News Feeds

Today, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union, celebrated the end of the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley issued the following statement:

“For the past 76 days, tens of thousands of AFGE members at the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, and many other DHS agencies have continued to show up each and every day without the guarantee of a paycheck.

“While AFGE is pleased that Congress finally stepped up to do their jobs and fund DHS, it is unacceptable that it took them this long to do so.

“Too many times we have seen lawmakers use patriotic federal employees’ livelihoods as leverage for political gains. Federal employees are not political pawns. They are not leverage. They are Americans – and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

“Today, I am calling on Congress to pass the Shutdown Fairness Act, which would pay federal employees during government shutdowns and ensure they’ll never be used in this way again.”

On Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) proposed a short-term extension of FISA in exchange for declassifying a major opinion from the top government surveillance court, which revealed continuing violations of the controversial authority. Wyden’s proposal follows the passage of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) bad faith FISA bill that likely will not be taken up by the Senate. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) then objected to Wyden’s proposal, likely catalyzing an unprecedented, if illusory, statutory sunset of Section 702. Cotton is perhaps the most vociferous surveillance hawk making the misleading claim that any statutory sunset of Section 702 would amount to “going dark.”

Demand Progress is part of a bipartisan coalition urging Congress to close loopholes in the law that allow the government to bypass the courts to surveil Americans.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“Tom Cotton and the Senate should accept Sen. Wyden’s deal if they don’t want Section 702 to expire. As we’ve seen over and over again in the House, any path forward that lacks meaningful privacy reforms is doomed to fail. Further, the American people deserve, and policymakers need to see, what violations the FISA court found. It is alarming that those who are fearmongering most over the statutory expiration of Section702 are now embracing it to hide the truth.

Sen.Cotton is trying to keep his colleagues and Americans in the dark about how the government is violating the law to surveil us—the very same law some claim is never abused. Senators opposing this deal risk plunging us into uncharted waters, including a sunset of FISA and cancellation of the upcoming recess to sort this all out. Unlike Speaker Johnson and Tom Cotton, Sen. Wyden is offering a viable path forward, instead of incompetent, bad faith machinations to thwart any votes on real reforms.”

Maine Medical Center registered nurses will hold a press conference on Friday, May 1 in Portland to demand Maine Health cancel its contract with Palantir Technologies. Joined by their allies in the Purge Palantir campaign, nurses will detail why leaders of Maine’s public institutions and health care organizations should refuse collaborations with the surveillance software giant.

Washington, DC – The U.S. House of Representatives' passage of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (Farm Bill) earlier today includes critical support for voluntary, science-based...

In the second part of our series on the borderlands, Aaron and Lilly are joined by Bob Krumenaker, former superintendent of Big Bend National Park and current chair of Keep Big Bend Wild. They discuss the proposal for a border wall through one of America’s national treasures, the bipartisan coalition rallying to stop it, and what’s at stake for the park, communities, and local economy. Plus, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum struggles to defend a 38% cut to the National Park Service maintenance budget while making a $10 billion request for D.C.-based projects.

News

• Fact Check: Burgum claims $10 billion Trump slush fund request is for NPS deferred maintenance only — Center for Western Priorities
• Senate ENR committee tussles with Burgum over permitting  — E&E News
• Trump used Park Service to funnel millions to ballroom construction firm — New York Times
• President’s Budget Proposal Slashes National Park Service Funding Amid Ongoing Attacks on National Parks — National Parks Conservation Association
• Border wall map disappears from government website — Big Bend Sentinel
• Land acquisition expands popular Jeffco park adjacent to Red Rocks — Denver Post

Resources

• Borderlands part 1: The threats to public lands at the border
• Keep Big Bend Wild
• Mission Creep: How Trump is using the border to militarize our public lands — Westwise blog
• Watch this episode on YouTube 

Produced by Aaron Weiss, Lauren Bogard, and Lilly Bock-Brownstein
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image: U.S.-Mexico border within Big Bend National Park, NPS photo

The post Borderlands part 2: The fight against a border wall at Big Bend appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Your favorite brands might be in the fight against stricter food safety laws JR Culpepper April 30, 2026

More than a dozen states have enacted laws to protect consumers from harmful food chemicals and ultra-processed foods. Your favorite food brands may be tied up in efforts to erase them.

A draft bill known as the “FRESH” and Affordable Foods Act, introduced last week by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), would take an unprecedented step in food policy by undoing many state laws aimed at strengthening food safety. States would also lose authority to regulate food chemicals in the future.

If enacted, the bill would make it dramatically easier for the food industry to add new chemicals to the food supply without meaningful review by the Food and Drug Administration – and would make it harder for the public to get information about these substances.

The bill closely mirrors previous proposals advanced by Americans for Ingredient Transparency, or AFIT. This is a front group lobbying for the interests of the largest food manufacturers and trade associations in the country. 

Names you might recognize on AFIT’s website include the Coca Cola Company, General Mills, Hormel Foods, Ken’s, Keurig Dr Pepper, Kraft Heinz, McCormick & Company, Nestlé, Ocean Spray, PepsiCo, Sargento and Tyson Foods. 

While AFIT isn’t officially backing the bill, the clear parallels between its wishlist and the legislation make its involvement appear likely. 

Brand favorites are tied up in the food fight

The companies belonging to AFIT own thousands of popular U.S. food and drink brands, whose products could be sitting on your shelves or in your fridge right now.

Below are just a few brands – many of which are known for promoting healthy or kid-friendly foods – owned by companies who are members of the front group AFIT.

General Mills is known for classic cereal brands like Cheerios. It also owns Cascadian Farm, EPIC protein bars, Larabar, Nature Valley and Yoplait.

Nestlé is the parent company of a range of brands, from Gerber baby and toddler foods to San Pellegrino waters to Orgain protein powders and nutritional supplements.

Keurig Dr Pepper owns the Mott’s brand, which caters to kids and families with its applesauce, juice and other snack lines. It also owns multiple flavored water brands, including Bai and Core Hydration.

PepsiCo is the parent company of multiple brands marketing nutrition supplements and healthier beverage options like Bubly, Poppi and Lifewater. Its products also include Sabra hummus, PopCorners chips, and Quaker oats, bars and cereals.

The complete list of foods owned by member companies of AFIT spans products found in virtually every grocery aisle. It includes a wide range of popular meat and poultry items, cookies and crackers, chips and snacks, energy and sports drinks, canned food, condiments, spices and seasonings, and prepared and frozen meals.

The FRESH Act makes food less safe

The retroactive reach of the FRESH Act – undoing existing state food safety laws – is its most radical feature and the one that has received the least attention. 

California’s Food Safety Act, which bans Red Dye No. 3, brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate and propyl paraben from food sold in the state, would be nullified. 

Similar laws in Arkansas, Texas and Utah banning the same chemicals would be void. Taken together, these state laws represent years of effort, public advocacy and the democratic process, which would all be eliminated overnight by one single federal bill.  

The FRESH Act would also make it easier for companies to add chemicals to food without FDA approval. Food chemicals already approved, including those considered “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, would not receive additional FDA review. 

But GRAS chemicals aren’t necessarily safe chemicals. That’s because nearly 99% percent of the chemicals approved as GRAS since the year 2000 have been greenlighted by industry, not the FDA. 

The FRESH Act would undermine an already weak system for approving new chemicals. It would allow food chemical companies to submit even less information to the FDA on the chemicals they use. 

The bill would also let companies enlist industry-funded expert panels to decide food chemicals are safe, as long as they are added to an FDA database. Experts could also continue to have conflicts of interest as long as they are “managed.” If the FDA doesn’t respond to a request to add a new chemical to the GRAS list in 90 days, it would be added by default.

