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A record surge in clean power met all global electricity demand growth in 2025, preventing any increase in fossil fuel generation, according to energy think tank Ember.

Solar led the expansion, recording its fastest growth rate in eight years and meeting around 75% of new electricity demand alone.

Together with wind, hydropower and other low-carbon sources, the solar surge drove clean generation to rise by 887 TWh, slightly exceeding demand growth of 849 TWh and pushing fossil generation down by 0.2%, Ember said in a report published on Tuesday.

Much of this shift was driven by China and India, where rapid clean energy expansion outpaced electricity demand growth, leading to declines in fossil generation in both countries for the first time this century.

IEA slashes pre-war oil demand forecast by nearly a million barrels per day

“We have firmly entered the era of clean growth,” said Aditya Lolla, Ember’s managing director. 

“Clean energy is now scaling fast enough to absorb rising global electricity demand, keeping fossil generation flat before its inevitable decline,” Lolla added. 

China and India lead the way

A key driver of the global shift was a “historic” reversal in China and India, the largest contributors to fossil power growth over the past two decades, Ember said.

For the first time this century, electricity generation from fossil fuels fell in both countries in the same year, tipping the global balance.

In China, fossil generation dropped by 0.9%, its first decline since 2015, as rapid additions of solar and wind outpaced rising demand. In India, fossil generation fell by 3.3%, driven by record increases in solar and wind, strong hydro production and relatively slower demand growth.

This shift helped push renewables to around 34% of global electricity generation in 2025, overtaking coal for the first time in the modern era.

Vivek Mundkur with portable solar pumping system in Pune in 2014 (Photo: Vivek M/Greenpeace)

“China’s rapid expansion of solar and wind is meeting rising electricity demand at home while influencing the global electricity transition,”  said Xunpeng Shi, president of the International Society for Energy Transition Studies.

“As the world’s largest builder of clean power, China’s progress is showing how growing demand can increasingly be met with clean electricity rather than fossil fuels,” Shi added. 

Solar leading global energy supply growth

Reinforcing Ember’s findings, new analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed on Monday that solar has become the single largest driver of global energy supply growth, beyond the electricity sector.

In its latest Global Energy Review, the IEA found that solar PV accounted for more than a quarter of the increase in global energy demand in 2025, making it the first time any modern renewable source has taken the top spot.

The agency also reported that solar recorded the largest annual increase ever seen for any electricity generation technology.

Q&A: Will subsidy cuts for Chinese clean-tech exports hurt Africa’s solar boom?

Ember’s Lolla said clean energy is “redefining the foundation of energy security in a volatile world,” adding that “it is already helping countries reduce exposure to fossil fuel imports and costs while meeting rising electricity demand”. 

‘Antidote to fossil fuel cost chaos‘

As the war in the Middle East disrupts global oil and gas supplies, the head of UN Climate Change, Simon Stiell, said the current crisis underscores the risks of fossil fuel dependence and the need for more secure, domestic energy sources. 

“Wars don’t disrupt the supply of sunlight for solar power, and wind power does not depend on vulnerable shipping straits,” Stiell said. 

Speaking at the opening of the Green Transformation Week conference in South Korea, Stiell encouraged countries to accelerate the transition to clean energy to regain control of their economies and national security.

Nigerians bet on solar as global oil shock hits wallets and power supplies

“War has once again revealed the soaring costs of fossil fuel dependency,” he said, warning that volatile energy markets are “holding economies around the world in a chokehold.”

“Clean energy is the antidote to fossil fuel cost chaos, because it is cheaper, safer and faster-to-market,” he added.

The post Solar surge kept fossil electricity flat in 2025 as China and India made ‘historic’ shift appeared first on Climate Home News.

The temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz, triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran, has once again exposed Europe’s dangerous dependence on imported fossil fuels. As geopolitical shockwaves ripple through transport, industry, and household budgets, Spain is better positioned to face this challenge. A decade of sustained investment in renewables has made it a blueprint for coordinated European action towards energy independence.  

The war in Iran and the temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz – through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG flowed – have once again placed energy at the heart of the global political economy over the past month. The recent ceasefire agreement offers some relief, but it does not eliminate the current geostrategic risks. 

As with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, geopolitical instability has quickly spilt over into international oil and gas markets, driving up fossil fuel prices. This surge in fossil fuel prices has been feeding through the economy via multiple channels. It raises transportation and industrial costs, while also pushing up electricity prices, as gas continues to act as the marginal price-setting technology in many countries. The result is rising energy inflation that – if the conflict persists after the recent ceasefire – will spread throughout the entire price structure of economies. 

 The EU has been reminded of this vulnerability in stark terms. In just the first month of the conflict, its fossil fuel import bill rose by more than 7 billion euros.

Exposed EU 

The European Union is particularly exposed. Highly dependent on imports – it sources more than 90 per cent of its natural gas and nearly all of its oil from abroad – the EU has been reminded of this vulnerability in stark terms. In just the first month of the conflict, its fossil fuel import bill rose by more than 7 billion euros. Yet the impact has not been uniform. Differences in energy mixes, domestic generation capacity, and levels of electrification are producing markedly divergent outcomes across countries. 

In economies such as Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, where natural gas remains central to both electricity generation and final consumption, higher gas prices translate directly into elevated energy costs and stronger inflationary pressures. 

By contrast, countries with more diversified and electrified energy systems are proving more resilient. Among the eurozone’s largest economies, Spain stands out. Its rapid expansion of renewable energy is reducing its exposure to fossil fuel volatility. 

The Spanish exception 

Over the past decade, Spain has invested heavily in wind power and, above all, solar photovoltaics, significantly increasing their share in the electricity mix. This accelerated energy transition (Figure 1) means that, by 2025, 56 per cent of Spain’s electricity generation came from renewable sources – 22 percentage points more than in 2019. 

