News Feeds

While the Trump administration is directing hundreds of millions of dollars to coal projects, miners in Appalachia are suffering from a resurgence of black lung disease. But industry pushback is delaying federal rules that would reduce miners’ exposure to deadly silica dust.

Read more on E360 →

Diesel Reduction Progress II presents Canada’s most up-to-date analysis of diesel consumption in Canada’s 210 remote communities. The report, following our original analysis in 2021, outlines the outcomes of a decade of strong policy and local,...

Since President Donald Trump took office, the Securities and Exchange Commission has made it harder for small and activist investors to raise concerns through the government filing system known as EDGAR. Now they’re pushing back with their own alternative platform, which they call the Proxy Open Exchange — or POE. 

Literary puns aside, the initiative is aimed at bringing greater transparency to an increasingly restricted space. In January, the SEC said it would no longer allow investors with less than $5 million in shares to use EDGAR to send communiqués called exempt solicitations to fellow shareholders. Such documents are often used to lay out an investor’s stance on a given issue, including climate action, board accountability, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“We believe a free market requires communication,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, which spearheaded the new site. “If they’re going to take away EDGAR, we’re going to give them POE.”

The response has been swift. In less than a week, POE has 63 filings, with dozens more expected. EDGAR shows just 39 exempt solicitations so far in 2026. 

The SEC declined to comment about POE, but has previously told Grist that limiting access to the system is an attempt to rein in the scope of government, ease burdensome regulation, and curtail the “large volume” of requests that often require prompt attention. “Over the years, companies have expressed concerns that this misuse has caused confusion among their investor base,” an SEC spokesperson said at the time. “Shareholders can continue to conduct exempt solicitations through other commonly used means, such as press releases, emails, websites, and social media, and electronic shareholder forums.”

Critics of the move see it as an attempt to silence irksome investors.

The work-around is not the only attempt at an alternative to the official platform. The nonprofit Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, for instance, recently started putting exempt solicitations and proxy memos it receives about issues relevant to its members on its website. Still, POE is the most robust effort yet to fill the gap the government created.

It is designed to mimic EDGAR, Behar said. It even relies on the same set of codes — known as central index keys — to identify individuals and companies making posts. Although As You Sow reviews submissions for basic errors, it doesn’t filter content, making POE, like EDGAR, open to all viewpoints. 

“POE is a new and adventurous approach to try to set up a large public website that people of all persuasions can post their solicitations on,” said Tim Smith, senior policy advisor for Interfaith Center, who applauded the idea. “It could be an investor that’s filing a resolution on climate. It could be a conservative investor who decides to push a resolution that’s challenging diversity, equity, or inclusion.” 

Any filings are subject to the same anti-fraud legal provisions required by EDGAR, says Jill Fisch, a professor of business law at the University of Pennsylvania. “The postings have to be accurate, so that doesn’t change,” she said. What is new is that POE’s interface is much more user-friendly, she said, calling the government’s site “kind of old and glitchy.” 

Not everyone, however, is embracing the system. According to Behar, one of the world’s largest proxy advisors — which helps its clients research shareholder proposals — won’t consider any information that’s not on the official platform. The company, ISS, declined an interview request and did not respond to written questions. Still, Fisch said the pool of potential users of the new system is vast. 

“The great thing about these being public websites is that they’re available to mutual funds, to smaller institutions, to universities, and so forth,” she said. She’ll be curious to see data on who uses the site in the coming weeks and months. So far, though, “it’s way too early to tell.”

Fisch will also be watching how corporations respond. Some, like Exxon Mobil, which has often opposed shareholder advocacy, could see it as a threat (the company did not respond to an interview request) and start their own platforms. Or, perhaps, the existence of unregulated alternatives will encourage companies to ask the SEC to push people back to EDGAR, where everything will be in the same place. 

Whatever the rationale, it would be relatively easy for the government to reverse course. “Any new administration or new SEC could change this in a moment,” said Smith. That, in many ways, would be an ideal outcome for Behar, who hopes that POE will be temporary.

“We do not want this to be a necessary platform into perpetuity,” he said. “This is hopefully short-lived. When the administration changes and the SEC returns to its core mission, we expect EDGAR to be restored because transparent information sharing is essential for the free market.”

More often, though, Fisch finds that platforms like POE are one-way streets. Even if EDGAR is loosened back up, she expects people to continue finding the alternatives useful. “Once investors figure out how cheap and easy and convenient it is to use the internet and social media to communicate, I don’t think they’re going to stop,” she said. “The cat’s out of the bag.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The SEC tried to silence activist investors. Now they’re fighting back. on Apr 30, 2026.

Reform UK has received £24 million from oil and gas interests, accounting for more than two thirds of its total income, DeSmog can reveal.

Led by Nigel Farage, the party is calling for new North Sea oil and gas drilling ahead of UK-wide elections in May on the ill-founded claim that it will cut energy bills.

DeSmog’s analysis reveals that 67 percent of Reform’s funding to date has come from donors with financial interests in fossil fuels, totalling more than £24 million.

A further £2.4 million has been donated by individuals who have disputed basic scientific facts about climate change.

“What these extraordinary numbers make clear is that Reform is less a political party and more a very highly paid public-facing lobby group for oil and gas interests,” said Jolyon Maugham, executive director of the Good Law Project campaign group.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Stay up to date with DeSmog news and alerts

Email Address What content do you want to subscribe to? (check all that apply) All International UK Sign Up (function($){ $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-us').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619D07B21962C5AFE16D3A2145673C82A3CEE9D9F1ADDABE965ACB3CE39939D42AC9012C6272FD52BFCA0790F0FB77C6442'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-vdrirr-vdrirr'); }); $('.newsletter-container .ijkidr-uk').click(function() { $('.js-cm-form').attr('data-id', '2BE4EF332AA2E32596E38B640E905619BD43AA6813AF1B0FFE26D8282EC254E3ED0237BA72BEFBE922037EE4F1B325C6DA4918F8E044E022C7D333A43FD72429'); $('.js-cm-email-input').attr('name', 'cm-ijkidr-ijkidr'); }); })(jQuery);

The biggest chunk (£22 million) has been gifted by Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, whose firm AML Global sells jet fuel, which is made from crude oil. More than half (£12 million) of this figure was donated in 2025.

Another £1.7 million has come from hedge fund boss Jeremy Hosking, whose investment firm Hosking Partners has $440.8 million (around £326.5 million) invested in oil, gas, and coal. As revealed by DeSmog, Hosking Partners has ramped up its fossil fuel investments in recent months during the war in Iran, which has caused energy shortages and windfall profits for oil giants.

Reform has received more than £2 million from its deputy leader Richard Tice, a property millionaire who has denied that man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are causing climate change – instead calling it “plant food”.

Farage has himself claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant.

The party has also accepted £230,000 from management consultancy First Corporate Consultants, whose owner Terence Mordaunt is a former chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). The GWPF is the UK’s foremost climate denial group, and has claimed CO2 emissions are a “benefit to the planet”.

In total, Reform has received almost £26.7 million from climate deniers and fossil fuel interests since it was set up by Farage as the Brexit Party in 2019 – roughly three quarters (74 percent) of its total £36 million income.

