Europe Plans To Use Climate Goals To Help Virus-Battered Economies

Facebook may block political ads ahead of November election

(From NewsHero issue 137 available here)

A Voice of America studio in Washington, D.C. Last week, the Trump administration began refusing to renew visas for Voice of America employees. (Jason Andrew for The New York Times)

🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️ — The EU, for battling climate change and aiding economies
🦸‍♀️ — Facebook, if it blocks political ads prior to the election
🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️ — environmental advocates

• Europe is aiming to use its climate change goals to help revive economies hit by the coronavirus pandemic, Axios says. In “How Europe’s green pandemic recovery will push the rest of the world,” Amy Harder writes that the “European Union is the world’s third-largest emitting region after the U.S. and China,” and that its plans will potentially “push global corporate behavior and prod other governments by creating either templates to follow or protectionist battles (or both).” Many of these proposals come from the region’s Green Deal plan that it unveiled late last year, Harder says.
• In the midst of being boycotted by hundreds of corporate advertisers over its inability to effectively control hate speech, Facebook is considering entirely blocking political candidates and groups from buying ads ahead of the November election, reports Bloomberg News.
  Ad blackouts before elections are common in other parts of the world, including the U.K., where Facebook’s global head of policy, Nick Clegg, was once deputy prime minister, Bloomberg writes. A Facebook spokesperson reportedly declined to comment.
• This is encouraging:

Beautiful News writes: We’re changing the way the world is powered. Forever. The last decade saw 3x more investment in renewables than the previous one. Solar, wind and hydro are becoming the cheapest option for new generation. Billions of tons of emissions will be avoided, helping to fight the climate crisis.

(From NewsHero issue 137 available here)

Sources:

• Global Investment in Renewable Energy Is Rising — Beautiful News
• How Europe’s green pandemic recovery will push the rest of the world — Axios
• Facebook Mulls Political-Ad Blackout Ahead of U.S. Election — Bloomberg News
• Report: Facebook considering political ad blackout ahead of election — Axios