Figure 1. Spanish energy mix (electricity produced, 2019-2025).  
Source: Red Eléctrica (2025) 

At a time of turbulence in fossil fuel markets, countries most reliant on gas for electricity generation are also the most vulnerable to price spikes. Indeed, the sharp rise in gas prices across Europe has driven up the cost of electricity produced from gas by over 50 per cent since the outbreak of the conflict. Spain, however, has largely broken this link between gas and electricity prices. The expansion of renewable energies has reduced the impact of costly fossil-fuel power generation on electricity prices by 75 per cent since 2019. 

The payoff is clear. Throughout 2025, Spain’s electricity prices have been 33 per cent lower than in Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, and 50 per cent lower than in Italy. While Spain is not immune to geopolitical shocks, its energy system has proven significantly more resilient since the onset of the war in Iran. In March, wholesale electricity prices averaged 52 euros per MWh – roughly half the level seen in Germany and the UK, and just one-third of Italy’s (Figure 2). Among Europe’s major economies, only France, with its nuclear-based system, has posted similar figures. 

Figure 2. European wholesale electricity, €/MWh (average for the past seven days)  
Source: Market data 

Beyond resilience, the energy transition is also creating new industrial opportunities. Electricity prices for Spanish industry are now 20 per cent below the EU average, whereas during the previous expansion (2014–2019) they were 25 per cent above it. This reversal positions renewables as a powerful driver of reindustrialisation, capital attraction, and international competitiveness. 

These gains could be amplified further if the European Union reformed its marginal pricing system, preventing the most expensive technology from systematically setting prices for all others. Such a reform would accelerate the decline in energy costs. A precedent already exists: during the 2022 energy crisis, Spain implemented the so-called “Iberian exception,” which reduced wholesale electricity prices in the Iberian market to levels up to three times lower than elsewhere in Europe. As economist Natalia Fabra has argued, this should now be seen not as a national advantage, but as a blueprint for coordinated European action. Spain is pointing the way, but others can follow. 

 Spain, […] reduced the impact of costly fossil-fuel power generation on electricity prices by 75 per cent since 2019. Throughout 2025, electricity prices have been 33 per cent lower than in Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, and 50 per cent lower than in Italy.

A new era 

That said, Spain’s energy transition is not without its shortcomings. Not everything shines under the sun. Investment in grid infrastructure – essential for integrating high shares of renewables – has lagged behind. Between 2019 and 2024, Spain recorded the lowest grid spending in Europe, allocating just 0.30 euros to grids for every euro invested in renewables, compared to a European average of 0.70 euros. Addressing this gap will be critical if Spain is to sustain its progress without jeopardising supply security. 

More broadly, a new era in the geopolitics of energy is clearly emerging. The succession of crises – Ukraine in 2022, Iran in 2026 – has exposed the structural fragility of fossil fuel-dependent economies. Far from ensuring energy security, oil and gas leave importing countries vulnerable to price volatility, supply disruptions, and unpredictable risks. 

Renewable energy, by contrast, offers a strategic advantage. It acts as a buffer against external shocks while strengthening economic sovereignty. In this new paradigm, energy security is no longer defined by reliable access to imported fuels, but by the ability to generate clean electricity domestically. As the Ember think tank has shown, scaling up renewables, electric vehicles, and heat pumps could reduce fossil fuel imports by up to 70 per cent. Decreasing exposure to the instability of distant fossil fuel supply chains is therefore essential – not only for energy policy, but for broader monetary, macroeconomic, and social stability.

KFC has chickened out on welfare promises Channel Comment brendan 21st April 2026 Teaser Media

Journalist Will Potter returns to Green and Red, in part one of two episodes, to discuss the current state of state repression under the Trump administration. Listen in: bio// Will…

In a win for transparency and accountability, particularly for Delta communities, Tribes, ecosystems, and ratepayers statewide, the California Supreme Court denied review of a trial court ruling that found the State Department of Water Resources (DWR) exceeded its authority in approving bond financing for the Delta Tunnel.

Attorneys representing several Counties and agencies challenging DWR, Roger Moore and Thomas Keeling, praised the decision, calling the Court’s denial a “wise rejection of a misguided attempt by DWR and other Delta tunnel proponents to acquire unchecked power exceeding the scope of DWR’s delegated authority.” Restore the Delta is proud to have been part of the litigation, represented by attorney Robert Wright.

The ruling reaffirms ongoing concerns about the environmental and financial risks of advancing the Delta Tunnel project without proper regulatory review, concerns shared by a broad coalition of counties, legislators, Tribes, community advocates, environmental organizations, and public interest groups.

Read the full release from Attorneys Moore and Keeling here.

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Click here to Download —> Greenaction Spring 2026 Frontlines of EJ Newsletter PDF

 

 

Construction Updates The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), in coordination with Metrolink, is replacing the railroad bridge over San Juan Creek. Built in 1917, the bridge has reached the end of its useful life and will be replaced by a new three-span girder bridge. Stay up to date.

California Nurses Association members condemn the California State Assembly’s failure to advance A.B. 1900, the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act, also known as CalCare, at a time when health care is needed more urgently than ever before. CalCare is a comprehensive, high-quality single-payer program that would be many Californians’ only lifeline for care.

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Pearl Marvell

The Trump administration’s fuel blockade against Cuba has resulted in widespread power outages, gas shortages, garbage in the streets, and a humanitarian crisis – but also a surge in solar installations.

In 2025, the Caribbean nation produced 10% of its electricity from renewable sources, a jump from 3.6% in 2024, according to Rosell Guerra Campaña, director of the Ministry of Renewable Energy at Cuba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Cuba’s increased reliance on renewables is driven by dire necessity.

Since President Donald Trump’s January 2026 executive order imposing tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba, gas and diesel supplies have grown sparse, forcing many residents to stay home.

“The streets feel like a ghost town,” said Michael Galant, a senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who visited Cuba for work in March.

Galant described the situation as “extremely dire” and “visibly worse” than what he saw in previous visits.

Trash trucks can’t operate without fuel, so garbage is piling up on city streets and creating a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that spread diseases like dengue and chikungunya. The alternative is to burn the trash, polluting the air.

