduced targeted sanctions on some officials responsible, but the influential voice of the president was often missing,” he wrote.

US officials have defended the Biden administration's record, saying diplomats have frequently raised human rights concerns with foreign leaders, including in difficult talks with adversaries including China and Russia.

“If democracies are to prevail in the global contest with autocracy, their leaders must do more than spotlight the autocrats' inevitable shortcomings. They need to make a stronger, positive case for democratic rule,” Roth said.

Bolsonaro is a “threat to democracy,” HRW says

Friday, January 14th 2022 - 

Human rights violations and deforestation are not new to Brazil's indigenous communities, Canineu said

President Jair Bolsonaro represents a “threat” to Brazilian democracy, according to Lawyer Maria Laura Canineu, head of the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) local office.

Canineu focused on the situation of journalists in the country, as well as that of indigenous communities of the Amazon region.

HRW also recommended that the international community monitor possible attacks on institutions in this election year. “2021 was marked by very serious threats from President Bolsonaro to the pillars of democracy, Bolsonaro has tried to intimidate judges of the Supreme Federal Court, tried to discredit the electoral system and attacked the media,” Canineu said upon launching HRW's annual report Thursday.

Regarding freedom of expression, she pointed out that the picture is “very worrying,” because Bolsonaro harasses journalists at all times. According to Reporters Without Borders, Bolsonaro has attacked journalists at least 90 times in the first half of 2021.

Another form of threat to ”freedom of expression was through the persecution of the president's critics with the opening of criminal investigations against journalists applying the National Security Law that was promulgated during the dictatorship (1964-1985),“ Canineu went on.

The head of HRW Brazil also highlighted the constraints to which the native communities were subjected, especially in the Amazon region. ”The government promoted deforestation, made failures in combating violence against indigenous people, there was an increase in invasions of indigenous territories,“ Canineu stressed.

”The government empowers people who promote the destruction of the Amazon (while) people who defend the environment face an extremely dangerous situation,“ she added.

Canineu also insisted neither human rights violations against ancestral communities nor deforestation were ”new problems in Brazil.“ Although the HRW document deals with the outlook in 2021, Canineu mentioned that 2022 will be a key year for democratic stability due to the Oct. 2 presidential elections.

”This year Brazilians are going to exercise their right to vote, the elections have to be free and this is a right that cannot be affected,“ she highlighted. ”One of the main messages of our report is for the international community to remain vigilant, to monitor any attempt to attack the electoral system, to weaken the democratic state,” Canineu concluded.

FARC sentenced to pay US $ 36 million for Betancourt kidnapping

USA DENIES ICC RIGHT TO JUDGE IT BUT APPLIES US RULES AROUND THE GLOBE

Friday, January 14th 2022 

The case could be brought before the US Justice because Betancourt's son was a US citizen

A US court has sentenced the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and several of its leaders to pay US $ 36 million for the kidnapping of politician Ingrid Betancourt, it was announced Thursday.

The ruling, handed down Jan. 4 by Judge Matthew Bran, of the Pennsylvania federal court and announced Thursday by lawyers from the plaintiffs, mandates FARC must pay US $ 12 million for damages to the Betancourt's son, Lawrence Delloye, who filed the lawsuit in June 2018 and who was a teenager when his mother was abducted.

The US $ 12 million become US $ 36 million after legal fees are added, the dollars, Delloye's attorneys Scarinci Hollenbeck explained.

Delloye argued in his complaint that the FARC and its leaders had violated the Antiterrorist Law and that the kidnapping of his mother had caused him significant emotional stress.

“While no amount of money can replace the time Lawrence Delloye lost without his mother or heal the trauma suffered at the hands of the FARC, we are proud to have been able to achieve some form of justice,” attorney Robert Levy said in a statement.

The case could be brought before the US Justice because Delloye was a US citizen, born in San Bernardino, California, in 1988. “The FARC and its members led the plaintiff to suffer damages associated with the separation from his mother, as suffer emotional stress by not knowing if his mother was dead or alive, or if he would be reunited with her,” the lawyers had argued.

Of the 15 accused FARC leaders, only one, Juan José Martínez Vega, responded to the accusations, while the rest have not appeared in court in the last three and a half years.

Ingrid Betancourt, now 61 years old, was kidnapped in February 2002 during a part of her presidential campaign to an area of southern Colombia controlled by the FARC. In July 2008 she was rescued, along with 14 other FARC hostages, by Colombian troops posing as aid workers from an international humanitarian organization.

US Lawmakers are Blacklisting Renewable Energy Efforts

Thomas Perrett
14 January 2022

US President Joe Biden at the COP26 climate summit.

 Photo: Alan Harvey/UK Government

Thomas Perrett reports on the efforts of corporate lobbyists to stymie US President Joe Biden’s climate ambitions

Since he assumed office, US President Joe Biden has encountered significant obstacles blocking his proposed plan to decarbonise the US economy by the middle of the century.

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has consistently opposed the Build Back Better Act, which would have invested $555 billion in clean electricity and accelerated the reduction of methane emissions, and Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema has likewise resisted Biden’s climate spending plans.

Recently, fresh challenges have also emerged from coordinated, Republican-aligned interest groups. Corporate lobbyists are attempting to craft legislation which hands a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry, encouraging state officials to blacklist and divest from financial companies which pull funding from fossil fuels.

