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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Mind the gap! New U.N. report finds massive 'Emissions Gap' between where we are and where we need to be in cutting emissions; Plastic could become a bigger polluter than coal by 2030; PLUS: Rental car giant bets big on electric vehicles... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): White House Sets Climate Spending At Up To $555 Billion; Fossil fuel messaging has won over Republican voters, poll reveals; Release of EPA Methane Rules Expected This Week; Indigenous Leaders Push Land Tenure Rights As Climate Solution At COP26; Human Rights Group To Investigate Uranium Contamination On Navajo Nation; Gulf Arab states, squeezed by climate change, still tout oil; Wildfires, Cutting, Heating Turn 10 Unesco Forests Into Carbon Sources... PLUS: Amplify Energy Cashed Out Cleanup Fund While Racking Up Violations... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• House Democrats grill oil industry executives for disinformation on climate science:
• VIDEO: Fueling the Climate Crisis: Exposing Big Oil’s Disinformation Campaign to Prevent Climate Action (House Oversight Committee):
  
  More recently, some large fossil fuel companies took public stances in support of climate actions while privately continuing to block reforms, invest overwhelmingly in fossil fuel extraction, and support efforts to extend the life of fossil fuel investments. The industry reportedly spends billions to promote climate disinformation through branding and lobbying. Moreover, they increasingly outsource lobbying to trade groups, obscuring their own roles in disinformation efforts.
• Climate reckoning for oil and gas CEOs (Axios):
  
  The hearing before the House Oversight Committee will be the first time these executives have been brought together to provide sworn testimony regarding what they knew about the ties between their company's products and climate change, and when they knew it.
• Op-Ed: Will Congress expose Big Oil like it did Big Tobacco in the '90s? (LA Times)
• New polls show growing majority of Americans want climate action:
• Majority in US concerned about climate: AP-NORC/EPIC poll (AP)
• Most Americans say climate change is a crisis, new study shows (CBS News)
• 45 percent of Americans Don’t Believe Humans Cause Climate Change, VICE News/Guardian Poll Shows (Vice)
• Fossil fuel messaging has won over Republican voters, poll reveals (Guardian UK):
  
  New polling data shows two-thirds of Republicans do not want to hold oil and gas companies accountable for the climate crisis.
• Laggard countries announce new emissions targets for COP26:
• Climate change: Australia pledges net zero emissions by 2050 (BBC)
• PM’s net zero plan driven by slogans and seats, not conversion or conviction (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Saudi Arabia pledges 2060 target of net-zero emissions (ABC News)
• Putin Pledges Carbon Neutrality By 2060 --- Claims Forests Will Do Job (Washington Post)
• UK's Johnson urges Putin to advance Russia's net zero target to 2050 (Reuters/MSN)
• 'Not a Solution Itself': India Questions Net Zero Targets Ahead of COP26 (Guardian UK)
• UN warns of massive 'Emissions Gap', on track to 2.7C global warming:
• Emissions Gap Report 2021 (UN Environment Programme):
  
  [N]ew national climate pledges combined with other mitigation measures put the world on track for a global temperature rise of 2.7°C by the end of the century...The reduction of methane emissions from the fossil fuel, waste and agriculture sectors could help close the emissions gap and reduce warming in the short term, the report finds. Carbon markets could also help slash emissions.
• World faces disastrous 2.7C temperature rise on current climate plans, UN warns (Guardian UK)
• Latest National Climate Plans Still Fall Far Short, U.N. Report Warns (NY Times):
  
  But those new pledges, the report found, would collectively produce just one-seventh of the additional emissions cuts needed this decade to help limit total global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels...The report estimates that even if countries achieve their newest round of near-term climate promises, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, the world would be on track to warm roughly 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, compared with preindustrial levels. That broadly aligns with what outside analyses have found.
• VIDEO: Secretary-General Antionio Guterres at UN 'Emissions Gap' Report Press Conference (UN Environment Programme)
• The world needs to cut its emissions seven times as fast to hit climate goals, U.N. report finds (Washington Post/MSN)
• Three degrees of global warming is quite plausible and truly disastrous (The Economist/Green Reporter)
• Plastic on track to become a bigger polluter than coal by 2030
• The New Coal: Plastics and Climate Change [PDF] (Beyond Plastics)
• Plastic Is the New Coal (Earther):
  
  A new report shows that plastics will emit more greenhouse gases than coal by 2030 in the U.S. if the industry follows through on its plans.
• Plastic's GHG emissions could outpace those from coal by 2030: report (Waste Dive)
• PM accused of ‘losing the plastic plot’ after saying recycling doesn’t work (PA Media-UK)
• The US Oil and Gas Industry's 5-Year Plan Is a Climate and Health Nightmare (Earther, 1/8/2020)
• Hertz bets big on electric vehicles:
• AUDIO: Tesla's market value hits $1 trillion after Hertz agrees to buy 100,000 of its cars (NPR):
  
  Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Cox Automotive...[said] "It exposes more consumers to EVs [electric vehicles] and Tesla specifically," she says. "We know there's reluctance by people to buy EVs because they have range anxiety ... and this is an opportunity for them to get experience with EVs and with Tesla specifically."
• VIDEO: Hertz So Good: Rental Giant’s 100k Order Puts Tesla in Driver’s Seat (Climate Crocks)
• Tesla’s market value tops $1T after Hertz orders 100K cars (AP):
  
  The purchase by one of the world’s leading rental car companies reflects its confidence that electric vehicles are gaining acceptance with environmentally minded consumers as an alternative to vehicles powered by petroleum-burning internal combustion engines...The deal likely is worth around $4 billion.

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• Fossil fuel messaging has won over Republican voters, poll reveals (Guardian UK)
• Release of EPA Methane Rules Expected This Week (E&E News)
• EPA Taps 10 Environmental Justice Panel Members to Advise Agency (Bloomberg)
• Trudeau Picks Ex-Greenpeace Activist As Climate Chief, Angering Oil Patch (Washington Post)
• Indigenous Leaders Push Land Tenure Rights As Climate Solution At COP26 (Mongabay)
• Human Rights Group To Investigate Uranium Contamination On Navajo Nation (Guardian UK)
• Wildfires, Cutting, Heating Turn 10 Unesco Forests Into Carbon Sources (Guardian UK)
• White House Sets Climate Spending At Up To $555 Billion (Politico)
• Biden FWS Moves To Undo Two Trump-Era Endangered Species Act Rollbacks (The Hill)
• Amplify Energy Cashed Out Cleanup Fund While Racking Up Violations (Capitol and Main)
• Gulf Arab states, squeezed by climate change, still tout oil (AP)
• Italy Hosts A Climate-Focused G20 As Geopolitics Shift (AP)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate's future (Reuters)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America's decaying wells than any other. (Bloomberg)
• Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying (Bloomberg/Yahoo)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 9 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes. (David Roberts, Vox)
• A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion (Vox)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
• An Optimist's Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)
• The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
• The world's bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there. (Vox)
• The Climate Risks We Face (NY Times):
  
  To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.
• The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans? (New York Magazine):
  
  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.
• A beginner's guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy (Vox):
  
  Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.

                 

Article Categories: United Nations, Environment, Democrats, Joe Biden, Green News, Natural gas, Coal, Chevron, Russia, Oil, Climate change, China, Exxon Mobil, Agriculture, Saudi Arabia, Electric vehicles, Shell Oil, Tesla, Paris Agreement, Joe Manchin, Pollution