U.N. experts condemned the fuel blockade in February.

“The U.S. executive order imposing a fuel blockade on Cuba is a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order,” they said.

Residents in La Habana and Morón, in the middle of the main island of Cuba, have expressed their frustration by banging pots and pans at all hours.

The U.S. capture in January of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has intensified the crisis, as Venezuela was previously one of the primary suppliers of oil to Cuba. In February, Trump allowed the resumption of some Venezuelan oil imports, but that has not halted the energy crisis. Other countries that used to supply oil have cut Cuba off under the threat of U.S. tariffs.

A crumbling grid and worsening blackouts

Cuba is heavily dependent on oil for generating electricity for its fragile grid. With oil supplies curtailed, power outages sometimes exceed 20 hours a day. In March, there were three major blackouts across the nation.

Raúl Rodríguez Rodríguez, director of the Center for Hemispheric and U.S. Studies at la Universidad de La Habana, said that an alarming number of hospitals have been canceling surgeries – including a planned operation for his own wife – as a result of the blackouts. In March, CNN reported that tens of thousands of Cubans were awaiting surgeries that had been delayed by power outages.

Cuba’s economic situation has been precarious since the U.S. imposed an embargo in 1962 after Fidel Castro took power. Decades later, the Obama administration loosened some sanctions, but Trump resumed hard-line policies during his first term.

“It is designed to attack Cuba’s vulnerabilities,” Rodríguez Rodríguez said in Spanish. “It has a double significance: an economic and humanitarian aspect.”

It’s not just the blockade that is causing the energy crisis.

Rodríguez Rodríguez compared the archipelago’s electrical grid to Frankenstein: made up of a series of components from different countries, companies, and time periods. The result is that repairing the system is extremely difficult. Some of the companies involved in creating the grid no longer exist or are not allowed to do business with Cuba as a result of long-term U.S. policy.

The grid’s vulnerability to extreme weather was highlighted by Hurricane Melissa, which hit Cuba in 2025 as a slow-moving Category 2 storm, causing widespread power outages.

“The problem comes from two things: the state has very few resources, and the maintenance of the grid,” Rodríguez Rodríguez said.

Jorge Piñon, a senior research collaborator at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas in Austin, said he believes that the situation is a little more complicated than that. He said that the Cuban government has the means to update its energy grid – it just hasn’t.

Piñon pointed to the luxury hotel Torre K-23 in Havana, a 42-story, Cuban-financed hotel that opened in 2025 only to be shut down recently. Why couldn’t the money invested in the luxury hotel have been spent on rebuilding the grid, Piñon wondered?

Piñon compared the grid to a terminally ill patient who became so largely due to government mismanagement.

“It’s going to take a lot of years, it’s going to take a lot of money,” he said, for the electrical grid to function correctly. “It takes time. It takes effort.”

Can solar solve Cuba’s power crisis?

Still, solar is ramping up at unprecedented levels.

On Feb. 10, Cuba generated more than 800 megawatts from solar energy for the first time, according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines. The next day, it generated 900 megawatts.

With 34 solar farms, the country aims to produce 15% of its electricity from renewable sources in 2026.

Rodríguez Rodríguez said that he has seen a surge in renewable microgrids, which are small-scale power grids made up of solar panels or wind turbines and batteries. He’s also seen a rise in the installation of cheap Chinese solar panels – which are not caught in the crosshairs of tariffs – at medical clinics, hospitals, and private businesses.

The growth is made possible by a dramatic decrease in the cost of clean-energy systems. The cost of solar panels has fallen 90% in the past decade, and the price of combined solar and battery systems has fallen significantly as well.

Although sanctions and logistics make the costs higher, the fact that the Cuban government owns the majority of land in the country simplifies the process of installing solar parks.

“It’s pretty extraordinary,” said London-based economist Kevin Cashman of Cuba’s solar power boom.

But Piñon said solar is not yet being implemented at the scale that is needed. Nor is it reliable enough to supply the majority of energy to the country.

“You need size, you need bulk,” he said.

And many Cubans still can’t afford home solar, Cashman said. The country also needs outside financing to repair its grid, but many countries are worried about running afoul of U.S. sanctions.

A new report by Cashman argues that international investment in Cuba’s renewable capacity is necessary to free the country from U.S. coercion. An investment of $8 billion would enable Cuba to generate 93% of its electricity from renewables, the report says, with $19 billion needed to achieve a fully renewable power system. “For decades, the U.S. has imposed an embargo that severely limits Cuba’s trade with foreign entities,” Cashman wrote.

“The case for solar in Cuba is so compelling, and what the U.S. is doing is so cruel,” he said. “It is creating a humanitarian crisis on purpose.”

WIRT Comments on SROG Miller 1-15 Well Application

CAIA Miller 1-15 Well Drilling Objection with Attachments

 

The Center for Biological Diversity, The Protect Our Communities Foundation and the Environmental Working Group have appealed to the California Supreme Court to overturn the state’s new rooftop solar policy after a lower court approved it a second time. The policy significantly slashes the credit new solar users get for sharing extra solar energy with the grid and has reduced demand for new rooftop solar systems.

“The appeals court ignored the Supreme Court’s order, so we’re asking the state’s highest court to force it to follow the law and stop capitulating to state regulators on this policy that’s devastating rooftop solar,” said Roger Lin, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s illegal to give undo deference to the utility commission. The Supreme Court agreed and ordered a do over. So why did the appeals court rubberstamp the commission’s decision again and basically endorse utility talking points? I’m hopeful another appeal gets this unfair policy thrown out so more Californians can afford rooftop solar, which an essential tool to fight the climate crisis.”

In March the California Court of Appeals upheld the California Public Utility Commission’s December 2022 action for a second time, despite the Supreme Court ruling in August 2025 that the lower court gave the commission too much latitude and needed to revise its ruling.