IN NUMBERS: Reform’s smoggy £26 million Christopher HarborneFossil fuel interest£22,190,000Richard TiceClimate science denier£2,257,919Jeremy HoskingFossil fuel interest£1,718,000Terence MordauntClimate science denier£230,000Ashley Mark LevettFossil fuel interest£200,000Jacques J. TohmeFossil fuel interest£50,000TOTAL£26,652,919

Reform – which is leading UK-wide polls at 25 percent – has vowed to “scrap net zero”, end subsidies for wind and solar power, approve new oil and gas exploration, lift the ban on fracking for shale gas, and open new coal power plants.

The party has doubled down on these policies during the Iran war. Earlier this month, Tice called for the UK to extract “every last drop” of oil and gas in the North Sea, and described new drilling as “our patriotic duty”.

Green Party MP Ellie Chowns told DeSmog: “When you receive nearly two thirds of your funding from vested interests, it is no surprise you dance to their tune.

“This exposes precisely why Reform wants to promote fossil fuels and undermine the green transition to renewables that would provide us with cheaper, secure energy.”

New climate modelling has indicated that a critical Atlantic current is significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought, while scientists have warned of a “rapidly closing window” to limit temperatures rises to 1.5C and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

In March, the UK’s independent Climate Change Committee said the entire cost of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050 would be less than a single fossil fuel price shock – two of which have been experienced by the UK in the past five years.

Meanwhile, a report by the New Economics Foundation last year concluded that Reform’s anti-renewables agenda could cost 60,000 jobs and wipe £92 billion off the economy.

“It isn’t exactly a shock to discover that the party most reliant on fossil fuel funding is also ignoring climate science and claiming that more drilling will solve all of our energy problems,” Angharad Hopkinson, political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, told DeSmog.

“But can they continue to hold that line as Trump’s war in Iran makes it more and more obvious that our dependence on oil and gas gives control over our energy prices to dictators and petrostates with no loyalty to the UK?”

Hopkinson added: “Reform is trying to walk a tightrope, presenting themselves as the party of patriotism while working to preserve foreign influence, rather than saving Britain money by switching to home-grown renewable energy and taking back control.”

Reform was approached for comment.

Reform’s Fossil Fuel Donors

Reform’s biggest donor is crypto investor Harborne, whose company AML Global supplies aviation and maritime fuel to a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website.

As reported by Private Eye, the price of jet fuel has doubled since the start of the war in Iran, which would benefit Harborne’s business interests.

One of AML Global’s past clients is the U.S. military, which made payments worth £115 million to AML Global’s Hong Kong division between 2020 and January 2026. It’s unclear if the U.S. military is still a client. 

Harborne and AML Global didn’t respond to DeSmog’s request for comment. In response to a similar enquiry in 2024, he posted a lengthy statement on the AML Global website, stating: “Firstly, I am not a climate science denier and secondly, I do not seek to influence any government through donations or lobbying regarding their policies on climate change or in favour of corporate interests.”

However, Harborne is by far the biggest donor to the UK’s leading anti-climate party. In addition to his £22 million in donations to Reform, The Guardian has revealed that he gave £5 million personally to Farage before the 2024 general election.

Copy: Farage’s foreign money
Infogram

DeSmog analysed Electoral Commission data going back to Reform’s founding, along with company accounts and investment registers.

Reform has also received £1.7 million from hedge fund boss Hosking, whose firm Hosking Partners has extensive fossil fuel holdings.

Its latest filings at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show the hedge fund has $369.7 million (around £273.7 million) invested in oil and gas companies, and $71 million (around £52.6 million) invested in coal firms.

Hosking’s total fossil fuel investments increased by almost 54 percent in the first three months of 2026.

Hosking previously told DeSmog: “I do not have millions in fossil fuels; it is the clients of Hosking Partners who are the beneficiaries of these investments.” 

Reform also received £50,000 last year from Nova Venture Holdings. The company’s sole director, Jacques J. Tohme, is an oil executive with a long history in the industry. He is founder and managing partner at Samos Energy, which finances oil and gas projects in Southeast Asia. He previously founded Tailwind Energy – later merged with Serica Energy – an oil and gas company which operated in the North Sea and which “transacted” with Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil.

In November, the party accepted a further £200,000 from Ashley Mark Levett. He currently sits on the board of Monaco-based company, Levmet – a global commodities trader whose interests include fossil fuels.

Climate Denier Donors

Reform has also received more than £2.5 million from donors who have promoted climate science denial. 

The party’s deputy leader Tice has provided £2.3 million via his companies TISUN investments, Britain Means Business, and Leave Means Leave since the party’s founding in 2019.

Tice has described carbon dioxide as “plant food”, and told Sky News: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change the climate. Given that it’s gone on for millions of years, it will go on for millions of years.”

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, has said it is “unequivocal” that human influence has caused “unprecedented” global warming.

Tice has been accused of hypocrisy for calling renewable energy “a massive con” while fitting solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations on his commercial properties.

In 2023, Reform received £230,000 from First Corporate Consultants, a company owned by Terence Mordaunt, who chaired the GWPF from November 2019 to October 2021.

The GWPF has claimed that carbon dioxide has been “mercilessly demonised” when in fact it should be “two or three times” higher than current levels.

In reality, the IPCC has said CO2 emissions are causing dangerous climate change, fuelling extreme weather, crop failure, and excess deaths around the world.

Despite their opposition to climate science and their fossil fuel donations, Reform MPs represent some of the constituencies most at risk from extreme heat and flooding, including Farage’s constituency of Clacton and Tice’s seat of Boston and Skegness.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage looking at the floodwater in Burrowbridge, Somerset.

Credit: PA Images / Alamy Other Big Donors of Note

Outside the scope of this analysis is Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur and Reform’s home affairs spokesman, who has donated £206,000 to the party.

While he has attacked climate action, Yusuf has not explicitly denied the role of man-made CO2 emissions to global warming.

Yusuf donated to Reform ahead of the 2024 election, after which he was appointed as the party’s chairman.

Following the election, Yusuf attacked the Labour Party’s clean energy policies, saying: “Labour champagne socialists are restricting supply of the cheapest form of energy for ordinary citizens.”

He has called net zero “religious madness” and described North Sea oil and gas as “a gift from god”. He welcomed Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president in 2024 as a rejection of “net zero fanaticism”.

The same year, Reform received £247,000 from David Lilley, a metals and mining executive and a director at the investment firm Drakewood Capital. The company holds a 20 percent stake in VSA Capital, which claims to have “a deep knowledge of mining and oil and gas” and which provides banking and brokerage services to the industry. 

Lilley – an old friend of Farage – is also a director of Resolute 1850, a Reform-linked think tank rebranded as the Centre for a Better Britain. It was launched last year by right-wing academic James Orr to “support Reform with policy development, briefing and rebuttal”. Orr joined Reform as head of policy in February, having previously been a senior advisor to the party.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf.

Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy

Reform has received a further £990,000 from property billionaire Nick Candy, who is Reform’s treasurer and who claims to have sought party funding from oil and gas executives. 

As DeSmog has reported, Candy also has financial interests in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Gulf petrostate. In late 2024, his firm Candy Capital entered into a “strategic joint venture partnership” with Modon Holding, which is chaired by a board member of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

Between 2023 and 2025, the party accepted £95,000 from Panther Securities, a property investment company chaired by former UKIP donor Andrew Perloff, who has blamed rising inflation on climate policies and defended climate science deniers.

