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This article A North Carolina movement asks voters to reject corporate tax breaks was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

The affordability crisis is hitting people hard across the country, but it’s especially acute in North Carolina. For the sixth year in a row, North Carolina holds the distinction of being the worst state in the nation for workers based on its wage policies, worker protections, and rights to organize, according to Oxfam. Nearly half of renters in the state are struggling to afford their homes, while nearly a third of households are cost-burdened (spending over 30 percent of their income on housing).

North Carolina voters’ eyes may light up when they see two proposed constitutional amendments on their November ballots: one to cap the state personal and corporate income tax rates at 3.5 percent, down from a cap of seven percent, and another to limit how much local governments can levy in property taxes. On their face, they appear as if they might bring much-needed tax relief to North Carolina’s working class. 

The amendments are deceptively framed as being beneficial to working people and homeowners, reading as if they would lower individual taxes when there’s no indication that they will, according to Todd Warren, statewide campaign strategist at Down Home North Carolina, a member-led organization that endorsed a “no” vote. Instead, Warren said, the measures would be a giveaway to corporations and wealthy individuals by limiting how much they pay toward the public good — and a “scam” for voters.

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Since the passage of the two Republican-sponsored bills that placed the amendments on the ballot this past May, Down Home NC and over 20 other groups have come together as the NC Vote Against coalition to defeat them, as well as to oppose a third amendment that would enshrine voter identification requirements in the state constitution.

Each organization has its own expertise and its own tactics, but a common message: The amendments will not benefit working-class people, but rather corporations and the ultra-wealthy. Each group is playing its part in collecting a total of 100,000 pledges from North Carolinians who commit to voting against the amendments.

The fight to fund the future

Down Home NC joined together with another coalition member, the Carolina Federation, to launch the Fund the Future campaign, deploying nearly 200 paid canvassers.  

Jenn Frye, co–director of the Carolina Federation, spent part of this weekend canvassing at the poll at a Durham, North Carolina library, where she convinced an older couple to vote “no” on the amendments. After a member-led endorsement process that included political education on the amendments, a leadership summit and a vote at a statewide membership meeting, the Carolina Federation decided they wanted to deeply engage in the amendment fight. “We see more and more people in North Carolina who agree that corporations and the wealthiest individuals aren’t contributing what they owe when day in and day out, North Carolinians are working really hard,” Frye said. “We pay our taxes, and we contribute what we owe.”

Down Home NC and the Carolina Federation were founded in 2017 and 2018, respectively, in the wake of President Trump first taking office and Republicans winning control of both North Carolina’s state legislature and governorship in 2013 (for the first time since Reconstruction). The groups share a long-term goal of loosening corporate power’s grip on the state legislature and supplanting it with people power.

The Fund the Future campaign campaign is knocking doors, talking to voters at the polls, getting resolutions against the amendments passed by local governments and school boards, and placing signs in small businesses and in yards, among other tactics. So far, the Carolina Federation’s canvassers have knocked on over 600,000 doors across six counties, collecting over 33,000 pledges, while Down Home NC’s canvassers had knocked 500,000 doors across 20 counties and collected about 8,000 pledges.

“Whatever the outcome of this amendment fight, Federation’s members plan to launch a statewide campaign next year with other organizations like Down Home and Siembra to demand that the legislature pass fair tax policies that make corporations and the wealthiest individuals pay what they owe our communities in taxes,” Frye said. “That may be a multi-year fight. It is one our members feel is worth waging.”

North Carolinians deserve funding for real solutions, Frye said, such as property tax assistance programs, childcare tax credits, an increased minimum wage (it’s currently the federal minimum, $7.25 per hour), and protections against corporate landlords.

Todd Warren of Down Home NC said he has never seen such a robust response to a single issue in over 20 years of working and organizing in North Carolina.

Because Down Home NC’s chapters run organizing campaigns to make sure that local budgets go toward working people’s needs, members recognized immediately how the amendments would exacerbate the underfunding of local services. Like the Carolina Federation, its members endorsed a “no” vote in addition to endorsing political candidates who are supportive of its platforms.

Many voters don’t know about the amendments, Frye said, and if they do, they’re often not sure what to make of them or inclined to support them because they’re exhausted and stressed out due to the affordability crisis. But when they are engaged in conversation about how the amendments affect services they rely on, “then people are movable,” she said.

North Carolina residents march to the polls with signs opposing tax amendments on the ballot during early voting in Guilford County on Oct. 27, 2026. (Guilford For All)

Frye gave the example of her own mother, who recently suffered a series of strokes. Fortunately she was living in a North Carolina county with adequately funded Emergency Medical Services, or EMS. But residents of counties with underfunded EMS operations could face a life-or-death situation during medical emergencies.

“Right now, people feel like ‘taxes’ is a dirty word,” said Warren, a former public school teacher. “But if they connect it to something that they care about, like, ‘Oh, in Johnston County, we have explosive population growth. We need to build a new high school. These amendments would limit our ability to [do that].’ Then they’re like, ‘I’m gonna vote “no” on it.’ We can do that in a five-minute organizing conversation. It doesn’t take much for people to see through the scam.” 

North Carolina’s allegiance to corporations

North Carolina has lost out on almost $18 billion in annual tax revenue since Republicans began overhauling the tax system in 2013. Personal income tax reforms are so regressive that the state’s lowest earners pay more than 10 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while the highest earners pay only six percent. For corporations, the income tax has dropped from seven percent to two percent, the lowest in the nation, and will be phased out completely by 2030. As tax revenue shrinks, so does local governments’ ability to fully fund vital public services.

“Our public services, the things that are supposed to strengthen our communities and support all families in all counties in North Carolina, are being stretched to the limit by the tax cuts,” Frye said. “These amendments want to take that and enshrine it into the [state] constitution.”

Exploitation has marked North Carolina’s economy since the days of chattel slavery. Post-slavery, Black families like my own (in Bertie County) sharecropped for a living well into the 20th century — jobs now carried out by migrant workers who experience poor labor conditions. The Duke family once had a monopoly on the state’s tobacco industry and founded both Duke Energy and Duke University, two institutions notorious for not paying their fair share.

Now the state and some local governments are subsidizing data centers, of which over 60 have been built and at least 30 more are planned or under construction. Under pressure, the state eliminated some tax breaks for data centers in July, but three remaining sales tax subsidies are projected to rob the state of $250 million in revenue annually. Meanwhile, between 2017 to 2024, the average electricity bill of a North Carolina household rose by nearly 30 percent. The state is subsidizing wealthy corporations as regular folks struggle to keep their lights on.

A history of underfunded public schools

On May Day this year, thousands gathered in the capital city, Raleigh, to rally for fully funded schools. Tax cuts have already contributed to the state being ranked last in the country in public school funding by GDP.

Isabell Moore, a coordinator at North Carolina Families for Public Schools (a project of Down Home NC) and a public school parent, said the amendments could be “catastrophic” for public education. North Carolina Families for Public Schools comprises countywide, districtwide and schoolwide teams of volunteer organizers who are calling for equitable, fully funded public schools. These teams are currently circulating a pledge to fund the future for children that includes voting against the amendments, along with measures like fair funding for special education; higher teacher pay; and safe, inclusive schools for all students, including those from immigrant families. 

North Carolina Families for Public Schools had already voted on its 2026 platform when the amendments dropped in May but decided to incorporate them because they stand directly in the way of their goal to win fully funded schools. Their organizers have been tapping into their personal networks to turn people out to vote against the amendments, holding house parties and school-based parties to educate people on the amendments, and more. 

“Everyday working people and public school parents are creative and tough and scrappy,” Moore said. “If we commit to not just voting ‘no’ but also organizing other people in our networks and in our school communities, that’s when we really start to build the power to defeat the amendments.”

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Even public schools in wealthy counties like Durham, home to Duke University (which has a $14.3 billion endowment) and Duke University Health System (which made nearly $766 million in profits last year), are chronically underfunded. The riches of these two tax-exempt nonprofit institutions haven’t trickled down. Among other demands, the Durham Rising coalition—made up of workers, students, and community members—is calling for Duke University to help fund public schools and educator salaries by making a voluntary payment to the local government called a PILOT, or payment in lieu of taxes.

Since the summer, Christy Patterson, vice president of the Durham chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators, or NCAE, and a middle school teacher for students with disabilities, has been knocking on doors to tell folks the amendments are for billionaires, not everyday people. The NCAE, which functions as a professional organization because North Carolina bans public-sector collective bargaining, is part of the NC Vote Against coalition and was one of the main architects of the “Kids Over Corporations” rally in May.

“Our voters and our community are engaging us in conversation on the doors,” Patterson said. “We’ve had some conversations that really made us think. Constructive friction on the doors is always good because everybody’s not going to say the same thing or think the same. They’re just so ready to open the door and talk to us, so we are grateful for that.”

Organizing for the long run

In a September poll by Elon University, 67 percent of respondents were in favor of the income tax amendment, and 72 percent supported the property tax amendment. Organizers are working hard to turn that tide.

However, even if they don’t get their desired outcome, there is an entire movement that will continue holding North Carolina corporations and wealthy households accountable until they contribute their fair share to the public good. Organizations like the Carolina Federation, Down Home NC, and the NCAE have been engaging in this work for years and are in it for the long haul.

Warren hopes the Fund the Future campaign can help shift the narrative so that people understand that “taxes” aren’t inherently bad but rather a tool for improving quality of life for themselves, their families, and their communities. 

“Through years of listening and campaigning, we know what working people across North Carolina want,” Warren said: well-funded, well-staffed public schools, healthcare access, transportation options and recreation programs for kids, infrastructure for effective disaster response. “When we talk to people about those things, even when they understand that it may involve an increase in taxes for them personally, they support funding those types of programs.”

This article A North Carolina movement asks voters to reject corporate tax breaks was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Hungary’s new government is considering replacing Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom as the main contractor for the Paks II nuclear power plant, raising questions about whether Budapest is preparing to break with Moscow or simply seeking more favorable terms for a project already plagued by delays and rising costs.

According to an October 21 Reuters investigation, Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s government has begun exploring alternative suppliers as part of a comprehensive review of the €12.5 billion project, awarded to Rosatom by former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in 2014.

The uncertainty has reached Rosatom’s leadership. Director General Alexei Likhachev acknowledged on October 23 that the project could either accelerate or be abandoned altogether, adding that the corporation had received no response to its requests for talks with the Hungarian government.

But Bellona nuclear expert Dmitry Gorchakov cautions against interpreting the reports as evidence that Hungary has decided to abandon Rosatom.

“I fear these rumors about a possible replacement, attributed to anonymous sources, are simply part of the debate now taking place indirectly between Hungary’s new government and Rosatom,” he said.

The high cost of breaking with Russia

Paks II involves two Russian-designed VVER-1200 reactors intended to expand Hungary’s nuclear generating capacity. Construction has suffered repeated delays, with the first concrete poured only in February 2026.

By then, Hungary had already spent more than €2 billion on the project, including approximately €1.1 billion paid to Rosatom. Gorchakov says the threat of cancellation may be a negotiating tactic rather than a settled policy.

“Refusing to work with Rosatom would be the most radical measure, one that apparently was not even discussed during the election campaign,” he said. “It may be useful as a bargaining position, but that does not mean it will actually happen.”

He estimates that replacing the Russian contractor could delay construction by another five to ten years—about how long it would take to approve an alternative design and begin building.

There is at least one European precedent for breaking with Rosatom on a major construction project—Finland’s Hanhikivi plant, which Helsinki cancelled in 2022 with the outbreak of the Ukraine war. But unlike Finland, Gorchakov notes, Hungary remains deeply dependent on Rosatom. Its four existing reactors operate on Russian nuclear fuel, while Rosatom is expected to participate in extending their operating lives.

“Breaking relations with Rosatom could involve much more than simply abandoning a new Russian nuclear power plant,” Gorchakov said.

Such a rupture, he added, could trigger litigation, diplomatic disputes—just as Finland’s divorce with Rosatom did.

Geopolitical calculations

Bellona nuclear expert Alexander Nikitin agrees that negotiations over the future of PAKS II may be underway but argues that economic considerations alone cannot determine the outcome.

“Geopolitics will enter into these economic negotiations,” he said. “And that could very well mean Rosatom loses.”

Nikitin believes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally changed how European governments assess long-term dependence on Russian technology.

Building a Russian nuclear power plant establishes relationships with Moscow lasting many decades, encompassing fuel supplies, maintenance, specialized equipment and technical expertise. For countries seeking to reduce Moscow’s influence, those commitments increasingly carry political risks.

“Experience from Ukraine and other countries previously dependent on Rosatom shows that it is possible to replace the corporation at any stage,” Nikitin said. “Of course, the question is how much it costs.”

But he argues that the price of replacing Rosatom must be weighed against the long-term political and strategic costs of maintaining dependence on Russia.

Is there a compromise to be had?