Friday’s appeal to the state Supreme Court says the lower appeals court again ignored state law, which requires the court to review the commission’s statutory interpretations as it would those of any state agency. Instead, the three-judge panel resurrected the same flawed review standard giving extreme deference to commission decisions. That leaves the agency virtually untouchable, which was what the legislature was trying to prevent when it passed the law in 1998.

“We’re asking the California Supreme Court to provide additional clarity to the lower courts so that both its decision and the Legislature’s intent have real effect in practice,” said Malinda Dickenson, who is representing The Protect Our Communities Foundation.

California’s updated net-metering policy slashes customer credits by up to 80% for electricity generated on rooftops and sold back to the grid, which reduces the financial benefit of installing solar systems. This has crushed efforts to expand rooftop solar in California, including in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods, and led to huge layoffs in the solar industry. It also violates state law, which requires that any policies ensure the rooftop solar market keeps growing.. The net energy metering rollback also goes against the United States’ recent global agreement at COP28 to triple renewable energy by 2030.

“From rising costs to wildfires to blackouts to air pollution, California consumers are fed up with the state’s investor-owned utilities,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president for California with the Environmental Working Group. “And yet the one government agency that voters created over a 100 years ago to stand up to these monopoly utilities on behalf of consumers is now doing their dirty work, blocking consumers from having access to the technologies needed to solve myriad problems. At its core, that’s what this lawsuit is really all about.”

In its 2025 ruling, the Supreme Court said the appeals court had overlooked the California Legislature’s 1998 direction to limit deference to regulators, rejecting arguments from the utility commission and the three large investor-owned utility companies in California — Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric Company.

For-profit utilities across the country are trying to gut rooftop solar programs because distributed energy resources like rooftop solar threaten the utility business model.

Today the Goldman Environmental Prize, which celebrates grassroots leaders who prove that ordinary people can have an extraordinary impact on the environment, announced its 2026 winners. Among the six women who were awarded the prize this year were members of frontline communities affected by mining and oil and gas drilling, and Alannah Acaq Hurley, Executive Director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, was one of them. 

Hurley was recognized for her extraordinary work to stop the Pebble Mine in Alaska. Earthworks and our supporters spent more than a decade advocating alongside Tribal Nations and local groups to stop the destructive project. Our staff is delighted to see Hurley receive this recognition for her extraordinary leadership and her coalition’s victory.

This award is so well deserved! Alannah has been a fearless leader in the fight to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine. She brings joy, community and a real strength of spirit to the work. The world is a better place because of her, and her work to protect the world’s largest wild salmon fishery—an ecological and economic powerhouse that sustains local communities and supplies the world with a bounty of healthy seafood. I had the great honor to attend an event at the White House rose garden, where Alannah joined President Biden on stage to celebrate Bristol Bay protections. I was so inspired by her passion for the region and her commitment to the people she was there to represent.

— Bonnie Gestring, retired Northwest Program Director, Earthworks

Additional Goldman Prize winners this year were honored for their efforts confronting extractive industries. Theonila Roka Matbob’s efforts compelled Rio Tinto to finally take responsibility for massive environmental contamination at the Panguna mine in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Yuvelis Moralis Blanco was awarded for organizing to prevent fracking in Colombia. 

Learn more about Alannah Acaq Hurley and the other 2026 Goldman Prize winners.

Alannah Acaq Hurley in Dillingham, Alaska. January, 2026. Image courtesy of Goldman Environmental Prize.

The post Earthworks celebrates Alannah Acaq Hurley, Goldman Environmental Prize Winner appeared first on Earthworks.

The wars being waged right now in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and Ukraine are not abstract. They are children pulled from collapsed buildings. They are families who fled their homes carrying nothing. They are entire neighborhoods reduced to dust by weapons manufactured far away, financed by governments that call themselves defenders of democracy. 

Ceasefires come and go, are announced and broken. But ceasefires are not peace – they are pauses in the same ongoing violence. What we are demanding is something far more urgent, far more real: a complete and permanent end to these wars.

As someone born and raised in Puerto Rico, an island that knows what it means to live under the shadow of militarization, colonial extraction, and disaster without accountability, I feel a deep, bone-level solidarity with the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and Ukraine. We may be separated by oceans and languages, but we share the same wound: the wound of being considered expendable by empires that never asked for our consent.

The people of Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Ukraine and other war zones are not symbols or numbers. They are neighbors, parents, scientists, teachers, humans with lives and dreams. Their suffering demands that governments act, that arms supplies stop, and that the international community treat civilian life as non-negotiable – wherever those lives are lived.

Here in Puerto Rico, I learned that when the hurricane comes, whether it is María or military occupation or economic austerity, it is always the women, the children, and the poor who suffer most. The same is true in all of Palestine, in southern Lebanon, in Iranian cities and Ukrainian villages. And when the fighting drives up food prices and energy costs worldwide, it is working people, families already in debt, communities already stretched thin, who absorb that blow. 

This is the deal we were never asked about. That’s enough. Governments must stop hiding behind strategic interests and geopolitical calculations and start protecting the people whose lives hang in the balance. A permanent end to these wars is not a radical demand. It is the bare minimum of human decency.

Solidarity is not sympathy from a distance. It is the recognition that our struggles are connected, that no one is free while others are bombed into hunger and displacement. From Bayamón to Beirut, from San Juan to Kyiv, we stand together in demanding what should never have been in question: peace, dignity, and the right to a future.

Join the global call at https://350.org/they-profit-we-pay-fix-it-now/

The post End the War appeared first on 350.

More than 60 Maryland environmental and community groups sign letter opposing the Moore administration’s apparent plan to facilitate construction of a massive gas power plant and gas pipeline to power data centers owned by cryptocurrency company.

 

ANNAPOLIS, MD – Fearing a tidal wave of climate pollution and profound disruptions to Charles County communities and natural resources, more than 60 organizations from across Maryland sent a letter Monday to Governor Wes Moore asking him to drop his apparent interest in supporting a massive data center project along the Potomac River in Charles County. 