Under the FRESH Act, even if the FDA does ban a food chemical due to health and safety risks, the chemical of concern would still be allowed in food for two years. Companies may also ask the FDA to hide safety information from the public or delay chemical restrictions indefinitely by requesting hearings.

Everything the bill aims to achieve is a striking contrast to the agenda of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Under his signature “Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy has called out food dyes, ultra-processed foods and the GRAS loophole as targets for reform. 

What consumers can do now

In the absence of federal action, states have stepped up to protect our health by removing toxic chemicals from our food. The FRESH Act would strip states of that power and place food safety in the hands of chemical companies instead.

Contact your representative and urge them to preserve critical public health protections by rejecting the FRESH Act. This is a direct attack on states rights and food safety. Your call carries weight.

At home, shoppers can check EWG’s Dirty Dozen Guide to Food Chemicals, which highlights top food chemicals to avoid due to health and safety concerns. 

For some extra help, take a look at EWG’s Food Scores, which provides ratings for more than 150,000 foods and drinks based on nutrition, ingredients and processing. Food Scores also flags unhealthy UPF and can help you identify alternatives. 

Or if you’re on the go, EWG’s Healthy Living app puts that information in your pocket while you shop.

The food industry, including some of your favorite brands, is hoping consumers aren’t paying attention to this fight. Let’s prove them wrong.

Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN April 30, 2026

This article Why power analysis is key to fighting ICE was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'N5YdDyLKS0J5qFYhDZlyOw',sig:'JEr8kp-qsdyHH7veEfpV3mFipuFukC3iE4Hc03O2tYA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2258577189',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});

The ICE campaign to round up millions of immigrants is grounded in tactics designed to inspire public fear and passivity. Dressed in tactical gear and wielding deadly weapons, masked agents strive to project an image of invincible power as they rampage through communities, smashing into cars, breaking down doors and wrestling people into unmarked vehicles.

Nevertheless, many activists have refused to be intimidated, successfully confronting agents on the street to prevent harassment and arrests. Such ad hoc resistance has its limitations, however, since ICE activities often occur out of public view.

In response, activists are using a more systemic approach by targeting businesses that underpin the agency’s ability to function. Because ICE cannot carry out its operations alone, it relies on a network of companies to provide equipment, intelligence, communications, travel, accommodations and everything else huge bureaucracies require.

For example, Palantir has been the target of a campaign because, among other things, it provides surveillance software and database management services to ICE. The Coalition to Stop Avelo targeted Avelo Airlines, forcing it to end its deportation contract with ICE. And boycotts have been launched against Home Depot for allowing immigration raids on its property and Hilton Hotels for accommodating ICE agents.

Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'IKevCvA4T6FGlO9Pah89HA',sig:'aaDRIb0NxSNN5IXFsEYWGulX0xXKFIYz_KvRV9r7BZk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2264645203',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});

While a simple internet search can turn up dozens of companies that have been awarded ICE contracts, sometimes finding your opponent’s most vulnerable pillars of support requires doing extensive research. 

Identify targets that are vulnerable to pressure 

In the early 2000s the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or CIW, did a detailed evaluation of their industry and discovered new targets that drastically changed the direction and effectiveness of their campaign for farmworkers’ rights.

Tomato pickers in the small South Florida town had been struggling since the group was founded in 1993 to increase wages and improve working conditions in the fields. Using short work stoppages, marches and hunger strikes aimed at influencing the growers, they had been able to raise their wages marginally, but the growers remained intransigent. By every measure, the workers were still impoverished.

Discouraged by slow progress, the workers undertook a deep analysis of the food industry. As described by Susan Marquis in her book “I Am Not a Tractor!,” their research revealed a couple of key insights. First, the tomato growers they had been targeting with their protests could not afford to raise the farmworkers’ wages even if they wanted to, because tomato prices were set by the buyers.

The second revelation was that the buyers, unlike the growers, had public-facing brands. The fast food restaurants and grocery stores that were buying tomatoes from the Immokalee growers had brands to protect, and the last thing they wanted was to have their public images tarnished.

Consequently, after targeting the growers for seven years, CIW pivoted, launching a national boycott of Taco Bell. The demand was that the company simply pay an extra penny per pound for their tomatoes, with the extra revenue passed on to the workers. What made Taco Bell especially vulnerable was its ubiquity on college campuses, where student activists could apply additional pressure. 

Previous Coverage

Lessons from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers for low-wage workers

After about four years of organizing and agitating, the fast food giant’s parent company, Yum! Brands signed an agreement with CIW. Next, the workers targeted McDonald’s, a campaign that succeeded after only two years. After that, the dominoes tumbled quickly as Burger King, Whole Foods, Subway and many more companies were forced to the negotiating table. Using extensive research to expose the industry’s power relationships and find the right targets was the key to their success.

As the CIW’s campaign illustrates, when designing a campaign strategy, your immediate opponent and your best target may not always be the same. Even when your opponent has the capacity to acquiesce to your demand, they may be relatively immune from any pressure you can bring to bear. Fortunately, power is more like a web than a monolith, and while your opponent may seem powerful, their power is not intrinsic, but rather derives from other people and institutions they cannot fully control. Targeting one or more of these pillars of support may prove more fruitful than attacking your opponent head on. 

Don’t stop at the obvious

Finding those pillars requires doing a power analysis. Power analysis is all about uncovering connections and asking how various entities interact to create a web of dependencies that can reveal your opponent’s vulnerabilities and sources of power.

Most professional campaigning organizations understand the importance of doing in-depth research on their opponent, but if you’re a member of an ad-hoc group of volunteers fighting, for example, a data center or a detention center in your community, the idea might not occur. You may try to coerce local politicians or regulatory boards to take your side because they seem to have the power to stop the project. But targeting the most obvious entity may not give you the best chance at success.

“Sometimes we’ll just get stuck at the city council or the mayor … because the immediate decisions stop there,” said Lauren Jacobs, executive director of PowerSwitch Action. “But what I think is critical is that we are completely mapping the whole terrain.”

“I think that there is utility that can come from going after your immediate opponent, but … your most obvious opponent might not always be who actually has the power to give you what you want,” said Molly Gott, a senior research analyst at LittleSis, a nonprofit research organization focused on corporate and government accountability. “And there can oftentimes be utility to mapping out a little bit more the other powerful players that are involved and the ways that you can pressure them.”

In 2021 the Defend Black Voters Coalition launched a campaign against Michigan state lawmakers who were pushing to overturn the 2020 election results and suppress Black voting. Although the campaign was eventually suspended after Michiganders passed a ballot initiative that essentially accomplished the campaign’s objectives, the coalition’s process was a great illustration of how a thorough power analysis can uncover layers of indirect connections between people and corporations that may not be obvious at first.

#newsletter-block_06d5ffc30749b91d8d5e3b8d96b4f39d { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_06d5ffc30749b91d8d5e3b8d96b4f39d #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter

We’ll send you a weekly email with the latest articles.

As described by Andrew Willis Garcés in a Training for Change podcast, the coalition realized it would be futile to target the entrenched Republican legislators who were attempting to interfere with Michigan elections. But research revealed several big donors who supported the Republican legislators, and one of those companies — insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield — had contracts worth billions of dollars with Michigan cities and counties.

So the campaign targeted Democrat-controlled municipalities across the state, urging them to pass resolutions threatening those business ties if the insurance company didn’t end its support for election-denying legislators. The campaign began to gain momentum as five cities and counties, including Detroit and Wayne County, approved contractor accountability measures before the voter ballot initiative was approved and the campaign ended.