In June 2022, Perloff wrote: “Whilst they [scientists], of course, could be correct that global warming is happening, I feel it is worrying that those with different opinions are often prevented from presenting them for consideration.”

Reform has also received £36,000 from Heathrow Airport, which was found to be the world’s second most carbon-emitting airport in 2019. Heathrow has also donated to Labour and the Conservatives in recent years.

Farage’s Millions

Alongside these donations, Farage has received £664,000 since July 2024 from the anti-climate broadcaster GB News, which employs him as a presenter. The platform is co-owned by Paul Marshall, whose hedge fund had £1.8 billion invested in fossil fuels as of June 2023.

As revealed by DeSmog, Farage has received gifts from the UAE, and has been lavished with £150,000 worth of flights to give speeches to U.S. anti-climate groups. 

Last year, Farage helped launch a UK-Europe branch of the Heartland Institute, a U.S. climate denial group which has described itself as “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting skepticism about man-made climate change”.

In total, Farage has received almost £2 million in earnings and gifts since his election in 2024, including £675,000 from foreign sources.

The post Revealed: Reform’s £24 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests appeared first on DeSmog.

In February, the United States Department of Agriculture announced two proposed changes to federal rules governing the rate of production in meat processing plants — a move advocates say would endanger workers, public health, and the environment. One proposed amendment would raise the maximum line speeds in poultry slaughter from 140 birds per minute to 175 for chicken and from 55 birds per minute to 60 for turkey. For swine slaughter, the agency is proposing there be no cap on line speed at all. 

Last week, the public comment period for the proposed amendments came to a close. If finalized, these changes would “lower production costs and create greater stability in our food system” as well as help “keep groceries more affordable,” said Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins back in February.

The proposals are in line with other Trump administration policies that encourage higher meat consumption among Americans — like the revised food pyramid with its emphasis on eating more protein. But despite the promise of lower costs and higher efficiency, experts say these proposed rollbacks pose more risks than benefits to the public. 

“This is doubling down on an already broken and polluting food system,” said Dani Replogle, staff attorney at Food & Water Watch, an environmental nonprofit that submitted public comments against the proposed rules. 

The USDA will need time to review the tens of thousands of comments submitted, but the United Food and Commercial Workers, or UFCW, a union that represents workers along the food supply chain, estimates that over 22,000 comments oppose the poultry rule, along with over 20,000 oppose the pork rule. 

The union — which successfully sued and blocked the USDA from enacting a similar change to swine line speeds in 2021 — stresses that increasing line speeds in meat processing will result in more injuries for workers. While various parts of the line in these facilities are automated, the beginning of the line — where animals are corralled into the plants — is notoriously backbreaking and dangerous work. For chickens, workers who hang the birds by their feet often end up covered in fecal matter; in swine slaughterhouses, workers on the “kill floor” move pigs into stunning chambers. In both scenarios, unlike climate-controlled segments of the line, workers are exposed to the elements and face heat stress on very hot days. 

Read Next American farmers bet on solar. Then Trump changed the rules. Ayurella Horn-Muller, Melina Walling, Clayton Aldern, & M.K. Wildeman

Further down the line, workers handle knives and often labor shoulder-to-shoulder. They make repetitive motions for hours at a time, making the same cuts over and over to process hundreds or thousands of birds and swine. This workforce already runs the risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome and enduring lacerations and amputations. Research has shown injury rates go up when line speeds increase.

The USDA contests this finding. In its proposed rule for poultry slaughter, the USDA states that a study funded by the agency’s Food Safety and Inspection Service determined that increased line speeds during the evisceration segment of the line — where internal organs are removed from dead animals — “are not associated” with a higher risk of musculoskeletal disorder. The study’s authors, however, have since said that the proposed rule “fundamentally misunderstands and mischaracterizes the scope and results” of their research. 

“The potential for injury to these workers, it’s just something people can’t deny,” said Mark Lauritsen, who leads UFCW’s food processing, packaging, and manufacturing division. “Quite honestly, line speeds are too fast now.”

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson from the USDA said, “Decades of data prove that plants can run at higher speeds while maintaining process control and meeting every federal food safety standard.” They also added that federal inspectors in meat processing plants are still able to slow lines down if they discover a problem. 

Ultimately, the spokesperson said, “The USDA’s legal authority is strictly limited to ensuring food safety and process control; we do not have the power to regulate piece rates or how private companies manage their staff.” (Piece rate refers to the number of items — such as whole birds or parts — handled by a worker per minute.)

When it comes to meat processing, going faster “is not good for the environment either,” said Lauritsen. 

Packages of chicken at a supermarket in Texas. Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP via Getty Images

Slaughterhouses are incredibly water-intensive operations, due in part to the need to regularly spray down these facilities in order to maintain sanitary conditions while processing animals. In turn, they also produce a lot of waste — in the form of, yes, contaminated water, but also blood, guts, and fecal matter from animal carcasses. Both labor and environmental advocates argue that increasing the line speeds in slaughterhouses will necessarily increase the amount of water used and the amount of waste discharged into local ecosystems. 

In written comments submitted to the USDA, the Center for Biological Diversity stated: “Increasing line speed slaughter rates will increase slaughter capacity […] and lead to further damage to the environment, wildlife, animal welfare, worker safety, and public health (including food safety).” 

Replogle, the attorney at Food & Water Watch, also believes that if slaughterhouses go faster, then factory farms will decide to raise more animals. These farms, known as confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, are “another gigantic source of water pollution in particular and nitrate pollution,” said Replogle, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Across the U.S., CAFOs are also linked to higher levels of air pollution in uninsured and Latino communities. 

In its proposed rule for poultry slaughter, the USDA states that increasing line speeds “would not affect consumer demand for the establishments’ products,” and that only “expected sales of poultry products […] would determine production levels in establishments.” But demand for meat in the U.S. is already quite high, with most Americans eating more than 1.5 times the daily protein requirement. 

It’s also unclear that increasing line speeds would actually lower the price of chicken and pork at the grocery store. Agricultural economist David Ortega, a professor at Michigan State University, said increasing slaughter capacity would only result in lower poultry and pork prices at the grocery store if slaughterhouses pass on their savings “through the supply chain.” That outcome, Ortega said, would run counter to the slaughterhouses’ economic incentives. 

For some workers, the proposition of increased line speeds has already been made real. Magaly Licolli is a labor organizer based in Springdale, Arkansas, where Tyson Foods, the largest U.S. meat corporation, is headquartered. She said that poultry workers in Northwest Arkansas, at companies she did not name, say they have already been told to work faster. “We had a meeting with workers from different companies. And all of them stated that the line speed had increased,” said Licolli. 

The USDA spokesperson said, “The safety and well-being of the workforce are essential to a stable food supply; however, worker safety is overseen by the Department of Labor, not USDA. The law is very clear on this.” They also added that meat processing plants have long been able to receive line speed waivers, which allow the facilities to operate at higher speeds — and that this may explain what workers are reporting to Licolli.