In the letter, the groups – including the Maryland Sierra Club, Public Citizen, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and dozens of faith, justice and community-based groups — are calling on Moore “to immediately stop all special support and assistance your administration is giving to plans to convert the Morgantown Generating Station into a one gigawatt methane gas power plant along the Potomac River in Charles County, MD.”

The project would require a minimum of 20 miles of new gas pipeline and would represent hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure. TeraWulf, the cryptocurrency mining company behind the project, is counting on the Moore administration’s support to shepherd the project through an expedited environmental review process so that the electricity generated from the plant could power nearby data center operations. 

The group American Rivers just named the Potomac River the “most endangered river in America,” largely due to existing and proposed data centers in the river’s watershed. The energy use alone for the Charles County project would be equal to all the electricity used by the city of Baltimore. 

Many of the signatory groups have pledged to stop the power plant from ever being built. 

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Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC.

The post Outpouring of Maryland Nonprofit Groups Tell Gov. Wes Moore to Drop All Support for Mega-Polluting Data Center in Charles County appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

Gulf and environmental groups sued the Trump administration today over its approval of BP’s new ultra-deepwater oil drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico. The project endangers the health of Gulf residents, ecosystems and industries like fishing and tourism.

Kaskida is BP’s first completely new oilfield approved in the Gulf since the U.K.-based company’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, which occurred 16 years ago today. BP’s infamous accident killed 11 people, wiped out horrific numbers of marine animals, and caused billions of dollars in damages to the Gulf, including by eliminating thousands of local jobs, including in fishing and tourism. BP’s Deepwater Horizon remains the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Kaskida will be at greater depths than Deepwater Horizon, in riskier waters. BP will drill for oil as far down as six miles below the sea floor, deeper than the height of Mount Everest.

The groups are challenging the approval of BP’s development proposal because legally required information is either missing or significantly flawed. For instance, BP failed to demonstrate it has the experience, expertise and certified equipment to conduct safe drilling under extreme conditions at Kaskida’s location, where a “loss of well control” incident (which caused BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster) is six to seven times more likely compared to typical deepwater oil wells.

BP’s proposal also underestimated the volume of a worst-case oil spill by at least half-a-million barrels of oil, which the Interior Department unfortunately adopted in its environmental analysis. And BP did not show in its proposals that it will have the necessary containment capabilities in case the company needs to stop a blown-out well from spilling 4.5 million barrels of oil or more across the Gulf.

The groups — Healthy Gulf, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Habitat Recovery Project, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity — are being represented by Earthjustice.

“The Trump administration has teed up the entire Gulf region for a Deepwater Horizon sequel with its approval of BP’s extremely risky ultra-deepwater drilling project,” said Earthjustice senior attorney Brettny Hardy. “The greenlighting of BP’s project sets a dangerously low bar for oil-and-gas companies that want to drill in our public waters. We’ll see the Trump administration in court over its unlawful and insulting approval of Kaskida.”

“Once again, BOEM has approved a deep water well in the Gulf of Mexico. Marine wildlife and communities along the Gulf coast were devastated by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill 16 years ago,” said Joanie Steinhaus, ocean program director for Turtle Island Restoration Network. “This project is a threat to our fragile ocean ecosystem, will inflame climate change and threatens the health of coastal residents. BP has not adequately demonstrated the capacity to operate and handle an oil spill in the high-pressure, high temperature conditions of this project.”

“Kaskida is emblematic of a new era in offshore oil extraction: corporate hoarding of risky, ultra-deep water leases in an attempt to monopolize the future of oil production, with little to no oversight from the Trump Administration. We, as citizens of the Gulf South, are not standing for it,” said Martha Collins, Healthy Gulf executive director. “BP has shown how they handle oil spills on this anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster — their risky drilling and inexperience at this great depth will ensure their continued legacy of the Gulf never being the same again.”

“Offshore drilling is one of the riskiest kinds of oil extraction, but the Trump administration is ignoring the law to allow Big Oil CEOs to endanger coastal communities for the sake of corporate profit,” said Devorah Ancel, senior attorney at Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. “This permit would allow BP to develop multiple ultra-deep high-pressure wells, which is already exceptionally risky, and with BP’s track record in the Gulf, coastal ecosystems face extraordinary danger. We’re suing the Trump administration to ensure the coastal communities that would suffer the consequences of BP’s actions get their day in court.”

“It's appalling that the Trump administration has authorized this deepwater drilling project without having information critical to preventing harm to marine life,” said Rachel Mathews, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This will put Rice's whales, sea turtles and other Gulf wildlife at terrible risk. Ultra-deepwater drilling is ultra-dangerous, full stop.”

Background

The Trump administration’s approval of Kaskida follows a series of actions that prioritize the oil-and-gas industry in the Gulf at the expense of communities and ecosystems.

Last month, the White House illegally exempted federally authorized Gulf oil-and-gas exploration, development and production from needing to comply with certain requirements of the Endangered Species Act, even though no Gulf projects have been rejected due to the Act, and the oil industry is not facing any burdensome requirements under the law that are slowing or halting offshore drilling activities. The U.S. is also already producing more oil than any nation in history, is the world’s top producer of gas, and is a net exporter of both.

The administration has also proposed weakening “well control” rules developed to tighten up safety protocols in the wake of Deepwater Horizon. It has sought to roll back “financial assurance” requirements that require the weakest oil and gas companies to backstop their obligations to clean up the mess they leave behind, rather than forcing American taxpayers to foot the bill. And, it is now consolidating two federal agencies involved in offshore drilling oversight that were intentionally separated after Deepwater Horizon to root out industry influence over regulators. The White House has proposed a budget cut for the new agency of more than 30% in funding and staff that address safety and manage operations.

While such measures may boost oil industry profits, they have done little to nothing to alleviate energy prices or inflation.