Hungary is already pursuing alternatives to Russian supplies. On October 29, Magyar’s government submitted legislation to formalize a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, covering civilian nuclear technology, including small modular reactors.

The agreement, originally signed under Orbán, encourages the use of American technology in future nuclear projects. It does not, however, resolve the question of Paks II.

Gorchakov believes Budapest may ultimately seek a broader compromise, using the project’s future to negotiate better terms with Rosatom while gradually diversifying fuel supplies and reducing Russian involvement in the existing plant.

Rosatom also has reasons to compromise. Paks II remains its only nuclear power plant construction project in the European Union, making its preservation commercially and politically important.

The dispute comes amid continuing uncertainty over the project’s regulatory and environmental future. A September 2025 European Court of Justice ruling annulled the European Commission’s approval of Hungarian state aid, while exceptionally low Danube water levels have raised questions about cooling arrangements for the expanded station.

Gorchakov argues that these concerns should form part of Hungary’s review, alongside the project’s finances.

Hungary’s decision, expected by late 2026 or early 2027, will therefore determine more than the future of two reactors. It will test how far a European country deeply embedded in Russia’s nuclear industry is prepared to go to reduce that dependence.

The post Hungary weighs breaking with Rosatom as nuclear plant build tests Russian influence appeared first on Bellona.org.

“I think the cost-sharing elements are by far probably the most important part of this bill,” Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif., told Utility Dive. “My hope is that can unlock a lot more collaboration as opposed to ... folks pointing the finger at each other.”

Europa Oil & Gas has announced an extension to the life of its Crosby Warren licence in North Lincolnshire.

The company reported in a statement that the industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), had agreed to extend licence DL001 to 18 October 2032.

Interim results, issued by Europa last month, confirmed the licence had been due to expire next year (2027).

Europa has a 100% working interest in the Crosby Warren licence. The licence was issued on 19 October 1987 and now measures 9km2.

NSTA data shows that the first full year of production at Crosby Warren (1988) produced the highest oil volume (15,483m3) in the history of the field.

Source: NSTA

In each of the past three full years, (2023-2025), annual production at Crosby Warren has been below 1,000m3, averaging 483m3 a year.

In 2025, Crosby Warren ranked 26 out of 30 UK producing onshore oil fields for volume. Its contribution to UK onshore oil production in that year was 0.08%.

Last month (September 2026), Europa said a workover operation on the CW-1 well at Crosby Warren was “expected to be concluded imminently”.

American Electric Power’s contracted large loads jumped 22%, to 84 GW, mainly on a 10.4-GW data center in Ohio being developed by SB Energy, company officials said Wednesday.

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With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.

At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.

The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.

In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action. 

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Li also pledged to advocate for an “open and efficient” trade system that “facilitates” adoption of clean-energy technologies.

On the more traditional topics of mitigation and finance, Li highlighted the need to “address insufficient emission reduction efforts by developed countries and inadequate financial support” for developing countries.

Carbon Brief asked six leading experts on China what they believe China wants from COP31 and what signals they will be watching for. 

Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Article Contents Expand menu

• Kate Logan
• Ma Jun 
• Yao Zhe 
• Prof Ryna Cui 
• Dr Joseph Dellatte 
• Prof Jeremy Wallace 

Kate Logan

Director of the China climate hub and climate diplomacy, Asia Society Policy Institute

In an era where global climate cooperation is severely challenged, China’s top priority at COP31 will be upholding multilateralism. With most “big ticket” items under the Paris Agreement now complete and constrained expectations for major new breakthroughs at COP31, China may be satisfied with a conference that produces no major drama and little else.

Nevertheless, expect China’s vision for multilateralism to have a distinct flavor to it. Chinese officials may again leverage the COP stage to oppose unilateralism and promote an open and fair international trade system, reflecting Beijing’s persistent frustration with tariffs and other measures that have inhibited the global flow of Chinese clean technologies. One question is whether they will do this through existing spaces or push for a dedicated agenda item on trade, given that COP30’s trade outcomes, championed by China, mostly relegated discussions to mid-year technical meetings.

China may also seek clarity on implementation pathways for existing targets, including nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and the $300bn climate finance goal. Amid US withdrawal, officials remain anxious about additional pressure that Beijing may receive. After vice-premier Ding Xuexiang shared at COP29 that China has provided and mobilised over 177bn yuan ($26.5bn) in climate finance for developing countries since 2016, China has refrained from issuing further quantitative updates, while maintaining the imperative for developed countries to take the lead on climate finance. China may be happy to let other developing countries push this agenda while serving as a broker in the end game to ensure its own interests are protected.

Ma Jun 

Founder and director, Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs

I think China wants COP31 to reaffirm confidence in multilateral climate cooperation and translate commitments into action. With the risk of overshooting 1.5C almost unavoidable, I expect China to seek clearer delivery of climate finance for developing countries; encourage reductions in potent, short-lived greenhouse gases such as methane; support a just transition; and highlight trade barriers affecting clean technologies.

I will be watching whether negotiations produce credible plans for delivering finance, particularly for adaptation, as well as practical support for implementing national climate pledges. The climate-trade debate will also matter. Can countries address their differences while keeping renewable energy and other clean technologies affordable and accessible? It will be an important test of whether countries can achieve global energy-transition targets by 2030 and turn shared ambitions into measurable emissions reductions.

Yao Zhe 

Global policy advisor, Greenpeace East Asia

At COP31, I expect a continued push from China to integrate more trade perspectives into the climate negotiations. Beijing’s new five-year plan on climate action envisions a constructive leadership role in global climate governance, specifically calling for the proper handling of climate-trade issues and the free flow of low-carbon products. It will be critical to watch how this grand strategy plays out on the negotiation floor.

I will also be watching how China responds to the COP presidency’s electrification initiative. Beijing increasingly views climate diplomacy through the lens of clean-energy diplomacy – an approach that directly leverages its industrial strength on renewables, electric vehicles (EVs), batteries and grid infrastructure. While China should naturally welcome a global electrification initiative that will lead to larger overseas markets, it likely remains reluctant to link these targets to any commitments regarding transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Prof Ryna Cui 

Associate research professor and research director, University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability

There isn’t much on the formal negotiation agenda for this year’s COP. The core theme will continue to focus on implementation and delivery, which I think China has strong interests in. This is because of both progress made domestically with the clean energy transition and the overseas economic opportunities to support other countries’ implementation with low-cost Chinese clean technologies. 

One thing exciting for me to watch is that, as China reaches its coal and oil peak, it may open up space for increased interests and leadership in the global “transitioning away from fossil fuels” agenda. This may not happen immediately through formal government negotiations, but more likely through broader bilateral and multilateral engagements. 

As the world navigates options and challenges for the 1.5C overshoot future, China can also contribute critically beyond the energy transition, especially on opportunities for rapid abatement of methane, industrial nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons and other non-CO2 gases as part of its 2035 all-sector, all-greenhouse gas NDC.

Dr Joseph Dellatte 

Resident fellow and head of energy and climate studies, Institut Montaigne

China will likely seek recognition as a climate leader while defending its position as the world’s cleantech manufacturing hub, amid growing trade tensions. I’ll watch whether it continues to frame the global transition primarily around access to Chinese technologies and open markets for its exports, or shows greater willingness to discuss cooperation that shares industrial benefits through local manufacturing, joint ventures and technology sharing. Its delegation and pavilion messaging will reveal how Beijing responds to partners seeking their own place in cleantech value chains.

In the negotiations, I’ll watch whether China accepts greater responsibility for climate ambition while maintaining its leadership role among developing countries, including through additional voluntary climate finance. Electrification will be another test. Will Beijing support commitments linking electrification to cleaner grids and use its influence to bring reluctant fossil-fuel producers on board?

Prof Jeremy Wallace 

A Doak Barnett professor of China studies, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies 

China seems to hold many cards in the notional game of global climate leadership. Its firms have innovated and scaled up production to make solar, batteries and EVs cost-competitive with or cheaper than fossil alternatives. It has led in deployment of these technologies. 

Yet, in preparation for COP31, China seems more interested in fighting battles abroad about “unfair” tariffs on these products than about demonstrating their effectiveness by accelerating adoption of the green-tech revolution at home. China’s renewables buildout has slowed dramatically in 2026, while new coal power and coal chemical facilities continue to be built. The Chinese government has restricted firms from taking their best manufacturing innovations out of the country when building factories abroad. 

Climate leadership is up for grabs. I’m watching to see if Beijing will play its cards and show that they are a winning hand.

Related Analysis: China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 to avoid as much CO2 as Brazil emits in a year 29.10.2026 China policy Chart: A record two-thirds of car sales in China are now electric vehicles 23.10.2026 China policy Interactive: What China’s dozens of ‘five-year plans’ say about climate and energy 24.09.2026 China policy Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions fall in Q2 2026 due to plummeting oil use 03.09.2026 Emissions

The post Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks appeared first on Carbon Brief.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit said Texas has a “free lane” to enforce restrictions on foreign-owned companies’ access to the state’s electric grid in a ruling that could have implications for other states and market participants.

Two FirstEnergy utilities reserved combined-cycle turbines for a 1.2-GW data center-focused project in West Virginia and issued a solicitation for an additional 3 GW, company officials said.

Shell’s latest financial results reveal a striking contrast: a multibillion-dollar reassessment of a European biogas investment, a substantial increase in the accounting value of an LNG-related asset, and another $5 billion earmarked for share buybacks. What does this tell shareholders about the company’s energy-transition strategy?

By John Donovan — 29 October 2026

Shell plc has today announced third-quarter adjusted earnings of $10.814 billion, almost double the $5.432 billion recorded for the corresponding quarter in 2025.

Income attributable to shareholders reached $12.057 billion, while operating cash flow amounted to $21.043 billion.

These are impressive figures by almost any corporate standard.

But buried within Shell’s newly released financial statements are two disclosures that deserve particular attention.

The first concerns a $2.116 billion impairment of a European biogas asset.

The second concerns a $1.787 billion reversal of a previous impairment associated with a North American Integrated Gas asset, linked to changes in commercial terms and the final investment decision on LNG Canada Phase 2.

One investment has been written down substantially. Another has seen its recognised value increase.

The contrast raises an important question: what do Shell’s latest accounting decisions reveal about the commercial realities behind its energy-transition ambitions?

The $2.116 billion biogas write-down

On page 31 of its third-quarter financial statements, Shell discloses that it recognised total pre-tax impairments of $2.543 billion during the quarter.

Of that amount, $2.116 billion related to a European biogas asset within its Marketing business.

Shell attributes the impairment principally to a reassessment of management expectations concerning the speed of market development and the associated realisation of value.

In straightforward terms, Shell has concluded that the asset’s recoverable value is substantially lower than previously recognised.

The company has not identified the particular European biogas asset in this disclosure. It would therefore be inappropriate to attribute the charge conclusively to a named facility or subsidiary without further evidence.

That qualification does not diminish the significance of the announcement.

Biogas and renewable natural gas have featured prominently in Shell’s efforts to diversify beyond conventional fossil fuels.

Such investments have been presented as opportunities to use existing gas infrastructure while serving customers seeking lower-carbon alternatives.

Yet the latest impairment suggests that, at least for the asset concerned, commercial expectations have fallen materially.

The charge does not necessarily represent $2.116 billion in cash lost during this quarter. An impairment is an accounting recognition that an asset’s carrying value exceeds its recoverable amount.

Nevertheless, it is a substantial acknowledgement that previous assumptions about future value have changed.

Shareholders are entitled to ask how those assumptions were developed, what caused them to change, and whether further reassessments might follow.

Meanwhile, LNG Canada gains $1.787 billion in recognised value

The contrasting disclosure concerns LNG Canada.

Shell reports that impairment reversals recognised during the third quarter totalled $1.801 billion before tax.

Almost the entire amount — $1.787 billion — relates to a North American asset within its Integrated Gas business.

According to Shell, the reversal was triggered by revised commercial terms and the final investment decision taken on LNG Canada Phase 2 during the third quarter.

A reversal of an impairment means that an asset’s recoverable value has increased sufficiently to justify reversing part of an earlier write-down, subject to applicable accounting limits.

It is not equivalent to receiving $1.787 billion in cash.

Nevertheless, the financial message is significant.

While Shell has lowered the recognised value of a European biogas investment, it has increased the recognised value of an asset associated with a major LNG development.

The LNG Canada Phase 2 investment decision, taken in September 2026, is itself substantial.

According to Shell, the expansion will increase the project’s annual production capacity from 14 million tonnes to 28 million tonnes.

Shell holds a 40% interest and expects to receive nearly six million additional tonnes of LNG annually from the expansion. Commercial operations are expected to begin in the early 2030s.

That represents a long-term commitment to natural gas infrastructure.

The two accounting adjustments concern different assets, markets and commercial circumstances. They should not be treated as a direct measure of the relative profitability of biogas and LNG across Shell’s entire portfolio.

But taken together, they provide a revealing snapshot of where important commercial expectations have strengthened — and where they have weakened.

Another $5 billion for shareholders

Against this background, Shell has announced a further $5 billion share-buyback programme, expected to be completed by the fourth-quarter 2026 results announcement.

During the third quarter, shareholder distributions totalled approximately $5.3 billion, comprising $3.2 billion in share repurchases and $2.2 billion in cash dividends.

Shell also reported:

• Adjusted earnings: $10.814 billion
• Income attributable to shareholders: $12.057 billion
• Operating cash flow: $21.043 billion
• Free cash flow: $16.322 billion
• Net debt: $39.7 billion, compared with $41.8 billion at the end of the preceding quarter

These figures illustrate the continuing financial strength of Shell’s operations.

They also sharpen the debate about capital allocation.

Shareholders must assess whether management is directing capital towards investments capable of delivering sustainable long-term returns, rather than merely pursuing businesses that appear attractive under a particular political or commercial climate.

For an oil and gas company navigating the energy transition, that challenge is especially important.

This is not Shell’s first bioenergy disappointment

The latest biogas impairment should not be considered in isolation.

In its third-quarter results, Shell also refers to an impairment recognised during the equivalent quarter of 2025, principally associated with its decision not to restart construction of the planned biofuels facility at the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam.

That earlier episode involved a different project and different commercial considerations.

Nevertheless, both developments illustrate the financial challenges that can arise when large energy-transition investments confront changing market assumptions.

Shell is not alone in facing those challenges.

The development of lower-carbon energy markets depends on regulatory arrangements, customer demand, infrastructure, technology, competitive conditions and the availability of commercially viable returns.

But Shell’s size, resources and influence make its investment decisions particularly consequential.

When management commits billions to emerging energy businesses, shareholders are entitled to expect rigorous scrutiny of the assumptions supporting those commitments.

When those assumptions change, the reasons should be explained transparently.

The distinction between adjusted earnings and reported profits

There is another important accounting consideration.

Shell’s preferred measure of adjusted earnings excludes identified items such as certain impairments, impairment reversals, divestment gains and other adjustments.

Consequently, the headline adjusted earnings figure of $10.814 billion does not measure the full effect of every accounting development during the quarter.

The biogas charge and LNG-related reversal are reflected in the company’s statutory financial reporting, but excluded from adjusted earnings through Shell’s reconciliation process.

That approach is not inherently improper. Adjusted earnings are commonly used to compare underlying operating performance between reporting periods.

However, readers should examine both adjusted and statutory results.

A multibillion-dollar impairment remains financially meaningful even when excluded from a company’s preferred performance measure.

Equally, an impairment reversal should not be mistaken for recurring operating earnings.

What Shell’s own disclosures tell us

For readers of The Shell Leaks Files and the Independent Shell Archive, the significance of these disclosures extends beyond one quarterly reporting period.

Our historical investigations have repeatedly examined the relationship between Shell’s public representations, internal commercial assessments and subsequent developments.

The Sakhalin-2 documentary record demonstrates why it is important to preserve contemporaneous evidence of what companies expected, what actually happened, and how management explained the differences.

The present circumstances are not evidence of wrongdoing or a repetition of the Sakhalin controversy.

They are, however, another example of why the company’s original financial disclosures deserve permanent preservation and careful analysis.

The figures published on 29 October 2026 provide a verifiable reference point against which future management explanations can be assessed.

Several questions arise:

First, which European biogas asset accounts for the $2.116 billion impairment, and what changes in market expectations produced such a substantial revision?

Second, how much of the LNG-related valuation improvement arises from revised commercial arrangements, and how much from the decision to proceed with Phase 2?

Third, what do these developments imply for Shell’s remaining investments in biogas, biofuels and other lower-carbon businesses?

Fourth, how does management reconcile these commercial developments with its longer-term energy-transition strategy?

These are legitimate questions for shareholders, analysts and the wider public.

They do not imply that Shell has concealed information or breached its reporting obligations.

They arise directly from the company’s published figures.

A revealing moment in Shell’s energy transition

Shell’s third-quarter results demonstrate that the company continues to generate substantial earnings and cash flow.

They also demonstrate that the value of particular energy-transition investments can change dramatically as commercial expectations evolve.

The biogas impairment suggests significant disappointment in the anticipated economics of one European asset.

The LNG Canada impairment reversal reflects more favourable expectations for an asset associated with a major expansion of natural gas production capacity.

The contrast is noteworthy.

Shell’s energy transition cannot be judged solely by corporate statements of ambition. It must also be judged by investment decisions, asset valuations, capital expenditure and the eventual financial and environmental outcomes.

The company’s own financial reporting provides some of the most important evidence.

And today’s figures offer another reminder that the distinction between an attractive corporate narrative and a commercially successful investment can be measured in billions of dollars.

The central question is not whether Shell remains profitable. Clearly, it does. The question is whether its evolving portfolio demonstrates that the energy-transition investments promoted to shareholders are delivering the commercial results originally anticipated.

That is a question worth continuing to investigate.

Principal sources and further reading

Primary corporate disclosures

Shell plc — Third Quarter 2026 and Nine Months Unaudited Results, published 29 October 2026

The principal source for all financial figures, impairment charges, impairment reversals, portfolio developments and share repurchases discussed above. See particularly the financial statement notes on page 31.

Shell plc — Third Quarter 2026 Results Announcement

Shell’s official results announcement and investor information.

Shell — Third Quarter 2026 Update Note, 7 October 2026

Shell’s earlier trading update, providing useful context for comparing preliminary expectations with the final quarterly results.

Previous independent reporting

Shell’s Latest SEC Filing Reveals the Contradictions of Its Energy Transition: Refining Profits, Carbon Costs and Biogas Write-Downs — 8 October 2026

Earlier coverage of Shell’s third-quarter outlook and the emerging biogas impairment issue.

Shell’s Green Future Moves to China Just as Its German Battery Dream Goes Bust — 25 October 2026

Related examination of Shell’s lower-carbon investment portfolio.

Editorial note: This article is based principally on Shell plc’s unaudited third-quarter financial statements published on 29 October 2026. The accounting figures and explanations attributed to Shell are drawn from its own disclosures. Commentary concerning the implications for investment strategy and shareholders represents independent editorial analysis. This article does not allege accounting misconduct or regulatory violations. The financial results are company-issued primary disclosures; their status as a new SEC EDGAR filing has not been independently established.

Shell plc is invited to provide factual corrections or additional explanations, including identification of the European biogas asset concerned and further details of the commercial assumptions underpinning the impairment and LNG-related reversal. Any substantive response will be considered for publication.

Shell’s $10.8 Billion Profit Bonanza: A $2.1 Billion Biogas Write-Down as LNG Canada Gains $1.8 Billion in Value was first posted on October 29, 2026 at 1:06 pm.
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Compostable plastics are touted as a greener alternative to conventional petroleum-based plastics that can linger in the environment for centuries. But there’s a catch. Degradable plastics only break down in the right conditions typically found in a composting facility. The tons of compostable plastic that ends up in oceans can still float around for decades and threaten marine life and ecosystems.

Researchers have found a way for plastics to break down much faster in the ocean. They embedded tiny amounts of plastic-degrading enzymes in compostable polyester plastics. The enzyme-containing polyesters completely degraded in a relatively short time period even in microbe-scarce environments.

The method works at all depths from coastal waters to the deep open sea, the researchers report in the journal Nature.

There are many types of biodegradable plastics in commercial use today. These plastics are designed to decompose completely by microorganisms at certain temperatures and humidities. Those conditions are found in industrial composting facilities and with more care in backyard compost settings. But out in cold ocean water, biodegradable plastics can persist for a long time.

The research team from Japan took four types of compostable plastic—PBS, PBSA, PCL, and PBAT—and melted them. The heat of the melt would destroy plastic-degrading enzymes. So the researchers made freeze-dried forms of Candida antarctica lipase B and Humicola insolens cutinase enzymes. They added the enzymes to the melts at very low concentrations ranging from 0.1–3% by weight.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Ocean microbes may be developing taste for plastic pollution

 

Then the researchers shaped the materials into films and microbeads. After sealing the samples in a polyethylene meshes, they placed the meshes at various locations off the coast of Tokyo, ranging in water depths from 2–6 m to 5,503 m. They monitored the samples over periods ranging from one month to 18 months.

At 757 m, PBS, PBSA and PCL films containing 3% cutinase nearly completely disappeared within five months. Films of those three plastics containing only 0.1 wt% cutinase lost 27.4%, 100% and 85.5% of their mass, respectively, in 1 month. But PBAT was more resistant, losing just over 12% under the same conditions.

Enzyme-free samples barely degraded. And enzyme-containing plastics also showed moderate biodegradation on the cold floor of the deepest test site. Meanwhile, microbeads embedded with 0.1 wt% cutinase formed visible pores and cracks within 2 weeks in coastal seawater.

“These results demonstrate enzyme embedding as a material-level strategy to enhance the environmental degradability of the compostable polyesters…across diverse marine environments without compromising their mechanical properties,” the researchers write.

Source: QiuYuan Huang et al. Enzyme-embedded polyesters for accelerated biodegradation in the deep sea. Nature, 2026.

©Anthropocene Magazine

A temporary shortage of meter components should be fully resolved by the end of the year, the electrical equipment supplier said in its third-quarter earnings call.

Would you trust a detox facility that offers a minibar in every room? How about a climate course sponsored by ExxonMobil? If not, you might direct the same incredulity towards Canada’s recently unveiled Responsible Data Centre Development Principles, endorsed by tech giants that are implicated in violating those same principles. 

Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon announced the voluntary and non-binding principles in September in response to mounting public opposition to massive data centre developments. It is hardly encouraging that the same companies leading the disruptive build out of massive data centres, such as Amazon, Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic, quickly signed on to this toothless commitment. 

“Data centres must protect ratepayers, respect water and energy resources, and create lasting benefits for the communities that host them,” assured Solomon at the launch in September. “These principles set a clear national standard: If you build in Canada, you must build responsibly and transparently and you must build for Canadians.”

Really?

Barely three weeks after these companies pledged to Canadians to be “transparent about local impacts,” the U.S. House Judiciary Committee opened an investigation into Amazon, Google, and Meta for using non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to gag state and local officials from telling their constituents about data centre impacts on local water supplies and electricity rates.

“Google’s own confidentiality agreements have been shown to contain language that explicitly prevents local officials from disclosing ‘the terms of any agreement,’” ranking member Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote in a letter to Google’s parent company Alphabet.

For over a year, the company fought a local newspaper in Oregon in the courts to keep its Dalles data centre’s water consumption hidden, arguing the figure was a “trade secret.” When the courts finally forced the release of this essential information, it was revealed  that Google was using a quarter of the entire city’s water. A company that litigates to hide its water use from the residents of one small town is now asking Canadians to trust its promise of transparency here.

A Meta subsidiary in Louisiana likewise convinced Republican Gov. Jeff Landry to sign an NDA tied to a $50 billion data centre campus. Over 100 Louisiana state public officials signed similar gag orders that apparently silence them even if they leave government. Eric Holl, an adviser to former Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, told the Gulf States Newsroom, “I don’t see this being used as anything other than a tool of intimidation and control.”

Citizens in Wisconsin were also forced to sue the local utility regulator to release documents detailing the projected energy demand of a proposed Meta data centre after this basic information was also deemed a trade secret.

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The impacts of enormous AI facilities on American communities are well known. The consequences being visited on Canadian towns and residents are concerning to say the least.

The principles say centres must reduce environmental impacts, and prioritize “low-emission energy sources.” Yet a contentious data centre development in Saskatchewan proposed by Bell Canada – also a signatory to Minister Solomon’s principles – would require as much generating capacity as the entire city of Regina. About 900 megawatts (MW) of its power will come from behind-the-fence gas generation. The Regina City Council recently debated the development for over seven hours and voted to demand more information on potential impacts on local water supplies and electricity costs. A total of 18,000 residents have signed a petition opposing the project.

Beacon Data Centers is another signatory, which stated it is “proud to stand with governments, municipalities, and industry in supporting them.” Yet the company is embroiled in a bitter dispute with residents of Lorneville, New Brunswick, who are understandably opposed to the company’s plans to fill in a local wetland to expand an industrial park with a data centre that will require more than 10 percent of provincial energy demand. The data centre would become one of New Brunswick’s biggest emitters, generating 6.6 percent of provincial emissions.

According to reporting from the Narwhal, “documents obtained through provincial access to information legislation … show provincial officials were in discussions to bring a data centre to the [industrial] park long before residents were told about the tenant — and that details of that data centre conflicted with the more low-impact vision for the industrial park advertised to residents.”

DeSmog has already documented the massive buildout of data centres in Alberta, almost entirely powered by burning natural gas. Almost 21 GW of potential new gas capacity is enthusiastically being embraced by provincial regulators, an amount described as “absurdly high” by Alex de Vries  at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Based on similar gas-fired installations around the world, de Vries estimated this amount of new data centres would require about 200 billion litres in cooling water each year. How is this not supposed to impact local electricity rates, heating costs, or water supplies?

This absurd increase in climate-killing gas consumption seems, in fact, to be the point. Internal Privy Council documents obtained by DeSmog from Greenpeace showed that increased gas demand was being touted by senior advisors to Prime Minister Mark Carney as one of the top “public policy benefits to Canada” of data centres.

Bringing “strategic value to Canada” is another vague goal of the newly announced data centre principles. If this is meant to allude to protecting Canadian data sovereignty, building facilities owned by Google, Meta, Amazon or other tech giants will accomplish very little. The U.S. government can compel an American company that controls data – regardless of location – to release it to American regulators under the CLOUD Act (2018). 

Regardless of the law, many of the enthusiastic corporate endorsers of Canada’s new data centre principles have repeatedly demonstrated their obedient political fealty to the Trump administration. Tech leaders attended his inauguration, donated vast sums of money to the Trump campaign, and indulged the president’s geographic fits of pique by rapidly renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” on Google and Apple maps. 

With this cohort driving Canada’s tech build-out, what could possibly go wrong?

Canadians are justifiably concerned data centres will impact local water supplies and electricity costs. We need bold policies that will improve digital safety and address increasing democratic threats from AI-driven disinformation. Rather than bringing in meaningful and enforceable regulations, the federal government has instead trotted out vague platitudes endorsed by the same companies contributing to the problem. Ottawa, we have a credibility problem.

The post Canada’s ‘Responsible’ Data Centre Principles Have a Credibility Problem appeared first on DeSmog.

Lake Powell recently dropped to a historic low, slashing hydropower and the flow of water downstream. As drought deepens, groups are pushing to drain the lake entirely to reveal its long-submerged rock arches and spires and allow wildlife along the Colorado River to recover.

Read more on E360 →

La Vía Campesina alert the world to the grave situation facing Ecuador.

The post La Vía Campesina denounces the alarming criminalization and fascist drift of Daniel Noboa’s regime in Ecuador appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

La Vía Campesina stands in solidarity with the peoples in Haiti who are fighting for their sovereignty and dignity.

The post La Via Campesina stands in solidarity with the Haitian people and their struggles for sovereignty, social justice, and self-determination appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

By John Donovan — 29 October 2026

A newly launched website, ExposeShell.com, is drawing attention to historical evidence that Shell commissioned research into the climatic consequences of burning fossil fuels as early as 1966. The archive brings together material associated with British scientist James Lovelock, Shell’s later greenhouse-effect studies and legal claims arising from Typhoon Rai in the Philippines. But how strong is the evidence, what is genuinely new, and what would make the archive most valuable to independent researchers?

In the interests of transparency and fairness, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com extends an open invitation to the ExposeShell organisers to respond to this review. We offer to publish their response in full, subject only to ordinary legal and privacy safeguards. Shell is equally welcome to respond.

Introduction: From protest slogan to documentary evidence

The launch of ExposeShell.com on 28 October 2026 represents a potentially important addition to the growing network of archives documenting the oil industry’s historical knowledge of climate change.

The initiative is associated with Fossil Free London and The Odette Case, a campaign supporting survivors of Typhoon Rai who are pursuing legal action against Shell.

The launch attracted international attention when climate campaigners staged a theatrical demonstration outside Shell’s London headquarters.

Participants dressed as 1960s oil executives, handled imitation money and acted out scenes intended to portray the suppression of inconvenient scientific evidence.

The message was unmistakable: Shell knew about the potential dangers of fossil-fuel emissions decades ago.

But a slogan, however memorable, is not a substitute for historical evidence.

The documents are what matter.

This review examines the principal records associated with ExposeShell, their historical significance, the allegations they may help investigate and the limitations of the conclusions that can presently be drawn.

One qualification is necessary. Although ExposeShell’s launch and several of its featured documents can be independently verified, direct access to the new website was unavailable during this review. This is therefore a documentary assessment of its reported collection and supporting sources, not a completed technical audit of every page or feature.

That limitation is also one reason we particularly welcome a response from the ExposeShell team, who may be able to clarify the website’s contents, organisation and future development.

1. The 1966 Lovelock report: the archive’s most significant historical evidence

The most compelling feature of the project is the research commissioned from British scientist James Lovelock.

In June 1966, Lovelock prepared a report for Shell entitled:

Combustion of Fossil Fuel: Large Scale Atmospheric Effects — Part 1: Climatic Changes.

The report examined possible connections between fossil-fuel combustion and changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and climate.

Its historical importance is substantial.

It establishes that Shell was commissioning specialist scientific research into the possible climatic consequences of fossil-fuel combustion sixty years ago.

This was long before climate change became a central issue in international politics.

The document was preserved among Lovelock’s papers at the Science Museum Library and Archives in Britain.

Investigative journalists subsequently examined the collection.

In July 2026, DeSmog published a detailed investigation drawing upon the original report and associated correspondence.

The research included concerns about worsening climatic conditions and the possible responsibility of fossil-fuel combustion.

That evidence matters because it connects the history directly to Shell’s own commissioning of research.

This is stronger than merely establishing that climate science was publicly available in 1966.

A report specifically prepared for Shell demonstrates a direct corporate connection with the subject.

However, it is important to distinguish three propositions.

First, Shell commissioned climate-related scientific research.

Second, the research contained warnings concerning potential climatic effects.

Third, Shell deliberately suppressed those warnings to deceive the public.

The first two propositions are supported by the historical documents.

The third requires further evidence concerning corporate decisions, communications and intent.

The distinction is essential to the integrity of any serious documentary archive.

Source: DeSmog — The Lovelock Papers, 29 July 2026

2. An important discovery: Lovelock’s relationship with Shell continued

The historical record extends beyond a single report in 1966.

DeSmog’s investigation identifies further correspondence and research involving Lovelock and Shell during subsequent decades.

His consultancy relationship resumed around 1980.

In March 1982, Lovelock submitted two papers identified in the surviving correspondence as Casting Pearls before Minkand Comments on CO2 in the Atmosphere.

The complete papers had not been located in the research reported by DeSmog in July 2026.

But related correspondence indicates that Shell produced internal memoranda based upon Lovelock’s work for circulation to more senior personnel.

This is a particularly promising area for further investigation.

The surviving correspondence establishes that additional scientific material existed and was considered significant enough for internal communication.

But it does not establish the complete contents of papers that have not been recovered.

A responsible archive should therefore distinguish the original documents that can be read from missing documents whose existence is evidenced only indirectly.

That approach avoids turning gaps in the surviving record into unsupported certainty.

It also creates a useful research agenda.

Locating the 1982 papers, their subsequent internal summaries and any related correspondence could materially improve understanding of how Lovelock’s advice was received within Shell.

The new archive could make a valuable contribution by maintaining a public register of such missing but identifiable documents.

3. The 1985 Shell lecture: a more explicit scientific warning

Another important discovery concerns a 1985 lecture prepared by Lovelock.

DeSmog’s July investigation reports that the document was found among his preserved papers.

Its concerns were more explicit than those expressed two decades earlier.

By 1985, Lovelock had developed the ideas associated with his Gaia hypothesis.

His understanding of the Earth as an interacting system informed his warnings concerning excessive atmospheric pollution.

The document raised the prospect of consequences on a global scale.

The historical significance is not simply that Lovelock became more concerned about climate change.

It is that his relationship with Shell provided another opportunity for the company to encounter his developing scientific thinking.

But an important evidential question remains.

A lecture prepared for Shell does not, by itself, prove exactly which directors or executives heard it, read it or relied upon it.

Those questions require attendance records, correspondence, distribution lists or other contemporaneous evidence.

The distinction between a scientist communicating a warning and a corporation adopting or rejecting that warning is fundamental.

An archive seeking to establish corporate knowledge should make such distinctions explicit.

4. The confidential 1988 report: Shell’s internal assessment becomes clearer

The 1988 Shell report entitled The Greenhouse Effect is one of the most important documents in the company’s climate history.

Unlike the earlier Lovelock research, it was an internal Shell report.

It examined the greenhouse effect and the possible consequences of increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Its analysis discussed major changes to climate systems, sea levels, weather patterns and precipitation.

It also considered the difficulty of responding effectively once substantial warming had become unmistakable.

The report demonstrates that Shell was studying the risks of climate change internally by the late 1980s.

Its significance is reinforced by the company’s recognition of the role of fossil-fuel combustion in increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Yet this is not a document newly discovered in October 2026.

The report has been publicly available through earlier investigations and documentary archives.

The Climate Investigations Center, Climate Files and other research projects have preserved or published important sections of Shell’s historical climate records.

The contribution of ExposeShell is therefore not necessarily the first discovery of every document it features.

Its potential contribution lies in bringing the evidence together, explaining its relevance and connecting it with current legal and public debates.

That distinction matters.

Discovering a document, digitising it, publishing it and placing it within an accessible research archive are different achievements.

All can be valuable, but they should be credited accurately.

Source: Climate Investigations Center — Shell Climate Documents

5. Is the evidence genuinely new?

This is one of the most important questions to ask of ExposeShell.

The available evidence suggests that the answer differs from document to document.

The Lovelock papers received significant new attention following DeSmog’s investigation in July 2026.

The 1985 lecture and correspondence surrounding the missing 1982 papers appear particularly important.

Other documents, including the 1988 greenhouse-effect report, have been publicly examined for years.

Additional Shell records concerning corporate planning, climate policy and public communications were identified by investigators including Jelmer Mommers and Vatan Hüzeir.

These discoveries are available through established documentary resources.

The Climate Files collection, for example, contains materials concerning Shell’s internal planning and its approach to environmental policy during the 1980s and 1990s.

The ExposeShell initiative should therefore be understood as part of a developing documentary ecosystem.

Its value will depend partly on how effectively it connects existing evidence with newer discoveries.

A useful archive should identify which documents were previously unpublished, which have been republished and which are included for historical context.

Clear attribution to original researchers and repositories is essential.

That practice benefits the public and protects the reliability of the historical record.

6. The central weakness in the slogan “Shell Knew”

The phrase “Shell Knew” is effective campaigning language.

As historical analysis, however, it needs definition.

What exactly is meant by knew?

Knowledge that burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide is not identical to knowledge of the precise future consequences of global warming.

Knowledge that climate change poses serious risks is not identical to knowledge that a particular storm will occur.

And knowledge possessed by an individual scientist or company department is not automatically evidence that every director or employee held the same understanding.

A documentary investigation should distinguish levels of knowledge.

It should identify the scientific propositions contained in each report, the confidence expressed, the recipients and any subsequent corporate response.

The 1966 and 1988 documents provide substantial evidence concerning Shell’s historical engagement with climate science.

They do not, on their own, prove every element of the wider allegations made by campaigners or litigants.

This does not diminish their importance.

It makes them more useful.

The strongest case is the one that preserves the original meaning of the evidence rather than claiming more than the documents can establish.

7. Shell’s response deserves to be included

A fair examination must also consider Shell’s published position.

Shell acknowledges the urgency of climate change and the need for a transformation of the global energy system.

It disputes claims that litigation directed at individual companies provides an effective means of achieving that transformation.

Concerning the Typhoon Odette case, Shell has challenged the attempt to attribute responsibility for a specific extreme-weather disaster to the activities of one company and its customers.

It also disputes the allegation that it possessed unique knowledge of climate change.

Shell argues that the subject has been publicly discussed and researched for decades.

The company points to its public climate communications, including its 1991 film Climate of Concern, and says it supports action to reduce emissions.

These statements do not invalidate the original historical reports.

Nor do the original reports automatically disprove Shell’s entire defence.

The disagreement concerns the interpretation and legal consequences of historical knowledge, corporate conduct and emissions.

Readers should be able to examine both the underlying documents and Shell’s response.

Primary source: Shell — What Kind of Climate Lawsuits Have Been Filed Against Shell?

8. The Typhoon Odette litigation: why historical documents could matter in court

The ExposeShell project is connected with litigation involving survivors of Typhoon Rai, known locally as Typhoon Odette.

The storm struck the Philippines in December 2021.

It caused extensive destruction and loss of life.

Claimants represented by Hausfeld have brought proceedings against Shell in England.

They argue that greenhouse-gas emissions associated with Shell’s historical activities contributed to climate change and consequently to the losses suffered during the typhoon.

The claim involves difficult questions of scientific attribution and legal causation.

Climate science can examine how human-caused warming changes the probability or severity of certain extreme weather events.

But establishing legal responsibility for particular losses requires additional findings under the applicable law.

Historical evidence concerning Shell’s scientific knowledge may be relevant to questions about foreseeability, corporate conduct and responsibility.

It does not automatically resolve the causation question.

Nor does the existence of the lawsuit establish that the claimants will succeed.

The court must consider the evidence and competing legal arguments.

The historical climate documents may be important.

But they should not be described as a judicial determination of liability before the court has reached such a conclusion.

Source: Hausfeld — Typhoon Odette Survivors’ Climate Damages Claim Against Shell

9. The archive’s potential research value

ExposeShell’s underlying concept has substantial merit.

Historical corporate documents are often scattered among museums, academic collections, litigation records, investigative websites and archived media reports.

Researchers may know that a particular report exists without knowing where the complete document can be found.

A dedicated archive can reduce those difficulties.

It can also make documentary evidence accessible to readers who lack specialist knowledge of the energy industry.

But its usefulness depends upon transparency.

For every important document, the archive should ideally provide the original date, author, recipient, title, original repository, document reference and complete source.

Where documents have been obtained by journalists or researchers, that contribution should be acknowledged.

Where a report is incomplete, the missing sections should be identified.

Where the provenance is uncertain, the uncertainty should be disclosed.

A modern archive should also allow documents to be downloaded and searched.

For long-term research, individual files should have stable identifiers and permanent links.

The underlying content should remain accessible independently of interactive graphics or promotional material.

These are standards against which ExposeShell can be assessed as it develops.

The publicly available descriptions establish that the initiative is intended to make historical evidence more accessible.

A completed technical examination of the live website would still be needed to determine how fully it currently meets those standards.

10. Why ExposeShell and the Donovan–Shell archive could complement one another

There is considerable potential for cooperation between ExposeShell and the independent Donovan–Shell documentary archive.

The two projects approach Shell’s history from different directions.

ExposeShell concentrates on climate science, corporate knowledge and the relationship between historical evidence and contemporary climate litigation.

The Donovan–Shell archive covers a much wider range of subjects.

These include the company’s historical corporate conduct, internal communications, legal disputes, whistleblower disclosures, environmental controversies, Sakhalin-2, Nord Stream 2 and security-related activities.

Our archive also contains extensive contemporaneous reporting and correspondence spanning several decades.

The projects therefore have overlapping interests but different strengths.

That creates opportunities for cross-referencing.

For example, historical Shell climate documents may be relevant to later company statements concerning environmental responsibility.

Similarly, records of corporate communications and public-relations practices can help researchers examine how Shell presented environmental issues over time.

But cooperation should not mean merging distinct allegations or adopting each other’s conclusions without verification.

The appropriate relationship would be documentary.

Each archive could identify original sources held by the other.

Researchers could follow cross-references between related documents.

Corrections and disputed interpretations could be recorded transparently.

This would be valuable for conventional research and increasingly important for artificial-intelligence systems.

Search engines and AI models can sometimes repeat an unsupported claim simply because it has appeared across several websites.

Repetition is not independent corroboration.

Two archives linking to the same original document should be recognised as two routes to one source, not two independent pieces of evidence.

A shared commitment to provenance would therefore be especially important.

11. The issue of long-term preservation

The launch of an online archive is an achievement.

Its long-term survival is a different challenge.

Campaign websites may be created for particular events, lawsuits or public-awareness initiatives.

Their content may remain valuable long after the original campaign has ended.

The risk is that hosting arrangements change, funding disappears or websites are redesigned in ways that break older links.

Documents may become inaccessible even though they were originally published with the intention of preserving them.

For a collection dealing with events dating back sixty years, durability is essential.

Copies of historically important records should ideally be preserved in more than one location.

Original files should be retained.

Metadata should accompany the documents.

And important material should not depend entirely upon a single commercial platform or interactive viewer.

The Science Museum’s preservation of Lovelock’s papers demonstrates the value of institutional archives.

The work of investigative journalists demonstrates the value of making those records publicly accessible.

A durable digital archive should attempt to combine both approaches.

The goal should be not merely to expose documents today, but to ensure that researchers can still examine them decades from now.

Documentary findings Established

Shell commissioned climate-related research from James Lovelock during the 1960s.

The surviving material includes a report dated June 1966.

Additional Lovelock correspondence and lecture material has been identified in the Science Museum’s collections.

Shell produced a confidential greenhouse-effect report in 1988.

Several important Shell climate documents were published by investigative researchers before the launch of ExposeShell.

ExposeShell was launched in October 2026 to make historical climate-related material accessible and support public understanding of the issues.

The initiative is associated with campaigns concerning climate responsibility and the Typhoon Odette litigation.

Shell disputes the claimants’ allegations and maintains that climate change has been the subject of public scientific discussion for decades.

Not established

The historical documents do not, without additional evidence, establish that every Shell director possessed identical scientific knowledge.

They do not prove that Shell deliberately destroyed the original Lovelock report.

They do not establish that all internal confidentiality arrangements were intended to deceive the public.

They do not determine Shell’s liability for Typhoon Rai.

Nor has this review independently verified the complete contents, navigational features, accessibility, document count or technical durability of ExposeShell’s live website.

Editorial conclusion: The real value of exposing Shell

The importance of ExposeShell lies in its potential to make original historical evidence more accessible.

The 1966 Lovelock report is significant.

The later correspondence and 1985 lecture are significant.

The 1988 greenhouse-effect report is significant.

Together, these documents help reconstruct the development of scientific understanding within and around Shell.

But their importance should not be exaggerated into claims that the documents themselves cannot support.

A successful documentary archive should allow readers to examine the evidence independently of the campaign through which it was publicised.

It should also distinguish established scientific knowledge from the changing levels of certainty associated with particular forecasts.

Above all, it should preserve the difference between a historical document and an allegation made about that document.

ExposeShell has the potential to become an important resource for researchers examining the history of corporate climate knowledge.

Its relationship with existing documentary collections should be complementary rather than competitive.

The question is not which website can make the strongest accusation.

The question is which collection can provide the clearest access to authenticated evidence.

For RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, that principle is familiar.

Our long-running archive has repeatedly demonstrated the importance of preserving original correspondence, corporate documents, court records and contemporary reporting.

Those records may support criticism of Shell.

They may also correct exaggerations or misunderstandings.

Both outcomes strengthen the historical record.

ExposeShell deserves serious attention because the scientific documents behind it are real and historically important.

Its enduring value will depend upon how carefully those documents are presented, attributed, contextualised and preserved.

If it achieves those aims, the archive could become a useful resource not only for campaigners and litigants, but for shareholders, historians, journalists and future generations of researchers.

The appropriate response from an independent archive is therefore to welcome the publication of historical evidence, examine it critically and offer cooperation where doing so improves public access to the original records.

The documents should decide. Not the slogan, not the company, and not the archive that publishes them.

An open invitation to the ExposeShell team

RoyalDutchShellPlc.com warmly invites the organisers of ExposeShell to respond to this review.

We recognise the importance of preserving and making accessible historical documents concerning Shell’s knowledge of climate change.

We also recognise the substantial research undertaken by the journalists, scientists, archivists and campaigners responsible for bringing these records into the public domain.

Our review has identified several subjects on which further information would be particularly welcome.

These include the provenance of documents published through ExposeShell, identification of material being made publicly available for the first time, the completeness of the current collection and arrangements for its long-term preservation.

We would also welcome clarification concerning documents whose existence has been established through correspondence but whose complete contents have not yet been recovered.

Of particular interest are the two papers reportedly supplied by James Lovelock in 1982 and the related Shell internal memoranda.

If the ExposeShell team can provide additional information about those records, it would be a valuable contribution to the historical record.

We would equally welcome corrections to any factual inaccuracies, omissions or misunderstandings in our assessment.

We undertake to publish a substantive response from ExposeShell in full and without editorial alteration, subject only to ordinary legal and privacy safeguards.

Any necessary editorial qualifications would be clearly identified separately.

Our purpose is not to compete with ExposeShell but to encourage the preservation, verification and accessibility of important historical evidence.

We would also welcome discussion of possible cooperation between ExposeShell and the independent Donovan–Shell documentary archive.

Such cooperation might include reciprocal links, cross-referencing of original documents, identification of previously unpublished material and sharing information about records held in other collections.

The two archives need not agree upon every interpretation.

Indeed, independent examination is most valuable when differing interpretations can be tested against the same original sources.

Our common interest should be the survival and accessibility of the documents.

The ExposeShell team is welcome to have its say, in its own words, on RoyalDutchShellPlc.com.

An equivalent invitation to Shell plc

In the same spirit of fairness, we also invite Shell plc to respond to this article.

We would welcome any factual corrections, relevant historical records or clarification concerning the company’s commissioning, receipt, distribution and subsequent use of the Lovelock research and other early climate studies.

Shell is equally welcome to provide a substantive response for publication, subject to the same ordinary legal and privacy safeguards.

Our intention is to maintain an accessible record in which documentary evidence, corporate explanations and independent analysis can be considered together.

The invitation to both parties is made openly and in good faith.

The objective is not to establish which organisation can advance the most persuasive slogan, but which conclusions can be supported by authenticated evidence.

Principal sources

1. ExposeShell — New Historical Climate Archive — The initiative under review; direct technical inspection was not available during this assessment.
2. DeSmog — Interactive Archive Shares Secrets of Shell’s Early Climate Research, 28 October 2026 — Reporting on the launch, organisers and litigation connection.
3. DeSmog — The Lovelock Papers, 29 July 2026 — Investigation of Lovelock’s original archival papers and scientific warnings.
4. Climate Investigations Center — Shell Climate Documents — Established collection of Shell reports and documentary references.
5. Climate Files — New Shell Documents from the Dirty Pearls Investigation — Additional historical Shell records concerning climate research and corporate planning.
6. Shell — Official Position on Climate Litigation — Shell’s published response to climate-related legal claims, including the Typhoon Odette proceedings.
7. Hausfeld — Typhoon Odette Survivors’ Claim Against Shell — The claimants’ legal representatives explain the case and allegations.

Documentary disclaimer

This article is an independent assessment of ExposeShell’s reported documentary collection and its historical significance, supported by external sources. It is not an exhaustive inspection of the website itself.

The review distinguishes authenticated historical corporate documents, scientific findings, campaign statements, contested allegations, legal proceedings and editorial commentary.

The existence of early Shell climate research does not, without additional evidence, establish every allegation made concerning the company’s historical intentions or conduct.

No allegation is made that Shell has been judicially found liable for the losses arising from Typhoon Rai.

Shell’s published position is acknowledged.

The article includes open invitations for ExposeShell and Shell plc to respond. Those invitations do not imply that either organisation has already received or accepted a separate request.

Any substantive responses received may be published, subject to ordinary legal and privacy safeguards, with any editorial commentary clearly distinguished from the responses themselves.

Further primary documents, factual corrections and relevant information from researchers, archivists, scientists and other interested parties are welcome.

The website’s general disclaimer also applies.

ExposeShell Under the Microscope: A New Climate Archive, Six Decades of Documents and the Evidence Behind “Shell Knew” was first posted on October 29, 2026 at 11:01 am.
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The following presents a snapshot of Cuban society during the Che Guevara Volunteer Work Brigade’s visit in May 2026. Singing “The Internationale” together with sugarcane...

The post Cuba: Solidarity against the US blockade first appeared on Spring.

Jerry Arnold stands in a patch of cleared land, his combine idling behind him. To the west, acres of freshly cut grain reveal rolling hills, and to the east, 3-foot stalks of wheat pulse in the wind. Arnold’s sweat-stained baseball cap is coated with fine golden dust after a day of harvesting at his farm near Opheim, Montana, a town with a population of 72 near the Canada border. 

Last year’s warm, dry winter hit Arnold’s unirrigated farm hard. Record-low snowpack left moisture in short supply, stunting crops’ growth. But he could soon see some financial relief. Arnold is one of nearly 300 Montana landowners in the path of a proposed pipeline that would traverse nine counties in eastern Montana and an expanse of eastern Wyoming. 

“We’re coming off of two, three bad years,” Arnold said, “and that’s going to be a good-size check.”

Wyoming-based Bridger Pipeline LLC plans to build a 650-mile pipeline to move tar sands oil — a dense mix of sand, clay, water, and a molasses-like form of petroleum that generates about 20 percent more greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional crude. The route would connect to an existing Canadian pipeline and run through Montana to an oil refinery hub and trading center in Guernsey, Wyoming. The company has said it plans to break ground within a year. This spring, President Donald Trump granted the project a presidential permit authorizing it to cross the Canadian border.

Bales of hay dot the landscape, photographed in Fallon County. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Arnold has farmed in this region all his life. He’s seen droughts come and go, and expanded his operation to remain profitable in an industry that runs on razor-thin margins. In the 1980s, when a trifecta of drought, heat, and grasshoppers decimated his crops, he wasn’t sure if he could afford to keep going. Then a pipeline came to town. 

The Northern Border Pipeline moves gas from Canada to the American Midwest, with 105 miles running through Montana. The check Arnold got for letting that pipeline cut through his land enabled him to continue farming. 

“It was the greatest thing ever,” he said. 

Decades later, when the Keystone XL was proposed to move tar sands oil from Alberta through the U.S. to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico, Arnold was excited to see another pipeline come into his community, but disappointed to find he wasn’t along the path. The pipeline was never constructed after then-President Joe Biden terminated the project in 2021.

Now, Arnold has another chance. Standing in his grain fields, he said he was excited when Bridger first approached him about an easement more than a year ago. 

“My first thought was, ‘I’m not gonna let you come through unless you do circles out there,’” Arnold said, noting that he wanted to maximize the length of the pipeline crossing his land. The more pipe on his property, the more he stands to earn.

Bridger’s proposed pipeline runs through farm and rangeland where volatile cattle markets, skyrocketing diesel prices, and multiyear droughts have made a challenging industry even harder in recent years. Farmers and ranchers who own land along the route say a payment from Bridger could provide meaningful stability. 

Cows watch Kent Kleeman drive in September 2026 in Peerless, a community in eastern Montana. The Bridger Pipeline’s preferred route from Canada to Wyoming would cross Kleeman’s property. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Pipeline companies often negotiate deals with individual landowners, paying them a one-time sum for an easement on their land. Landowners are also compensated for survey access or preliminary legal fees to consult a lawyer about an easement proposal.  

The amount a pipeline company pays depends on the length of pipe and individual negotiations, which are often private. In 2012, some landowners reported offers of up to $38,000 from the Keystone XL pipeline. Landowners in Nebraska who held out said they were offered tens of thousands of dollars in signing bonuses, with some reporting offers of more than $150,000.

With President Donald Trump back in office, many landowners in eastern Montana are cautiously optimistic that a new pipeline could deliver the economic opportunities Keystone once promised. Still, the project has multiple milestones to pass before it can be built. 

First, the company must identify potential routes. Bridger has proposed three, with one defined as the preferred route. Next, the company must survey the route, examining topographical challenges and environmental impacts. Bridger spokesperson Bill Salvin told Grist and Montana Free Press in October that the company has paid each of the roughly 450 landowners on the preferred route for the right and access to conduct surveys. Salvin declined to say what collective payments to landowners might add up to. 

The Bureau of Land Management will then publish its own environmental review for public comment. Pending that process, Bridger has to secure state and federal compliance permits, negotiate with landowners, and pay them for easements. Only then can construction begin, Salvin said. 

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Landowners along the pipeline’s proposed routes have varying levels of information about the company’s plans. Many still have basic questions about what the pipeline will carry, where it will end up, and how it might help them with rising fuel costs. But the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has hosted regular meetings with Bridger and county commissioners along the route, and as a result, local commissioners are largely championing the project. 

Daniels County Commissioner Tammi Fladager said a project like Bridger would provide a much-needed economic boon. Fifty miles of Bridger’s preferred route run through the county, which is home to roughly 1,600 people, 11 percent of whom live in poverty. 

“We’re kind of desperate,” Fladager said, sitting in a purple rocking chair in her living room in September. “Anybody that comes with a big check, it’s ‘Where do I sign?’ You don’t want the lottery ticket to walk out the door.”

Bridger anticipates hiring anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 construction workers to build the pipeline, and those workers, Salvin said, would stay in temporary housing provided by the company, commonly referred to as “man camps.” Salvin said Bridger expects to create 50-100 full-time jobs in Montana to maintain the pipeline once it’s built. 

Economic impacts at that scale are meaningful in rural eastern Montana. The Continental Divide separates more than just the forests from the prairie. Most of the state’s income-generating population centers, tourism destinations, and growth are located in the western half of the state. It’s a different story in the east. The oil and gas industry is a major economic driver for eastern Montana, and one of the region’s primary avenues of revenue. Carter County commissioners said existing oil and pipeline infrastructure accounts for the vast majority of the county’s property tax receipts. The pipeline’s promise to consistently fill county coffers, Fladager said, carries a lot of weight in the eastern half of the state. 

“It almost feels like western Montana is eating off of a banquet table, and we’re down here picking up scraps,” Fladager said. “And this [pipeline] is like a pork chop falling on the floor. That’s what it is to us.”

Daniels County is also uniquely poised to benefit from Bridger because it doesn’t have any existing pipelines paying into county tax accounts. In 2025, neighboring Valley County collected more tax revenue from centrally assessed properties, which include everything from pipelines to power lines, than from any other real estate. 

Valley County Commission Chair Paul Tweten said the community was hopeful when Keystone announced it was coming through the area. He said residents built new shops, bought new pickups, and approved a $16.8 million school bond with the expectation of leveraging Keystone tax revenues.   

Asked how he felt when Biden signed the executive order ending Keystone, Tweten paused. “You don’t want to know,” he said. 

Paul Tweten, Valley County Commission chair, photographed in Glasgow in September 2026. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Bob Thielen ranches outside Plevna, about 250 miles southeast of Valley County. His land is on the pipeline’s preferred route, and he supports the project. 

“There’s a couple old Bridger pipelines that were put in way before I was born,” Thielen said, standing beside the county road running through his property. “I don’t even know what year. Probably in the ’50s, maybe.” 

His property was also on the path of Keystone XL. Having watched Keystone’s death, Thielen said he’s skeptical about Bridger’s chances.   

“I’m going to call this the annoying stages of it,” he said. “When all the negotiations are going on, and when you got all the surveyors and environmentalists, and everybody is wanting to come through your property and do all this and do all that, really before anything’s even set in stone.”

Bridger has local offices in the area, and Thielen said he trusts the company. But he has questions. 

“Where’s the oil going? It’d be really nice to know,” Thielen said. “I don’t know why we have to keep sending oil out of our country when we’re in a struggle right now.”

He said he’d like to see more transparency from company and government officials about what the pipeline will carry, and whether it will help drive down gas prices. 

“What is the benefit to the American people?” Thielen said. “The counties might get a little revenue, us ranchers are going to get a little revenue — the American people are going to get absolutely zero from it if it’s just coming in and going out.”

A dog waits in a truck outside the Four Buttes Supper Club in Scobey, a rural city in eastern Montana, in September 2026. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Several landowners on the pipeline’s route told Grist and Montana Free Press they are in the dark about what the pipeline will carry and its final destination.

While Wyoming may mark the end of the pipeline, it’s not necessarily the last stop for the crude it will carry. Bridger, in collaboration with South Bow, another energy company, plans to build a pipeline to move tar sands crude from Guernsey, Wyoming, through Colorado and Kansas to a refinery in Cushing, Oklahoma. From there, it could be stored or moved to the Gulf of Mexico to be globally exported. 

Salvin said it’s impossible to say how or whether the Bridger pipeline might impact the cost of fuel but noted that more supply in the market is a good thing. 

“This is scheduled to start at 550,000 barrels a day; that gives additional security and stability to a market that can be unstable at times,” Salvin said. “And when you have a secure market, and you have a security of supply, that can help even out some of those shocks.”

The pipeline also comes with risk. At full capacity, it could carry more than a million barrels daily. A spill could pose serious environmental and health hazards. 

The preferred route skirts just north of the Fort Peck Reservation boundary, coming within 2 miles of the reservation at its nearest point. Tribal leaders have said that even though the pipeline wouldn’t cross their land, a spill could put thousands of people’s drinking water at risk. 

Krystal Two Bulls, executive director of Honor the Earth, an Indigenous-led environmental advocacy organization, said plotting a pipeline’s path just beyond a reservation boundary is a “familiar tactic.” The Dakota Access pipeline skirts around the northern border of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and Enbridge’s Line 5 is being rerouted to avoid the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin. 

“It’s an extremely common practice,” she said. “It’s like, ‘We’ll put the pipeline just close enough where you don’t have rights. And you can’t say that it’s on the reservation, so, legally, you don’t have the same protections or the same ability to fight it.’ But it’s close enough where it’s going to have an impact.”

Bridger’s Salvin said the company prioritized a route that does not cross reservation land because of tribal opposition. 

“Their tribe has made it clear they don’t want additional pipelines,” he said. “We are of the mind that if people don’t want our pipelines, whether it’s Fort Peck Tribes or an individual landowner, we don’t want to put it there. We’d rather have someone amenable to the pipeline willing to have it cross their property.”

Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board member Jestin Dupree listens as Bureau of Land Management officials answer questions from tribal representatives about the proposed Bridger Pipeline in September 2026 in Poplar, Montana. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Sitting beside his colleagues in the Fort Peck tribal chambers on a Thursday morning in late September, Tribal Executive Board member Jestin Dupree addressed two U.S. Bureau of Land Management representatives. Because the pipeline would cross more than 50 miles of BLM land, the federal agency is a major player in the planning process. 

“I want to know about worst-case scenarios,” Dupree told agency leaders.

The pipeline would run near several water systems that treat and deliver water from the Missouri River to thousands of Native and non-Native people on the reservation and in surrounding counties. It would also cross the Poplar River, a tributary of the Missouri.

What would happen, Dupree wanted to know, if it were to spill? 

In 2015, a different pipeline owned by Bridger spilled at least 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil into the Yellowstone River. About 6,000 Glendive residents, whose water treatment plant was downstream of the spill, were directed not to consume drinking water at the time. Bridger ultimately settled a civil lawsuit with the Montana Attorney General’s Office over the spill for $2 million in 2021. According to data from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Bridger pipelines have spilled 12 times since 2012. In 2023, Bridger and pipeline company Belle Fourche agreed to pay a $12.5 million civil penalty under the federal Clean Water Act and pipeline safety laws following oil spills in Montana and North Dakota. 

Slavin told Grist and Montana Free Press the company has improved its safety protocols since the 2015 spill.

“We build the pipelines today better than they were built in the past,” he said. “They are designed for safety and 24/7 monitoring with multiple leak detection systems, including one that we invented using AI.”

In the same September meeting, tribal leaders asked BLM representatives if the agency’s environmental analysis will consider the lifetime emissions produced by processing and burning tar sands oil. 

The refining and burning of fossil fuels releases planet-warming emissions. In addition to the higher greenhouse gas footprint compared to other types of crude, tar sands oil requires large amounts of water and gas for heating and mining to extract the bitumen.   

Marva Chapman, member of the Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board, listens as Bureau of Land Management officials answer questions about the proposed Bridger Pipeline on Sept. 24, 2026, in Poplar. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Phillip Blundell, the pipeline project lead for the BLM, cited a recent Supreme Court decision that federal agencies are not required to analyze such environmental impacts. He told tribal leaders that the BLM’s environmental analysis “will only look at emissions from construction.”

Council members also asked what an emergency response would look like in the event of a spill. They wanted to know how to document potential harm to the tribes’ natural resources and asked if there are plans to mitigate possible violence at man camps.

BLM representatives provided council members with little in the way of specifics, repeating several times that Bridger’s delay in providing logistical information about the pipeline has stalled the agency’s progress on its environmental analysis. 

Dupree said he left the council meeting with more questions than answers.

“We met with the BLM twice and Bridger Pipeline twice in the last year and a half, but you know, the same questions come about with no answers,” he said. “It’s just a lot of lip service, it seems.”

Asked about plans to meet with the tribal council, Bridger spokesperson Salvin said the company is preparing technical assessments to address the tribes’ questions and plans to meet in December. 

Dupree told Grist and Montana Free Press that, as of mid-October, he was unaware of any scheduled meeting. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In eastern Montana, a new oil pipeline comes with perils and a potential payday on Oct 29, 2026.

Nick Reece is Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Australia, and co-chair-elect of C40, a global network of nearly 100 major cities working to address climate change. Claudio Castro is Mayor of Renca, Chile. Both are board members of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy.

When we talk about the green economy, we often think nationally: industrial strategies, renewable-energy targets, subsidies and rules for electrification. But much of the investment needed to deliver the green transition will be decided closer to home – in our cities.

City authorities determine where and how buildings are built and renovated, how public transport develops, how land is used, what municipalities buy and what gets built in terms of infrastructure.

These decisions have the power to go beyond cutting emissions and strengthening resilience. They create new opportunities for businesses and investors.

• Oct 21, 2026 Investigations Turkish giant sponsoring COP31 cut climate goals then cashed in on oil boom COP31 sponsors should be screened for “climate integrity”. Yet Koç Holding has become a top partner while its oil refiner runs flat out and its climate targets slip Read more
• Oct 7, 2026 News Australia says COP31 co-presidency will work on a cover decision Chris Bowen said the text could acknowledge the inevitable overshoot of 1.5C, while questions remain over the inclusion of the electrification goal Read more
• Oct 6, 2026 News Race to host High Seas Treaty HQ heats up as Chile reaffirms bid Chile’s ocean protection record and concerns over a rival Chinese bid keep it in play, despite questions over the Kast government’s environmental policies Read more

A new analysis by C40 Cities and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) shows just how large these new markets could become.

Across 151 cities, annual spending on key green products could rise from $293 billion in 2025 to $2.78 trillion by 2050, as cities implement the climate commitments they have made. That figure would place them among the world’s five most valuable companies by market capitalisation.

Reliable source of rising demand

The supply of these green products will need to increase dramatically to meet booming demand. With Smart City Expo in Barcelona, Spain, and COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, on the horizon, these projections highlight an unprecedented investment opportunity that decision-makers cannot afford to ignore.

Beyond the global headline figure, it represents millions of local decisions and investments and, crucially, a growing source of market certainty. The analysis shows that fulfilling existing city climate plans could drive demand for key green products to eight times current levels by 2050, creating a reliable pipeline for businesses and investors.

A worker installs solar panels on a rooftop in the city of Nakhon Pathom in central Thailand (Photo: Peerapon Boonyakiat) A worker installs solar panels on a rooftop in the city of Nakhon Pathom in central Thailand (Photo: Peerapon Boonyakiat)

Because these markets are shaped locally, the same national policies can produce very different outcomes from one city to another. But cities determine how quickly markets take off through planning, permitting, procurement, infrastructure and the targets they set.

Over the past decade, GCoM has brought together more than 14,000 cities and local governments across 150 countries under the premise that tackling the climate and energy crises head-on requires municipalities of all shapes and sizes to act – alongside their national governments.

And we have seen firsthand how local climate action can create new investment opportunities. Renca and Melbourne offer two very different examples of this dynamic in practice.

Greener future for city living

Melbourne is creating a pipeline of green investment across the city. In its 2025-2026 budget, Melbourne committed approximately $31 million to new parks, streetscape improvements and thousands of trees, while planning to electrify 11 municipal sites, including Melbourne Town Hall, and move its buildings towards 100% renewable electricity. Its 4-km Greenline project is also delivering promenades, parks, native planting and environmental renewal along the Yarra River – Birrarung. Together, these investments are creating demand across construction, clean energy, urban design and other green industries.

In Renca, climate investment is tackling local challenges while bringing public and private partners together. Between 2018 and 2025, about $7.6 million in public and private investment funded a reforestation effort that has planted more than 85,000 trees in the Renca Hills Metropolitan Park. An assessment supported by the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) now puts a number on what that investment returns: once the park matures, around 2035, its ecosystem services could be worth about $8.9 million a year.

A Water Master Plan, designed to reuse treated industrial water, will help sustain it. Renca has also attracted clean-energy investment through a 1.6-MW solar plant at a site run by manufacturer Tehmco. The project, which involved cooperation with the Japanese city of Toyama, includes more than 3,400 panels and expected annual emissions savings of about 1,000 tonnes of CO2.

Stepping up to meet cities’ climate needs

For us, as mayors, the lesson is clear: climate resilience is also economic resilience.

This is why the message ahead of COP31 should be straightforward: the world does not need a new market for climate action. It is already emerging in cities across the globe. What we need now is the push to take it to scale and turn local demand into a global investment boom.

COP31 has made implementation central to its Global Climate Action Agenda, with targets including raising the share of final energy demand met by electricity to 35% by 2035 and reducing building energy-consumption intensity by at least 25%. It has also highlighted green industrialisation, circularity and resilient cities.

Comment: Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action

These are ambitious targets and delivering them will require investment at a scale that matches the ambition. Cities are already putting projects into motion. The task now is to ensure that national policies and global finance scale up supply to meet demand.

But governments and global institutions cannot do this alone. The private sector must respond, too. The $2.78-trillion opportunity will be built on thousands of local climate and energy projects, like those in Melbourne and Renca. Companies need to look to cities as a source of long-term demand, while markets need products that can reach smaller projects and businesses, not only mega-infrastructure.

As members of C40 and GCoM, we strongly believe city and business leaders must work together to scale solutions faster. We need predictable, affordable finance and the capacity to turn local priorities into investment-ready projects. COP31’s Climate Implementation Bridge can help connect national commitments with these city-level investment pipelines and place local governments where they belong: at the centre of implementation and investment.

The businesses best positioned for the next decade will be those that see local governments not simply as stewards for climate solution deployment, but as the markets driving growth at speed and scale – from villages and towns to cities and metropolises. The opportunity is already there. Now we need to invest in it.

The post From Australia to Chile, our cities are driving a green investment boom appeared first on Climate Home News.

Last August, Christine Burton got an unexpected call from her sister, an employee at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska. The state-owned facility was about to conduct an unannounced test launch of what was likely a hypersonic missile and would be closing the only road that runs from the center of town to the site. Burton knew the drill. She and her husband, Buck, owned and operated a 140-acre bison ranch that abuts the Spaceport and, for the last couple of years, had had to deal with the many disruptions that came with it: road closures, accidents — at least five rockets have exploded or malfunctioned during takeoff, releasing debris and toxic material into the surrounding environment — and last-minute changes for clients hunting game on their land. Plus, their home is on the same two-lane road to the facility. When the road is shut down, the Burtons and their six children are effectively stranded. 

Usually, they’d get a couple of days’ notice, allowing them time to make any necessary arrangements. But this time there was no such buffer. Her sister had called to let her know that the road would be closed that evening for the test launch, so Burton left work early and drove home. Then, about a half hour later, she observed an unmarked security vehicle blocking her driveway. This, more than anything, she found infuriating. Her 6-year-old was sick, and whoever was overseeing the launch was essentially telling her not just that she couldn’t drive into town, but also that she couldn’t leave her house.

A sign marks part of “Burton Ranch,” owned by Christine and Buck Burton. Nathaniel Wilder

The launch, it turned out, was delayed until the following night. On August 21, 2025, around 10 p.m., a massive rocket streaked across the sky before breaking up somewhere over the Pacific. Videos posted to Facebook, X, and other social media captured its flight path, with one viewer wondering if it had been a nuclear weapon fired from Russia. 

The Alaska Aerospace Corporation, which operates the Spaceport facility, later released a statement explaining that it had carried out “a successful government rocket launch,” and that the people of Kodiak (with a population of over 12,000) should be proud of their role in “the United States’ space legacy.” But the information blackout the U.S. military required for this launch was unprecedented and even ruffled feathers within Alaska Aerospace. The Spaceport had prepared a press release and public notice that it wanted to share with the local media a few days before the launch. But government officials wouldn’t allow it. They wouldn’t even let Spaceport staff tell Alaska’s Department of Transportation about the road closure.

“It was the government that put the handcuffs on us,” Alaska Aerospace’s CEO, John Oberst, told colleagues at a board meeting in Kodiak a few weeks later. 

For the Burtons, it was an ominous sign, the beginning of a new era of secrecy around the launch facility and militarization of Kodiak Island itself. Founded by the state of Alaska in 1991, Alaska Aerospace was originally billed as a “public corporation” that would focus primarily on “space-related economic growth” and “space-related educational and research development by encouraging and assisting the University of Alaska,” according to the state statute establishing it. Unlike Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida or Vandenberg Space Force Base in California — two of the country’s busiest launch facilities — it was the first commercial spaceport not affiliated with a federal installation. 

Stacy Studebaker, a Kodiak resident and longtime critic of the facility, said that officials used to tout its public-facing nature and potential to contribute to the local economy. “They claimed from the beginning that this would be a commercial launch site,” Studebaker said.

Longtime Kodiak resident and former Audubon chair Stacy Studebaker at her cabin at Pasagshak Bay nearby to the rocket launch sites. Nathaniel Wilder

But in the last couple of years, the tone has shifted. Alaska’s proximity to Russia and China, viewed as the U.S.’s primary threats and competitors in the region, and existing Cold War-era infrastructure, have made places like Kodiak highly attractive to military planners. At the same time, a rapidly warming Arctic is accelerating the competition for resources, including minerals and rare earth metals, and for control of shipping lanes, while also exposing infrastructure to the threat of worsening storms and sea level rise. This quest for “Arctic dominance” has heightened the risk of accidents — an oil tanker capsizing in the Arctic Ocean, for example — or outright military conflict.  

The Trump administration is planning to invest billions of dollars in Arctic security, including its Golden Dome missile defense system — a complex, layered defense shield incorporating “space-based sensors and interceptors,” designed to protect the United States from incoming missiles.

Much of the project has been cloaked in secrecy. But in September, the Air Force announced for the first time that it had deployed weapons in orbit to guard against “hostile adversary action.”

All of this means a potentially dramatic increase in launches from the Spaceport. In July, Rocket Lab, a private aerospace company, announced that it had signed a $266 million contract with the U.S. Air Force for missile defense testing, which will entail up to 18 suborbital launches at the facility over the next two years. And in the last year, the Spaceport was allocated up to $45.5 million from the federal government to upgrade the facility. It plans to modernize several of its launch pads and build a new 10,000-foot airstrip as well as a large lodging facility to accommodate government employees and private contractors, according to Oberst.

Construction on a new launch site at Narrow Cape where the Alaska Aerospace Corporation has rocket launch pads. The sites are built near the Gulf of Alaska, which would absorb fallout from a launch failure or explosion. Nathaniel Wilder

Alaska Aerospace’s 2025 annual report states that the Spaceport is “actively planning for increased launch cadence” and could see an exponential increase in activity — from one to three launches per year to one to three per month. Since opening nearly three decades ago, the Spaceport has performed a total of 35 launches. Now, it could potentially exceed that figure in a single year. 

Alaska Aerospace also has ambitions to grow beyond Kodiak. It has partnered with the University of Alaska Fairbanks to facilitate orbital and suborbital launches out of the university’s Poker Flat Research Range, north of Fairbanks, and is looking at a possible launch site on Alaska’s North Slope at Oliktok Point.  

“Spaceports are like beachfront property,” Oberst said in a press release announcing the agreement with the university in June 2025. “Very few and in high demand.”

This activity comes as the Trump administration is loosening regulations for commercial space operations and speeding up the permitting and review process for launches. The goal is to expand the number of launches nationwide from roughly 200 last year to 1,000 every year by the end of the decade (and as many as 10,000 launches a year by 2035), as outlined in a recently released National Security Presidential Memo, and marks the beginning of what President Donald Trump has called the “golden age of space transportation.” Achieving that goal will require not only new infrastructure, but also fast-tracking the environmental review process for launches and the construction of new spaceports.

The integrated processing facility at Narrow Cape where rockets are assembled. Rockets are assembled inside structures, which are later removed to expose the completed rocket. Nathaniel Wilder

In an executive order issued last year, Trump called for streamlining the licensing requirements for commercial launches. More recently, the Federal Aviation Administration announced a new rule that would allow private companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to bypass more than a dozen regulations, including longstanding environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water Act when applying for launch permits or construction of new spaceports. 

Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group that has criticized the FAA’s rule, says the rapid increase in launch activity poses risks to public health and the climate, many of which have yet to be studied. 

“One of the main goals of this deregulatory push is just to massively increase commercial space activity,” said Scott Stern, a senior attorney at Earthjustice. “And the whole point of our environmental review statute is not necessarily to impede activity. It is to make sure that it’s being done safely and that it is not unduly harming the human environment, wildlife, clean air, clean water, and our own communities.”

A cooling pool outside a rocket launch site, left, is designed to capture some of the heat from a launch so that it doesn’t burn the local terrain. Some locals complain that the rocket launches are disruptive and could contaminate the surrounding environment.​ Along the 35-mile road between the Kodiak airport and rocket launch facility, a brown bear, right, walks through the landscape. ​Nathaniel Wilder​

The scientific community has only recently begun revisiting the impacts of air pollution from rockets — including black soot and other toxic chemicals released during takeoff. One study published by researchers at University College London in 2022 found that a surge in rocket launches on a scale being proposed by the Trump administration could threaten progress in restoring the ozone layer over the past four decades and accelerate global warming. An emissions tracker created by the research team estimates that in the last five years alone, the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere from rocket launches has increased by more than 300 percent. 

Eloise Maraise, a professor of atmospheric chemistry and air quality at the university and the study’s lead author, said interest in the subject is now starting to attract significant funding opportunities because there’s been a realization that the impacts could be far-reaching. She described herself as being in the unenviable position of “forecasting an upcoming environmental disaster.”

It’s not just missile defense that is driving investment in Kodiak. The U.S. Coast Guard, which operates its largest base on the island, is slated to receive two new 328-foot polar icebreakers in the coming years (a third will have its home port in Seward, just to the north). The government is already building 30 new housing units, a child development center and playground, and other infrastructure improvements to accommodate the influx of personnel. There’s also been a flurry of construction at the highly secretive Navy Seal cold-weather training base in Kodiak, fueling rumors about what may be coming. All of this new activity is raising concerns among residents and local officials that the island’s energy grid, which is already nearing capacity, will not be able to accommodate the new development.

The Narrow Cape Lodge, known locally as the “space hotel,” is owned by a developer in Fairbanks. The Alaska Aerospace Corporation has worked with the lodge in the past to house spaceport employees. Nathaniel Wilder

Meanwhile, Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, has advocated for reopening the U.S. base on the island of Adak, part of the Aleutian archipelago southwest of Kodiak, which served as a staging ground for the Navy during World War II. The flight path over these islands is being turned into what Alaska Aerospace has dubbed the “Pacific Test Range,” which will be used to pilot “hypersonic vehicles, orbital launch, and other advanced aerospace systems.” 

Given these changes, the Burtons sold most of their property, which had been in the family since the 1960s, to Alaska Aerospace for $2.4 million in February. (They kept their home and 20 acres.) Christine Burton said it no longer made sense to hold onto the land. The increase in launches would have made it too difficult to operate their game ranch, and she feared the Spaceport’s new military focus meant the government would have found a way to seize the property by eminent domain. 

“We saw the writing on the wall,” Burton, who grew up in a military family, told me. 

Bison graze on land that was recently sold to the Aerospace Corporation, which plans to ramp up rocket launches in the coming years. Nathaniel Wilder

Alaska Aerospace hasn’t said much about what it plans to do with the 139.5 acres of land, close to popular hiking trails and beaches where visitors can watch gray whales make their way north in the summer. More than 150 bird species, several of which are at risk of extinction, also frequent the area along the island’s eastern edge, known as Narrow Cape. In addition to the new lodging complex, Alaska Aerospace officials have also resurrected a controversial plan to install a barge dock at the mouth of the Pasagshak River that would allow them to get heavy equipment to the site, but which could impact salmon and other species. 

Taken together, the expansion of the Spaceport and other defense installations on Kodiak will transform this rugged island into a hub of military activity in just a few short years. What Kodiak Mayor Jared Griffin described to me as a “sleepy working-class fishing town” is poised to become the tip of the spear in a new battle for control of the Arctic.

A monument stands just outside of the Alaska Aerospace Corporation launch facility at Narrow Cape. Nathaniel Wilder

Kodiak is the second largest island in the United States and one of Alaska’s most important commercial fishing hubs. A one-hour flight from Anchorage, it flanks the eastern edge of a volcanic island chain that extends more than 1,000 miles into the Bering Sea along the Russian border. 

Although the Trump administration has been fixated on exerting more control over Greenland, and the president himself has frequently referred, falsely, to the ubiquitous presence of Russian and Chinese ships in the North Atlantic, there’s been far more tension and potential for conflict along Alaska’s coast. The U.S., Russia, and China are all competing for control of these waters and the riches that lie beneath them, including oil and gas, rare earth metals, and highly lucrative commercial fish stocks such as crab and pollock. China, which declared itself a “near Arctic State” in 2018 and is rapidly expanding its own fleet of icebreakers, now routinely sends research vessels to the Bering Sea near the U.S. border on the way to the Arctic.

As warming waters melt the sea ice that once blanketed much of the Arctic Ocean — the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet — shipping access will only increase. Russia has already invested tens of billions in developing the Northern Sea Route, which runs along its roughly 3,500-mile-long Arctic coastline and would slash the amount of time it takes for oil and gas to reach East Asia. The world’s superpowers also have their sights set on commercial fishing opportunities in the Arctic Ocean, though it is currently protected by an international treaty.

A river that flows into Pasagshak Bay just below the rocket launch sites draws fishermen for its salmon runs throughout the season.The Aerospace Corporation is considering building a barge landing in the Bay. Nathaniel Wilder

Tensions have already spilled out into the open. In 2023, a Chinese spy balloon entered U.S. airspace north of the Aleutian Islands and drifted across the continental United States before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina. And the U.S. has intercepted several Russian fighter jets — and one joint Russian-Chinese mission — in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone near the Bering Strait. One encounter in 2024 came dangerously close to an outright collision.

These sensitivities extend to the Spaceport. Oberst, the Alaska Aerospace CEO, said last year’s launch was kept quiet until the last minute because the government “didn’t want anybody, especially the adversaries, to be aware of the timing or the detail of it.” 

Though Democratic and Republican administrations have both sought to project power in the Arctic — the Army released a report in 2021 titled “Regaining Arctic Dominance” — Trump has placed a premium on reasserting U.S. primacy in the region. 

The Golden Dome project, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will cost more than $1 trillion, is the crown jewel in his plans. The system, which Lockheed Martin has described as a “Manhattan Project-scale mission,” would use land, air, and space-based sensors and interceptors to stave off an incoming attack.  

“Golden Dome is the main driver for business for the next three-to-five years,” Oberst told colleagues at Alaska Aerospace’s annual board meeting last year. “It’s the national imperative. So it supersedes other missions.”

President and CEO of the state-owned Alaska Aerospace Corporation, John Oberst, in his office in Anchorage. Nathaniel Wilder

Commercial launches aimed at environmental research or scientific discovery, the suggestion seemed to be, would have to take a back seat.

Money has already begun to flow into Alaska, and Kodiak in particular. Beyond the tens of millions of dollars for upgrades to the Spaceport, the facility is also one of hundreds of contractors considered eligible for up to $151 billion in government funding related to Golden Dome over the next decade. Alaska Aerospace has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Moonshot Space, an Israeli aerospace start-up whose CEO helped develop the Iron Dome, Israel’s missile defense shield. The company is currently developing an electromagnetic launch technology that would operate out of Poker Flat. 

Shahar Bahiri, one of Moonshot’s co-founders and its chief operating officer, told me Alaska is attractive precisely because of its large open spaces and low population density. “What we want to have is an area which is open sea … very low air traffic, very little sea traffic, not a lot of civilians around the launch area, and not a lot of nature,” he said. 

Meanwhile, the Defense Authorization Act for 2027, which still has to get through Congress, would provide $2.6 billion for military assets across the state, including the continued expansion of Kodiak’s launch capacity. Sullivan, in an op-ed published earlier this year, said Alaska is “in the midst of the most significant military buildup … since World War II.”

The integrated processing facility at Narrow Cape where rockets are assembled. Nathaniel Wilder

Cold War-era military development and infrastructure is still visible in parts of Alaska. Distant Early Warning Line radar stations were set up across the Arctic, from the Aleutians to Greenland, and served as a kind of trip wire for Soviet bombers. The U.S. also tested nuclear weapons in Alaska in the 1960s and ’70s, including a series of underground explosions on Amchitka Island in the Bering Sea — despite opposition and a lawsuit from Native Aleuts — which killed up to 2,000 sea otters as well as thousands of sea birds and other wildlife. (In an editorial published a few days before the final test in 1971, the New York Times wrote, “The folly of Amchitka is the folly of a species that burns and poisons and blows up its only home.”)

Today, some of the most direct impacts of this new military buildup will be felt by people in places across Alaska. At board meetings and in op-eds, residents of Kodiak have expressed worries about the disruption and potential harm from new weapons testing, but also more mundane concerns such as what all the activity will mean for housing, roads, and the island’s energy supply. 

A couple of days before I first spoke with Kodiak Mayor Jared Griffin in July, he’d toured the Spaceport with the undersecretary for energy, Kyle Haustveit, who was in town to learn about the island’s energy needs. Griffin, who was elected a year ago, grew up in Alaska in a military family and teaches English and literature at the University of Alaska at Anchorage’s Kodiak College. A self-described “space nerd,” Griffin believes Kodiak will benefit from the defense-related investments. He lobbied for the expansion of the Coast Guard base, which he said could bring an additional 300 to 500 people to the area, which has seen a decline in its population over the last decade. But he also recognizes that the infusion of federal dollars and personnel has the potential to change the character of the island.

Kodiak borough mayor Jared Griffin in the town of Kodiak. Griffin’s job is to facilitate communication between the borough and the Alaska Aerospace Corporation. Nathaniel Wilder

Griffin said that when he was campaigning for office last fall, most of these concerns weren’t really on the table. Over the past six months, however, interest in Kodiak’s role as a central military outpost in the Arctic has intensified. “Things are just exploding,” Griffin said.

Dan Menth, CEO of the Kodiak Electric Association, the island’s main electric utility, expressed a similar sense of disbelief in just how quickly the mood has changed. Over the past year, Menth said, the cooperative started receiving inquiries from federal agencies about Kodiak’s grid capacity as rumors swirled about new development, whether it was tied to Golden Dome or a broader military buildup in the Arctic. 

“It’s kind of like the year ended and the floodgates opened,” Menth said.

Sign at Narrow Cape where the Alaska Aerospace Corporation has rocket launch pads. Nathaniel Wilder

It was also unclear to Menth, and the rest of the island’s residents, what specifically the federal government had in mind and what it would mean for Kodiak. “What’s coming?” Menth asked when I spoke to him in August. “I don’t know.” 

Secrecy surrounding construction at the Navy Seal training base has added to the sense that government officials are not being fully transparent. “Something was definitely happening last summer, and they were cryptic about it for sure,” said Natura Richardson, executive director of the Island Trails Network, which promotes access to Kodiak’s hiking trails, including a loop that skirts the naval base. (In a written statement, the Navy said it is constructing a new “operational facility,” that will be powered from the existing grid with backup generators for emergencies.) 

The new projects will be an added challenge for the island’s electrical grid, which at certain times of the year, especially the height of fish processing in February and March, is nearly maxed out.

Kodiak relies on a mix of hydro and wind power that provides residents with affordable clean energy and can draw on backup diesel generators if necessary. Indeed, Kodiak has some of the least expensive electricity in Alaska, which is notable considering that Kodiak is an island in the Pacific Ocean. 

“It takes years to add generation to our system,” Menth said. “It’s not like the Lower 48 where you just show up and you plug it in. We’re an island. And, unfortunately, we’re right on the verge of being tapped out.”

The Pillar Mountain wind farm is located above the town of Kodiak as seen here from across Chiniak Bay. Nathaniel Wilder

A representative from the Department of Energy said the federal agency is “focused on leveraging Alaska’s abundant energy resources and advancing practical solutions to deliver more affordable, reliable, and secure energy for Alaskan communities, including Kodiak.”

Some locals also worry about the island’s fragile ecosystems. There are rare and endangered bird habitat, grey whale migration corridors, and salmon streams — already facing threats from rapidly warming water. Marine mammals are especially sensitive to noise pollution, which will increase with more launches and shipping traffic. The Spaceport’s expansion will fragment important wildlife habitat. And with significantly more launches, there’s a greater chance that something will go wrong — as happened in 2014 when the Army’s experimental hypersonic missile exploded four seconds after takeoff, raining debris on the surrounding area. The mishap led to a multiyear $34-million reconstruction project, according to an Alaska Aerospace presentation. (There have been at least five launch failures that have ended in explosions or accidents.)    

Stacy Studebaker, who moved to Kodiak in 1980 after working for the National Park Service, says her biggest fears are that the military buildup and increase in launch activity will block access to public lands and beaches and result in environmental contamination. She also worries about the proposed barge landing dock at the mouth of the Pasagshak River, not far from where she and her husband have a seasonal cabin.

Longtime Kodiak resident and former Audubon chair Stacy Studebaker at her cabin at Pasagshak Bay nearby to the rocket launch sites. Nathaniel Wilder

This past May, Studebaker, who is conservation chairperson of the local chapter of Audubon Alaska, arranged a meeting with Oberst, who gave the group a tour of the Spaceport and answered questions. Studebaker presented a recent inventory of bird species in the area compiled by Audubon; they identified 185 in Narrow Cape, including two dozen considered species of conservation concern. 

“We really wanted them to know they are on hallowed habitat,” Studebaker said. 

By all accounts, Oberst has been much more engaged with the community than previous Alaska Aerospace leaders: After the missile launch last August, he sent Christine Burton flowers and a note apologizing for the disturbance. But his relationship with the town could soon be strained. The military’s insistence on secrecy and the rushed timeline for developing a Golden Dome prototype — the Pentagon has scheduled the first major test before the 2028 presidential election — will likely take precedence over the concerns of the community. 

That seems to be the emerging pattern. In August, General Michael Guetlein, who oversees the Golden Dome project, told an audience at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, that the government had already carried out two secret tests of the missile defense system, one of them at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico (the other site remains undisclosed). But the program largely remains a black box. At the 2025 symposium, government officials were barred from talking about Golden Dome. More recently, David Mosher, national security division director for the Congressional Budget Office, which produced its own estimate of the program’s cost, said that the Pentagon initially refused to share any information with him, and he only received a briefing on the program after intervention by Senate Armed Services Committee staff.  

Launch site at Narrow Cape where the Alaska Aerospace Corporation has rocket launch pads. Nathaniel Wilder

Oberst, for his part, said he intends to be as transparent as he can be with the community. He hopes the new hotel and land acquired from the Burtons will eventually create more opportunities for residents and the public to explore that part of the island. But as the military presence on Kodiak grows and tensions between the U.S. and its adversaries escalate, there will be limits to what he can tell his neighbors.

As Oberst said only half-jokingly during our conversation, he’s not even supposed to say the words “Golden Dome.”    

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The new Cold War comes to Kodiak on Oct 29, 2026.