Last month, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organisation which creates templates for state legislation by connecting law-makers with corporations, published a draft of a piece of legislation entitled the ‘Energy Discrimination Elimination Act’ (EDEA).

Claiming that “restricting the supply of fossil fuels, without an immediate substitute for those fuels, only serves to raise prices on energy consumers, profoundly impacting the poorest among us”, the EDEA attempts to punish financial institutions seeking to divest from polluting energy sources.

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The EDEA aims to take action against firms which “boycott energy companies”, referring to the termination of business activities associated with corporations engaged in producing fossil fuel energy. It advocates that state legislatures be given the authority to “sell, redeem, divest, or withdraw all publicly traded securities” of banks which decide to redirect their investments towards renewable energy sources.

Stating that financial companies should be mandated to provide state comptrollers (regulatory bodies) with evidence of their continued commercial support for oil and gas firms to avoid facing debilitating economic sanctions, the EDEA advocates that officials be permitted to “request written verification from a financial company that it does not boycott energy companies and rely, as appropriate in the comptroller’s judgement and without conducting further investigation, research, or inquiry, on a financial company’s written response to the request”.

This suggests that the jurisdiction concerning whether financial firms have, in fact, “boycotted energy companies” rests entirely with the state comptrollers, which may decide that nothing less than explicit support for oil and gas firms is sufficient for the firms to avoid divestment, public blacklisting, and the revocation of subsidies.

The EDEA advocates for states to make public lists of financial institutions complicit in divestment from fossil fuel energy, advocating for comptrollers to “prepare and maintain, and provide to each state governmental entity, a list of all financial companies that boycott energy companies”. It also suggests that such lists ought to be regularly reviewed and updated.

A Feature of the System, Not a Bug

The EDEA was based on State Bill 13, which has taken hold in Texas, promulgating that state officials must “sell, redeem, divest, or withdraw all publicly traded securities”, from financial organisations and insurance houses which “boycott energy companies”.

Drafted by the libertarian think tank the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), State Bill 13 bears significant similarities to the EDEA. According to emails obtained by the Centre for Media and Democracy, TPPF director Jason Isaac described the EDEA as “an opportunity to push back against woke financial institutions that are colluding against American energy producers”.

Isaac’s email also described the EDEA as “a strategy in which states use their collective economic purchasing power to counter the rise of politically motivated and discriminatory investing practices”, outlining the corporate plan to bypass democracy and compel financial companies to facilitate the continued existence of environmentally damaging energy sources.

The EDEA has formed the basis of several attacks on fossil fuel divestment, having proven popular in West Virginia, a state famously reliant on coal-fired power stations and represented in the Senate by Joe Manchin.

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Indeed, a bill introduced to the West Virginia legislature last year stated: “The legislature finds it is contrary to the interests of the state of West Virginia and the citizens of West Virginia for taxpayer dollars or retirement funds of public pensions to be invested in or at the direction of entities engaging in, providing incentives for, or directing strategies to divest from companies invested or assisting in the production of or the manufacturing of any of the following: natural gas, coal, oil, or petrochemicals.”

Much like the EDEA, this bill includes provisions for state officials to notify financial institutions of their complicity in boycotting energy companies, stating that: “If 90 days after the system’s first engagement with a business under this code, the business continues to engage in divestment activity, the system shall sell, redeem, divest, or withdraw all publicly traded securities of the business that are held by a fund.”

This follows a sustained campaign by corporate interests to artificially keep the coal industry afloat despite renewable energy becoming an increasingly attractive prospect for investors and declining significantly in cost. In August 2020, the West Virginian electricity regulator voted to keep coal-fired power stations running until 2040, even despite the state experiencing a 150% rise in electricity prices over the past 15 years.

Ted Boettner, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, a think tank which focuses on the expansion of clean energy and the democratisation of the economy, told Kate Aronoff of The New Republic that corporate interests are frequently involved in drafting legislation similar to the EDEA, stating: “The coal industry and other powerful industries in the state typically write legislation.”

“Having a lobbyist write a bill is a feature of the system, not a bug,” he added.

Both ALEC and the TPPF have extensive records of promoting disinformation about the veracity of climate science, and lobbying to roll back environmental protections. ALEC, which received $3.2 million from organisations related to the radical right-wing Koch family between 1997 and 2017 according to Greenpeace, was intimately involved with a GOP-backed plan to oppose President Biden’s climate agenda.

ALEC’s advocacy against measures designed to avert the climate crisis has become so radical that even the multinational oil and gas firm ExxonMobil cut ties with the group in 2018 following disagreements over climate policy. Despite the disingenuous nature ofExxonMobil’s recent advocacy for a carbon tax, which is in fact indicative of corporate greenwashing, it is telling that ALEC’s hardline stance against decarbonisation proved too noxious even for Exxon.

The EDEA, and the legislation in West Virginia and Texas seeking to punish financial institutions for divesting from fossil fuels, represents an alarmingly coordinated opposition to the expansion of clean energy.

With state officials incentivised to blacklist companies which ‘boycott’ oil and gas firms, decarbonising the economy is likely to prove even more difficult. The Koch network, and the ‘revolving door’ between corporations and state legislatures, must be challenged if President Joe Biden’s green policies are to succeed.