In the 16 years since BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, the oil industry has set its sights on deeper and riskier Gulf waters. In the three most recent oil-and-gas lease sales, 90% of company bids are going for deep or ultra-deepwaters, even though the likelihood of uncontrolled oil spills arising from offshore drilling operations increases exponentially with depth. Meanwhile, the oil industry is sitting on millions of acres of leases (nearly 80% of all leases the industry is in possession of) in the Gulf that haven’t begun producing oil or gas.

Maasai people have protested in one of Tanzania’s most important tourism destinations over their eviction in the name of conservation, to highlight UNESCO’s complicity in the persecution of Maasai people. #

In the early morning, the light in the Atacama Desert is still a muted gray. In places the ground is damp, moistened by fog that flows in gentle waves over rocks and scree slopes at daybreak. In northern Chile this weather phenomenon is known as the camanchaca, bringing life where it sometimes doesn’t rain for decades.

Thanks to this climate, some of the world’s rarest cacti grow along the steep coastal hills around the town of Paposo: the Copiapoa. These plants draw nearly all their water from the maritime fog, which sustains surprising biodiversity in an otherwise hostile region.

The Desert Walkers

Few people know this desert as well as Mauricio González. With his volunteer group, the Caminantes del Desierto (Desert Walkers), he regularly patrols the Atacama with a notebook, camera, and water, mapping cactus populations and documenting changes.

In recent years the walkers have seen disturbing patterns.

“We have witnessed the death of entire cactus populations — hundreds of plants simply disappearing,” González says. When fog moisture is no longer sufficient, the plants overheat. Volunteers try to water them, “but often we arrive too late. Then we find only remnants — literally charred by the sun.”

Many Copiapoa are over a century old and adapted to the desert’s extremes. But climate change — hotter temperatures, drier winds, less fog — is pushing them beyond their limits.

A second pressure compounds the crisis.

“We have also observed massive extraction of rare species for the illegal trade,” González says. Local poachers dig up plants for a flourishing global black market. “A loss that cannot be repaired without the help of experts and the public.”

Copiapoa are among the most endangered cactus genera in the world. Researchers still debate their taxonomy, but the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed 39 taxa and listed 29 as threatened. Six are considered critically endangered. International trade is restricted or prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the global treaty that regulates cross-border trade in wild species to prevent overexploitation — a system that also governs how Copiapoa can, or cannot, be traded.

For botanist Pablo Guerrero of the Universidad de Concepción, the sharp rise in illegal extraction is especially troubling. He links it directly to international buyers.

“The demand comes from enthusiasts who want to own a piece of the desert — ideally with all the marks of the wild,” he says. For many collectors, Copiapoa have become status symbols, especially when the plants come directly from their natural habitat.

Smartphones and social media have made this trade easier.

“A lot happens via Facebook and Instagram,” Guerrero says. “Buyers can choose the plants themselves. Some sellers even stream live videos from the desert and ask which plants they should dig up.”

The latest IUCN assessment for the species “is significantly worse than the one we conducted 10 years ago,” he adds. He emphasizes that these pressures do not act independently: “Climate change does not act in isolation. It interacts with threats like habitat loss or declining habitat quality.”

Copiapoa grow extremely slowly; some species grow only millimeters per year and take decades to flower. Although they have adapted to life in tough desert conditions, plant ecologist Michiel Pillet of the University of Lausanne, who studies the genus’ climate sensitivity, warns against assuming that cacti are universally hardy.

“Cacti … are adapted to the conditions in their distribution range,” he says. “If those conditions change, as they already are under human-induced climate change, species must adapt, shift their range — or go extinct.”

Pillet’s modeling suggests Copiapoa could lose up to 60% of their habitat as fog patterns and temperatures change.

Illegal trade adds further pressure. A recent study found that 31% of all cactus species worldwide are threatened by poaching — one of the highest rates among plant groups.

The ecological impact becomes visible in the Atacama. Copiapoa are not solitary organisms but structural species that collectively create shade, store moisture, and provide habitat. “They create microclimatic refuges where vertebrates can live and protect themselves not only from the harsh environment but also from predators,” Guerrero explains. Their pollen supports insects and other invertebrates. Removing even a few plants disrupts these networks; the loss of many can be devastating.

A Landmark Ruling

More than 7,500 miles away, in the Italian port city of Ancona, another dimension of the Copiapoa crisis unfolded. Through spring 2025, a courtroom examined the largest documented theft of Copiapoa plants — a case whose extensive investigation became known as “Operation Atacama.”

The case began in February 2020, when Italy’s Carabinieri Forestali — the country’s environmental and forestry police — followed information provided by botanist Andrea Cattabriga in the town of Senigallia. Cattabriga regularly assists European Union authorities in identifying illegally traded ornamental plants.

Inside dealer Andrea Piombetti’s apartment, officers found more than 1,000 Copiapoa. Some species were entirely prohibited from commercial trade; others lacked required documents. The estimated market value exceeded €1 million (about $1.16 million U.S.).

“My first reaction when I saw the Copiapoa was shock — because there had already been a similar incident with this trader years earlier, when he could not be convicted,” Cattabriga recalls.

Forensic evidence and soil samples linked the plants to repeated trips Piombetti made to Chile between 2016 and 2019. Messages and auction records on his devices revealed an international network of at least 10 dealers and 10 regular buyers, with plants sold to collectors in Japan, South Korea, and North America. Piombetti’s closest accomplice, Mattia Crescentini, advertised plants through a since-deleted Instagram account called “Cactus_Italy.”

Piombetti and Crescentini were convicted in criminal court in January 2025, receiving fines and suspended sentences. But the case gained additional significance when Cattabriga’s NGO — the Associazione per la Biodiversità e la sua Conservazione — filed a civil claim arguing that the illegal extraction caused a moral injury to nature and, therefore, damaged ABC’s mission of protecting nature.

In the spring of 2025, the court recognized this second claim — a first in a civil biodiversity case in Italy.

The defendants appealed. Their procedural challenge before Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation was rejected, and the case was sent back to the Court of Appeal for further review. A new hearing is currently scheduled for spring 2026.