Debbie Berkowitz, a worker safety and health expert at Georgetown University, argued that increasing line speeds ultimately puts profits above all else. “I think the line speed issue is not about selling more chicken or pork, but being able to exploit workers and get them to work even harder and faster. That is how the companies save money,” said Berkowitz. In cases like this, Berkowitz argues that workers and the environment are treated as expendable. “It’s just churning through workers,” she said. In other words: “Exploitation 101.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump’s plan for ultrafast meat processing would be a disaster for workers and the environment on Apr 30, 2026.

Across cultures, practices that limit ego and hierarchy help sustain cooperation and trust. In an era of cascading crises, rediscovering these “social technologies” could strengthen community resilience and collective action.

In New Zealand, forest gardening is being reshaped to fit local climates, ecosystems and cultural contexts. Drawing on years of research and practice, this work shows how place-based adaptation can support more resilient, regenerative food systems.

For the past couple of decades, we at Post Carbon Institute have been pointing out that a transition to alternative energy sources will necessarily be slow and incomplete. Given that oil is a depleting, polluting, non-renewable resource, industrial society is due for a reckoning. We are all in an extended Wile E. Coyote moment.

Europe’s climate movement is often portrayed as the domain of younger generations. Yet from landmark legal victories to everyday practices of sustainability, a different picture is emerging: older Europeans are proving to be among the most committed and effective climate actors. As the continent continues to age, could this overlooked demographic reshape how climate action is understood and mobilised across Europe?

In April 2024, a group of Swiss women, most of them in their 70s and 80s, stood on the steps of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, surrounded by a wall of microphones and cameras from around the world. They had just heard the verdict in one of the most significant climate cases in European legal history. The KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz had won.

The ruling found Switzerland in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights for failing to adequately protect its citizens from the effects of climate change. The judgment, formally known as Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland, now sets binding legal precedent across all 46 Council of Europe member states. Switzerland has since pushed hard for the case to be closed, but the Committee of Ministers, which monitors its implementation, has refused the request twice.

The story of how about 3,000 Swiss women forced their country to one of the highest courts in Europe is striking in its own right. Yet it also points to something broader: a growing, largely invisible force within the climate movement that Europe’s ageing democracies might not be able to overlook for much longer.

Beyond the generational divide

The climate movement’s most visible faces – such as activists Greta Thunberg in Sweden or Féris Barkat in France – tend to be on the younger (if not much younger) side, and it has become common to identify Gen Z as its most fervent defender. But researchers who study the intersection of ageing and environmental engagement argue that the mainstream perception of generations within the climate movement may be flawed.

“There is a slight tendency for younger generations to have opinions that are more favourable towards climate policy,” said Jan Rosset, a sociologist at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland who has studied climate engagement across age groups in Switzerland alongside political scientist Jasmine Lorenzini. “But all generations are very favourable to climate policies. There is no real generational divide.”

That finding echoes the conclusions of a 2025 study published by Parlons Climat, a French research organisation, which found that older adults take climate change and environmental degradation just as seriously as the rest of the population. The myth of a disengaged older generation does not seem to hold up to scrutiny.

What differs across generations, Rosset and Lorenzini found, is not the level of concern but the form that engagement takes. Older adults are significantly more likely to buy local and seasonal produce for environmental reasons, to renounce air travel on ecological grounds, and to practice unglamorous household sustainability: buying second-hand, reducing electricity use, cooking from scratch. Younger people, on the other hand, might be more likely to adopt plant-based diets and participate in public protests. It should, however, be noted that the data is mixed.

Researchers who study the intersection of ageing and environmental engagement argue that the mainstream perception of generations within the climate movement may be flawed.

“On almost every indicator, it is people in mid-life, those between roughly 35 and 60, who engage the least,” Rosset says. “But that is not an ideological position. It’s a question of time and capacity; they have demanding jobs and family responsibilities. It is a life-cycle issue, not a generational one.”

Rosset and Lorenzini also found a consistent gender gap: across all age groups, but especially among older adults, women showed significantly more favourable attitudes toward climate action and higher levels of engagement than men.

“This gap was almost stronger than other socioeconomic factors, like income or education level,” Rosset said.

The case that set a precedent

When Greenpeace Switzerland began exploring the possibility of legal climate action in the mid-2010s, it ran into an obstacle: Swiss law does not allow class actions. Any case would need to be brought by individuals who could demonstrate they were personally and particularly affected. The research pointed to one group. Studies following the 2003 European heatwave – which killed an estimated 70,000 people across the continent, with the elderly among the hardest hit – had shown that older women died in disproportionate numbers. More recent research has confirmed this vulnerability: a 2024 study by Penn State researchers found that older women reach dangerous heat thresholds at lower temperature and humidity levels than older men and that middle-aged women are as heat-vulnerable as men over 65.

Heatwaves increase illnesses, causing heat stroke, heart and lung problems, diabetes complications, mental health issues, and trouble with daily activities. The vulnerability of older generations is not just physical: many live alone, have limited mobility, or cannot easily access emergency services. People in cities face “heat island” effects, where concrete and asphalt trap heat, while rural residents often have fewer cooling centres or medical resources. Climate change also worsens air quality, raising levels of ozone, fine particulate matter, and other pollutants, which worsen respiratory and heart conditions. These combined factors make ageing populations especially vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change.

One senior activist who committed herself to the Swiss climate fight is Elisabeth Stern, a cultural anthropologist and board member of KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz. “It was clear that when I got retired, I would use my time in a climate group,” she said. “I tried a few that were not the right fit for me until I found the KlimaSeniorinnen, who I sort of met on the same eye level.”

Stern’s fellow activist, Anne Mahrer, KlimaSeniorinnen’s co-president, had spent years watching climate policy stall in parliament as a member of the Swiss National Council. When a colleague reminded her of the Urgenda case in the Netherlands, where a court had ordered the Dutch government in 2015 to cut emissions, the question became: could something similar be done in Switzerland? In August 2016, KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz was formally established to achieve that goal.

The Swiss courts, however, were not moved. At every level, the association was told it lacked standing. One court noted that the women were concerned not only about Swiss emissions but wanted to reduce them worldwide. Another placed winter tourism in the same category of climate-affected interests as the health of women threatened by heatwaves. The most striking argument, Stern recounts, was that the women might not still be alive by the time global warming reached 1.5 degrees and therefore could not complain. “If you follow their reasoning, climate action in court would only be possible when it’s already too late,” Mahrer said.

The European Court of Human Rights took a different view. It declared the application a priority case, engaged seriously with reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and referred the case to its Grand Chamber of 17 judges. “Unlike politicians, who do not listen to scientists, the judges listened to the scientists, and they took into account the third-party interventions in support of the case,” Mahrer explained.

The court delivered its verdict on 9 April, 2024. It found Switzerland in violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to respect for private and family life – which the court ruled encompasses a right to effective state protection against the severe effects of climate change on life, health, wellbeing, and quality of life. Switzerland was also found to have violated Article 6 – the right to a fair trial – for its domestic courts’ refusal to hear the case on its merits.

The ripple effects spread quickly and travelled farther than anyone had anticipated. The ruling is now cited in climate litigation across Europe. In South Korea, groups of young activists successfully pursued a similar case. In the Netherlands, residents of the island of Bonaire have taken legal action against the Dutch state, drawing on the KlimaSeniorinnen precedent. The International Court of Justice, prompted by the small island nation of Vanuatu, issued an advisory opinion in July 2025 stating that governments which fail to protect their populations from climate harm are acting unlawfully, reinforcing the Strasbourg ruling and opening new avenues for litigation worldwide.