But targeting tertiary targets — Michigan municipalities — to indirectly influence legislators shows how deep research on an opponent can reveal potentially vulnerable connections up and down the power chain.

The nuts and bolts of power analysis

“I know this can be a challenge for groups that don’t have people on staff who are researchers,” Jacobs said. “There’s a lot that we can do via simple Google searches and not stopping on the first page of results. We can dig and find out a lot of stuff that’s in the public domain.”

In addition to deep internet searches, another way to gather information about your opponent is doing what James Mumm calls a “research action.”

“You could be talking to workers, you could be talking to ex-employees of a company,” said Mumm, who is chief of institutional advancement at the People’s Action Institute, a national federation of local groups dedicated to building the power of poor and working people. “If you get a meeting, you could sit down with the target of your campaign and ask them questions.”

Specialized databases can also be useful, Mumm said. For example, Pitchbook provides detailed financial data on corporations, and LexisNexis contains news articles and court cases. But these databases are expensive and may be beyond the reach of all-volunteer groups unless they can find a professional advocacy group that has a subscription and is willing to share.

The questions to explore when doing a power analysis vary based on the type of campaign, but Gott, the LittleSis research analyst, offers some examples: “If we’re thinking about doing a power analysis of a corporation, we look at who are the executives, who’s on the board, how do they get financing, what banks do they work with, who are their investors, who are their customers, who are their shareholders, do they get subsidies, all that kind of stuff.”

When researching powerful people, Gott says the investigation should be similarly wide ranging: “For example, research might include questions such as what boards are they on, what kinds of business and social networks are they a part of, do they have investments, do they belong to a particular country club, what are their political relationships, do they give money to particular elected officials,” she explained.

Mumm suggests a slightly different approach to power research by trying to answer four basic questions about your opponent: what do they want, who do they fear, who has power over them and who do they have power over. The first two questions can help form the campaign’s strategy and test its effectiveness.

“So we’re trying to take what they want away from them and bring what they fear closer,” Mumm said. “And the only way we know if we’re doing either one of those correctly throughout the course of a campaign is we get a reaction from the target. If we get no reaction from a target, then we have made bad guesses and have to do more research.” 

Tracing connections helps answer Mumm’s third research question — who has power over your opponent? You might discover your opponent has financial ties, supply chain dependencies, political affiliations, personal relationships and more — any of which could present promising campaign targets. This is how you can generate secondary and tertiary targets.

Researching the fourth question — who does your main target have power over — can be a great source of intel, according to Mumm, especially in corporate campaigns. That’s because not everyone likes their boss. Employees who are disgruntled or sympathetic to the campaign’s objectives may provide inside information that can shed light on corporate decision making and internal power dynamics. All this information can be compiled to inform a campaign’s targeting strategy.

The information gathering process shouldn’t end after the initial strategy is settled on. Continuing research during a campaign is crucial because power relationships are constantly shifting, especially during long campaigns. Also, as more information about the opponent surfaces, a change in target might be necessary, especially when a campaign gets bogged down.

When a strategy isn’t working, Gott said, “then you go back to the drawing board, maybe do more research, maybe revisit research that you already had.”

Reevaluate your target as needed

A good example of a campaign finding success by shifting to a secondary target occurred during the Riders Against Gender Exclusion, or RAGE, campaign in Philadelphia. In 2010, bus drivers were harassing trans people whose appearance did not match the gender on their passes, and accusing them of using someone else’s pass. RAGE formed to fight the policy.

After some research, the group determined that SEPTA, the Philadelphia transit authority, was the entity that had the power to eliminate the gender markers, so that agency became their target.

“Ultimately we were pretty clear that SEPTA were the ones that could say yes or no to our demands,” said Nico Amador, who was one of the RAGE organizers. “Sometimes as campaigners, we are dealing with a target that really has no direct accountability to us. Voters don’t choose the head of the public transportation system.”

Consequently, after two years of unsuccessfully pressuring SEPTA, the campaign was losing steam. The group took stock and decided to pivot to a less confrontational objective. A new “Ride with Respect” campaign engaged allies to sign cards pledging to intervene if they saw someone being harassed by bus drivers because of a perceived gender mismatch on their bus pass.

Meanwhile, a woman who had attended RAGE meetings decided on her own to initiate conversations with a few Philadelphia City Council members to discuss the gender marker issue. The lobbying resulted in the City Council unanimously passing a non-binding resolution in support of changing the bus pass gender policy. Shortly afterwards, SEPTA discontinued the use of the gender markers on commuter passes.

While it’s likely the RAGE campaign against SEPTA had softened their resistance and set the stage for the policy reversal, it was the City Council that ultimately proved to be the decisive target.

“I think there was maybe an oversight on our part once we had actually built that power and that influence to not notice that the City Council as a secondary target would have been a smart move,” Amador said.

But Amador doesn’t think it was a mistake to initially target SEPTA.

“I think in our case it would have been hard to build legitimacy around the campaign if we had not put pressure on SEPTA directly first,” he said.

#support-block_14bf8a0f8450703d8c247b896b84c226 { background: #000000; color: #ffffff; } Support Us

Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today!

Donate

Nevertheless, this example demonstrates the importance of constantly reevaluating targeting decisions as power relationships fluctuate during the course of a campaign.

While doing extensive opposition research may seem like a daunting task, especially for poorly resourced groups, there is help. LittleSis provides research assistance and free training programs for activists. It was LittleSis research that aided the successful StopAvelo campaign by identifying some of the airline’s pillars of support, like airports that leased them gates, local governments that provided them subsidies and universities that signed promotional deals with them.

Besides providing toolkits, research guides and their own database of powerful people and institutions, the nonprofit offers an annual four-part webinar called Research Tools for Organizers that covers the basics of power analysis. 

“We talk about intro to power research … understanding the history of it in social movements in the U.S., and then how to research a corporation, how to research nonprofits and how to research billionaires,” Gott explained.

No matter how formidable an opponent appears on the surface, chances are they have social, political or economic connections that render them vulnerable. Power research can help campaigns identify pillars of support, and finding the right target can be the difference between success and failure.

This article Why power analysis is key to fighting ICE was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Our beautiful, new crow puppet has fledged – with a little help from her friends! Thanks to all who joined us on Saturday, April 25, to celebrate our wonderful planet. And a zillion thanks to our stellar Arts Team, they create these puppets along with folks from other environmental organizations!

Presented by Making Earth Cool, Sunnyside Environmental School, SOLVE and 350PDX, this free, community-driven event invited people of all ages to come together to celebrate, parade, costume, dance, share environmental awareness and find connection through collective action – all in honor of our only home, Earth.

All photos video: Irene Tejaratchi Hess

The post 2026 Earth Day Parade appeared first on 350PDX: Climate Justice.

April 30, 2026—LAist reporter Mariana Dale spoke with Senior Staff Attorney Alicia Virani about Miliani Rodriguez v. California, Public Advocates’ lawsuit challenging California’s inequitable distribution of Prop 2 school modernization funds. Virani explains why the firm filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in March—and why low-wealth districts facing asbestos, leaks, and toxic mold can’t afford to wait for the next bond measure. A hearing is scheduled for May 20.

Read the Story

The post LAIST: California voters greenlit billions of dollars to fix schools. How much has it helped? As schools age, the requests for modernization funding exceed the funding available.As schools age, the requests for modernization funding exceed the funding available. appeared first on Public Advocates.

The post Protect Health: Oppose Rollbacks to Zero-Emission Vehicles appeared first on ANHE.

Head on over to Trinity River Audubon Center (TRAC) this spring to marvel at the wonders of ecology in full bloom. This biodiverse refuge along the Trinity River is the perfect place to unwind...

Toronto chose renewables. It’s time for Carney & Ford to support solar, wind, & storage

The post Carney and Ford can set Toronto up for success with renewables appeared first on Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

Kursk II is one of Rosatom’s most important nuclear construction projects within Russia. Four of the most advanced and powerful units in Rosatom’s history—VVER-TOI reactors with capacities of up to 1,250 MW each—are being built there.

But this site is also the Russian nuclear power plant closest to the border with Ukraine. Likely for this reason, Rosatom is carrying out construction under conditions of limited transparency—either not publicly disclosing key construction milestones or doing so with significant delays and inconsistencies. This has led to confusion even at the level of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

To read the rest of this article, click here.

The post The curious, secretive case of the Kursk II nuclear power plant’s weird data appeared first on Bellona.org.

Angus Energy has applied for permission to store condensate, a flammable liquid produced along with gas, at its field in Lincolnshire.

Proposed plan for condensate storage at the Saltfleetby-B site in Lincolnshire.
Source: Angus Energy application

The company said it would store a maximum of 47.03 tonnes of flammable liquid at the Saltfleetby-B site, at South Cockerington, near Louth.

A public consultation, by Lincolnshire County Council, ends on Friday 8 May 2026

The Angus application said:

“The condensate is delivered from a wellhead into surface pipework and vessels where natural gas, condensate and water are separated.”

It added:

“The location of the pipework is located along the edge of the site boundary.”

The company said the condensate would be stabilised in temporary storage in two tanks, each with a capacity of 31.8m3. It would be loaded into one road tanker a day.

The application is needed because the proposed volume of condensate is above the limit allowed in regulations.

The company is seeking a Hazardous Substances Consent, which aims to ensure that necessary measures are in place to prevent major accidents and limit the potential consequences should an accident happen.

Lincolnshire County Council is the Hazardous Substances Authority for Saltfleetby. Comments can be made to the council at: County Offices, Newland, Lincoln, LN11YLor online through the planning register

Responses

The Health and Safety Executive said its specialist major accidents risk assessment unit was currently assessing the application. It estimated this may take 13 weeks.

Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue said it would require Angus to install a fire hydrant conforming to BS750-2012 within 90m of the site entrance.

The highways authority did not object to the proposal. It said the plans would “not be expected to have an unacceptable impact upon highway safety or a severe residual cumulative impact upon the local highway network or increase surface water flood risk”.

This morning, the House voted to strip sections 10205, 10206, and 10207 from the Farm Bill, with 71 Republicans voting to strip the pesticide language and only 6 Democrats voting to keep it. This shows immense bipartisan support for upholding accountability for the pesticide industry.

“Major pesticide issues haven’t been debated on the House floor in a very long time” said Jason Davidson, Senior Food and Agriculture Campaigner with Friends of the Earth U.S. “For the people to win over the size, influence and money of the pesticide industry is a remarkable display of grassroots power and a tremendous victory for Americans’ ability to hold these companies accountable.”

African leaders have intensified calls for governments to stop exporting raw minerals and step up efforts to align their policies, share infrastructure and coordinate investment to add value to their resources and bring economic prosperity to the continent.

In a speech to the inaugural Kenya Mining Investment Conference & Expo in Nairobi this week, Kenyan President William Ruto became the latest African leader to confirm the country will end exports of raw mineral ore. The East African nation has deposits of gold, iron ore and copper and recently launched a tender for global investors to develop a deposit of rare earths, which are used in EV motors and wind turbines, valued at $62 billion.

Kenya is among more than a dozen African nations that have either banned or imposed export curbs on their mineral resources as they seek to process minerals domestically to boost revenues, create jobs and capture a slice of the industries that are producing high-value clean tech for the energy transition.

• Mar 11, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Africa needs more than export bans to cash in on critical minerals, experts say Restricting raw materials exports is well-intentioned but without other policies to foster domestic processing, they can backfire Read more
• Mar 6, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier South African rare earths project aims to rival Chinese with low-cost model The EU-backed Zandkopsdrift project plans to offset the high cost of rare earths production with another mineral in hot demand for use in batteries Read more
• Feb 3, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal  Ghana wants to benefit from the scramble for lithium but its reliance on mining firms for revenue and expertise weakens its ability to negotiate preferential terms, experts say Read more

“For too long we have extracted and exported raw materials at the bottom of the value chain, while others have processed, refined, manufactured and captured the greater share of economic value,” Ruto told African ministers and stakeholders gathered at the mining investment conference in Nairobi.

As a result, Africa currently captures less than 1% of the value generated from global clean energy technologies, he said. To address this, Kenya, in collaboration with other African nations, “will process our minerals here in the continent, we will refine them here and we will manufacture them here”, he added.

Mineral export restrictions on the rise

Africa is a major supplier of minerals needed for the global energy transition. The continent holds an estimated 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, including lithium, cobalt and copper. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces roughly 70% of global cobalt, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, while countries such as Guinea dominate bauxite production, and Mozambique and Tanzania hold significant graphite deposits.

But African governments have struggled to attract the investment needed to turn their vast mineral wealth into a green industrial powerhouse. Recently Burundi, Malawi, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are among those that have resorted to banning the export of unrefined minerals to incentivise foreign companies to invest in value addition locally.

Outdated geological data limits Africa’s push to benefit from its mineral wealth

This week, Zimbabwe exported its first shipments of lithium sulphate, an intermediate form of processed lithium that can be further refined into battery-grade material, from a mine and processing plant operated by Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.

After freezing all exports of lithium concentrate – the first stage of processing – earlier this year, the government introduced export quotas and will ban all exports from January 2027.

Export restrictions on critical raw materials have grown more than five-fold since 2009, found a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published this week. In 2024, a more diverse group of countries, including many resource-rich developing economies in Africa and Asia, introduced restrictions, including Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Angola.

Artisanal miners look for copper in mining waste Artisanal miners look for copper in mining waste

This is “a structural shift in the wrong direction,” Mathias Cormann, the OECD’s secretary-general, told the organisation’s Critical Minerals Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, this week.

“We understand the motivations: building local industries, managing environmental impacts, capturing greater value domestically. But our research is quite clear. Export restrictions distort investment, reduce volumes and undermine supply security often while delivering limited gains in value added,” he said.

In-country barriers to success

Thomas Scurfield, Africa senior economic analyst at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Climate Home News that export restrictions “can look like a promising route to local value addition” for cash-strapped African mineral producers but have “rarely worked” unless countries already have reliable energy, infrastructure and competitive costs for processing.

“Without those conditions, bans may simply push companies to scale back mining rather than scale up processing,” he said.

Alaka Lugonzo, partnerships lead for Africa at Global Witness, said plentiful and stable energy supplies are vital, adding that while Kenya has relatively robust road networks, they are insufficient for industrial-scale operations.

“Meaningful value addition and real industrialisation requires heavy machinery… and you will need better infrastructure,” she said, highlighting persistent last-mile challenges in mining regions where “there’s no railway, there’s no electricity, there’s no water”.

Export capacity is another concern, she noted, particularly whether existing port systems could handle increased volumes of processed minerals.

Regional approach recommended

Scurfield said that through regional cooperation – including pooling supplies, specialising across different stages of refining and manufacturing, and building larger regional markets – “African countries could overcome many domestic constraints that make going alone difficult”.

That’s what close to 20 African governments are working to deliver as part of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group, which was set up by African ministers and is dedicated to foster cooperation among African nations to build mineral value chains and better benefit from the energy transition.

Africa urged to unite on minerals as US strikes bilateral deals

Nigerian Minister of Solid Minerals Dele Alake, who chairs the group, said “true collaboration” between countries, including aligning mining policies, sharing infrastructure, coordinating investment strategies and promoting trade across the continent, will create the conditions for long-term investments that could turn Africa into “a formidable and competitive force within the global mineral supply chain”.

“The time has come for Africa to redefine its place within the global mineral economy and that transformation must begin with regional integration and regional cooperation,” he told the mining investment conference in Nairobi.

Lugonzo of Global Witness agreed, saying that value-addition would benefit from adopting a continental perspective. “Why should Kenya build another smelter when we can export our gold to Tanzania for smelting, and then we use the pipeline through Uganda to take it to the port and we export it?” she asked.

To facilitate that, there is a need to operationalise the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), she added. “That agreement is the only way Africa is going to move from point A to point B.”

The post Kenya seeks regional coordination to build African mineral value chains appeared first on Climate Home News.

Fear and division have become defining forces in the lives of many immigrant communities — but they are not the whole story. Cristina Jiménez Moreta has spent her life working to transform that reality, drawing on her own experience growing up undocumented and her years of organizing to build collective power.

A co-founder of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country, she has helped lead some of the most influential campaigns for immigrant justice in recent history. In this keynote, she reflects on the role of community, courage, and organizing in shaping a more inclusive future.

This is an edited transcript from Bioneers 2026.

Cristina Jiménez Moreta:

I am proud to be here as someone who was formerly undocumented. My parents, Fausto and Ligia, immigrated from Ecuador, fleeing poverty and political turmoil — like so many others in our country’s history — in search of a better life for our family. We settled in Queens, New York, in 1998. 

I’m a community organizer, and right now I lead Shared Future, a new initiative building a movement in support of immigrants and a shared vision of what unites us as Americans.

Before this, and before becoming a mom, I was a young organizer working alongside high school and college students to build the immigrant youth movement. Together, we helped grow United We Dream into a catalyst for one of the most powerful and inspiring movements of the past 20 years.

But even before I could build a movement, lead an organization, or call myself a community organizer, I’ll tell you the truth: I was a young undocumented person growing up in Queens, in a small studio apartment, living with the constant fear that one day my parents, my brother, or I could be taken by deportation agents and disappear.

Today, that same fear, uncertainty, and division are gripping millions of people across this country. What once felt normal has been turned upside down. And all around us, it can feel overwhelming — like it’s too much, and like there’s not much we can do about it.

I don’t need to remind you what’s happening. We’ve seen it on our phones, on TV, in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago, and communities across the country. We’re seeing aggressive immigration enforcement, families living in fear, and people afraid to go to work or send their kids to school. At the same time, everyday Americans are making courageous choices to stand up for their neighbors.

This is a new level of fear spreading around us. But I invite you to be clear-eyed about it, because without facing the truth of what’s happening, we won’t be able to find a way forward together.

And I want to remind you of this: despite all the pain and all the harm we’ve witnessed, history — and my own experience organizing in communities across the country — shows that the way through is by building community and collective power. 

I’ll share why I believe this, because I grew up knowing what home felt like. Home was in Ecuador, with my abuela, making noodle soup in Quito on chilly evenings in the Andes.

But when I was 13, my family had to flee political turmoil. I left behind not just a place, but a sense of belonging. My parents didn’t have much, but they had love and courage. Guided by that, they did something incredibly hard: They left everything behind and came to this country in 1998.

Growing up in New York City, in a place where I didn’t know the language or the culture, I quickly learned to feel ashamed — ashamed of not speaking English, ashamed of being an immigrant, ashamed of my skin, my Indigenous features, ashamed of who I was.

I was undocumented, living in fear, and still trying to fulfill my parents’ dream that I would be the first in our family to go to college. I did everything I was told to do: worked hard in school, did community service, checked all the boxes.

Then 9/11 happened. And in that painful moment for our country, everything changed for families like mine, and for Muslim and immigrant communities across the country. Policies shifted. Immigrants were treated as threats to national security. In many places, including New York, undocumented students lost the ability to access higher education. People like my dad, who worked in construction, lost the right to drive.

One day, my dad was traveling between New York and New Jersey for work, crossing the George Washington Bridge. He was given the wrong change at the toll booth and tried to go back to fix it — an ordinary, honest mistake. But when you’re an immigrant, even something small can make you a target. As he turned back, a police car pulled him over. The officer asked for his license. My dad told him it was expired. That was enough. He was asked to step out of the car and taken to a local police station.

I got a call from him. He said, “I’m allowed one phone call. Mija, ayúdame.” Help me.

I told him to stay calm, to remember his rights — to remain silent, to not sign anything. Then I asked to speak to the officer and told him we knew my dad’s rights and that a lawyer was on the way. Right after that, I texted a network of organizers: “My dad needs help. This is where he is.” Within minutes, people responded. A lawyer was already on the way.

I share this story because I don’t know what happened to that police officer. What I do know is that he released my dad with a $150 ticket for driving without a license. And the only reason that happened is because we had a community behind us — people who had my back, who taught me my rights, and who gave me the courage to speak up in that moment.

That’s the kind of courage I want to share with you today. Because courage is a choice.

Undocumented people like me take real risks when we speak out and share our stories. So imagine what’s possible for those who aren’t in that same vulnerable position. Across the country, young people found courage in each other — fighting deportations, supporting one another through school, and committing to build something bigger than ourselves.

That’s how we built United We Dream. And that’s how I learned that in isolation, we lose. Alone, any one of us can be targeted, silenced, or pushed aside. But in community, we show up for each other. In community, no one has to face it alone.

I want to share this: The way we won DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was by building community. We reminded each other we weren’t alone. We helped each other find our voices. And we took action together to fight for what was right.

I never imagined we would build a movement. I never imagined that years later we would be sitting across from policymakers and people in the White House, winning protections for more than 600,000 people. But we kept organizing.

I know that right now can feel uncertain. It can feel like we don’t know what comes next, or whether change is even possible. But I’m here to tell you that it is.

We’ve seen what’s possible in places like Minneapolis, where people believed in solidarity and built power together. We’re seeing it in Los Angeles and in communities across the country responding to increased immigration enforcement.

And there is a role for everyone here. This is not just about undocumented people or immigrants. All of us have a role, especially those of us with protections that others don’t have.

What’s inspiring is that people are already showing what that looks like. In some places, people are putting their bodies on the line. In others, they’re supporting neighbors in quieter but just as meaningful ways — buying groceries for families who are afraid to leave their homes, driving children to and from school, stepping in wherever help is needed.

In cities like New York and Chicago, people are building community defense networks through group chats, text chains, and rapid response systems. There are so many ways to show up.

There is a role for all of us.

I want you to see that our organizing isn’t just building hope, it’s also shifting public opinion. It’s making ICE and deportation deeply unpopular. Together, we built a mass movement that says no to ICE.

And I want to be clear: This administration wants us to believe they’re targeting people who pose a threat to our communities. But they are the ones creating fear in our communities. And people know that.

Look at what people are actually worried about: the cost of living, paying their bills, taking care of their families. Not these manufactured fears about immigrants. More and more, people are recognizing that the chaos we’re seeing is part of a strategy.

It’s a strategy to divide us. To use immigration as a scapegoat so we don’t pay attention to the real sources of harm: corporations exploiting workers and the planet, and an administration using immigrants to advance a more authoritarian vision of this country.

But people are waking up. They’re seeing through the lies. We know that lack of healthcare, underfunded schools, and economic struggle are not caused by immigrants. And even some who once supported this administration are starting to question what they’ve been told.

I’ll share one brief story. I’ve spoken with evangelical communities across the country who have told me, “We were raised conservative. We even supported this administration. But now we see what’s happening.” In fact, this week, many of them are launching a fast for immigrants and justice.

Across the country, communities — including U.S. citizens — are recognizing that this is not the future we want. And they’ve shared this message:

We are people connected by family, community, and faith. We refuse to turn away from injustice. We show up for one another. We organize with courage and compassion. And we turn our pain into power to build a future where dignity is the norm.

We won’t be divided. We have an opportunity to build a shared future — a multiracial democracy that includes all of us.

Sí se puede. Yes, we can.

The post From Fear to Power: Building a Movement for Immigrant Justice appeared first on Bioneers.

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the Farm Bill by a vote of 224-200. The Senate has yet to propose a draft version of the legislation.

In a significant victory for public health and environmental advocates, the House voted 280-142 to strip Cancer Gag Act language including Sections 10205-7 from the bill. Over 70 Republicans voted to strip the provision alongside all but six Democrats. The provision would have shielded pesticide manufacturers from health-related lawsuits. The vote comes on the heels of Supreme Court oral arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, where the Trump administration is backing Roundup producer Bayer in related litigation.

Despite staunch opposition, the House Farm Bill still includes the unpopular EATS Act (Save Our Bacon Act), to strip state and local governments of the ability to pass agricultural policies within their borders; fails to reverse HR 1 cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); and cuts more than $1 billion from a key conservation program.

In response, Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:

“Industrial agriculture’s pesticide addiction is poisoning America. From the fields of Iowa to the halls of Congress, advocates have made our voices clear: Bayer’s cruel Cancer Gag campaign has no place in our communities. U.S. farm policy must support farmers and consumers, not the corporate overlords pulling the strings at our expense.

“This Farm Bill has industry fingerprints all over it. By shrinking markets for high-welfare sustainable farmers, and doubling down on devastating cuts to federal food assistance, this pro-factory farm bill will do more harm than good.

“It’s time to end the corporate power grab in Washington. This Farm Bill must be dead on arrival in the Senate.”

Countries attending a first-of-its-kind summit have walked away with plans to develop national roadmaps away from fossil fuels, along with new tools to address harmful subsidies and carbon-intensive trade.

The first conference on “transitioning away” from fossil fuels held in Santa Marta, Colombia, from 24-29 April saw 57 countries – representing one-third of the world’s economy – debate practical ways to move away from coal, oil and gas.

Against a backdrop of war, a global oil crisis and worsening extreme weather events, ministers and envoys from across the world sat side-by-side in small meeting rooms to have open and frank conversations about the barriers they face in transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy.

This new format – devised by co-hosts Colombia and the Netherlands – was described as “refreshing”, “highly successful” and “groundbreaking” by countries attending the talks.

The event also featured a “science pre-conference” attended by 400 global academics, which included the launch of a new science panel that will aim to provide agile and bespoke analysis to nations wanting to accelerate their transition away from fossil fuels.

At the summit’s conclusion, Tuvalu and Ireland were announced as the co-hosts of the second transitioning away from fossil fuels summit, which will take place in the Pacific island nation in 2027.

Below, Carbon Brief outlines all of the key takeaways from the talks.

• Colombia and Netherlands leadership
• High-level segment
  • National statements and pledges
  • Closed-door discussions
  • Final outcomes
• Academic meeting
  • Science panel for global energy transition
  • Action insights report
  • Colombia’s fossil-fuel roadmap
• Indigenous and civil society participation

Colombia and Netherlands leadership

The idea for a specific fossil-fuel transition conference hosted in Colombia first emerged during tense end-game negotiations at the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil.

Amid a push by a group of around 80 nations to refer to a “roadmap” away from fossil fuels in the formal COP30 outcome text, Colombia and the Netherlands jointly announced that they would co-host a summit in Santa Marta in April.

The calls for a fossil-fuel “roadmap” to be mentioned in COP30’s outcome text ultimately failed. However, the Brazilian COP30 presidency promised to bring forward an “informal” fossil-fuel roadmap, drawing on the discussions and debates in Santa Marta.

The Santa Marta conference took place from 24-29 April. It included a “science pre-conference” from 24-25, a day for subnational governments, parliamentarians and other stakeholders and a “high-level segment” with ministers and climate envoys from 28-29.

Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres – herself a former academic – was particularly keen to emphasise the importance of science to the conference, telling journalists: “We need to go back to science and base our decisions on science.” (See: Academic meeting)

From the outset, the hosts stressed that the high-level segment was not a space for negotiations, but rather a forum for countries and other stakeholders to discuss practical steps to move away from fossil fuels.

This format was widely praised by ministers and climate envoys, who described the conversational atmosphere in break-out sessions as “refreshing”, “highly successful” and “groundbreaking”. (See: Closed-door discussions.)

A total of 57 countries participated in the conference, according to the Colombian government. 

These countries were: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, the EU, the Federated States of Micronesia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Kenya, Luxembourg, Malawi, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, México, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, New Zealand, Palau, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovenia, the Solomon Islands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Tuvalu, Uganda, the UK, Uruguay, Vanuatu, the Vatican and Vietnam.

At the summit’s opening press conference on 24 April, Vélez Torres confirmed that Colombia and the Netherlands had decided to only invite a select group of countries to the conference.

Vélez Torres told journalists that countries including China, Russia and the US were not invited. She suggested that they had not shown the necessary spirit to be part of the “coalition of the willing” and that Colombia wanted to avoid a rehashing of the lengthy debates at COP30. (Carbon Brief understands that India was also not invited.)

In a later press huddle, Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven clarified that the two co-hosts had partially based their invitation criteria on who showed support for the fossil-fuel roadmap at COP30, saying:

“It was a combination of what happened in Belém and all the existing initiatives that have been driving this agenda for a long time already.”

However, it is worth noting that some countries that had opposed a formal reference to a fossil-fuel roadmap in the COP30 outcome were invited to Santa Marta, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis of the “informal list” of those against the idea in Belém. 

For example, Tanzania was invited to take part in the Santa Marta talks, despite appearing on the list of countries opposed to the roadmap in Belém.

On the other hand, neither China nor India were invited, despite having rejected media coverage portraying them as the “blockers” of the fossil-fuel roadmap at COP30.

Country officials and observers expressed a range of views on whether excluding certain countries from the conference was the right approach.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s special representative on climate change, told a small group of journalists that he thought it was the “right decision”, adding:

“This first meeting had to be done with those that wanted something to be done. Otherwise, it would have been a repeat of a UNFCCC meeting.”

UK special representative for climate, Rachel Kyte, told a press huddle that China should feel “welcome to be here”, adding:

“China has to be part of this equation for multiple reasons.”

One veteran observer told Carbon Brief that their impression was that Colombia and the Netherlands had been “overly cautious” about who would have caused disruption if invited to the conference, saying:

“Yes, maybe there is an argument for not inviting countries that have a long history of blocking progress, such as the Gulf states. But, if we look at what countries are really doing on the ground – including JETP [Just Energy Transition Partnerships] initiatives – then more countries should have been here, including Indonesia, for example.”

However, they also urged caution on reading too much into which countries were and were not present, adding that this could also partially be explained by “scheduling and countries’ availability”.

During the summit’s final plenary, van Veldhoven stated that, going forward, it was the Netherlands and Colombia’s wish to create an “open coalition”, including by extending an “invitation for others to join us”.

Dr Maina Talia, the climate minister of Tuvalu, who will co-host the second transitioning away from fossil fuels summit alongside Ireland, told journalists that the island nations would “revisit” and “improve” the criteria used for inviting countries to the conference.

Back to top

High-level segment

[anchor]3"> National statements and pledges

The two-day high-level segment began with an opening plenary, which saw more than 20 countries put forward their views on the need to transition away from fossil fuels.

Developed and developing nations alike spoke of the need to transition away from fossil fuels not only to tackle worsening climate change, but also the high prices, insecurity and volatility associated with continued reliance on coal, oil and gas.

Opening the plenary alongside Colombia, Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven told countries:

“Price volatility and dependence on imports are structurally and unacceptably impacting our economies. We need to move away from fossil fuels not only because it is good for the climate, but because it strengthens our energy security. Investment in clean energy also lays the foundation for a more resilient and sustainable economy, capable of mitigating these shocks.”

First to speak in plenary was Nigerian minister, Abubakar Momoh, who said:

“Nigeria is actively diversifying its economy away from extracting oil, which accounts for around 80% of our exports. Nigeria strongly believes that it is not whether extraction should decline, but how to organise it so it is manageable, fair and politically viable across countries.”

Also speaking during the session, UK special representative for climate Rachel Kyte said it “would be irresponsible to ignore the second fossil-fuel crisis in five years”.

.cb-tweet{ width: 65%; box-shadow: 3px 3px 6px #d3d3d3; margin: auto; } .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }

Several nations also used their interventions to lament a lack of progress in addressing fossil-fuel use during the last 30 years of annual UN climate negotiations.

Dr Maina Talia, climate minister for Tuvalu, said that “for years, international climate negotiations have circled around fossil fuels without directly confronting the core issues”.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s special representative on climate change, told countries:

“For 34 years, we have negotiated the symptoms of the climate crisis and bulletproofed its cause. Thirty-four years of pledges. And where are we now?

“Economies built on fossil fuels are unravelling in real time. Fossil fuels are not just dirty. They are unreliable, they are dangerous and they must end.”

A small number of nations from the Pacific and Africa used their interventions to show their support for the Fossil Fuel Treaty initiative, an idea to negotiate a new legally binding agreement to control fossil-fuel use, currently supported by 18 countries. (The treaty did not feature in the summit’s final outcome.)

France’s special climate envoy, Benoît Faraco, used his intervention to announce that the nation has produced a new roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Later on, on the first day, Colombian president Gustavo Petro also gave a speech at the summit, telling countries:

“What I see is resistance and inertia within the power structures and the economy of this archaic energy system. Today, fossil fuels bring death; undoubtedly, that form of capital could commit suicide, taking humanity and life itself. Humanity cannot allow that.”

Back to top

Closed-door discussions

Following the opening plenary, ministers and climate envoys spent much of the two-day high-level segment in closed-door “breakout sessions”, discussing issues ranging from “planned phase down and closure of fossil-fuel extraction” to “closing gaps in financial and investment systems”.

Carbon Brief understands that each session featured 12 ministers and envoys representing different countries sitting in an inner circle, with an outer circle made up of civil society members and other stakeholders. Each session was led by a different minister, appointed by the co-hosts.

In a departure from UN climate negotiations, the conversations that took place were free-flowing, with ministers and stakeholders given equal opportunities to contribute, observers told Carbon Brief.

Country representatives, including Panama’s special representative on climate change, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez; the climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, Tina Stege; COP30 CEO, Ana Toni; UK special representative on climate, Rachel Kyte; and Tuvalu climate minister, Dr Maina Talia, participating in a closed-door breakout session. Credit: Earth Negotiations Bulletin

Many countries were highly complimentary of this informal format, describing it in the closing plenary as “refreshing”, “highly successful” and a “safe space for discussion”.

UK special representative on climate, Rachel Kyte, told a huddle of journalists that there was “real value” to having informal conversations with other country officials, saying:

“I have to say that it is really nice to sit in a small circle…In a negotiation, it’s very, very fast-moving and transactional. But now we have had two days to think about [fossil-fuel transition issues] and this only.”

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Panama’s special representative on climate change, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, said the format was “groundbreaking”, adding:

“I’m going to be honest. [At] first I was like: ‘What the f*ck am I doing here? I don’t know where this is going’.

“But then, as the workshop started, I realised there were ministers, envoys, civil society leaders and Indigenous people. They put us in a format where we could not open our computers, so we had to speak from our minds and our hearts. That completely flipped my perception. That kind of space I haven’t seen in my 10-year history with the UNFCCC.”

All of the sessions were held under the Chatham House rule, meaning discussions were not attributable to individual speakers to encourage more open debate.

Co-host nations Colombia and the Netherlands gave a broad overview of the topics and themes discussed during the sessions in a takeaways report. (See: Final outcomes.)

Back to top

Final outcomes

At the conference’s final plenary session on 29 April, co-host nations Colombia and the Netherlands presented a range of “key outcomes” from the summit.

The first outcome was confirmation of the news that Tuvalu and Ireland will co-host a second transitioning away from fossil fuels conference in the Pacific island nation in 2027.

The co-hosts also announced the establishment of three “workstreams” on issues to bring forward to the second summit. 

The first of these workstreams will focus on developing national and regional roadmaps away from fossil fuels.

Speaking in plenary, Vélez Torres said that the roadmaps should be “connected” to countries’ UN climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). She added that it would be important for the roadmaps to be “very clear and honest” about “emissions exported from producing countries”.

The development of the roadmaps will be supported by the newly established science panel for global energy transition and the NDC Partnership, a global initiative helping nations prepare their NDCs, she added.

(At the final press conference, it was clarified that countries are not obligated to produce a new fossil-fuel roadmap and that participation in all of the work streams is voluntary.)

.cb-tweet{ width: 65%; box-shadow: 3px 3px 6px #d3d3d3; margin: auto; } .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }

The second workstream will be focused on changing the financial system to better facilitate the transition away from fossil fuels. 

This will include work to identify fossil-fuel subsidies and find solutions to “debt traps”. It will be supported by the International Institute for Sustainable Development thinktank, the co-hosts said.

Separately, Dutch climate minister van Veldhoven said that all countries would be invited via “email” to begin a process for identifying and reporting their fossil-fuel subsidies. (The Netherlands is the co-chair of COFFIS, a group of 17 nations that have pledged to remove fossil-fuel subsidies.)

The final workstream will address fossil-fuel-intensive trade, with the aim of “advancing progress towards a fossil fuel-free trade system”, Vélez Torres said. This workstream will be supported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of wealthy nations.

A document summing up the co-chair’s takeaways from the summit says that other key outcomes include the establishment of a “coordination group [to] ensure continuity towards the second and subsequent conferences”, adding:

“It will consist of countries leading different alliances and initiatives that are implementing elements of the transition away from fossil fuels, and of the co-hosts of the first and second conferences, Colombia, the Netherlands, Tuvalu and Ireland.”

The document adds that a key task will be delivering the findings of this conference to the COP30 presidency, which is currently preparing a global fossil-fuel roadmap to present at COP31 in November.

Back to top

Academic meeting

The summit kicked off with a “science pre-conference” attended by around 400 academics from across the globe from 24-25 April, held at the University of Magdalena in Santa Marta.

At the behest of the Colombian government, these scientists split into 11 different “workstreams” to debate a vast array of topics related to transitioning away from fossil fuels.

These ranged from “fossil-fuel phaseout policies” and the role of methane, to “just transitions and economic diversity” and the role of multilateralism.

Speaking on the summit’s first day, Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres – herself a former academic – stressed the importance of science in political decision-making. She told a press conference:

“There has been a growing gap between science and governments, and governmental decisions, and it happens because there is a lot of denialism. There is a lot of economic and political lobbying as well. That is actually deviating [from] scientific rationale.

“The true belief of the countries that are here is that we need to go back to science and base our decisions on science, and back up our decision-making, processes and pathways with science.” 

Back to top

Science panel for global energy transition

The pre-conference saw the announcement of three new scientific initiatives.

The first was a new global science panel, calling itself the “science panel for global energy transition”, which was launched by Dr Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and Dr Carlos Nobre, an eminent researcher on the Amazon rainforest from the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

They announced at a public event in Santa Marta that the panel will involve “50-100 scientists” from around the world and will be based at the University of São Paulo.

The scientists on the panel will aim to provide rapid analysis on how to transition away from fossil fuels for countries and multilateral talks, including bespoke information for nations that request it, they said.

.cb-tweet{ width: 65%; box-shadow: 3px 3px 6px #d3d3d3; margin: auto; } .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }

Speaking at its launch, Rockström said the panel will be split into four working groups, focusing on “transition pathways”, “technology solutions”, “policy design and evaluation” and “finance instruments and governments”.

It will have three co-chairs: Dr Vera Songwe, an economist and climate finance expert from Cameroon; Prof Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; and Prof Gilberto M Jannuzzi, professor of energy systems at Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Nobre said that he and Rockström were first approached with the idea for a new panel by Ana Toni, Brazilian economist and CEO of the COP30 climate summit, while the negotiations were taking place in Belém. He said:

“Johan and myself, we’re not energy transition scientists, but we were the creators of the planetary science pavilion at COP30, that’s why Ana Toni came to us. And we have already invited three top energy transition experts to join us.”

At the launch, Rockström said the panel would be different in several ways from the world’s existing global climate science panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

He said that, in comparison to the “seven-year cycle” for IPCC reports, this panel will “be able to come up with annual updates” and “be able to scale down to the national level”.

Nobre told Carbon Brief that he was among scientists who have grown “frustrated” with some aspects of the IPCC’s process, including the line-by-line approval of summaries for policymakers by all of the world’s governments. He said:

“A long time ago, when I was working as a scientist studying the Amazon, I wanted to include some information about the risks the Amazon faces in one of the summaries. But a representative from my own country [Brazil] said no.

“This panel is totally independent. There is no way for somebody to say ‘you can’t say that’ or ‘you can’t do that’.”

Back to top

Action insights report

The second new science initiative to emerge from the academic conference was a new “synthesis report”, offering “12 action insights” for how countries can transition away from fossil fuels.

First covered by Carbon Brief, the report contains some explicit “action recommendations” for countries, such as “halt all new fossil-fuel expansion” and “prohibit fossil fuel advertising…recognising fossil fuels as health-harming products”.

The report was first put together by an “ad-hoc” group of 24 scientists at the request of the Colombian government. It was then further debated and refined by many of the 400 scientists gathered at the academic pre-conference in Santa Marta.

A preliminary version of the report was circulated to governments attending the talks.

In addition, one of the report’s coordinating authors, Prof Andrea Cardoso Diaz, from the University of Magdalena, was given a two-minute slot in the opening plenary of the “high-level segment” to highlight its findings to gathered ministers.

Back to top

Colombia’s fossil-fuel roadmap

The final scientific initiative unveiled at the academic segment was a new roadmap for how Colombia can transition away from fossil fuels. This was drafted by a team led by Prof Piers Forster, head of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds.

The roadmap says that Colombia can cut its emissions from energy use to 90% below 2015 levels by 2050, through ambitious policies to move away from fossil fuels and electrify its transport sector.

.cb-tweet{ width: 65%; box-shadow: 3px 3px 6px #d3d3d3; margin: auto; } .cb-tweet img{ border: solid 1.25px #333333; border-radius: 5px; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-tweet{ width:100%; } }

This would require “considerable” upfront investment, with the roadmap estimating the cost to be an average annual investment of around $10bn above a business-as-usual scenario. 

However, by the 2040s, Colombia could see net economy-wide savings from transitioning away from fossil fuels, says the analysis, which could reach $23bn annually by 2050.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Forster said his experience as interim chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee highlighted to him the importance of presenting national roadmaps in economic terms. He said:

“The biggest issues facing countries are economic and to do with the cost of living. To convince our own government back in the UK to sign up to our recommended carbon budget, we put a lot of work into the economic aspect. So that was also the focus of this work for Colombia.”

Back to top

Indigenous and civil society participation

In addition to holding a dedicated meeting for scientists, the Colombian government also organised a “People’s Assembly”. This brought together hundreds of Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendent peoples, peasant farmers, trade representatives, women and children and other civil society members.

The goal was to gather the thoughts from these groups on the summit’s main “pillars” of addressing fossil-fuel production, economic constraints and global governance and multilateralism.

According to Climate Lens News, Óscar Daza, the secretary general of the Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon, Karebaju people, told the gathering:

“The Indigenous peoples of the world have made historic demands, such as the non-extraction of natural resources from our territories, so that our resources that are there in the territory remain intact, remain still.

“As Indigenous peoples, we want those historic struggles to somehow be reflected and taken up here by the different states.” 

Participants at the People’s Assembly during the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta. Credit: Ministerio de Ambiente de Colombia

Following on from the meetings, the Colombian government summarised the main talking points discussed by each of these groups in a series of “contributions” documents.

Indigenous peoples and civil society groups were also allocated opportunities to speak during the summit’s high-level segment.

In a departure from UN climate summits – where inputs from civil society are usually heard after countries have finished speaking – the Santa Marta summit invited a range of representatives to speak alongside ministers in the opening and closing plenary sessions.

This included an intervention in the opening plenary by Larissa Baldwin-Roberts, a climate leader from the Bundjalung Nations, who told countries:

“This is the last time we will be a token. You want our pictures, not our voices. You want our stories, not our struggles…True solidarity with each other is the prerequisite to a just transition.” 

Indigenous peoples and civil society members were also free to speak in closed-door discussions with ministers, Carbon Brief understands.

Separately from the events organised by the Colombian government, civil society also organised its own “people’s summit”, involving 900 organisations and networks, held in the city of Santa Marta from 24-26 April.

This summit also organised sessions for representatives from different groups to offer their thoughts and insights into the transition away from fossil fuels, ending in a joint “declaration”.

In a statement, Tasneem Essop, the executive director of Climate Action International, said: 

“Movements from across the globe and the region – Afro-descendants, feminists, youth, peasants and fisherfolk, social movements and Indigenous peoples converged in a three-day peoples summit in Santa Marta to build a collective consensus on our demands and solutions for the just transition away from fossil fuels.

“[We saw] the adoption of a powerful declaration that spells out our positions on ensuring that the transition has to be rights-based, funded and results in the dismantling of the systems that have caused harm and destruction driven by fossil fuel dependency.”

Back to top

Q&A: How countries got the global ‘net-zero’ shipping deal ‘back on track’

International policy

|

05.05.26

Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’

International policy

|

20.04.26

Q&A: What Magyar’s defeat of Orbán in Hungary means for climate and energy

International policy

|

17.04.26

Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis

International policy

|

08.04.26

jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_581aa0a5aa8e58214d3707511eb60d41 .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });

The post Santa Marta: Key outcomes from first summit on ‘transitioning away’ from fossil fuels appeared first on Carbon Brief.

For the past year, “economic diversification” has been the magic phrase, as threats from the U.S., global political and economic instability, and climate volatility increase exponentially. It is perplexing, then, that B.C. appears to be quietly...