If the original decision is upheld, Piombetti and Crescentini would need to pay €20,000 in damages to ABC — money that, according to Cattabriga, would support cactus research, public outreach, and protection.

“What makes this case absolutely unique is that, for the first time in history, a court ordered those responsible to pay damages to an organization — our association — for harming its mission to protect nature,” Cattabriga says. The ruling symbolically acknowledged “a nature that is finally recognized here in all its components: plants, animals, but also rivers, forests, entire ecosystems … with a right to exist.”

This is exactly the kind of precedent environmental scientist Jacob Phelps hopes to strengthen. A longtime advisor to ABC, he is also cofounder of Conservation Litigation, an initiative promoting legal tools for conservation.

“It is very unusual for the state to use its authority to seek remedies for environmental damage,” Phelps says. The Ancona ruling marked the first time in Italy that a conservation organization received damages for biodiversity loss. According to Phelps, such recognition can have symbolic power and may influence courts in other countries. “Access to justice is realistic in many countries — if you know how to do it and if the costs remain manageable,” he says.

Conservation Litigation is supporting similar cases in countries such as the Philippines, Liberia, and Indonesia, focused on habitat destruction and wildlife trade. The aim is to establish that ecological damage can be treated as a civil harm within national legal systems.

For now the Ancona case remains an exception — and its influence will depend partly on how restitution is conceived in practice.

Sending Them Back to the Desert

In April 2021 around 840 confiscated Copiapoa were transferred from Milan’s botanical garden back to Chile. More than 100 of the plants had already died; others remained in Milan for research.

The repatriation was organized by the IUCN Cactus and Succulent Plants Specialist Group under Bárbara Goettsch.

“There was no protocol for returning confiscated plants,” Goettsch says. “We had to develop the procedure step by step ourselves.”

It was the first large-scale return of living cacti to their country of origin, although true reintroduction proved impossible. Many plants had unclear origins, were genetically mixed, or carried potential disease risks. Most will remain under cultivation.

Still, Goettsch calls the case “unprecedented” — less for ecological impact than for awareness raising and international cooperation.

“Many people do not realize that their plant may have been illegally collected. They buy based on appearance — not on origin,” she says.

This desire drives illegal extraction.

“Demand comes from enthusiasts who want to own a piece of the desert — preferably with all the traces of wilderness intact,” Guerrero says. Social media makes it easier: “Some sellers even stream live videos from the desert and ask which plants they should dig up,” he explains. Many Copiapoa are listed only under CITES Appendix II, which regulates but does not prohibit trade. “Some species should be moved to Appendix I,” Goettsch says. “But without capacity building, that won’t help much.” Enforcement authorities worldwide struggle to distinguish legal from illegal plants.

European nurseries grow cacti from global seed stocks, but cultivated plants lack the appearance of old, wild specimens, which often bear scars from decades of exposure — including weathering, sun damage, and lichen growth — that give them a distinct, aged form shaped by harsh desert conditions.

“Trade in European-produced cacti is legal — but it does not help conservation in the countries of origin,” Goettsch says. “Not a single cent from what is sold in Europe goes back to Chile.”

Botanical gardens could support conservation, but many are underfunded and at capacity.

More serious, Pillet warns, is a growing divide between researchers, conservation practitioners, and hobby growers. “Illegal trade has driven a wedge between research, practice, and hobby cultivation.”

Despite steep losses, González and the Caminantes continue searching remote hillsides for surviving plants. Some undocumented species persist in hidden spots known only to the volunteers, who carry water to them in summer.

One site near Mejillones haunts González. Thousands of Copiapoa solaris once grew there, some nearly a meter tall. Today almost all are dead — except for two standing on a windswept ridge.

“We devote our full attention to these two. We preserve them at any cost,” he says.

Their survival is a quiet act of defiance — against the disappearance of life from the desert.

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Sen. Cory Booker, Yale Law: “As a proud alumnus of Yale Law School (Class of 1997) and a longtime advocate for a healthier and more equitable food system, I write to urge Yale Hospitality to join the Fair Food Program (FFP).” “The Fair Food Program is widely recognized as one of the most effective human rights initiatives in U.S. agriculture… Yale has long been a leader in both scholarship and social responsibility. Joining the Fair Food Program would extend that leadership into the University’s food system, demonstrating that Yale is committed to protecting farmworkers and supporting responsible growers… “

As students at Yale University continue calling on their administration to join the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program, Senator Cory Booker — a proud alumnus of Yale Law School and a longtime champion of the Fair Food Program — wrote to his alma mater urging the university to demonstrate real leadership toward by protecting the farmworkers who harvest the food served in campus dining halls as a Participating Buyer in the FFP.

The letter, which was made public by Yale Daily News, explained that Yale is in a unique position to extend the same leadership it demonstrates in scholarship and social responsibility into the “University’s food system, demonstrating that Yale is committed to protecting farmworkers and supporting responsible growers.” Though directed specifically at Yale University, Senator Booker’s letter also speaks to the many benefits the FFP can bring to any university interested in joining. The program’s transformative impact on farm labor conditions has created a rare — and documented — win-win-win scenario that benefits workers, growers, and buyers alike.

But despite the extraordinary letter, a petition with hundreds of student signatures and counting, and a rally outside Yale Hospitality’s offices attended by over 75 students and two of the CIW’s co-founders, the administration still refuses to join the FFP. Instead, Hospitality administrators continue to insist on taking only piecemeal, voluntary steps toward addressing farm labor conditions in the university’s supply chain, even while recognizing the FFP as a proven human rights leader in agriculture and promising to increase tomato purchases from FFP farms to over 90% by next school year.

Undeterred, students are now reaching out to Yale’s wide alumni network, as well as university faculty, to seek their support for the campaign. The fast-growing campaign has even become a key issue in the 2026 Yale College Council elections. John Robert Walker and Michelle Jimenez, one of four slates of candidates running for YCC President and Vice President next school year, made the Fair Food University campaign a central plank in their platform, as reported in last Friday’s Yale Daily News:

John Robert Walker ’28 and Michelle Jimenez ’28

John Robert Walker ’28 says he is “fighting for Yale to respect” both workers in New Haven and the broader student body population.