Across Europe, a generation of older activists has been following a similar model. European Grandparents for Climate, active in Belgium and Norway, and Omas for Future in Germany and Austria, are building on the same instinct: that people who have watched the world change across six or seven decades have both a particular stake in the future and a special capacity to act.

European Grandparents for Climate participates in demonstrations, writes letters to ministers, and monitors parliamentary votes on climate at both the Belgian and European levels. In Germany, Omas for Future joins Fridays for Future strikes, runs climate workshops in schools, and has organised nationwide campaigns such as the “Klimabänder” initiative, in which thousands of handwritten climate messages were bicycled to Berlin ahead of the 2021 federal election.

Sustainability by habit

Beyond courts and campaigns, there is a quieter dimension to older adults’ climate engagement, rooted not in ideology but in force of habit and the practical knowledge of generations who lived before the age of mass consumption.

Serge Guérin, a French sociologist and author of Et si les vieux aussi sauvaient la planète? (“And what if the Elderly Also Saved the Planet?”), points to a kind of practical sustainability that older generations carry without naming it as such. They grew up returning glass bottles for a deposit, cooking whatever was in season, and mending rather than replacing. A startup working on bottle recycling, he recalls, found it far easier to explain the concept to older people because “When they were young, they used to return the milk bottle, the wine bottle, and get a few cents back. For them, it was totally normal,” he says.

Helene Blasquiet-Revol, a geographer whose research examines civic engagement among seniors in rural France, describes what she calls “ordinary” forms of climate engagement: practices so ingrained they are not even labelled as activism. For instance, she found that community gardens established by older residents in the Allier region gradually opened up to schools and youth workshops, transmitting practical knowledge in ways that were rarely planned or publicised.

There is a quieter dimension to older adults’ climate engagement, rooted not in ideology but in force of habit and the practical knowledge of generations who lived before the age of mass consumption.

Researchers are increasingly identifying the potential for a form of intergenerational knowledge transfer that is already happening informally, and which could be deliberately cultivated. Rosset, for instance, found that among older climate activists, there was no statistically significant relationship between having children or grandchildren and the propensity to get involved, meaning people were not fighting for their own descendants. “It is really universal,” Rosset said. “It is a solidarity expressed towards future generations, towards all of humanity. We did not expect that result at all.”

Renewal needs the old

Europe is ageing fast. According to projections from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the share of older adults across EU member states is growing steadily and will continue to do so for decades, driven by declining fertility rates and rising life expectancy. This demographic shift also increases the need for climate-adapted healthcare, adequate urban planning, and social support systems for vulnerable seniors.

“There is a widespread idea that with generational renewal, the problem will be solved, that new generations will be more environmentally conscious,” Rosset said. “Our research shows this is not the case. And in addition, there will be more and more older people.”

Guérin also notes that designing urban environments, housing, and transport for ageing populations often produces outcomes that are better for both people and the planet. Accessible public transport means more people leave their cars behind. Shared housing models reduce per-capita energy consumption. Local services cut down the need for long-distance travel. And when older people are less isolated, they are in better health.

“When you reduce isolation, people use fewer resources, they are less at risk and share more,” Guérin said, adding that these shifts can lower both land use and carbon footprints. “When you take vulnerability into account, you very often improve things for everyone. And it’s really when people feel their capacity to act, especially at the local level, that things begin to move.”

Stern sees the perception gap playing out in real time in media coverage. “There are certain media and certain politicians who want us to believe that interest in the climate has vanished,” she says. “It is in their interest to tell people: ‘It has vanished anyway, so you don’t have to get involved, just enjoy life.’ But the truth is, when you ask people what concerns them a lot, the climate crisis comes up either first or second.”

The KlimaSeniorinnen continue to monitor Switzerland’s compliance with the Strasbourg judgment, sending observations to the Committee of Ministers, lobbying ambassadors, and speaking at universities across the country. For Stern, meaningful compliance means confronting Switzerland’s financial sector, which through continued investment in fossil fuels generates emissions many times greater than those in the country itself. A documentary about the association’s decade-long legal journey recently toured cinemas.

Whatever the future of the climate movement and its coverage, it is clear that the generational conflict narrative is not accurate. The evidence from researchers points to something more complicated and more hopeful: a Europe where different generations, engaged in different ways, with different tools and different knowledge, are already working on the same problem.

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

Listen to the audio version >>

Radical, unanticipated developments in electrification, storage, distribution, and other technologies are transforming not only the way energy is produced but also the way it is used. Like the transformation in energy production, these advances in energy consumption are transforming economies and creating new opportunities to protect the climate and improve our lives.

Nissan LEAF charging at the Freedom Station in Houston, TX. This is an eVgo Network station with both Level 2 and DC fast chargers. Photo credit: evgonetwork (eVgo Network). Original image was trimmed and retouched (lighting and color tones) by User:Mariordo, Wikemedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

In the previous commentary we examined the impact of the Greentech revolution on the production of energy. But energy production is only one side of the Greentech revolution. The other is providing that energy where it is needed when it is needed, shifting energy consumption from fossil fuels to electricity, and using that energy more efficiently so less of it is required. As the FT wrote in “The Reshaping of Energy Consumption,” “Just as important as the development of new wind and solar farms to generate electricity without carbon dioxide emissions” is “the overhauling of vehicles, heating systems, and factories.”

Energy Storage

After energy has been produced it often must be stored until it is needed. Enter the Greentech revolution in energy storage. Over the past 15 years the cost of energy storage has dropped 95%. In 2025, Chinese batteries appeared headed for a further 30% decline. In 2025, the world was expected to add eighty gigawatts of grid-scale storage, eight times as much as in 2021.

More change is at hand. For example, sodium-ion batteries are safer than lithium batteries and do not require destructive extraction of materials like lithium, cobalt, phosphorus, and copper. Materials for sodium batteries are far cheaper those for lithium batteries. BYD opened a sodium-ion battery factory in 2024, and is producing a large sodium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) called MC Cube-T. Sodium-ion storage is likely to make it possible to replace fossil fuels with electricity in such until-now intractable areas as heavy trucks and long-distance shipping.

This is only one of several impending battery breakthroughs. For example, long duration energy storage is increasing today’s typical storage time of about 4 hours to many times as long. Google recently announced investment in long duration energy storage (LDES). “Through a new long-term partnership with Energy Dome, we plan to support multiple commercial projects globally to deploy their LDES technology.” Toyota has developed an all-solid-state battery that provides EVs with smaller, more durable batteries that charge in minutes and deliver longer ranges between charges.

Energy Distribution

Construction workers build the frame for a one-megawatt solar microgrid project at Fort Hunter Liggett, Calif., Dec. 22, 2011. Photo credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District Licensing, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

After energy has been produced it needs to get to where it is needed. Led by China, there is a revolution in long-distance power transmission. One ultrahigh-voltage Chinese power line stretches more than 2,000 miles from the sparsely populated far northwest to the populous, industrialized southeast — the equivalent of sending electricity from Idaho to New York City. This is one of 42 long-distance power lines, each able to carry more electricity than any utility transmission line in the United States. China’s transmission technology is far more efficient than others. And China plans systematically; it is now building the world’s first nationwide grid of ultrahigh-voltage power transmission lines. By 2050, China plans to have three times more ultrahigh-voltage routes in operation.

At the opposite end of the scale, microgrids are providing new ways of distributing energy locally. According to the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a microgrid is a group of “interconnected loads and distributed energy resources that acts as a single controllable entity with respect to the grid.” It can connect and disconnect from the grid to operate in grid-connected or island mode. It can therefore keep a local grid running even when the wider grid fails. Microgrids allow coordination and synergism among small-scale, local energy infrastructure like generators, renewables, and batteries. That allows them to save costs, reduce the need for energy, and make money by selling excess electricity.

Microgrids are now being used in hospitals, universities, neighborhoods, and many other venues. In Petaluma, CA for example, the newly constructed 131-unit Meridian at Petaluma North Station affordable apartment complex includes a solar and energy storage microgrid. The net-zero project will generate and manage all its energy onsite. Its microgrid includes a 1-MW solar array consisting of rooftop-mounted panels and solar canopies in the parking lot. A 4.3 MWh battery is designed to support the complex for three to four days during a power outage. Parking spaces with bidirectional EV chargers directly wired into the microgrid will allow EVs to charge from the solar array — and provide electricity back to the building when needed.

Transportation

The largest shift so far from fossil fuel burning to electricity is the replacement of gas guzzlers with electric vehicles (EVs). Not only do EVs use electrons rather than gasoline; they use 2-4 times less energy than their fossil fuel counterparts. Sales of EVs have been rapidly growing globally, increasing by over 33 times, from 0.5 million (1% of all car sales) in 2015 to over 17 million (more than 20% of all car sales) in 2024. EVs now account for almost half of all car sales in China, 20% in Europe, and more than 10% in the USA. EV sales in Asia and Latin America increased by over 60% in 2024 to almost 600,000. Electric vehicles made up 80% of Norway’s new car sales last year. Electric car sales in 2025 were expected to exceed 20 million worldwide, more than a quarter of all cars sold.

EVs are only part of the Greentech transformation of transportation. Electrification and system reorganization have the potential to transform rail transportation: In the English town of Aldershot, solar collectors are directly delivering electricity to drive trains; the developer says, “If you are a railway, this is the cheapest electricity you can buy.” In China, 30,000 miles of high-speed rail lines run on electricity. Buses, subways, light rail, and other public transit can now be provided at far less than the cost of auto transportation due to electrification and technological improvements. Due to emerging battery technologies, ships and planes may be electrified at competitive cost. At the other end of the scale, electric bikes providing “micromobility” are already a rapidly expanding transportation niche. One recent example is a four-wheeled bike for individual and commercial cargo haulers.

Agriculture

Solar is growing in Alaska, ACEP is helping the industry and communities. Video credit: Alaska Center for Energy and Power | UAF

Agricultural techniques are turning farms from producers to reducers of greenhouse gases. For example, regenerative agriculture provides farming and grazing practices that withdraw carbon from the atmosphere by restoring degraded soil biodiversity. New technologies are allowing farmers to grow crops underneath solar panels. The New York Times recently featured an “agrivoltaics” installation in Houston, Alaska, adapted to the farm’s extreme northern location. “The rows of panels on the 45-acre site are set 50 feet apart, much wider than at lower latitudes, and they collect solar power on both front and back in order to capture the maximum amount of summer sunlight as the sun dances across the horizon all day and all night.” The electricity produced from such agrivoltaics can run farm equipment and be sold to provide an extra source of income for farmers; the food produced can help meet local food shortages.

As in so much Greentech, China is creating radical advances in agrivoltaics. For example, the Chinese company GCL says it has combined four new agrivoltaic technologies: Bifacial solar panels harvest sunlight from both sides, enabling them to assume a space-saving vertical position when needed. Tunable solar panels that enable more or less light to pass onto crops can be adjusted to a range of 15-40% light pass-through. Elevated racks can be raised to 9 feet with tracking capability to optimize the sun-collecting angle. Advanced system management integrates meteorological data, crop growth sensors, inverter analytics, and AI algorithms to optimize module tilt and irrigation schedules.

Greentech Unlimited

There are thousands of Greentech goods, services, and systems that have been introduced or are in development around the world that will increase efficiency and reduce GHG emissions – far too numerous and diverse to review here. For a knowledgeable review, see Mark Jacobson’s Still No Miracles Needed. A few of the most important additional sectors of Greentech advance:

• Climate-safe factories are now being built around the world. For example, Ford has opened a carbon neutral assembly plant in Cologne, Germany, to produce EVs for the European market. According to Ford, the plant uses “digital advancements that connect machines, vehicles and workers” including “self-learning machines, autonomous transport systems, and big data management.” New technologies are even reducing the carbon released in steelmaking, one of the most intense greenhouse gas producers on earth.
• Circular reuse and recycling include the upcycling of waste materials into new products, promoting a cycle of continuous use, and GHG-reducing waste management practices like composting. It can include air and water filtration systems, waste-to-energy technologies, and methods for safely disposing of or repurposing industrial waste.
• Public transit may well be the most cost-effective single way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• Green construction is substituting low-carbon materials like hempcrete and recycled steel for more climate-destructive materials.
• Greentech building decarbonization is creating carbon-neutral buildings.It includes insulation, electrification, and on-site renewable energy. Improved heat pumps can produce three or more units of heat for every unit of electricity they use.
• Protecting and restoring ecosystems can rebuild degraded lands, preserve endangered species, and support sustainable agriculture practices.

These are only a few of the many examples of Greentech transformations of consumption. More are being implemented every day.

Infographic: Who has pledged an INDC so far, and what percentage of the world’s emissions are covered. Credit: Rosamund Pearce, Carbon Brief, based on EU data. Only UN parties have been included in the emissions total. Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark, not covered by the EU’s INDC. It is not a UN party. Taiwan is also not a UN party. Source: Carbonbrief.org

Reducing energy consumption can make an important contribution to the transition to climate-safe energy. For example, the IEA’s modelling of a world on track to meet the Paris agreement targets for GHG reduction shows final energy consumption falling by as much as 15 percent compared with current levels by 2035, even as GDP continues to grow. That’s because of electrification and other energy efficiency measures such as better insulation.

As shown in this and the previous commentary, Greentech production and consumption are now far more efficient and therefore far less costly and more competitive than fossil fuel-based systems. This Greentech revolution will have profound effects on the future of the US as well as the rest of the world.

Donald Trump and his MAGA allies are determined to reverse the Greentech revolution. Their success would mean catastrophe for the US economy and the American people. Conversely, the Greentech revolution has enormous potential benefits for the US economy and for the American people. Subsequent commentaries in this series will explore what the Greentech revolution means for the American people – and how we can take advantage of it.

Get “Strike!” via EmailGet “Strike!” via Substack DONATE ONLINE

The post Greentech Revolution: Energy Consumption first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Read and subscribe to our monthly newsletter and support our work.

The post Latest Newsletter first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Carlos Torrealba currently is the Network and Formations Manager at Taproot Earth, where he’s helping build the Gulf South to Appalachia Formation, a powerful 17-state network of over 100 frontline organizations.

For the past decade, Carlos has been building the new while fighting the bad; from creating community-led disaster response systems to deepening and building labor and climate justice solidarity across local, regional, and national movements. His work leans heavily on not only building local alternatives but also linking them to regional, national and international movements of decolonization, anti-neoliberalism, and anti-imperialism. His political roots were shaped in undergrad while engaged in pipeline fights and Palestinian Solidarity work in Vermont. Carlos is also deeply engaged in Latin American solidarity and food sovereignty efforts. Outside movement work, Carlos enjoys travelling, early French Modernist Literature, and vinyl collecting.

The post May LNS Spotlight: Carlos Torrealba first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

What does a Black climate activist say when interviewed by someone who describes themselves as a “Redneck Gone Green”? Here’s how LNS executive director started his rap:

“I appreciate as a black Southerner the idea of starting with joy. In my old church tradition they’ll say, “Out of all the things I’ve been through, I still have joy.” And I think that joy and love are still the key attributes of what is to be done. This radical notion of love, love that calls you to a responsibility of taking care of yourself and the ones around you. The responsibility of this moment, of this political moment, this socioeconomic moment, this rise of authoritarianism. And if we don’t start practicing that love and moving our boots and moving our asses, then we just may be in the dystopian future that we fear.”

Watch Joshua’s “Same Boss, Same Enemy” interview on “Redneck Gone Green” here.

The post Same Boss, Same Enemy first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo credit:Yasmin Gabriel, LNS Development Manager

My kids are climate justice leaders in our household, always looking for ways of reducing our carbon footprints. They see themselves as stewards of the planet and I am aware that it is crucial for us to alleviate disproportionate energy burdens and reduce exposure to environmental hazards. According to ScienceDirect.com, Black families emit 20% less CO2 than average households but we suffer higher energy costs and poorer health outcomes, making sustainable action a key strategy for health and financial equity.

As a family, we chose a solution that would reduce our financial obligations and carbon footprint. Over the winter break, I researched how to safely get around with two kids. We settled on a cargo bike, allowing me to transport multiple kids, pets, and plants, all at the same time. According to the Guardian, bike riding reduces your carbon emissions by 90%, compared with electric vans that reduce by one-third. We are able to demonstrate to our community what reducing a family’s carbon footprint actually could look like – choosing to ride a bike around town instead of driving.

I know the cargo bike saved us money, but what about the impact it has on our family joy? Our bike recently broke, devastating to me, but my 4-year-old daughter offered to ride her bike to school and my 8-year-old son offered to walk the 2 miles to school, so we could continue to spend time with each other and do our part for the planet. The impact on our family’s quality of life is immeasurable, and yet so clear! If you are interested in talking or learning more about cargo bike journeys, feel free to reach out to me via email at yasmin@labor4sustainability.org.

Happy working to ensure everyone has a livable wage on a livable planet,

The Gabriel Family

The post Stewards of the Planet first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

LNS invites you to a national webinar on May 5 at 4 PM ET, co-hosted by Taproot Earth and the Hotel & Gaming Trades Council (HTC), in partnership with U.S. Climate Action Network, Labor Network for Sustainability, and Just Transition Alliance.

As Climate Week NYC approaches, we’re deepening solidarity between the climate justice and labor movements. With the NYC hotel workers’ union contract set to expire this summer, this moment offers a powerful opportunity to align our values and actions. This session is designed for decision-makers and operations leads at climate organizations participating in Climate Week NYC. We’ll explore how to show up in solidarity and support workers in their fight for a fair contract.

Click here to register.

The post Solidarity in Action: Mobilizing Labor & Climate Justice at NYC Climate Week and Beyond first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

LNS and our partners were happy to have had a successful Transit Equity Week 2026. We are excited to continue growing our transit equity work and organizing riders and workers everywhere towards a just and sustainable future.

For a brief video report on Transit Equity Week 2026: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWpBnPQiOA4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D.

The post Transit Equity Rolls On first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

The Labor Network for Sustainability has joined many other organizations around the country to support the campaign to close the county-owned HERC (Hennepin Energy Recovery Center) incinerator in Minneapolis. Shutting down the incinerator, which burns toxic trash in the center of a Black and working-class community, has been the goal of a long-running local campaign. Shutting the incinerator was one of the demands of the first union-authorized strike on climate issues in the US by janitor members of Service Employees International Union Local 26.

In 2023, Hennepin County Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to create a closure plan — but it does not actually require HERC to close. The Zero Burn Coalition, an alliance of environmental and labor groups, wants the board to hold a public vote this year to close the HERC by 2028. Local environmental justice advocates held a hunger strike calling on Hennepin County Commissioners to close their incinerator; at press time they had fasted for nearly two weeks.

Local labor organizations that are part of the campaign include:

• MAPE – Minnesota Association of Professional Employees
• MNA – Minnesota Nurses Association
• MFE – Minneapolis Federation of teachers
• SPFE – Saint Paul Federation of Teachers
• AFSCME – Local 2822
• AFSCME – Hennepin Healthcare Local 2474
• CTUL – Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha

The post Hungering for Environmental Justice first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

More than 8 million people joined more than 3,300 organized events across the country on March 28 for No Kings Day to protest the Trump administration’s growing authoritarianism, attacks on immigrants, and war in the Middle East. It was the largest single-day protest in American history.

Major unions with millions of members including SEIU, AFT, and NEA supported the day of action, and local unions around the country played a major role in organizing local events. Endorsing the mobilization, Liz Shuler, President of the AFL-CIO, said:

Since Inauguration Day, the radical pages of Project 2025 and the fever dreams of America’s corporate billionaires have come to life with a relentless assault on America’s workers. The Trump administration has committed the single biggest act of union-busting in history, attacked good jobs across the country, launched a brutal assault on immigrants, ripped health care from millions, jeopardized the essential services that working families rely on and threatened our fundamental freedoms. But America’s labor unions have been leading in our courts, on Capitol Hill, and in our streets to fight back– and our movement will be there on No Kings Day to peacefully and powerfully say that our government doesn’t answer to a king. It answers to working people.

The post 8 Million People—And Labor—Say “NO KINGS” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

By Yasmin Gabriel, LNS Development Manager

As a 6th generation Louisianian, I am always in awe when I see different members of my community serving as change agents. In mid-April, I was able to witness the combined organizing power of Earthworks, St. James Rising, Healthy Gulf, Concerned Citizens of St. John, Green Army, Louisiana Against False Solutions, Sierra Club-Delta Chapter, and Lake Maurepas Preservation Society as they challenged a proposed carbon capture project.

As storms, heat waves, fires, floods, and other devastating effects of global warming have grown, more and more people in Louisiana have become convinced of the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere. “Carbon capture” is proposed as a solution, but it is unproven, costly, problematic for health and the environment, not a job producer, and ineffective for climate protection. The Air Products company has proposed a 38-mile carbon dioxide pipeline — running from Ascension Parish to Lake Maurepas — as part of a carbon capture project. It is dangerous for so many reasons. Here are two major reasons: Sorrento Primary School and the Orange Grove subdivision situated within ½ mile of the proposed pipeline.

There is something special that happens in a community when people pull together across fault lines and work for a common goal. There is often a level of social connection that can provide a sense of support for families, even during the toughest of times. The changemakers in parishes of south Louisiana are working to stop the project from being built because of pollution, noise, traffic, and other unjust impacts.

Follow this link for more information about the Blue Hydrogen Project and how you can support the fight.

The post “Carbon Capture Does Not Belong in the Boot” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

For years, advertising executives have largely escaped criticism for glossing the images of major polluters.

But as climate protestors turn up at ad agency offices and dozens of U.S. states file lawsuits accusing oil companies of deliberately spreading disinformation, the industry is coming under increasing scrutiny. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called ad execs working with the fossil fuel industry “Mad Men fuelling the madness.”

Now, a new DeSmog report reveals which advertising companies have helped oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell spend a collective $1.5 billion on buying U.S. ad space since the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change in 2015.

Below we’ve ranked their CEOs — the real life “Mad Men” — according to the estimated amount of oil company ad spend serviced by their company on their watch. (Click on the portraits to read a profile of their firm).

Note: Two of these companies — IPG and Omnicom — merged in November but have been considered separately as they were individual entities throughout the analysis period.

Mark Read, who stepped down last year amid nosediving profits, was one of the more outspoken ad industry leaders on climate change, despite WPP consistently having the most fossil fuel clients of any advertising company in the world under his leadership. In 2022, Read argued against a burgeoning industry movement to divest from fossil fuel clients, telling an audience of financial analysts: “We are there to support them on [their energy] transition.” Since then, an ad made by WPP agency VML has been banned by the UK advertising regulator for misrepresenting Shell’s business as greener than it actually is; a U.S. Congressional committee report cited a series of ExxonMobil ads made by WPP agency Group SJR as examples of greenwashing; and campaigners lodged a complaint (yet to be ruled upon) with the OECD alleging WPP had broken guidelines on climate and human rights. At the time, a WPP spokesperson said, “Contrary to the claims being made, we adhere to the highest regulatory standards in our work for clients.”

The longest serving CEO in this list, John Wren has overseen Omnicom’s lucrative longstanding relationship with ExxonMobil — which has a long history of funding climate science denial. Most notably, a group of Omnicom ad agencies developed ExxonMobil’s long-running algae-fuel ads. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on advertising a “climate solution” that few experts believed would ever leave the lab. Omnicom’s acquisition of IPG in November means Wren’s combined oil and gas client list is now the longest of any advertising CEO in the world. Although Omnicom has made some promises to reduce its operational emissions, the firm has never made any public move under Wren to restrict the nature of its work for the fossil fuel industry.

An accountant by trade, Michael I. Roth’s 15 years at IPG saw the company sign with ExxonMobil in 2011. Since then, a group of IPG media-buying agencies have managed hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of ad space for the oil giant to help it reach its desired target audiences. Roth’s reign also saw IPG become the go-to advertising partner for Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company — although those ad dollars are not included in this analysis. Roth left IPG in 2020, having earned nearly $200 million across 15 years, according to executive intelligence firm Equilar. When inducting him into the American Advertising Federation Hall of Fame, the federation described him as “a champion-level voice for what is good and right.”

Arguably the most famous (and richest) man in the ad industry. WPP’s founder Sir Martin Sorrell turned wire basket maker Wire & Plastic Products into the biggest advertising company in the world — and until recently the biggest provider of communications services to the fossil fuel industry. Sorrell was knighted in 2000 for his contributions to the business world. By 2015, his annual salary was over $90 million. He eventually left WPP in a cloud of controversy over allegations of personal and financial misconduct. A Financial Times investigation at the time said anonymous interviews with WPP staff painted “a picture of routine verbal abuse of underlings and a blending of Sir Martin’s corporate and private life”. Sorrell denied all the allegations against him.  

“I strongly believe that a brand that [does] not invest into this [clean energy] transition will be out of business in 10 years,” declared Yannick Bolloré in August 2023. The following month, Havas won a multimillion-dollar contract to handle Shell’s global ad placement strategy. Shell had U-turned on its renewable energy targets in favour of maintaining oil and gas production just months earlier. Insiders told DeSmog at the time that employees were taken aback, having watched Bolloré cultivate a personal brand of caring about the climate (though the deal was less surprising if you knew the Bolloré family’s business empire is partly built on transporting oil). Facing Extinction Rebellion die-ins at the Havas offices and the loss of a climate-focused client, the youngest “Mad Man” on this list has dug in, repeating in various interviews that “the most effective change comes from within.” In the end, four Havas agencies ended up losing their B-Corp certifications for ethical businesses over the Shell deal, and Havas had to warn investors the reputational damage could impact its financial performance.

Dentsu’s CEOs have tended not to make personal statements in the media on advertising’s relationship with the fossil fuel industry. Nevertheless, under Hiroshi Igarashi’s leadership, Dentsu took a significant step when it decided to quietly publish its “advertised emissions” in an investor risk report — representing the amount of carbon pollution associated with the uplift in sales resulting from its advertising campaigns, such as an airline ad leading to greater demand for flights. Dentsu found these were 32 times higher than the emissions from its core operations, such as powering its offices. Igarashi has shown no sign of moving Dentsu on from its lucrative contracts with Chevron and Shell — two of 18 fossil fuel clients Dentsu currently serves, according to research by industry campaign group Clean Creatives.

Toshihiro Yamamoto started his career with Dentsu back in 1981. A full 26 years later, the Dentsu veteran replaced the outgoing Tadashi Ishii as CEO, tasked with steadying the ship after Ishii left in a cloud of controversy. Yamamoto’s five years in charge saw the Japanese ad giant add Shell to its client roster, when its business-to-business ad agency Merkle gained control of a share of the hundreds of millions the oil giant spends on advertising each year. By the time Yamamoto departed in 2021, Dentsu had upped its fossil fuel contracts from five when he started his tenure to at least 11, according to DeSmog research.

In September 2022, Philippe Krakowsky announced an “industry first” climate policy that would restrict its work with fossil fuel companies. The new policy didn’t apply to existing clients. In an internal memo at the time, Krakowsky — like Read and Bolloré — told staff, “it is important to be in the room” with clients such as ExxonMobil to “positively impact their business transformation journeys.” Since Krakowsky sent this email, ExxonMobil has said it plans to increase production by more than a million barrels a day by 2030 and build four new gas projects. In August, a DeSmog investigation published with the Financial Times revealed allegations from staff that IPG was in breach of Krakowsky’s climate policy, after leaked documents showed it was helping Saudi Aramco — the world’s biggest oil company — target government policymakers. IPG and Krakowsky did not respond to the allegations. Krakowsky became the Chief Operating Officer at Omnicom in November after IPG was bought by its New York rival, a deal which earned Krakowsky a $48.6 million payout.

Under Tadashi Ishii, Dentsu led Chevron’s advertising strategy in the U.S., making ads that painted the oil giant as a steward of the environment and promoted speculative climate solutions like carbon capture. One ad from 2012 said “protecting people and the environment is a core value” at Chevron. In 2013, Ishii oversaw the $3.2 billion purchase of UK ad agency Aegis.  The Aegis acquisition saw Dentsu inherit major fossil fuel contracts not included in the analysis, such as French oil giant TotalEnergies.

Note: Big Oil ad spend figures for each CEO only cover the years they were in charge from the 2015 Paris Agreement onwards, even if they were in the job prior to this.

Art by Sabrina Bedford. Design by Sari Williams.

The post ‘Mad Men Fuelling the Madness’: Meet the Advertising CEOs Boosting Big Oil appeared first on DeSmog.