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African negotiators have asked the UN to open a formal space at COP31 for contentious talks on adaptation finance and trade, lining up a potential fight over the agenda when the climate summit opens in Antalya on November 9.

In a letter sent to UN climate chief Simon Stiell last Sunday, Ghana, which is chairing the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) this year, requested three additional agenda items on tripling adaptation finance, trade and climate change, and the financing arrangements of the Green Climate Fund. 

Governments agreed at last year’s COP30 on a new target to “at least triple” finance for climate adaptation in developing countries by 2035, following a push led by the least-developed countries which are highly vulnerable to growing climate impacts. But the last-minute deal left out key details, including the baseline year for tripling, a headline amount, who should pay and how it will be delivered.

AGN chair Antwi-Boasiako Amoah wrote in the letter that “a dedicated item is needed”, pointing to worrying trends in adaptation finance. He added that the mid-year climate talks in Bonn had “made clear” that countries could not agree how or where to take the goal forward.

During June’s session, developing countries tried to anchor the target in the negotiations on the Global Goal on Adaptation, which lays out technical indicators to measure and boost global efforts to cope with climate change. But wealthy nations – led primarily by the EU, the UK and Japan – opposed that push, arguing adaptation finance should be discussed elsewhere. Unable to break the deadlock, diplomats left Bonn without an agreement on adaptation.

‘Homeless’ issue

No other developing-country group has officially backed the AGN’s proposal so far. That may change next week, when negotiating blocs hold their pre-COP coordination meetings in Antalya.

Raju Pandit Chhetri, lead climate finance negotiator for the least-developed countries (LDCs), told Climate Home News it would be difficult to secure an agenda item on adaptation finance alone, but it is “a homeless issue” that needs to be discussed somewhere within the formal talks at COP31.

• Oct 27, 2026 News National climate plans now promise half the emission cuts expected by UN The US exit from the Paris Agreement and weak new pledges leave 2035 emissions just 6% below 2019 levels, against 12% projected last year Read more
• Oct 23, 2026 News Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31 Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak Read more

Developed countries are likely to resist. In their agreed COP31 negotiating position, EU governments reaffirmed the tripling call but framed it within the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), the broader post-2025 finance goal agreed at COP29 in Baku. The EU and its member states are the largest provider of international climate finance to developing countries, but some nations, including Germany and France, have cut their aid budgets in recent years.

The LDCs want the goal to be defined as $120 billion a year by 2030 (five years before the agreed timeline), which would triple a previous target of around $40 billion. That was meant to be reached in 2025 but is likely to have been missed.

Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead for the Danish development NGO DanChurchAid, said tripling adaptation finance is not just “catchy wording”, but something that will save lives and help countries and communities cope with climate change on the ground. 

He added that the AGN’s proposal will “for sure” spark a debate and “may lead to an agenda fight”, but it will ensure that the goal will not be forgotten. 

Members of civil society call for a tripling of adaptation finance. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth) Members of civil society call for a tripling of adaptation finance. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth) GCF’s needs assessment

The second request in Ghana’s letter aims to revive a provision dating back to COP19 in 2013. Countries agreed then that the COP conferences should periodically assess how much money developing countries need to implement the UN climate convention, with the goal of helping inform fundraising by the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

Amoah said the COP has not made that assessment since 2013, so the fund’s replenishments have gone ahead without it. The GCF’s next fundraising round, covering 2028 to 2031, officially began in July. Its board is meeting in South Korea this week to agree rules for donor contributions, and a pledging conference is expected by the end of 2027.

The letter points to “declining” aid and “pressure on multilateral climate funds”. In May, the UK told the GCF it would deliver only half of the £1.62bn it had pledged for the current period, as it spends more on national security.

Trade tensions return

The third African request, for a “Trade and Climate Change Dialogue” item, is likely to be just as contentious. Disputes over what some countries call unilateral trade measures, such as the EU’s carbon border tax, have flared at recent COPs.

To keep this hot issue out of the official negotiations, in Belém last year, the Brazilian presidency set up three trade dialogues to take place at the Bonn mid-year sessions from 2026 to 2028. The first, in June, stayed stuck at “principled debate”, E3G’s Ellie Belton told Climate Home News. There, the African Group and Russia floated a formal negotiating track, which developed countries are reluctant to open.

Tensions set to flare over trade at COP31 as China makes it a priority

The AGN letter argues that the Belém decision already gives sufficient basis for an agenda item. “Respecting previous decisions of the [UNFCCC] governing bodies is an inalienable basis for trust in the process,” it says.

China, which previously asked for an agenda item on trade, signalled last week that it wants COP31 to tackle trade “protectionism” and the free flow of green technology, after US and EU curbs on its cleantech exports.

The UN climate secretariat can add the requested items to a provisional agenda that would need to be formally adopted at the start of the COP. Any government can object to the inclusion of additional issues, and disputed items are often moved into consultations led by the presidency to broker a deal.

The post Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight appeared first on Climate Home News.

We reaffirm our commitment to stand with the struggles of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, to defend their sovereignty and self-determination, and to denounce the policies of interference, dispossession, and criminalization that violate their rights.

The post La Via Campesina Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

We express our deep solidarity with the peasant, indigenous, and Garifuna organizations of Honduras, as well as with the communities, women, youth, families, and defenders of land and territories who face violence, threats, criminalization, and dispossession.

The post La Via Campesina Solidarity with the Peasant, Indigenous, and Garifuna Organizations of Honduras appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
October 28, 2026

Over 40 Mining Claims Filed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, including at least 13 within shrunken boundaries Since Trump’s reductions, 110+ claims filed in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org
Dr. Jacqualine Grant, Executive Director, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners (GSEP); (435) 269-1237 (jackie@gsenm.org)
Keri Gilliland, The Wilderness Society, (KGilliland@tws.org)
Chaitna Sinha, Conservation Codirector and Staff Attorney, Grand Canyon Trust; (970) 399-9565 (csinha@grandcanyontrust.org)
Amy Dominguez, Sierra Club, amy.dominguez@sierraclub.org, (385) 355-4631
Andrew Scibetta, NRDC, (202) 289-2421, ascibetta@nrdc.org
Daniel Hernandez, National Parks Conservation Association, dhernandez@npca.org, (202) 573-2201

GARFIELD COUNTY, UT – 41 new mining claims (see map) have recently been located in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument – 13 in the shrunken Monument, six that may be in the shrunken Monument, and 22 in lands that were previously protected. The previously protected lands became subject to mining claims on Friday, September 11 – 60 days after President Trump decimated Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears by shrinking these national monuments by over 90%. Lands within the reduced Monument remain closed to mining claims and any/all newly located claims here are invalid.

The new mining claims (see map), all filed by Dan W. Proctor, are in three general areas: (1) Colt Mesa (Dan and his son Nick acquired mining claims filed during the previous Trump reduction by Glacier Lake Resources, a Canadian company. Neither Glacier Lake nor the Proctors have developed these claims.); (2) near Studhorse Peaks; and (3) on the northern edge of the reduced Monument, close to where it borders the Dixie National Forest, south of the Circle Cliffs. 13 of the claims near Colt Mesa are in the reduced monument boundaries and six more may be. 

The exact location of the 6 mining claims won’t be confirmed until the paperwork accompanying the recordation of the claims is reviewed. It is also impossible to know at this stage the actual footprint of any mining operations on the claims. The public won’t know the size of any proposed operations until Mr. Proctor files paperwork with the Bureau of Land Management indicating whether it’s notice-level mining (5 acres and under, mostly not subject to federal environmental laws such as NEPA, NHPA, etc.) or plan-level mining (generally 5 acres or more, is subject to federal environmental laws).

“These 41 new claims – in addition to the 72 claims located in Bears Ears National Monument – illustrate that illegally shrinking the monuments was done to further the Trump administration’s extraction-focused agenda,” said Hanna Larsen, Staff Attorney at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “These 113 mining claims put some of southern Utah’s most remarkable places at risk of being irreparably damaged and reinforce the need for vigilance while we work to permanently restore both Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments.”

“These new mining claims threaten what makes the Monument a scientific hotspot. At risk is North America’s second largest petrified forest, a magnificent and nearly unmatched 225-million-year-old site dating back to the late Triassic period,” said Dr. Jackie Grant, Executive Director of Grand Staircase Escalante Partners. “Also at risk is a Federally listed plant species, Jones cycladenia. Only five populations of this rare plant are known to exist; in 2021, energy and mineral development were identified as major threats to its continued existence. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is worthy of protection and should not be threatened by short-sighted mining efforts.”

“The growing number of mining claims at Grand Staircase-Escalante is a warning of what could happen when protections are stripped away, and Tribal Nations and local communities are shut out of decisions about these lands. Irreplaceable cultural resources, wildlife habitat and our freedom to experience one of America’s most extraordinary public landscapes are all at risk,” said Charlie Luke, Utah State Director at The Wilderness Society. “Grand Staircase deserves lasting protections that preserve these irreplaceable values for future generations.”       

“Gut a national monument, and this is the predictable result, a rush of mining claims across lands Americans have repeatedly said they want protected,” said Bobby McEnaney, Senior Lands Analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Grand Staircase-Escalante is a globally significant landscape, but mining companies and speculators are exploiting a law written in 1872 to stake claims on public lands that contain irreplaceable cultural resources, wildlife habitat, and scientific treasures. Americans should not have to watch iconic public lands be carved up because the administration has decided to disregard the importance of our national monuments.”

 “Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument’s paleontology and geology hold the stories of our planet’s past and the monument remains a living cultural landscape of vital importance to many tribes,” said Chaitna Sinha, Staff Attorney and Conservation Codirector for the Grand Canyon Trust. “According to a recent poll, Utah voters strongly prioritize conservation over mining. These mining claims are short-sighted and out of step with what Utah voters want.”

“The claims that continue to come out of the woodwork make no secret of the Trump administration’s true motives for shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments,” said Director of the Sierra Club in Utah, Franque Bains. “Exploiting the culturally significant, revered, and treasured lands so many are connected to for a quick buck is the definition of greed. Utahns want these lands protected, not offered up on a platter for industrial development.”

“It’s heartbreaking to watch this extraordinary place chipped away by mining claims, when Tribal Nations have maintained deep connections to these lands since time immemorial,” said Davina Smith Idjesa, Four Corners Tribal Program Manager at the National Parks Conservation Association. “This confirms what we knew about the proclamation to dismantle the monument. This was always about slashing protections, including clearing the way for unchecked energy development and dismantling co-stewardship structures that give Tribal Nations a leading role in managing their ancestral lands. Grand Staircase-Escalante is deeply intertwined with the National Park System, linking Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Now, we’re seeing the result when the door is left wide open to reckless drilling and mining.” 

Background Information on other Mining claims: 

Under President Trump’s proclamations decimating Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante by over 90%, mining claims could not be staked until 60 days after the date of the proclamation: Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. Despite this, on July 14, 2026, Kimmerle Mining filed 7 mining claims (see map) with the San Juan County (Utah) Recorder’s Office. Kimmerle Mining previously filed mining claims after Trump’s 2017 reduction of Bears Ears and excavated a partially reclaimed mine shaft on one of the claims – the so-called Easy Peasy claim (this mine has been re-buried); Kyle Kimmerle (a Managing Member of Kimmerle Mining) was also a plaintiff in one of the cases filed in the District of Utah challenging President Biden’s 2021 restoration of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.  

Two mining claims were also filed in Grand Staircase-Escalante, less than one month after Trump’s attack. On August 6, 2026, Craig Rosequist filed two mining claims (see map) with the Kane County (Utah) Recorder’s Office in areas cut out of the monument by the Trump proclamations. According to public records, Rosequist previously located several mining claims in neighboring Washington County, Utah. The Bureau of Land Management should reject claims filed in both national monuments prior to Sept. 11. 

From 2018-2021 (during the previous, illegal reduction), there were a total of 20 mining claims filed in the lands cut from Bears Ears National Monument. So far, more than triple that number – 72 claims – have been filed. 

Background information about the national monument reductions:

• Statements from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal coalitions
• SUWA Statement on Trump’s Illegal Reductions of Grand Staircase-Escalante & Bears Ears National Monuments
• Full Statement and Quotes Tracking
• Maps of the reductions
• Reporter Background Memo on National Monuments

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The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org.

The post Over 40 Mining Claims Filed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, including at least 13 within shrunken boundaries appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Assembly #21 - 25/11/2026 Date, time and meeting link * Date: 25/11/2026 * Time: 1pm GMT * Duration: 2 hours Agenda * Introduction (10 minutes) * Interweaving (50 minutes) * Governance (40 minutes) * Information (15 minutes) Description

A vertical farm in the Camille Graham Correctional Institution in South Carolina serves education space for incarcerated women, where women gain skills in farming and workforce development.

The 20-week program teaches women how to plant, grow, and harvest hydroponic lettuce, along with other skills in food handling. Around 15 inmates participate, producing over 3,000 heads of lettuce every week. South Carolina’s Department of Corrections (DOC) then sells the lettuces back to the facilities, where they are served to inmates across Camille Graham and two neighboring women’s prisons.

The goal is to equip women with skills for life after incarceration and support their wellbeing through hands-on connection with agriculture and more nutritious meals.

In addition to being the first controlled agriculture operation in a U.S. prison, the Camille Graham farm is the pilot program for the Growing Justice initiative, operated by criminal justice nonprofit Impact Justice. This summer, Camille Graham began its third cohort of the program, and Impact Justice also launched a Growing Justice location at a correctional facility in California.

“Access to fresh vegetables and locally grown produce is pretty rare” in prisons, Kristina Bell, the Growing Justice Director at Impact Justice, tells Food Tank. “We’ve seen tremendous positive feedback around the fact that they have access to this lettuce, and tremendous pride as well. The participants know that others in the facility are benefiting and enjoying the produce that they’ve grown.”

The technology is sourced by vertical farm company AmplifiedAg. CEO David Flynn tells Food Tank that the farm is a repurposed shipping container with an HVAC system and LED lighting that allow multiple stacked rows of lettuce to grow.

One container has the capacity to produce 40,000 pounds of lettuce every year. Rick Doran, the Division Director of Agriculture for South Carolina’s Department of Corrections (DOC), says that around 4,000 servings of lettuce are harvested each week.

Doran remembers being “blown away” by the technology’s high output, low water intake, and logistical ease for a correctional facility. He was also inspired by the growing potential of controlled environment agriculture in South Carolina, which he said could create job opportunities for participants of the program, who train in this field, after their release.

“Any time we can show people how to be more self-sustaining and understand where their food comes from and what goes into producing and harvesting and being safe with that food—it fits terrifically into the whole idea that when the ladies finally move out of the institutional setting,” Doran tells Food Tank. “It helps keep the recidivism lower, and that’s one of the big goals.”

The Growing Justice curriculum has three main pillars: hands-on work at the farm, classroom instruction on agriculture and food production, and workforce development, which includes resume writing and interview preparation. Participants spend around 10 hours with the program each week, over the span of five months. By the end, they receive a U.S. Department of Agriculture Good Agricultural Practices food safety certification, as well as a US$1,450 stipend after their release from the facility.

As water depletion becomes a growing issue in farming-forward South Carolina, the DOC continues to seek newer technologies, like vertical farming, to build efficiency in its agricultural operations. Tom Osmer, one of the department’s Assistant Deputy Directors, is excited by the Camille Graham farm’s model. He believes the combination of resource-efficient production, revenue generation for the DOC, nutritional value for inmates, and its potential to improve participants’ wellbeing and livelihoods make it an all-around win.

Impact Justice and South Carolina’s DOC describe the program’s influence as immense. “When they’re a part of something, they take more interest in rehabilitation, and it’s a form of therapy for the inmates to work and see their work come to fruition,” Osmer tells Food Tank. “We want them to live a fruitful life on the outside, so these are skills and disciplines they’re learning to keep them productive.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Impact Justice

The post At This Women’s Prison, Inmates Grow, Harvest, and Eat Lettuce from a Vertical Farm appeared first on Food Tank.

Jinwar: Women’s Collective Approach to Managing the Local Economy By Halwest Karim Introduction Jinwar is an ecological village for women and children in Rojava-Western of Kurdistan. It is located between agricultural lands and the Kibaz Hill, in the northeastern plains of Syria’s Hasakah Governorate. The village built by the Kurdish women’s movement as a safe home for women affected by violence and war to rebuild their lives and live together in a community based on solidarity, freedom, an…

But he’s Halloween-Scary about climate change and wishing captive regulators, Duke Energy and Big Tech corporations would change course to help North Carolinians

Yesterday NC Gov. Josh Stein issued a press release on the need to combat rising utility bills, featuring highlights from his Energy Policy Task Force. The Governor correctly alluded to the A.I. data center frenzy being out of control.

But he’s horribly out of step about how to change course.

What Stein and team got more-or less correct:

• Electricity rates could increase by 70% over the next 15 years, with data centers driving some 80% of the expanded energy projects. 
• Data centers’ large energy loads will create $50 billion more in costs through 2050. 
• A recent backroom deal between Duke and Big Tech corporations about data center power costs excludes the lion’s share of costs – new power plants – as NC WARN explained after Duke and others lied that the deal protects smaller power customers. 
• Gov. Stein now says data centers should pay the full cost of their impact and bring their own clean energy. 

What’s Halloween-Scary about Stein’s statement:

• “Bring their own clean energy” is delusional without assertive intervention from the Governor; few if any of the data centers plan to invest in renewable power, and the Duke-Big Tech deal virtually locks out that option. Instead, Duke Energy plans to build polluting power plants near many new data centers. 
• Calling for the NC Utilities Commission to “require” anything of Duke Energy ignores many years of cozy regulatory treatment of one of the world’s worst polluters. That’s why NC WARN is urging Stein to enact a 2-year freeze on data center development to establish a better process to protect communities from Duke Energy and data center developers’ backroom deals. 
• Stein says “If North Carolina starts cutting [carbon] emissions in the mid-2030s rather than later,” it would save ratepayers billions. This is horribly out of step with the 61 climate scientists pressing him to stop Duke Energy’s fossil fuel expansion immediately. [emphasis added]

Has the Governor given up on helping avert runaway climate and social chaos? Is he okay with relegating millions of state and global residents to the climate destruction being amplified by corporate polluters?

NC WARN has been increasingly critical of state government’s collaboration with Duke Energy to recruit A.I. data centers. Our demand for all records about state expenditures regarding those actions will be answered soon unless Gov. Stein chooses to fight this out in court.

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Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes. 

The post Gov. Stein is Right about Data Centers Driving up NC Power Bills 70% — NC WARN News Release appeared first on NC WARN.

WEAVING ALTERNATIVES #21: A periodical of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives Solidarity EconomyNovember 2026 Editorial Note Feature Articles Who Tends the Fire? Dr Lebohang Liepollo Pheko Every economy has its hidden workforce. Not only those whose labour is absent from national accounts, but those whose exhaustion is already anticipated in the calculations of others. Their time is assumed available, their contributions naturally given, and their claims upon the wealth they sustain so…

Pamayanihan: Growing Food, Solidarity and Economies of Life in the Philippines By Charlene Tan Introduction GTA

In the pantheon of coral reef creatures, few fish look as if they’ve been painted by an ecstatic artist with an unlimited palette more than the mandarinfish.

Synchiropus splendidus, a tiny dragonet no longer than your thumb, is a riot of color — electric blues swirling into molten oranges while psychedelic greens trace intricate patterns across its body. Yet these flamboyant little fish spend much of their lives in a place we might easily overlook.

Rubble. Broken coral branches. Collapsed skeletons. The fractured architecture of reefs continually being built, broken, and built again.

I first encountered a mandarinfish during fieldwork in Palau, Micronesia, in 2000. The late-afternoon light filtered down through warm water, the reef slipping into that golden hour when diurnal fish slow down and the nocturnal world prepares to wake.

My dive buddy motioned for patience and pointed toward what looked like nothing more than a pile of broken coral fingers. At first I saw only debris. Then something moved. A flicker of turquoise. Then orange. Then the unmistakable hovering glide of a mandarinfish weaving through the labyrinth of coral fragments.

It looked like a living jewel dropped into a shattered mosaic.

The moment stayed with me, although for years I think I misunderstood what it was telling me.

Palau, like reefs across the tropics, had endured the global coral bleaching event of 1998 — the most severe mass bleaching the world had recorded at the time. Reefs that had once been towering cities of living coral became fields of pale skeletons. Algae colonized newly exposed surfaces while erosion and storm damage slowly broke carbonate structures apart.

Floating there only two years later, I couldn’t escape the juxtaposition: extraordinary beauty moving through the physical evidence of loss.

For years I remembered that fish as a small testament to resilience. But more than a quarter-century later, I began wondering whether science supported the story I had attached to it.

So I started asking people who study reef fish a seemingly straightforward question: How are mandarinfish actually doing?

The first thing I learned was that the rubble wasn’t necessarily a problem.

“Mandarinfishes hide within the dead bases of branching coral or deep coral rubble and prey upon tiny invertebrates,” says Keoki Stender, a Hawai‘i-based fish expert and underwater photographer. The places where he finds them include “murky harbors and lagoons” with corals resistant to bleaching — places that can resemble reefs altered by both natural and human disturbances.

Stender told me he isn’t particularly concerned about mandarinfish. Other reef fishes are much more directly vulnerable to coral mortality: species that eat living coral or shelter within living colonies, including some butterflyfishes, filefishes, damselfishes, gobies, and blennies.

Mandarinfish are different.

They are small, slow, and conspicuously colorful. In open water that combination would make for a very short life. Broken coral gives them a maze of crevices and hiding places, while tiny invertebrates living among the fragments provide food.

To us rubble may look like devastation. To a mandarinfish it can be a neighborhood.

The Trouble With Rubble

Coral reefs have always broken. Storms shatter colonies. Urchins and worms bore into reef frameworks. Parrotfish grind coral into sand. New corals settle among the remains and begin building upward again.

A reef is architecture and archaeology at once.

And rubble isn’t simply what remains when that architecture collapses. It is itself habitat. That makes the mandarinfish an awkward species through which to tell a simple story about coral decline.

Bart Shepherd, senior director of the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences, told me he isn’t particularly worried about the species either.

Mandarinfish are classified as “Least Concern” on the IUCN Red List, something Shepherd attributes in part to their broad geographic range across the Indo-Pacific and relatively limited collection for the aquarium trade.

That puts them in a different position from fishes with narrow distributions, such as the Banggai cardinalfish, or species heavily harvested across large portions of their range, including sharks and food fishes.

Dr. Emma Kennedy, a coral reef scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, pointed to the same IUCN assessment. Although declines have been reported in the Philippines, she said there isn’t enough published information to determine whether they represent a broader global trend.

In some places the more immediate concern may not even be climate change.

Although the IUCN describes the aquarium trade as “limited” overall, collection — particularly in Indonesia and the Philippines — may still pose a significant direct threat to some local mandarinfish populations, Kennedy says.

That wasn’t the answer I expected when I began asking about a fish I had come to associate with coral loss. But then the story became more complicated.

A Fish That’s Hard to Count

“We really have very little data on mandarinfish, globally,” says Dr. Daniela Ceccarelli, who leads fish monitoring work on the Great Barrier Reef for the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

That means scientists can’t confidently say whether populations are declining.

Part of the problem is the very behavior that makes mandarinfish so captivating also makes them cryptic.

Mandarinfish spend much of their lives tucked into the reef matrix, emerging most conspicuously around dusk. Dr. Christopher Fulton, a principal research scientist at AIMS, says conventional visual surveys don’t work particularly well for fishes like these. Obtaining reliable abundance estimates can require anesthetic or ichthyocide within small sampling stations.

In other words, the rubble that protects mandarinfish from predators also protects them from scientists trying to count them. Their population trend remains unknown.

That distinction matters. “Least Concern” doesn’t mean scientists have established that mandarinfish populations are stable everywhere. It means the evidence currently available does not place the species in one of the IUCN’s threatened categories.

So perhaps the most scientifically defensible answer to my question — How are mandarinfish doing? — is also the least satisfying.

We don’t really know.

Where the Living Reef Comes Back In

There was another complication. Even a fish who lives among dead coral ultimately depends on living coral.

As Fulton told me, “Mandarinfish and other dragonets in the family Callionymidae do tend to occupy rubble patches in and around coral reefs,” but rubble doesn’t last forever.

Waves move it. Animals bore into it. Physical and biological erosion gradually grind it down. The process repeats infinitely. “We do need live coral to produce a constant supply of coral-supported habitats,” Fulton says.

That includes rubble.

Dr. Shaun Wilson, a senior research scientist at AIMS, cautioned that there are no studies he knows of explicitly examining the relationship between coral cover and mandarinfish. Direct effects from changing coral communities therefore shouldn’t be assumed.

But ecological dependence can be indirect. “There may be long-term consequences for these fish if production of coral rubble declines,” he told me.

That sentence changed how I thought about the fish I had seen in Palau.

Rubble can provide perfectly good habitat today while simultaneously carrying the history of the ecosystem that created it. Every broken branch was once built by living coral polyps pulling calcium carbonate from seawater. Without continued coral growth, the supply of that architecture eventually stops.

The mandarinfish’s labyrinth may look self-contained. It isn’t.

Ceccarelli put the distinction succinctly: Mandarinfish like sediment-rich and rubble habitats, “but they still rely on tropical coral reef ecosystems as habitat.”

Kennedy makes a similar distinction. Mandarinfish aren’t as directly dependent upon living coral as butterflyfishes that feed on coral polyps. Their diet — including copepods, worms and other small organisms — allows them to forage among dead coral. That may buffer them from the immediate effects of coral mortality. It does not make them independent of reefs.

With the scale of coral loss expected under continued warming, Kennedy told me, “Ultimately everything reef-related will be affected to some extent.”

Persistence Is Not Permanence

That brought me back to Palau. The fish I saw in 2000 was real. So was the habitat it occupied. There was nothing ecologically contradictory about a mandarinfish weaving through broken coral two years after a devastating bleaching event.

Perhaps the mistake was mine. I had interpreted its persistence as a promise. Nature finds a way. Life persists. Beauty emerges from broken places. There is truth in those tropes, but the mandarinfish exposes their limits.

A reef damaged by a storm can generate rubble while living corals elsewhere on the reef continue to grow. New colonies can settle among the fragments. Over time the architecture is rebuilt.

A reef subjected to repeated marine heat waves, declining water quality, disease and algal overgrowth faces a different trajectory. If coral growth and recruitment fail to keep pace with erosion, today’s rubble habitat can become tomorrow’s sand.

The difference is difficult to see in a snapshot. It emerges through time. And we don’t yet know where the mandarinfish sits along that timeline.

How quickly would continued coral loss begin affecting populations? Years? Decades? Would some populations adapt while others disappear?

The scientists I contacted couldn’t answer those questions because the data don’t yet exist. That uncertainty is not a footnote to the story. It may be the story.

What Persists

When I return in memory to that dive in Palau, I still see the scene first as I saw it then. Broken coral fingers. Empty spaces. Debris. And then color. Turquoise. Orange. Green. A tiny fish slipping between fragments, disappearing and reappearing as though the rubble itself were flashing.

Twenty-six years later, I understand something about that scene that I couldn’t have known while hovering above it. The mandarinfish wasn’t evidence that the reef was fine. But neither was its home among the rubble some ecological contradiction. It was simply a fish making use of the habitat available to it — habitat created by corals that had lived before it and dependent, ultimately, upon corals continuing to live after it.

I no longer need the mandarinfish to tell me that nature will always find a way. That asks too much of a fish — and lets the rest of us off too easily.

The water still needs to be clean enough. The heat needs to relent long enough. Corals still need to grow, reproduce and build the structures that future generations of creatures will inhabit.

More than a quarter-century after that dive, I can still picture that mandarinfish moving through the labyrinth — a living brushstroke against the broken bones of a reef. I once saw in it a simple promise: Life finds a way. The scientists I asked gave me something more useful than a promise.

They gave me uncertainty.

The mandarinfish is still considered secure. It is widespread. It may tolerate reef disturbance better than many of its neighbors. And yet the habitat beneath it is connected to living coral by a chain of dependencies we are only beginning to understand.

Maybe that’s what resilience actually looks like — not invulnerability, but dependence stretched across time.

Life will try. Our task is to make sure there is still something living to build from.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

I Will Love You to Death: A Divemaster’s View on Coral Tourism

The post What a Reef Fish Taught Me About Life in the Rubble appeared first on The Revelator.

By Menna Zayed, 2026 Africa Zero Waste Academy Participant

What if solving the waste crisis means changing the system, not simply managing the waste?

Coming from Egypt, I have seen waste in many forms. I have seen it along roadsides, in villages, around agricultural lands, and in places where communities live alongside dumpsites. I have worked around questions of environmental health, climate change, public health and community development, and over time I have come to understand that waste is never simply about what we throw away.

But I still didn’t understand how much there was left to learn. So when I travelled to Ghana to join the Africa Zero Waste Academy, I carried the five questions I had encountered through my own work and communities.

• What happens to the things we throw away?
• Who is responsible for managing them?
• Who benefits from the materials we discard?
• Who bears the health and environmental consequences when waste systems fail?
• And perhaps most importantly: What would a truly just zero-waste transition look like for African communities?

I was thinking about these questions throughout the week-long academy alongside young people working across the continent on waste, climate, and community solutions.

I did not expect these days to give me all the answers. Instead, they gave me more questions.

Travelling to Ghana was an experience in itself, and one of the most beautiful parts was the people I met along the way. Sharing a room, a meal, a bus ride, and so many conversations with amazing young people from across Africa.

Different countries, different stories, yet so much in common.

Meeting Africans beyond conferences and international reports is powerful.

You begin to see the continent through people.

Through their stories.
Through their traditions.
Through the food on the table.
Through the way people greet each other.
Through conversations about what is happening in their neighbourhoods, communities, and countries.

The Academy brought together emerging and experienced youth from across Africa. Each arrived with a different experience. Our contexts were different. But the problems often sounded familiar. From pen dumping, Plastic pollution, Limited infrastructure, Low public awareness, Weak enforcement, Health risks, the struggle to finance better systems, and communities that are often expected to live with the consequences of decisions they had little role in making.

Our waste problems may look different, but many of their roots are connected.

Learning that waste is never “just waste”

The Academy challenged the way I think about the word waste.

We use the word so casually.
We say, “throw it in the waste.”
As if something becomes worthless simply because we no longer want it. I kept coming back to a different question:

What if we stopped asking where waste should go and started asking why we are creating it in the first place?

That shift sounds simple, but it changes everything.

It shifts the conversation from collection and disposal to prevention, reuse, repair, composting, recycling, resource recovery, and circularity.

It also forces us to look at the systems behind our consumption.

• Who designed the product?
• How was it produced?
• What resources were used?
• How long will it remain useful?
• What happens when it reaches the end of its life?
• And who is expected to deal with it?

Zero waste is not simply about having cleaner streets.

It is about redesigning systems so that resources remain resources for as long as possible.

It is also about questioning a model that leaves communities to manage the consequences of endless production and consumption.

At the landfill, the conversation about waste became physical.

We could see the scale of what we were discussing.
We could smell it.
We could see the discarded materials, the environmental pressures surrounding the site, and the people whose daily realities are connected to the waste economy.

Standing there, I could not help but think about Egypt.

I thought about the communities I have encountered back home and the environmental and health questions surrounding poorly managed waste.
I thought about rural areas where burning agricultural residues can become an environmental and public-health concern.
I thought about people who live close to waste sites and often have very little power over the systems surrounding them.

The landfill was not simply a place where waste ended up.

It was evidence of decisions made much earlier in the system.

Every item there had a story before it became a waste.
And every pile of waste had consequences after it arrived.

That was difficult to ignore.

Seeing circularity in action

But Ghana didn’t just show us the problem.

It showed us what can happen when people begin to redesign the system.

Waste can be a problem. But under the right systems, it can also become a resource, an income opportunity, a source of soil improvement, and a part of a more resilient local economy.

The challenge is not simply to tell people to “recycle more.”

The challenge is to build systems that make recovery possible, accessible, economically viable, and socially just.

The people who make the system work

Perhaps one of the most powerful parts of the Academy for me was meeting the people whose work is so often invisible. Launching the Federation of Informal Sector Waste Workers Associations of Ghana (FISWWAG) was one of those moments.

Watching waste workers from different regions of Ghana come together reminded me that enormous knowledge already exists among the people working closest to waste.

They know materials, markets, what has value, and what can be recovered.

Yet waste workers are often treated as if they are outside the formal waste system. We talk about building a circular economy. But we can’t build circularity while ignoring the people who already recover materials every day.

We talk about green jobs.
But many people already do environmental work without the recognition, protection, or dignity it should come with.

We talk about a just transition.
But justice has to mean something for the person standing in front of us.

It has to mean recognition.
It has to mean safer working conditions.
It has to mean decent livelihoods.
And it has to mean that people who know the system aren’t treated as an afterthought when we redesign it.

That experience made something very clear to me:

A zero-waste future cannot be people-free.
It has to be people-centered. 

Africa is not one waste story

One of the things I appreciated most about the Academy was the opportunity to listen to people from different African contexts.

It’s easy to talk about “Africa’s waste crisis” as though the continent were one place facing one problem. It is not.

• The challenges of a coastal community are not necessarily the same as those of a rural agricultural area.
• The waste composition differs.
• The infrastructure differs.
• The policies differ.
• The economies differ.
• And the solutions need to respond to those realities.

But there were also common threads.

Across our conversations, I kept seeing the same underlying themes: people, dignity, livelihoods, climate, health, policy, and community ownership.

That is what made the Academy feel bigger than a training programme. It became a space where experiences could travel.

• An idea from Ghana could spark a question about Egypt.
• A challenge from Nigeria could make someone from another country rethink their own approach.
• A solution from Kenya could inspire a conversation somewhere else.

Beyond the sessions

And then there was Ghana itself.

Some of my favourite memories happened outside the official programme.

• The long conversations during bus rides.
• The laughter after intense sessions.
• Trying new food.
• Learning things about each other’s countries.
• Listening to people’s stories outside the context of their organisations or job titles.

The most important thing about the experience is the people.

It is a community of people from across the continent.

What I brought back to Egypt

When I returned home, I realised that I had brought back a different lens.

I began thinking more carefully about the connections between:

• waste and public health
• waste and climate change
• waste and livelihoods
• waste and environmental justice
• waste and gender
• and between waste and the question of who gets to participate in shaping the solutions

For me, this matters most in rural communities.

Waste is not an isolated environmental issue when you are living in a community where agricultural burning affects air quality, where organic residues have economic potential, or where environmental degradation intersects with people’s health and livelihoods.

The waste conversation needs to broaden.

We need to ask not only, “How do we manage waste?”

But also:

• How do we prevent it?
• How do we create value from what already exists?
• How do we protect people’s health?
• How do we create decent livelihoods?
• How do we make communities part of the decision-making?
• And how do we ensure the transition itself is just?

These are the questions I want to continue carrying into my work.

I came to learn. I left wanting to do it.

A particular kind of experience stays with you after you return home.

Not because you suddenly have all the answers.

But because you can no longer look at the problem in quite the same way.

This experience gave me something more useful: a stronger understanding of how much knowledge already exists within African communities, and how much potential there is when people are given space to connect, learn and build together.

It reminded me that solutions do not always need to be imported.

Sometimes they are already there.

• In a community’s knowledge.
• In a young person’s idea.
• In a composting initiative.
• In people coming together to say that the system can be different.

And perhaps this is what I will remember most from Ghana:

Waste is not only about what we throw away.
It is about what we choose to value.

We decide what is disposable.
We decide whose work is visible.
We decide which materials have value.
We decide whose knowledge is included.
And we decide what kind of systems we are willing to build.

The Africa Zero Waste Academy ended, but the conversations did not.

And the relationships certainly did not.

From Ghana back to Egypt, I carry new perspectives, new friendships, new questions, and a renewed commitment to connecting environmental action with the realities of people’s lives.

Because ultimately, zero waste is not only about waste.

It is about people, resources, health, dignity, livelihoods and the kind of future we choose to create.

And across Africa, that future is already being built in communities, by youth, and by people who refuse to accept that the systems we inherited are the only systems possible.

The experience gave us space to learn from one another and turn what we learned into action.

Writer’s Bio

Menna Zayed is a public health and environmental researcher, clinical and development practitioner, and youth advocate working at the intersection of environmental health, climate action, community engagement, science, and policy. She actively engages in youth climate and environmental initiatives across Egypt, Africa, the Arab region, and international climate spaces, and is passionate about strengthening connections among community knowledge, environmental action, and public health.

The post Africa Zero Waste Academy 2026: Rethinking Waste, People and Possibility  first appeared on GAIA.

In Cuba, land has always meant talking about food production, sovereignty and the future. Agriculture is at the center of national priorities to produce more and better to feed the people.

The post Cuba: Agriculture at the Center of the Transformations appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Negotiations on finance at a key UN summit where governments are expected to ramp up “insufficient” nature conservation policies have reached a stalemate, as countries struggle to agree on where new sources of funding for biodiversity will come from.

Ahead of the COP17 nature summit taking place in Yerevan, Armenia, a UN assessment report showed that governments are off track to meet nearly all the 2030 targets in the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), often referred to as the ‘Paris Agreement for nature’.

In Yerevan, talks on increasing financial resources for biodiversity have remained gridlocked by an EU proposal to expand the list of potential government donors, so that emerging economies like China or Gulf states would also be able to contribute funding and have it counted towards a collective goal.

But some developing nations have fiercely opposed proposal. The group of Arab countries said at the summit’s opening plenary that it “rejects any attempt” to expand the list of donors or “reclassify” the development status of countries.

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Ireland’s nature minister Christopher O’Sullivan, whose country holds the EU presidency, told journalists in Yerevan that EU member states “do feel very strongly about this”. “There are a lot of countries considered developing countries that obviously need to play their part,” he said.

“It’s been 20 years since that list was added. Times have changed and there are new realities. And we just, as simple as this, would like to see those new realities reflected,” O’Sullivan told a press conference on Wednesday.

EU environment commissioner Jessika Roswall said the bloc’s member states will continue their financial commitments but – given a “big gap” on investment – their effort alone will not be enough. “We need more countries to bridge biodiversity finance” to meet the 2030 targets, she added.

Countries are meeting in Armenia for the first Global Review of Collective Progress – a similar process to the climate Global Stocktake – under which they are expected to adopt a “Yerevan Pathway” outlining ways to ramp up nature conservation policies and get on course to meet global nature goals.

Biodiversity finance falling short

The UN report on progress shows developed countries most likely failed to meet an interim target to channel $20 billion for nature protection by 2025, which developing countries say is necessary to implement a global target to protect 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030.

The group of African countries said in a statement at the COP17 opening plenary that the findings of the global review “serve as a serious warning” and “underscore the urgent need to strengthen” the delivery of public finance.

Brian O’Donnell from the non-profit Campaign for Nature told a Climate Home News webinar that public funding is key for developing countries – which are home to most of the world’s biodiversity – so that they can develop tools like spatial planning, incentives for local communities, institutional capacity and even simply signage within a protected area. “We’re asking a lot from those countries,” he added.

The GBF target also states that public biodiversity finance should be increased to $30bn by 2030, and that in total countries should mobilise $200bn from all possible sources – which includes the private sector and philanthropic funds – by the same date. In 2025, global biodiversity finance is estimated to have reached between $74.9 and $92.4 billion per year.

Opening of the COP17 leaders’ summit in Yerevan, Armenia. (Photo: UN Biodiversity)

Speaking at the webinar, Steven Guilbeault, a former minister of environment for Canada and one of the architects of the GBF, said he has been hearing the idea of expanding the base of donors to increase available finance since the biodiversity COP1 in 1995, but added it’s not an “easy conversation” that will be solved in Yerevan.

“I wouldn’t want the progress that we’re seeing here, the progress that we can still make in the coming days, to be jeopardised by the entrenched position on this issue,” he said.

In a letter issued to governments, the Armenian presidency said it aimed to adopt the Global Review text on Wednesday, with two days of negotiations still to go. Observers told Climate Home News that this would be a way of detaching it from the thorniest negotiations on finance. The text, however, was not adopted as planned.

Reducing harmful subsidies as an alternative

Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), said it is “no surprise” that the finance decisions will require guidance from ministers, but argued that the “heavy lift” to increase financial commitments will need to come from reforming subsidies.

When the GBF was adopted, countries identified a finance gap of $700bn a year by 2030. They agreed to address it by mobilising $200bn from all sources, but the bulk of this is due to come by redirecting $500bn in subsidies for activities that harm nature. This goal – contained in Target 18 of the GBF – is where governments have made the least amount of progress, according to the UN progress report.

The UN currently estimates that for every dollar invested in nature conservation and restoration, $30 are currently invested in its destruction. A report by Conservation International puts the cost of harmful subsidies at $11 trillion-$24.7 trillion a year, when also accounting for the nature loss they leave behind.

In Yerevan, the COP17 presidency has aimed to raise the profile of the target on subsidies by launching several voluntary initiatives, including the “Friends of Target 18”, a new platform led by Colombia and Finland which will help countries identify and find ways to redirect damaging subsidies.

Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31

A group of over 130 business and financial institutions – among them French bank BNP Paribas, fashion retailer H&M, food giant Nestle and household products multinational Unilever – also issued an open letter calling on countries to accelerate incentive reform.

Speaking to the media on Monday, Kumi Kitamori, environment director at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said much of the discussion focuses on winding down nature-negative incentives, but noted “it’s also equally about scaling up incentives that are positive”.

In the formal negotiations, countries are talking about whether to include a specific mention of this in the Global Review. The COP17 presidency has proposed to include a line encouraging countries “to accelerate the identification, and the elimination, phase out or reform of negative incentives”, as well as scaling up positive ones.

Jill Hepp, Conservation International’s managing director of nature policy and incentives, said this sends a “powerful signal” that the presidency is prioritising subsidy and incentive reform. She said the new suggested text “well reflects the discussions over the last two weeks and the reality that action towards Target 18 in its entirety must be accelerated to keep 2030 goals within reach”.

Delegates at the opening plenary of the COP17 biodiversity summit in Yerevan. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Mike Muzurakis) Private contributions awaiting rules

Developed countries have pointed to the need for more private-sector contributions that can offset shrinking government aid budgets. At the COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, countries created a new fund to channel voluntary private-sector contributions based on their use of genetic material to support biodiversity protection.

A large part of the fund’s potential relies on the participation of pharmaceutical companies. According to a report by think-tank Zero Carbon Analytics, the top 15 pharma companies could have paid $756 million into the fund in 2025, when taking into account its guidelines suggesting contributions of 1% of profits or 0.1% of revenue.

Yet two years since its creation, the Cali Fund has received little more than $10,000 in corporate contributions. In Yerevan, negotiations have focused on how to operationalise the fund and how to distribute the money among developing countries.

Guilbeault argued that once the rules are finalised, it will open the door to further contributions, noting that companies “need a little bit more security” about what they’re investing in. “Like we saw on climate, when the rules became clearer, more money started flowing through the type of activities we want,” he said.

On the sidelines of COP17, the EU also launched an initiative for “Friends of Credits for Nature and Biodiversity”, which provides a platform to support biodiversity credits. Much like carbon markets, these are credits that companies can buy and sell representing “nature-positive” actions that protect biodiversity, but they are a controversial measure disputed by some Indigenous and environmental groups.

Campaign for Nature’s O’Donnell argued that, even if private-sector flows increase, public funds will still be required, given that the “business case” for some nature-conservation or restoration projects could be harder to make than for climate measures like renewable energy.

Nonetheless, the TNC’s Krueger noted there is a lot of interest among businesses in investing in nature and said the UN biodiversity talks could help ensure they play their part.

“A lot of businesses have taken it up voluntarily, which is fantastic to see. And so, I think a process of making that a little bit more mandatory, a little bit more implemented, could go a long way to help business and nature be aligned,” she said.

This story was updated to add further comments from Irish minister Christopher O’Sullivan and EU environment commissioner Jessika Roswall.

The post Stalemate on finance at COP17 nature talks exposes need for new sources appeared first on Climate Home News.

Carbon dioxide levels are set to surge this year amid a powerful El Niño, a report warns.

Read more on E360 →

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Tens of billions of dollars in international climate finance have been pledged this decade for a “just energy transition” in the Global South. Most of the money, promised by wealthy governments and banks, will be funnelled into infrastructure – mainly shuttering fossil fuel power plants or installing renewables.

But these investments in the shift to low-carbon economies affect workers and communities and therefore require their support. Without funding for social protection and participation, their backing is unlikely, putting the transition at risk, climate justice experts warn.

Several headline-grabbing “Just Energy Transition Partnerships” (JETPs) were announced in 2021 and 2022, including for South Africa at the UN climate conference in Glasgow and Indonesia at the G20 summit.

While there is a need for fair, green transitions across all economic sectors, from vehicle manufacturing to farming and health, it is energy that has attracted the most attention and money so far. The early results have been mixed, with progress on moving away from coal power in the countries with JETPs slower than hoped for.

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Another challenge is that the vast majority of the JETP funding on offer is in the form of loans, with the grants needed to support local communities through the transition making up a tiny fraction.

Of the finance pledged to South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam under their JETPs, grants accounted for just 4%, concessional below-market-rate loans for 53%, commercial loans for 25% and guarantees for 13%, according to a policy brief produced for the G20 in Brazil. 

Spotting a major gap in the justice side of these partnerships, philanthropic foundations in 2023 established a $20-million fund to support community-based and non-governmental groups in JETP countries in their efforts to secure a fair deal for local people.

Philanthropies back community input 

During three years of giving grants to 60 community organisations, unions and researchers, ClimateWorks Foundation – which set up the Global South Just Transition Fund with the IKEA and Laudes foundations – has learned what it takes to complement the JETPs. 

“They are built to move money to energy projects, and our grants build the civic and governance infrastructure that lets that money land,” Justin Sylvester, just transition director at ClimateWorks Foundation, told Climate Home News.

The results achieved with the Fund’s backing include progress on a subnational Natural Resource Fund model in Indonesia backed by the finance ministry, which offers a route for districts to channel coal revenues into developing communities’ post-coal economies. 

Comment: Santa Marta was a learning moment for how to shape inclusive just transitions

In South Africa, meanwhile, nonprofit INSPIRE has worked with solar developer Forethought Capital to build trust with community leaders and secure signed lease agreements for solar projects on protected communal land – a model that can be replicated.

One key lesson so far, Sylvester said, is the importance of building civil society’s economic, civic and cultural power – not just its capacity. Another is the need to get behind social ecosystems rather than isolated projects, and collaborate with other funders. 

“Results come when a community group, a researcher, and a ministry work on the same issue at the local, regional, and national levels,” he said. “We see clear wins when communities can shape transition decisions rather than only react to them, with positive policy outcomes, court rulings, and public money moving.”

The missing finance category

Despite the importance of these early efforts to ensure an equitable green future for communities on the ground, no one knows how much money is going towards it. That is largely because, as an emerging category of climate action that has evolved only in the past few years, funding for just transitions is not yet being comprehensively measured or tracked.

Nor is there consensus on how much will be needed as the energy transition gathers speed. Estimated requirements for international support for developing countries range from a high-level climate finance panel’s $50 billion a year by 2035 to $242 billion a year from the Civil Society Equity Review. But these figures are hard to compare directly.

A new discussion paper on finance for just transition and how it fits with a new Just Transition Mechanism (JTM) due to be established at the upcoming COP31 climate summit in Antalya notes that it faces “a definitional, methodological and accounting challenge”.   

It defines just transition finance as “finance coming primarily from public sources, above all grant-based, highly concessional and non-debt-creating, that supports the policies and measures needed to move economies away from extractive, carbon-intensive models while distributing costs and benefits fairly”. 

Co-author Jodi-Ann Wang, a research fellow with the Just Transition Finance Lab at the Grantham Research Institute, told a webinar on the paper’s findings there is as yet no common tracker or shared taxonomy in place, nor oversight to monitor such flows. 

“Opacity is… costing us a sound understanding of just transition finance,” she said. 

This is where the “Belém-Antalya Just Transition Mechanism” – or BAM, as it’s known among the civil society groups that advocated strongly for it – comes in. 

From Belém to Antalya – gains, gaps and challenges for a new Just Transition Mechanism 

Resource mobilisation group under BAM

As part of its objectives, form and methods of working, which countries will begin to define at the COP31 negotiations in Türkiye, Climate Action Network (CAN) International, a coalition of hundreds of NGOs, is pushing for the JTM to include a “resource mobilisation group”.

This, the paper explains, could explore and develop ways to boost the quantity, quality and governance of finance for just transition around the world, with a view to making it more accessible and equitable.

More concretely, it could map available sources of support and funding gaps, inform the new JTM on financial realities and needs, and propose partnerships between financial institutions, donor countries and actors implementing just transition on the ground. 

A banner calling for the establishment of a Belem-Antalya Just Transition Mechanism at the Bonn climate talks, on June 15, 2026 (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth) A banner calling for the establishment of a Belem-Antalya Just Transition Mechanism at the Bonn climate talks, on June 15, 2026 (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth)

Rebecca Thissen, CAN’s global advocacy lead who co-authored the paper, emphasised that the aim is not to set up yet another UN climate fund – something donor governments are wary of. Instead, she described the role of a resource mobilisation group as “more agile and innovative”.     

One of its first tasks would be raising awareness about just transition finance – not yet an established category of climate funding. Climate finance has traditionally fallen into two main categories: mitigation (measures that cut emissions, such as installing renewables) and adaptation (protecting people, infrastructure and livelihoods from climate change impacts). 

A third pillar has recently emerged: loss and damage (responding to and minimising destruction and harm caused by climate-driven disasters and longer-term stresses).

Just transition finance here, there and everywhere

The time has come to add just transition into the finance mix, argued Thissen, explaining this could be done through two main approaches. The first is to ensure that the existing areas – mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage – have a strong justice component integrated into them. 

The second is to identify specific just transition policies and measures that “fall through the cracks” of those three types of climate finance and show how they can be funded separately.  

Examples given in the paper include Ireland providing a fuel allowance and tax rebates for low-income households to offset additional costs from its carbon tax, Romania offering retraining opportunities in its coal region, and Chile funding ecosystem restoration for polluted areas to recover from resource extraction.

Spain’s unions say just transition means renewing communities beyond jobs

Spain’s government, in addition, has been widely praised for funding formal pacts and just transition strategies in areas where coal mining and power has been phased out, based on tripartite consultations with national, regional and local administrations, unions and industry.

NDCs get serious about just transition

The emerging discussion around just transition finance comes as governments have begun incorporating the concept of just transition, and how to pursue it, into their national climate action plans (NDCs) in a far more meaningful way.

A report from the International Labour Organization, which covered 123 countries that had submitted updated NDCs by November 2025 – the third set of NDCs since 2015 – found that explicit references to “just transition” appeared in 79%, up from 50% in the second cycle.

It said many countries have moved beyond single mentions of just transition to multiple references or even dedicated sections, while around half of NDCs now reference follow-up mechanisms or institutional arrangements for just transition. 

Mentions of explicit resources being allocated for just transition rose to 26% – whether in the form of financial commitments, budget lines or designated funding channels – compared with 2% in the previous round of NDCs. 

The report also cast the net wider, showing that employment has become a common consideration when it comes to climate action, with 90% of the latest NDCs referencing employment and giving growing attention to green jobs and decent work. Social inclusion and equity, meanwhile, are also more prominent, appearing in over three-quarters of NDCs. 

Labour rights lens puts focus on all workers 

This broader lens on just transition fits with the perspective of the International Trade Union Confederation, which argues it must lead to quality jobs in renewables and other green industries, respect labour rights and be built on social dialogue, as well as compensate those who lose out in the shift to a low-carbon world using social protection systems. 

All this has to be financed, emphasised Bert De Wel, the confederation’s global climate policy coordinator. His organisation argues that this can best be done by planning a fair deal for workers and people with lower incomes as economies go greener. 

“It’s not always about having more money – more public money, more private money,” De Wel said. “It’s also about what is out there and how it’s being distributed – who is winning and who is losing?” 

For example, when it comes to promoting sales of electric vehicles over petrol or diesel cars, government subsidies often end up going to richer families, while public transport used by those who can’t or don’t want to buy a car suffer from under-investment.

Two of five new electric buses parked at the Belém terminal in Brazil’s Amazon region. (Photo: Alice Martins Morais) Two of five new electric buses parked at the Belém terminal in Brazil’s Amazon region. (Photo: Alice Martins Morais)

Similarly, just transition is often seen in rich countries as limited to helping workers in coal mines or oil fields find new green jobs. But this, De Wel said, is far too narrow an interpretation. 

Key decisions at UN climate conferences make clear that just transitions are needed across multiple sectors and require “whole-of-society and whole-of-economy approaches”. 

“All workers affected by climate change or by climate policies [should be] the subject of just transition policies, and the best way to deal with it is to give them decent jobs and good contracts, which means formal jobs or formalisation of informal workers,” De Wel said. 

This is especially important in developing countries where informal work makes up a large share of economic activity and those who do it risk being left out of the just transition. So far, they have been largely left out of estimates of what will be needed to fund just transitions.   

Narrowing the development gap 

In addition to compensating workers who are negatively affected by climate policies, social protection and social welfare systems can also be an effective way of providing just transition support to vulnerable people who are hit by climate change impacts. 

Back in 2021, record rainfall caused rivers to burst their banks on the border of Germany and Belgium, killing at least 170 people and causing many employees to be out of work for a few months until their companies could recover. 

But, De Wel noted, they did not lose out financially because they were covered by national social security systems – unlike in developing countries such as Pakistan when people’s small businesses or fields are devastated by flooding and they have to rely on handouts.

For Indian women workers, a just transition means surviving climate impacts with dignity

Khaled Hashem, an Egyptian negotiator who coordinates the just transition track for the G77 and China group of developing countries at UN climate talks, said it is essential for the new JTM to take a broad view and work towards narrowing the development gap between rich and poor nations, so that the latter are in a position to take stronger climate action.

For example, just changing the energy source of a factory to solar requires a whole range of investments in infrastructure, the power grid, skilling of the labour force and even support for basic health and education services at the local level, he argued. Funding for all these different activities “can be considered as part of the just transition”, he added. 

JTM can connect and coordinate

Given the scope of the challenge, CAN International proposes that a resource mobilisation group under the JTM could connect what is happening inside and outside of the UN climate process to coordinate the many existing and potential sources of funding and have them recognised as just transition finance with shared guidelines.

Currently, Thissen said, multilateral development banks are already working on just transition using their own sets of principles, but are starting to appreciate the value the new mechanism could offer in bringing funders together to discuss how to improve cooperation.

This would include UN climate funds, such as the Green Climate Fund which mentions just transition in its strategy but has so far funded few projects that directly address the issue. 

Activists demand finance for a fair energy transition at the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 18, 2024. (Photo: UN Climate Change – Habib Samadov) Activists demand finance for a fair energy transition at the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 18, 2024. (Photo: UN Climate Change – Habib Samadov)

“If [the JTM] is established… with the right function and modalities and principles, it could really set a very good precedent on how we articulate the COP discussion, while also including newcomers and new actors, but through defined standards and approaches that are still embedded in multilateral climate agreements,” Thissen said.  

She suggested that the next Global Stocktake of national climate plans, due to conclude in late 2028, could evaluate and respond to countries’ progress on just transition and funding for it in the outcomes, which must be agreed by all governments. 

The stocktake could be informed by the UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance, which assesses climate finance needs for developing countries every four years, with its third such report due in 2028. While the committee has so far lacked data on just transition finance, this could be provided through the work of the new Just Transition Mechanism.

“That could be a clear connection [between] what actually already exists in the negotiations and… the added value of the BAM,” Thissen said.

The post Why COP31 needs to start talking about just transition finance appeared first on Climate Home News.

On Saturday, October 24, parents, teachers, students, and concerned Ontarians gathered at five separate rallies across the province to show support for public funding of...

The post Rank-and-file voices from the Ontario day of action for public education first appeared on Spring.

Extreme weather is creating a perfect storm of misinformation

a perfect storm of misinformation

Rumors and conspiracies are spreading too fast for emergency managers to keep up. This information chaos is slowing disaster relief and putting lives at risk.

By Ellis Juhlin, Nora Mabie, & Jacob Olness

Oct 29, 2026

This story is part of Distorted, a Grist series exploring the spread of misinformation in the wake of extreme weather. It is published with support from the CO2 Foundation.​

You likely remember the 2023 Maui wildfires, a tragedy that killed more than 100 people and destroyed nearly 2,000 homes, all but erasing a historic island community. You may also remember that the fires began when a broken power pole owned by the local electric utility sparked against dry vegetation on a windy day. 

But do you really know that? Were you there? How can you prove it?

In the aftermath of the Maui fires, thousands of people across all the major social media platforms shared posts and videos alleging that the fires had a more sinister origin. They posited that the government had used a “direct energy weapon,” or a form of laser, to ignite the area. Depending on the post you saw, this was part of a plot to reclaim the area for a high-speed rail line, or a high-tech “smart city.” A number of right-wing activists and social media personalities amplified these claims, including the late Charlie Kirk. At the same time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency saw accounts linked to China circulating rumors that a “weather weapon” had caused the fires. Other accounts alleged that the agency was going to seize the homes of people in Maui who applied for emergency aid, a claim that raised traumatic memories of colonization in a community with significant Indigenous historical and cultural ties.

Extreme weather events are always chaotic, and it’s always been easy for rumors to spread during moments of calamity, but the problem has never been as bad as it is now. The escalating pace of climate change has produced a series of supercharged wildfires, rapidly intensifying hurricanes, devastating drought, and sudden floods, all of which plunge communities into confusion and disarray. At the same time, the information landscape has never been more fragmented — major social media companies have given up on any pretense of fact-checking and content moderation; politicians often distort or politicize disasters; government agencies are short-staffed following DOGE cuts; and generative AI models have created an entirely new and little-understood way to source information. It’s not just your weird uncle seeing these rumors  on Facebook: A recent report from the News Literacy Project found that a vast majority of teens encounter social media conspiracies, and a vast majority of teens who encounter those theories are inclined to believe them.

“Disasters are, by their nature, very urgent and have a lot of uncertainty surrounding them,” said Amber Silver, a professor of emergency management at the University at Albany and an expert in disaster communications. Victims of extreme weather events have an urgent need for facts, she said, but almost no way to get reliable data about their situation. “So now we have essentially all of the perfect conditions for the spread of misinformation.”

• Would you trust an emergency alert written by AI?

• How to fact-check during and after a disaster

• Why trust Grist?

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This confluence of factors does more than sow confusion. A void of good information after a disaster can lead to lost lives, traumatic displacement, or a slow recovery. It also strains the relationship between public authorities and their citizens. A growing body of research from around the world shows the consequences of this strain: A Department of Homeland Security study found that an inaccurate map tweeted out during a 2017 California flood caused an unnecessary mass evacuation, while another study, from the Inter-American Development Bank, found that an earthquake in Mexico led to an 11 percent drop in people’s trust in government. The federal government in the United States now often creates fact-checking and myth-busting websites in an attempt to dispel rumors after disasters.

A review of recent research found that this kind of bad information has often “led to resource misallocation, overwhelmed emergency services, and diverted attention away from genuine needs.”

At Grist, we have been hearing for years from emergency managers and disaster victims in the U.S. about this growing chaos. In our new series, Distorted, we’re exploring this fragmented information landscape: Who do people actually trust when disaster strikes, and why do so many people believe conspiracies that are clearly false? Is there anything the authorities can do to fight social media rumors and post-disaster hysteria? What would it actually take to establish a shared sense of truth as a hurricane or a wildfire is bearing down?

The concepts of “misinformation” (unintentional deception) and “disinformation” (intentional deception) have been the subject of innumerable academic papers and policy initiatives, and the Biden administration even appointed a “disinformation governance board” at the Department of Homeland Security in 2022. In truth, the concepts are a little hard to pin down — the question of whether a certain piece of information is “dis” depends on the beliefs and attitudes of the person who’s reading or hearing that claim. Even so, it’s clear that many people believe things about disasters that simply aren’t true, and they often mistrust the people whose job it is to keep them safe. 

When disaster strikes, this lack of trust can be the difference between life and death. 

Anatomy of a conspiracy

How a series of unrelated photos morphed into a climate conspiracy theory. 

It all starts with an innocuous photo taken on January 16, 2018. The Marathon Petroleum Refinery in Canton, Ohio, conducts a flare in response to a mechanical issue. A local resident captures a blurry picture of the flare, which includes a lens flare pointing upward, and posts it on Facebook. ​​

May 2018: Santa Barbara County, California​

SpaceX posts an Instagram photo of their Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. 
​

May 2023: Santiago, Chile​

A windstorm in Santiago, Chile, causes an electrical transformer to explode. A resident captures the event on video, which includes a lens flare from the bright explosion, and posts the video on TikTok.
​

August 2023: Maui, Hawai‘i

A brush fire in Maui, Hawai‘i, spreads out of control, destroying the town of Lahaina. The fires caused over $5.5 billion in damages and killed more than 100 people.​

Old photos become a conspiracy

Soon after the fires ignite, social media posts on Instagram, TikTok, and X start to resurface these old photos of the refinery flare, the electrical explosion, and the rocket launch, attributing them as evidence of some kind of energy weapon used to ignite the Maui fire.

These posts were viewed and reshared millions of times, and often would take on a life of their own. ​

​

​

The conspiracy can't be stopped

Hawai‘i-based Instagram user @for_our_rights_kauai, for example, posted the old photo of the refinery flare and suggested the Maui fires were the result of an “attack.” A few days later, she acknowledged that the photo was unrelated to the fires.

“I want to apologize for contributing to spreading that photo that I was told came from Maui on the day of this event. It turns out it was not true,” she said in a follow-up video. “It is very important for us to vet our information.” ​

​

The conspiracy spreads

But it was too late. The instagram account @cultivateelevate, run by an influential MAHA-adjacent health food entrepreneur, had already published a video containing a screenshot of @for_our_rights_kauai’s later-deleted post. “My friend in Hawai‘i,” the host said, pointing to the screenshot, “showed a laser beam coming out of the sky, directly targeting the city.” @cultivateelevate’s video received 432,000 views, over 40 times more views than the video apologizing for the mistake. ​

Out of control

Other accounts, like Instagram user @mama_speaks_truth, also contributed to the spread, posting screenshots of screenshots of screenshots, each getting further and further from the original photo of a refinery, taken five years earlier and 4,500 miles away. This is just one example of the twisty way that misinformation can spread in the wake of a disaster. Images and facts can blend together with old fears and suspicions, morphing into a conspiracy with a new meaning and a life of its own. ​

Anatomy of a conspiracy

How a series of unrelated photos morphed into a climate conspiracy theory. 

It all starts with an innocuous photo taken on January 16, 2018. The Marathon Petroleum Refinery in Canton, Ohio, conducts a flare in response to a mechanical issue. A local resident captures a blurry picture of the flare, which includes a lens flare pointing upward, and posts it on Facebook. ​​

May 2018: Santa Barbara County, California​

SpaceX posts an Instagram photo of their Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. 
​

May 2023: Santiago, Chile​

A windstorm in Santiago, Chile, causes an electrical transformer to explode. A resident captures the event on video, which includes a lens flare from the bright explosion, and posts the video on TikTok.
​

August 2023: Maui, Hawai‘i

A brush fire in Maui, Hawai‘i, spreads out of control, destroying the town of Lahaina. The fires caused over $5.5 billion in damages and killed more than 100 people.​

Old photos become a conspiracy

Soon after the fires ignite, social media posts on Instagram, TikTok, and X start to resurface these old photos of the refinery flare, the electrical explosion, and the rocket launch, attributing them as evidence of some kind of energy weapon used to ignite the Maui fire.

These posts were viewed and reshared millions of times, and often would take on a life of their own. ​

​

​

The conspiracy can't be stopped

Hawai‘i-based Instagram user @for_our_rights_kauai, for example, posted the old photo of the refinery flare and suggested the Maui fires were the result of an “attack.” A few days later, she acknowledged that the photo was unrelated to the fires.

“I want to apologize for contributing to spreading that photo that I was told came from Maui on the day of this event. It turns out it was not true,” she said in a follow-up video. “It is very important for us to vet our information.” ​

​

The conspiracy spreads

But it was too late. The instagram account @cultivateelevate, run by an influential MAHA-adjacent health food entrepreneur, had already published a video containing a screenshot of @for_our_rights_kauai’s later-deleted post. “My friend in Hawai‘i,” the host said, pointing to the screenshot, “showed a laser beam coming out of the sky, directly targeting the city.” @cultivateelevate’s video received 432,000 views, over 40 times more views than the video apologizing for the mistake. ​

Out of control

Other accounts, like Instagram user @mama_speaks_truth, also contributed to the spread, posting screenshots of screenshots of screenshots, each getting further and further from the original photo of a refinery, taken five years earlier and 4,500 miles away. This is just one example of the twisty way that misinformation can spread in the wake of a disaster. Images and facts can blend together with old fears and suspicions, morphing into a conspiracy with a new meaning and a life of its own. ​

Experts have identified a few main vectors where communication can collapse in the lead-up and aftermath of a disaster:

Mistrust in government

The most important source of information around extreme weather is the government itself. Federal, state, and local agencies and officials are responsible for predicting the weather, sending out warnings about disasters, coordinating mandatory evacuations, and leading disaster response. If people don’t trust them, or if they can’t get their messages out effectively, lives are at stake. The background trends are already bad: Less than 20 percent of Americans say they believe the government does the right thing most of the time, the lowest level on record. 

The most visible avatar of the government in a disaster is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, so it’s no coincidence that FEMA is also the most frequent subject of conspiracies and disinformation. Even though the agency is supposed to act as a backstop for state and local authorities, disaster-affected communities often swirl with allegations that federal relief is absent, that the government is restricting freedom of movement, or, as in the case of Maui, that officials are going to seize land and disenfranchise victims.

“FEMA has been the source of misinformation since its inception,” said Deanne Criswell, who led the agency under the Biden administration. She pointed to the famous allegations that the agency plans to imprison disaster victims in government-run “FEMA camps”; these allegations have circulated almost since FEMA was founded. “It’s this [idea] of the black arm of government. It makes it harder for us to actually get the assistance to the people who really need it, because they don’t know who to trust and who to believe.” There’s no knowing how many victims never show up to apply for FEMA aid because of these rumors and fears.

During Hurricane Helene in 2024, this misinformation became dangerous: A rumor about a man who had come to North Carolina to shoot FEMA disaster response officials forced Criswell to shut down field operations for several hours during the immediate aftermath of the storm. At the same time, both Criswell and her deputy chief of staff had their homes “swatted,” meaning anonymous trolls called police with false accusations that resulted in the deployment of SWAT teams. These disruptions further stressed an aid system that was already strained, which likely meant more victims in North Carolina had to wait longer to receive aid and shelter.

Hurricane Helene also hit just a few weeks before a consequential presidential election, which likely helped fuel the spread of mis- and disinformation. Right-wing accounts with names like End Wokeness accused Biden of starving North Carolina of aid, racking up millions of views despite a complete lack of evidence for their claims. Elon Musk claimed on his own platform, X, that FEMA was barring him from flying in to deliver aid, only to walk back those claims later. His retraction got 1 million views, but his initial accusation got almost 30 million, and it’s likely that many people in North Carolina and elsewhere still believe that Biden tried to restrict aid.

In other cases, mistrust in government can look very different. It doesn’t have to be about political animus — it can also be about blithe confidence, or even fear. Some people who’ve experienced storms that didn’t live up to early projections may dismiss evacuation warnings later, while others may be afraid to evacuate because they’re undocumented and fear retribution. The end result is the same — more people putting their lives at risk, and more people unwilling to get the help they need after a disaster. 

“It could just be a person who says, ‘I’m a conspiracy theorist, I don’t trust the government,’ but there are also people who can’t or won’t trust that government for very different reasons,” said Silver, pointing to the example of undocumented migrants or communities that have traumatic experiences with law enforcement. “There is some skepticism and doubt, and that is hard to overcome.”

Pervasive social media

Based on the pervasiveness of social media in Americans’ lives, it may not come as a total surprise that these platforms act as the incubator for almost all major disaster conspiracy theories in the modern age. Rumors have swirled around extreme weather events since the dawn of disaster — from allegations that a group of wealthy industrialists caused the 1889 Johnstown flood, which killed more than 2,000 people in Pennsylvania, to claims that FEMA put disaster survivors in concentration camps after Hurricane Katrina. But platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X have allowed for these rumors to achieve global circulation in minutes. The networks also make it near impossible to trace the origin or the trajectory of a given rumor, unless you’re a university or nonprofit lab doing “network analysis” of many millions of tweets. 

There is little good data about how these rumors spread, but it’s clear enough that they do spread. One study on a 2023 earthquake in Turkey found that around a quarter of polled residents believed at least some version of a conspiracy theory that the U.S. had caused the earthquake with a seismic weapon or a bomb. Those who believed these theories were more likely to be supportive of the incumbent government ahead of an election that year. A comprehensive study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that most conspiracy posts were from verified accounts. Even benign fakes, like a famous doctored image of a shark on a flooded highway, have duped media outlets and at least one U.S. senator.

If you’ve spent any time on social media, you already know how pervasive this kind of misinformation can be. One meta study last year found that “misleading messages … often outpaced official communications, resulting in reduced trust and exacerbating anxiety, stress, and fear.” This mistrust can have real-world consequences: A study on a 2018 Japanese earthquake found that communities with low trust in government tended to evacuate even when they didn’t need to, which risked clogging up the roads for people who actually did need to flee. After the Maui fires, Criswell worried that the fear of a colonial land grab caused families who needed help to reject it. 

Even though many people blame bots and malign actors for the spread of rumors, some studies have found that most people who spread false rumors believe what they are sharing. While accounts in Russia and China may have stoked outrage about the fires in Maui, it seems clear that many people who shared such misinformation believed it to be true. One prominent source of conspiracies belonged to  an account called Cultivate Elevate, with over half a million followers. It’s run by a MAHA-adjacent health food entrepreneur who posted a number of videos alleging that the fires had been set on purpose through some kind of government scheme. (The owner of the account did not respond to a request for comment.)

The rise of AI

The proliferation of large language models like Gemini and ChatGPT is the latest wrinkle. About a quarter of U.S. adults now use AI chatbots daily, and searching for information is the most common usage. These models are more likely to draw on news articles and official sources than social media rumors when they answer user queries, which can cut against misinformation — if I type in “Maui directed energy weapon” into ChatGPT, it hectors me that “there is no credible evidence supporting” that theory, and even offers to debunk the actual origins of alleged images that show lasers starting the fire — but that doesn’t mean these models would always be trustworthy in an emergency. 

What if a model were to scrape a news article from last week, for example, that said there’s no evacuation from a storm, but the weather had since progressed or a new event had since formed? Can I really trust the bot to give me an accurate summary of my eligibility for FEMA benefits?

Generative AI is developing so rapidly that most researchers have yet to conduct peer-reviewed studies of how it operates in the disaster space, but it’s clear that the intersection is growing. In addition to dozens of startups that purport to map flood risk or storm damage, the Red Cross has developed a chatbot named Clara that can help navigate disaster situations, and MIT has created a similar technology called Crisischat. The Trump administration’s own chatbot, America.gov, offers information on how to get FEMA assistance. When it comes to analyzing how people trust these tools and standard chatbots like Gemini, however, we are still flying blind.

“You need to learn if the information’s accurate, but then you also need to know, Do people trust it, regardless of the objective veracity?” said Anita Atwell Seate, a professor of communication and a crisis expert at the University of Maryland. “If people trust it, they’re going to act on it whether it’s accurate or not.” Seate is working with other researchers to develop a longitudinal study about how people in disaster areas use AI tools.

It’s hard to know what it would even mean to “solve” the problem of mis- and disinformation in a landscape as fragmented as the 21st century United States. There’s no way to measure the number of people who believe a false rumor, and efforts to debunk inaccurate information will always be of necessity slower and less viral than that information itself. It’s not great for politics if someone in Iowa believes that a laser started the Maui fires, but the more urgent question is how to ensure people in disaster areas have accurate information before, during, and after extreme weather events. That could make the difference between a slow recovery and a fast one, or even between life and death. 

Experts in the field tend to say that the only way to fight disinformation is to establish strong communication channels beforehand, and for emergency managers to partner with people who have organic trust in their communities. Toward the end of the Biden administration, FEMA started to experiment with such efforts. The agency partnered with a Native Hawaiian FEMA employee in Maui who reassured his broader network that the government wasn’t planning to take anyone’s home. While there are still people out there in the U.S. who believe Biden set the fire with a laser, eventually most people in the vicinity of the fire did come to the agency for aid. FEMA also partnered with the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers to distribute disaster info to home health aides and caregivers, putting information in the hands of trusted messengers who would have credibility when the disaster arrives.

“From a government perspective, they’re just like, ‘They don’t know us,’” said Seate, describing the communication difficulties that she’s observed at the National Weather Service. “But they don’t have to know us, they know Jim down at the fire station and Jim, you know, rings the alarm and posted on Facebook for us.”

The tough part is this only tends to work if you lay the foundations before a disaster. Even then, it isn’t always successful — there are people out there who will choose to believe a social media hoax over a trusted weatherman, whether because it confirms their prior beliefs or just because that’s how their brain works. Fighting misinformation isn’t like swordplay, where one side wins and another side loses. It’s more like trench warfare, where emergency managers and recovery leaders have to slog to increase their share of the information environment.

“It’s at a level that we’ve never really seen before, because the systems and the silos of information have gotten so siloed and quick,” said Justin Knighten, a risk communication consultant who led FEMA’s external affairs team under President Biden during several major disasters. “When trust is low, you have a lot of work to not only build up that trust, but to also get ahead of those upcoming threats, so you’re really working at a deficit.”

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Extreme weather is creating a perfect storm of misinformation. Here’s what’s at stake. on Oct 28, 2026.