Walker wrote in his candidate statement that he aims to raise the student minimum wage to $22 per hour, protect contracted faculty and staff, and ensure Yale joins the Fair Food Program, which ensures humane wages and safe working conditions for farmworkers…

If you are a Yale alum interested in supporting the Yale Student/Farmworker Alliance effort, make sure to reach out to organize@sfalliance.org.

Below is the full report from Yale Daily News on Senator Booker’s letter, which includes statements from both students and university representatives. Stay tuned for more updates on the Fair Food University front!

In letter, Cory Booker urges Yale to make farmworkers’ rights pledge Sen. Cory Booker, a Yale Law School alumnus, wrote a letter last month to Yale Hospitality, throwing his weight behind a student campaign for the University to join the Fair Food Program.

Sen. Cory Booker LAW ’97 wrote a letter to Yale Hospitality last month, urging the University to join a farmworkers’ rights initiative.

Booker’s one-page letter, dated March 26, added to the Yale Student/Farmworker Alliance’s campaign for Yale Hospitality to participate in the Fair Food Program. Student organizers have hosted screenings and petitions, and recently marched to Yale Hospitality’s offices in an effort to pressure the University to join the program.

“As a proud alumnus of Yale Law School (Class of 1997) and a longtime advocate for a healthier and more equitable food system, I write to urge Yale Hospitality to join the Fair Food Program (FFP),” Booker wrote, later adding that “Yale has long been a leader in both scholarship and social responsibility.”

Booker, a New Jersey Democrat who ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primary and is seen as a potential 2028 contender, is a member of the Senate’s Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. In the letter to Yale’s assistant vice president for Hospitality, Jodi Smith Westwater, Booker referred to his personal experience with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the group that created the Fair Food Program.

Student/Farmworker Alliance member John Robert Walker ’28 shared Booker’s letter with the News. Booker’s office confirmed that the senator wrote the letter but did not respond to the News’ emailed inquiry about what prompted him to do so.

Alexa Gotthardt, a Yale Hospitality spokesperson, wrote in a statement on April 7 that the University has “received the letter and a response is forthcoming,” but did not respond to the News’ questions about whether Yale Hospitality has reconsidered its position. 

Gotthardt referred the News to a previous statement in which she wrote that Yale “is not currently positioned to become a formal signatory to the FFP, given its role further downstream in the supply chain,” but that the University is “aligned with the program’s goals.”

Yale University students,alongside CIW co-founder Lucas Benitez (second from the right), call on the historic Ivy League school to join the Fair Food Program

The protest last March was organized by the Student/Farmworker Alliance. Walker, who has since announced his candidacy for Yale College Council president, wrote in an email to the News that the alliance had contacted Booker, who then agreed to write the letter.

“Despite Senator Booker’s letter urging Yale to join the FFP, an official resolution from the Yale College Council, a petition signed by hundreds of students, and no clear reason for not joining the program, Yale Hospitality has refused to take any good-faith steps toward joining the FFP,” Walker wrote. According to the alliance, its petition had 300 signatories by the end of March.

According to the Fair Food Program’s website, buyers that participate in it — including companies such as McDonald’s and Walmart — must agree to buy produce from farms that guarantee certain worker protections and abide by a code of conduct. Buyers also agree to pay a premium of one cent per pound picked, which goes to farmworker wages.

Yale Hospitality has said that it hopes to source more produce from program-affiliated suppliers. According to Gotthardt, more than 64 percent of Yale Hospitality’s tomato purchases through suppliers are sourced from growers affiliated with the Fair Food Program, and the University hopes to increase its percentage of tomatoes from program-approved growers to 90 percent.

Booker’s letter discussed his experience with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

“The FFP was created by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), who I had the pleasure of meeting while participating in the Food Inc. 2 documentary, which highlights the systemic abuses farmworkers face,” Booker wrote. “I learned from the CIW about the extreme poverty, sexual harassment, and labor trafficking faced by many farmworkers, and the power of market-driven accountability to create real change.”

Booker wrote that joining the program would set “an example for students, alumni and peer institutions about the power of ethical purchasing decisions and institutional leadership in ending longstanding abuses and transforming labor conditions for farmworkers for generations to come.”

According to Walker, the group is in the process of contacting more alumni to support the group’s campaign.

“We’ll contact dozens more prominent alumni in the weeks ahead, and we expect many will follow Senator Booker’s example and call on Hospitality to support the human rights of the farmworkers who grow our food by joining the FFP.” Walker wrote.

Booker graduated from Yale Law School in 1997. The Law School’s dining hall was independently operated prior to 2011 and stopped accepting undergraduate swipes in 2009. According to its website, Yale Hospitality now operates Café Law, which serves “coffee, sandwiches, salad, or soup for lunch, and plenty of snacks.”

Before you go, we want to share some exciting news about another longtime ally of Fair Food: Jeanne Findlater, a pioneering force in television news at a time when there were virtually no women in leadership positions anywhere in journalism, has been inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame!

Now 97, Findlater has lived an extraordinarily storied life, helping to break barriers in journalism and opening doors for generations of women who followed in her footsteps. You can read more about her remarkable career in this profile from the Naples Daily News.

After retiring to Naples, Findlater brought that same sense of courage and conviction to the work of the CIW and Campaign for Fair Food, becoming a familiar face at campaign actions and standing shoulder to shoulder with farmworkers and consumer allies on street corners, holding signs and demanding dignity for farmworkers everywhere.

Her lifelong commitment to speaking truth to power — first as a trailblazing journalist and later as an ally of the farmworker movement — has made her a true friend of the CIW and the Fair Food Program.

From everyone at the CIW and FFP, congratulations to Jeanne Findlater on her well-earned induction into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame!