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Last week, the Georgia Public Service Commission voted to approve a new deal between Georgia Power and the tech giant Google. Starting in 2028, Google will help pay for upgrades to the state’s nuclear reactors. 

“So, around 100 megawatts of carbon-free energy, paid for by somebody else,” PSC Commissioner Stan Wise said to staffers shortly before the vote. “Why don’t you bring us some more of those deals?”

Georgia Power wants to upgrade four of the state’s older nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle and Plant Hatch so they can produce more energy. State regulators approved the Vogtle upgrades last year, but the specifics of how to pay for the work weren’t hashed out. Now, the commission has voted to move ahead with the updates at Plant Hatch too — and approved a new subscription program so large customers like Google can pay for both.

“We appreciate Google’s continued leadership in this space and partnership in developing this program, which we see as the latest example of how large-load growth can benefit all electric customers,” said Aaron Mitchell, senior vice president of strategic growth for Georgia Power, in a statement. 

Under the program, Google will pay a subscription fee on top of its electricity bill to help cover the cost of the nuclear upgrades. In exchange, Google gets credit toward its goal of using only carbon-free energy by 2030. Since nuclear plants don’t use fossil fuels, the power they generate qualifies; nuclear plants can also generate electricity around the clock, which solar and wind power can’t do. 

Precise details of the agreement between Google and Georgia Power haven’t been made public. It’s expected to add 96 megawatts of nuclear capacity to the grid and provide “approximately $900 million in projected benefits to customers over the life of the units,” according to the utility.

“This collaboration with Georgia Power ensures that digital infrastructure growth goes hand-in-hand with positive local impact, helping to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in direct customer benefits and supporting a more affordable, clean, and reliable energy system for all Georgia residents,” said Lucia Tian, director of advanced energy technologies for Google, in a statement.

Google also announced last week that it will partner with Constellation Energy to fund similar nuclear upgrades at reactors in Illinois, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, adding 890 megawatts of energy to the grid for PJM, the largest grid operator in the country. Amazon has announced a deal to add capacity to a Constellation nuclear plant in Maryland.

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Around the country, many utilities are meeting the boom in energy demand from hyperscale data centers by building new natural gas generation and extending the life of coal-fired power plants. Similarly, many data centers are building their own fossil-fuel generation. Deals like this one could present an alternative, according to Priya Barua of the Corporate Energy Buyers Association, which advocates for non-fossil energy solutions for corporate customers.

“A number of large energy customers are looking kind of across the board at what are all of the tools in the toolkit in order to actually support a reliable, affordable grid,” she said. “I do think we’re going to see a lot more of those types of innovations and thinking across the board.”

In addition to nuclear improvements like the ones in Georgia, those tools could include energy efficiency programs, transmission line upgrades, and efforts to reduce energy demand at key times to relieve pressure on the grid — all solutions that can be scaled up relatively quickly with an infusion of cash from a large tech company, Barua said. That speed could prove critical in the coming years because there are significant delays in the supply chain for natural gas turbines and other key components in the gas expansion that Georgia Power and other utilities are planning to meet data center demand. A new nuclear plant can take decades to build, whereas upgrading an existing plant can take around five years.  

“It can mitigate delays in projects coming online,” said Katie Southworth, also of CEBA, of programs like the Google-Georgia Power deal. “You’ve got a relay race, and who is going to get to [commercial operation date] first. In order to have the resources to sort of run a competitive relay race, you have to have a lane for them to go into.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why Google is paying to upgrade nuclear power plants on Oct 13, 2026.

Federal money meant to help restore forests after disasters has stopped flowing because of a lack of funding.

According to the Michigan office of the federal Farm Service Agency, the Emergency Forest Restoration Program, or EFRP, has received more requests for aid around the country than it can pay out. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture — where the farm agency is housed — confirmed the news.

“Currently, requests for financial assistance through the Emergency Forest Restoration Program exceed the funding currently available,” the USDA spokesperson said.

Created by Congress in 2008 as part of the national Farm Bill, EFRP provides disaster relief to landowners restoring nonindustrial forests. Almost two years ago, Congress appropriated $357 million for the program “to remain available until expended.” The USDA earmarked much of that money for landowners dealing with lingering damage from the monster 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. In Michigan, property owners whose forests were compromised by a 2025 ice storm were invited to apply. But the rollout of the federal program in the Mitten State has been mired in delays, confusion about eligibility, and what’s been described by landowners and foresters as little communication from federal officials. 

As climate change threatens to bring more extreme weather that damages forests, some foresters stressed the importance of aid programs like EFRP.

“Our weather conditions are becoming more harsh in many circumstances, so we need to be able to have these pots of funding available,” said Logan Hawley, a landowner and forester in Hubbard Lake, Michigan, who applied for EFRP.

Broken power lines and trees after the 2025 northern Michigan ice storm. Laurent Fady / Getty Images

Administered by the Farm Service Agency, or FSA, the program reimburses private landowners up to 75 percent of the cost of restoring their woods after a disaster. Work can include clearing damaged trees to prevent fire risk, replanting, or managing invasive species.

In Michigan, landowners like Hawley are waiting for federal funds to restore forests that were damaged in a severe ice storm in March 2025. The ice storm damaged approximately 3 million acres of forest in northern Michigan, as the weight of ice downed trees and snapped branches across 12 counties in just two days. To recover just a third of those acres — the 1 million acres managed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources — the state estimates it needs about $14 million. The EFRP program represents some of the only federal funds available for private landowners after the storm.

Some landowners and foresters said they’re frustrated with the lack of movement on work they say is important for the future of northern Michigan’s forests and the economies that depend on them. The state’s forest industry — from wood products to tourism and recreation — contributes billions to the state’s economy annually. 

“We’ve spent so much time filling out the paperwork, going and doing in-person meetings, having them on site doing visits, for what feels like nothing,” said Neil Haney, executive director at Boyne Falls’ Lake Louise Christian Community, a campground where about 1,700 acres of woods suffered damage from the ice storm.

Michigan’s FSA office and the USDA did not respond to specific questions about how many applications had been approved or where in the country EFRP aid had been provided. Since Congress last funded the EFRP in 2024, the agency has solicited applications from landowners affected by hurricanes in Eastern states, a southern pine beetle infestation in Georgia, flooding in Hawai‘i, and a windstorm in Minnesota. Gary Michael, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources cooperative forest management supervisor, confirmed in an email that EFRP applications in his state are also not being approved. FSA first invited Michigan landowners to apply in May 2025.

In a statement, Michigan’s FSA office said landowners “may begin restoration work at their discretion; however, any work initiated prior to [federal] approval is undertaken at personal expense.”

A southern pine beetle in a pitch tube residue spotted on the bark of a pine tree.
Steve Pfost / Newsday RM via Getty Images

According to Mike Smalligan, forest stewardship coordinator with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, around 600 landowners in the state “are in the application process” for EFRP.

The Michigan DNR doesn’t administer the program, but it helped contract 25 foresters — professionals who help landowners manage and care for their woods — who conducted site visits for applicants on behalf of the FSA. Those foresters drew up restoration plans for federal approval, including recommendations for what work needs to be done, and suggested reimbursement rates.

Tony Fox, a forester in Lake City, worked on more than 10 plans. The program “started off very rough” because the Michigan FSA typically works with farmers and agricultural crops — not hardwood forests. 

“It was a little unfair to the folks at FSA,” Fox said. “You had a lot of folks who had no clue about the forest trying to wedge an agricultural program into the woods, so there was a steep learning curve.”

As of late September, Fox said, some landowners were hoping for reimbursement because “they just couldn’t wait” for official approval before starting work on their woods. Michigan FSA said this work is at personal expense “as financial assistance cannot be guaranteed.” Others were waiting for the federal green light before starting work because efforts like planting trees can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What the delays mean for recovery work will vary from forest to forest, Fox said. 

“As far as waiting, if it’s good or bad, it’s a total case study on the level of damage and the species of tree you had,” he said. 

Red pine and aspen were especially hit hard after the storm, for example. Fox said anyone who hasn’t already salvaged those trees might not be able to sell their timber, and they run the risk of rot and pests, which is where federal aid could help. But damaged hardwoods, like maple or oak, are likely to recover on their own with minimal loss in timber value.

Hawley, the forester in Hubbard Lake, was also contracted by the state to help with more than 30 restoration plans. He said one plus of the program has been working with landowners who otherwise would never have had an expert come look at their property and discuss forest health.

Still, as a landowner whose own EFRP application is up in the air, Hawley said there are no easy answers to questions he gets from applicants about how to start restoration work without leaving them ineligible for future funding, if it becomes available again.

Some landowners don’t have the resources to do the work without federal aid, Hawley said. And “these delays are continually putting us at a place where we have to restart efforts” when the next storm hits. Parts of the region experienced another ice storm in the spring of 2026.

Hawley worries about how delaying restoration work can leave forests more vulnerable to disease, fire, or future storm damage. 

America’s forests store almost 60 billion metric tons of carbon and offset about 13 percent of the country’s overall emissions. Damaged forests can’t store as much carbon as healthy ones.

Congress has acknowledged issues with disaster relief programs like EFRP because the timing of appropriations bills doesn’t coincide with when disaster strikes. This summer, Congress passed a bill to address some of those concerns by allowing advance payments to landowners. It was unclear how the new law would affect aid in Michigan and other states.

Representative Jack Bergman, a Republican who represents all of northern Michigan, said in a statement that landowners “shouldn’t have to fight Washington just to get help recovering.” He called on Congress and his colleagues on the House Appropriations Committee to replenish funding for EFRP. 

“If Washington calls this emergency relief, it needs to act like it’s an emergency,” Bergman said.

Despite frustrations, Haney said his camp’s woods will ultimately be fine without the funding. “Nature will be nature, and it’ll come back. It’ll just take longer,” he said. 

But Haney hopes this rollout of EFRP in northern Michigan will be a lesson for the federal government. “The federal government knows how to handle hurricanes, tornadoes,” he said. “It felt like they didn’t know what to do with an ice storm.”

Larissa Donovan of KAXE in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A federal program to restore forests after disaster has gotten too many funding requests on Oct 13, 2026.

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13 October 2026 | RoyalDutchShellPlc.com

Two of the world’s most consequential courts are considering questions that could reshape the legal responsibilities of the fossil fuel industry. In Washington, the US Supreme Court is examining whether communities can pursue climate-damage claims against ExxonMobil and Suncor under state law. In the Netherlands, Shell is defending itself before the Dutch Supreme Court against demands for enforceable greenhouse gas reductions. The proceedings are legally distinct, but they expose the same underlying conflict: how far can courts go in holding major energy companies responsible for their contribution to climate change?

The US Supreme Court enters the climate liability battle

An article published by Forbes on 12 October 2026, written by energy commentator Ian Dexter Palmer, draws attention to a potentially far-reaching legal confrontation involving ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy.

The case originated in Colorado in 2018.

Boulder County, the City of Boulder and San Miguel County brought proceedings against the two fossil fuel companies, seeking compensation for climate-related harms allegedly associated with their products and conduct.

The plaintiffs argue that the companies contributed to climate change and should help meet the resulting costs.

Those costs include measures associated with worsening heat, wildfire risks, flooding and other climate-related consequences.

ExxonMobil and Suncor dispute the legal basis of the claims.

The companies argue that state-law proceedings seeking damages for the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions across the United States and internationally intrude upon matters governed by federal law.

The dispute has now reached the highest court in the United States.

But the precise question before the justices requires careful explanation.

What the Supreme Court is actually deciding

The case is formally titled Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v County Commissioners of Boulder County, No. 25-170.

On 23 February 2026, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case.

It subsequently scheduled oral arguments for 5 October.

Those arguments have now taken place.

The Supreme Court’s official docket confirms the procedural history.

The Court is considering whether federal law prevents Colorado’s state-law claims from proceeding.

The companies argue that claims based upon the effects of interstate and international greenhouse gas emissions cannot properly be governed by individual states’ laws.

They invoke principles concerning federal authority, the Clean Air Act and the federal government’s responsibilities in international affairs.

Boulder and the other plaintiffs maintain that their claims fall within traditional state-law powers to address harms and seek compensation.

The Supreme Court is also examining whether it has jurisdiction to decide the dispute at this procedural stage.

This is not yet a trial determining whether ExxonMobil caused particular losses or how much compensation it should pay.

The immediate issue is whether the claims can proceed within the relevant legal framework.

That distinction is central.

If the Court accepts the companies’ arguments, it could substantially restrict certain state-law climate-damages lawsuits.

If the municipalities prevail, their claims could continue towards further proceedings on liability and damages.

A ruling allowing the lawsuits to proceed would not itself establish that ExxonMobil or Suncor had committed a legal wrong.

What happened during the October hearing?

The justices heard arguments on 5 October 2026.

According to Associated Press reporting, several justices questioned the implications of allowing individual state courts to adjudicate claims involving emissions generated across national and international boundaries.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised concerns relevant to the potentially broad consequences of the litigation.

The arguments also explored whether state-law claims might interfere with federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Supporters of the municipalities argue that federal environmental legislation does not automatically eliminate every state-law remedy for damages.

The Court must distinguish between a state attempting to regulate emissions beyond its borders and a state seeking to provide compensation for injuries allegedly suffered within its territory.

That is not a simple distinction.

A damages award can affect corporate behaviour even where a state has not directly imposed an emissions standard.

Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from the proceedings.

His absence leaves eight justices participating.

An evenly divided decision could leave the Colorado Supreme Court’s judgment standing without establishing a nationwide Supreme Court precedent.

No final decision had been announced as of 13 October 2026.

The Court’s official recording and transcript of the hearing provide the primary record of the arguments.

Why ExxonMobil and Suncor are concerned

The immediate case involves specific Colorado communities.

But the implications extend much further.

Numerous climate-related lawsuits have been filed in American courts against major fossil fuel producers.

Their legal theories vary.

Some seek compensation for climate-related damage.

Others allege that companies misled consumers or investors about climate risks.

Still others challenge particular business practices or environmental representations.

These cases cannot all be treated as legally identical.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of federal preemption could influence how some of them proceed.

For the energy industry, the concern is the possibility of substantial and unpredictable liabilities arising from claims brought across multiple jurisdictions.

For communities seeking compensation, the concern is that broad interpretations of federal law could prevent them from obtaining a hearing on their allegations.

Both sides recognise the significance of the case.

Its outcome could help define the boundary between federal authority and state-level accountability.

The fossil fuel industry’s defence

The companies argue that climate change is a global phenomenon.

Greenhouse gases mix in the atmosphere, and the effects of emissions are not confined to the jurisdiction where they originate.

Petroleum products are produced, distributed and consumed across international markets.

The companies therefore contend that allowing individual states to impose liability for worldwide emissions could create inconsistent obligations.

They also argue that decisions concerning national energy policy, international relations and the regulation of emissions properly belong to federal institutions.

That is a serious constitutional argument.

The production and consumption of energy are fundamental economic activities.

Assigning responsibility for global emissions through state-law damages claims raises complicated questions about causation, legal authority and the allocation of costs.

But the municipalities respond that complexity does not necessarily eliminate an injured community’s right to seek compensation.

Their case also involves allegations concerning the companies’ knowledge of climate risks and their conduct in marketing fossil fuel products.

Those allegations remain contested.

The companies have not been found liable for the climate damages claimed in this proceeding.

Colorado’s argument: Why should taxpayers pay everything?

From the plaintiffs’ perspective, the issue is not simply abstract climate policy.

Local authorities must maintain roads, protect infrastructure, prepare for disasters and respond to changing environmental conditions.

If climate-related risks require additional public expenditure, those costs ultimately fall upon taxpayers unless another source of funding is available.

The Colorado plaintiffs argue that major fossil fuel companies should contribute to costs associated with harms they allegedly helped cause.

That argument depends upon establishing a legally recognised basis for liability.

The plaintiffs would still have to demonstrate the necessary elements of their claims.

Questions about causation, attribution, alleged misconduct and damages would remain.

The scientific relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming does not automatically establish the legal responsibility of any particular defendant for every claimed loss.

Equally, the complexity of attributing individual losses does not automatically prevent courts from considering evidence of contribution and causation.

Those questions are distinct.

They must be assessed under the applicable law and evidence.

The Forbes article raises a disputed scientific argument

The Forbes commentary also advances a much broader argument about climate science.

Its author accepts that global warming is occurring but questions whether climate change has caused worsening extremes such as flooding, droughts, storms and wildfires.

He argues that certain indicators do not demonstrate worsening global trends and questions whether oil companies should be held responsible for individual extreme-weather events.

These claims deserve particular care.

They should not be confused with the established findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report concludes that human influence has unequivocally warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.

It also identifies increasing evidence of human influence upon several types of extreme weather.

The evidence is particularly strong for increases in hot extremes.

The IPCC also finds that heavy precipitation has increased in frequency or intensity across many land regions with sufficient observational data, and that human influence has contributed to these changes.

Findings concerning droughts, tropical cyclones, flooding and wildfires vary according to region, type of event and the strength of available evidence.

It would therefore be inaccurate to suggest that the scientific community has established that every weather extreme is becoming more severe everywhere.

But it would be equally inaccurate to claim that climate change has no demonstrated influence upon extreme weather beyond temperature increases.

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report provides the authoritative scientific framework.

Forbes contributors publish independent commentary, and Palmer’s interpretation should be understood in that context.

The Supreme Court’s present task is primarily legal.

It is not conducting a comprehensive scientific reassessment of anthropogenic climate change.

SHELL’S PARALLEL BATTLE: THE DUTCH SUPREME COURT

The American proceedings have a particularly interesting connection with Shell.

As Forbes points out, another major climate case has reached a national supreme court.

This time, the defendant is Shell itself.

The proceedings originated with a lawsuit brought by Milieudefensie, Friends of the Earth Netherlands, together with other organisations and individual claimants.

In May 2021, the District Court of The Hague delivered a landmark judgment ordering Royal Dutch Shell to reduce its worldwide net carbon emissions by 45 per cent by the end of 2030 compared with 2019 levels.

The ruling attracted international attention.

It was widely regarded as an important development in attempts to impose corporate climate obligations through civil litigation.

Shell appealed.

On 12 November 2024, the Court of Appeal in The Hague overturned the specific reduction order.

However, the appellate court also recognised that companies such as Shell have responsibilities concerning dangerous climate change.

The distinction is crucial.

The appeal judgment rejected the enforceable 45 per cent reduction order sought against Shell.

It did not establish that large corporations have no climate-related legal responsibilities.

Milieudefensie subsequently brought the dispute before the Supreme Court of the Netherlands.

On 22 May 2026, the Dutch Supreme Court heard oral arguments.

Further written submissions were filed in July.

The proceedings remain unresolved.

Both Shell’s own account of the litigation and Milieudefensie’s published legal documents confirm the chronology.

A judgment is anticipated in 2027.

The critical issue: Can a court impose a corporate emissions target?

The Dutch litigation asks a different question from the American case.

The Colorado proceedings concern the availability of state-law claims for damages allegedly caused by climate change.

The Dutch case concerns whether civil law permits the imposition of a specific emissions-reduction obligation upon Shell.

Milieudefensie argues that Shell has a legal duty to make an appropriate contribution to preventing dangerous climate change.

It maintains that the company’s emissions and business strategy should be assessed against internationally recognised climate objectives.

Shell argues that the courts should not impose the requested company-specific reduction target.

The company maintains that energy transition requires broader government policy, changes in consumer demand and coordinated action across the energy system.

It has also argued that reducing the sales of fossil fuels by one supplier would not necessarily produce equivalent reductions in global emissions if other suppliers replaced those products.

The Dutch Supreme Court must decide questions concerning the application of law and the adequacy of the appellate judgment’s reasoning.

It is not simply repeating the original trial.

And the litigation does not mean that Shell has already been finally ordered by the Supreme Court to achieve Milieudefensie’s requested target.

That matter remains contested.

Scope 3 emissions: The issue neither industry nor investors can ignore

Both the American and Dutch disputes draw attention to the significance of emissions associated with fossil fuel products.

For oil and gas companies, a large proportion of the emissions associated with their value chains arise when customers use the products they sell.

These are commonly categorised as Scope 3 emissions.

They are distinct from emissions generated directly by a company’s own operations, known as Scope 1, and those associated with purchased energy, known as Scope 2.

Scope 3 emissions can include emissions resulting from customers burning petrol, diesel, natural gas and other products.

This creates a difficult legal question.

A company extracts, processes or sells a fuel.

A customer purchases and consumes it.

The resulting emissions enter the atmosphere.

Who bears legal responsibility, and to what extent?

The answer depends upon the cause of action, applicable law, evidence and remedy being sought.

Accounting for Scope 3 emissions does not automatically establish liability for them.

But excluding all downstream emissions from consideration would overlook much of the climate impact associated with the fossil fuel business model.

For Shell, this issue has been central to the Dutch litigation.

For ExxonMobil and other American defendants, arguments about responsibility for emissions generated through widespread product consumption are relevant to the broader climate-liability debate.

The courts are being asked to determine legal boundaries in an area where the economic and environmental consequences are potentially substantial.

California adds another dimension

The Colorado proceedings are not the only major American climate lawsuit involving oil companies.

In September 2023, California’s attorney general brought proceedings against several major fossil fuel companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips.

The case includes allegations that the industry misled the public about the risks associated with fossil fuels and their contribution to climate change.

Those allegations are disputed and have not been established by a final liability judgment.

The legal questions differ from those raised in the Colorado proceedings.

Claims based upon allegedly deceptive statements may present different issues from claims seeking compensation for worldwide emissions.

That distinction could become increasingly important.

A Supreme Court decision restricting certain state-law emissions claims would not necessarily resolve every lawsuit alleging misleading commercial conduct.

Nor would a decision permitting the Colorado claims to proceed automatically establish liability in California.

Nevertheless, the cases demonstrate that climate litigation is becoming a significant area of legal exposure for the energy industry.

For Shell shareholders, this is not a remote issue involving only another company’s legal problems.

Shell is directly involved in climate proceedings in Europe and the United States.

The company must assess regulatory compliance, potential litigation costs, disclosure obligations and reputational consequences across multiple jurisdictions.

COMMENTARY: The courts are confronting the limits of corporate responsibility

There is a striking difference between the business language commonly used by major oil companies and the legal questions now reaching supreme courts.

Companies understandably emphasise the importance of meeting global energy demand.

They argue that petroleum products remain essential to transport, manufacturing, heating and economic development.

They also point out that consumers, governments and industrial users make decisions that determine how much fossil fuel is consumed.

Those arguments have substance.

The energy system is complex.

No single company controls worldwide demand.

But the plaintiffs in climate litigation raise a different consideration.

Major fossil fuel companies have participated in producing and selling products that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

Some plaintiffs also allege that companies knew about the risks but failed to communicate them adequately.

They argue that the costs of climate-related harm should not automatically fall entirely upon the public.

This raises a legitimate question about how responsibility should be allocated.

The fact that consumers use a product does not necessarily eliminate every possible responsibility of its producer.

But the fact that a product contributes to a global problem does not automatically establish that its manufacturer is legally liable for a particular loss.

The law must distinguish those propositions.

That is precisely why the current proceedings are significant.

What should shareholders expect?

Shell and ExxonMobil shareholders have an obvious financial interest in the outcome.

Potential climate liabilities could affect earnings, investment decisions, insurance arrangements and long-term corporate strategy.

A broad expansion of liability could expose companies to costly litigation.

A restrictive Supreme Court ruling could reduce some of that exposure.

But shareholders should also consider the risks associated with prolonged legal uncertainty.

Companies may face continuing litigation even when individual claims fail.

Different jurisdictions may develop different legal standards.

And legal disputes over climate-related disclosures, alleged misleading statements and environmental obligations may continue regardless of the outcome of any single case.

Shareholders are therefore entitled to expect candid reporting of material litigation risks.

That includes an explanation of the issues being contested, the status of proceedings and the extent to which potential financial consequences can reasonably be assessed.

It does not require companies to concede claims they dispute.

It requires transparency.

A defining moment for Big Oil?

The cases before the American and Dutch supreme courts could become landmarks.

But their significance should not be exaggerated before judgments have been delivered.

The US Supreme Court could issue a narrow procedural decision.

It might address federal preemption without resolving questions of factual liability.

The Dutch Supreme Court could address the legal basis for a company-specific reduction obligation without dictating every element of Shell’s future business strategy.

Both courts could leave important questions unresolved.

Nevertheless, something significant has already happened.

Questions once regarded primarily as matters for environmental campaigning and political negotiation are now being examined at the highest levels of national judicial systems.

Major fossil fuel companies are being required to defend their legal positions on climate responsibility.

And courts are being asked to define the limits of corporate accountability in a warming world.

That development deserves serious attention.

Conclusion: Two supreme courts, one unresolved question

ExxonMobil and Suncor maintain that Colorado’s claims cannot properly proceed under the state-law framework advanced by the municipalities.

Shell maintains that the Dutch courts should not impose the specific emissions-reduction obligation sought by Milieudefensie.

The plaintiffs take opposing positions.

They argue that existing law provides mechanisms through which companies can be held accountable for climate-related conduct and harm.

The legal arguments differ.

The remedies differ.

And the courts operate within different legal systems.

But the underlying debate reaches beyond the individual defendants.

When the commercial activities of major energy companies contribute to a worldwide environmental problem, what responsibilities should those companies bear — and who should determine them?

Governments have an important role.

Consumers have responsibilities.

Companies have legal obligations and commercial interests.

Courts must apply the law.

The difficulty is determining where one responsibility ends and another begins.

For the fossil fuel industry, 2026 is proving to be a particularly consequential year.

The Supreme Courts of the United States and the Netherlands are both examining disputes that could influence the future relationship between corporate activity, climate change and legal accountability.

Neither has yet delivered the final ruling awaited in these proceedings.

For Shell, ExxonMobil and the wider energy industry, the outcome could be important.

For communities confronting climate-related costs, it could be equally significant.

The question is no longer simply whether climate change is occurring. It is whether existing legal systems can identify and enforce corporate responsibilities for its consequences.

That question is now before two of the world’s most influential courts.

Principal sources

Forbes — 12 October 2026

US Supreme Court Will Hear Lawsuit If ExxonMobil Is To Blame For Carbon Emissions

The original commentary by Ian Dexter Palmer. Its scientific interpretations are distinguished from the conclusions of the IPCC.

Supreme Court of the United States — Case No. 25-170

Official docket: Suncor Energy v County Commissioners of Boulder County

The primary judicial record documenting the case, issues presented, February 2026 decision to grant review and October hearing.

Supreme Court of the United States — 5 October 2026

Official oral argument audio and transcript

The authoritative record of the oral arguments.

Cornell Law School — Legal Information Institute

Supreme Court Bulletin: Suncor Energy v Boulder County

Detailed explanation of federal preemption, the Clean Air Act and the competing legal arguments.

Associated Press — October 2026

Supreme Court weighs local governments’ climate change lawsuits against oil and gas companies

Contemporaneous reporting of the Supreme Court hearing.

Shell — Climate Case

Shell’s official account of the Milieudefensie climate litigation

Shell’s description of the Dutch proceedings, judgments, appeals and 2026 submissions.

Milieudefensie — Climate Case

Overview of legal documents in the case against Shell

Court documents, legal submissions and the litigation chronology.

Milieudefensie — 22 May 2026

Dutch Supreme Court examines historic climate case against Shell

Contemporary account of the Dutch Supreme Court hearing.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Sixth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2023

Scientific assessment of human-caused warming, observed impacts and climate-related extremes.

Editorial disclaimer: This article distinguishes authenticated judicial records, claims advanced by the parties, contemporary journalism, scientific assessments and editorial opinion. No court has determined in the pending Colorado proceedings that ExxonMobil or Suncor is liable for the claimed climate damages. The Dutch Supreme Court proceedings involving Shell remain unresolved. Allegations made by parties to litigation are not presented as established findings of wrongdoing.

Site-wide disclaimer applies.

Big Oil on Trial: ExxonMobil Faces US Supreme Court Climate Showdown — With Shell Fighting Its Own Battle in the Netherlands was first posted on October 13, 2026 at 8:07 am.
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13 October 2026 | RoyalDutchShellPlc.com

Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas. Yet its own industries and households face uncertainty over future gas supplies and prices. Now Shell Australia chair Cecile Wake has attacked the government’s proposed domestic gas reservation scheme, warning that excessive intervention could damage investment and create the very shortages it is intended to prevent. But an investigation published by ABC News only yesterday raises an awkward question: why should Shell, which has historically contributed gas to Australia’s domestic market, face potentially onerous obligations while a rival exporter accused of drawing gas out of that market could benefit from exemptions?

Shell’s warning: A ‘sledgehammer to crack a nut’

Speaking at an industry conference in Sydney on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, Shell Australia chair Cecile Wake delivered a forceful criticism of the Albanese government’s proposed domestic gas reservation scheme.

According to Reuters, Wake described the proposed intervention as a “sledgehammer to crack a nut”.

Her argument was not that Australia should abandon domestic gas reservation altogether.

Indeed, she acknowledged that a reservation mechanism could have a legitimate role.

Her objection concerned the design of the proposed scheme, particularly requirements that could oblige exporters to supply more gas than the domestic market needs at prices that might fail to justify future production.

Wake warned that the government’s approach could ultimately undermine investment incentives and potentially produce future market failure.

The economic argument is straightforward.

Gas developments are capital-intensive. Producers typically require confidence that future sales will cover exploration, extraction, processing, transportation and financing costs.

If government intervention pushes domestic prices below the cost of developing additional supplies, companies may defer or abandon investment.

That could leave consumers facing shortages and higher prices in later years.

It is a serious argument deserving examination.

But it is not the entire story.

Australia’s extraordinary gas contradiction

Australia exports vast quantities of LNG to overseas customers, particularly in Asia.

Yet businesses and households in eastern Australia have faced persistently high gas prices and warnings about possible supply shortages.

Much of Australia’s gas production is concentrated in Western Australia and Queensland, whereas substantial industrial and household demand is located in the southeastern states.

The resulting problem involves production, transportation capacity, commercial contracts and the connection between Australian gas prices and international LNG markets.

For years, manufacturers and other industrial energy users have complained about the cost and difficulty of securing affordable long-term supplies.

The Albanese government argues that intervention is necessary to prevent Australia’s substantial gas export industry from leaving domestic consumers exposed.

In May 2026, ministers announced plans for a reservation scheme broadly equivalent to 20 per cent of LNG export volumes.

The latest implementation timetable envisages the new framework beginning in 2027, with domestic supply obligations expected to commence on 1 January 2028.

According to the Australian government’s official policy explanation, the objective is to improve supply security, moderate domestic prices and protect Australian consumers from international market volatility.

The government is seeking to balance export commitments against national energy requirements.

Shell argues that the proposed design risks getting that balance wrong.

But the existence of the problem is difficult to dismiss.

Australia is sufficiently rich in gas resources to be a major international exporter, yet its domestic market has repeatedly experienced supply concerns.

That raises a legitimate question about whether the export system has adequately protected Australian consumers.

What the government’s proposed scheme would do

The proposed Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme would require major LNG exporters to make specified quantities of gas available to Australian customers.

The broad policy has centred on an obligation equivalent to 20 per cent of LNG exports.

However, the draft legislation introduces several mechanisms affecting the actual obligations imposed on individual exporters.

These include provisions concerning existing export contracts, regulatory discretion, available supplies and compliance requirements.

The government has also proposed that the volume made available should exceed forecast domestic demand, with the aim of improving liquidity and encouraging competitive pricing.

Reuters reports that the latest design envisages supply equivalent to 110 per cent of forecast demand.

The difference between requiring producers merely to offer gas and obliging them actually to supply it has become particularly contentious.

A requirement to offer gas does not necessarily ensure that suitable commercial transactions occur.

Conversely, an obligation to sell more gas than customers wish to buy could create difficult commercial consequences.

The policy therefore raises genuine questions about market design.

The government needs to ensure that Australians receive sufficient gas at reasonable prices.

But it must also ensure that obligations are workable, transparent and fairly distributed.

The legislation had not yet completed the parliamentary process at the time of writing.

The official consultation documentation makes clear that the detailed design remains central to the debate.

An inconvenient discovery: Shell has been supplying Australian consumers

An important investigation published by ABC News on 12 October 2026 considerably complicates the argument.

The ABC examined the operations of Australia’s three major east-coast LNG export ventures.

These are:

• Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG), operated by Shell.
• Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG), operated by Origin Energy, with ConocoPhillips and other shareholders.
• Gladstone LNG (GLNG), operated by Santos.

Although all three export LNG from Queensland, their historical effects on domestic gas supply have differed substantially.

According to the ABC investigation, the Shell-operated QCLNG venture and APLNG have overwhelmingly contributed gas to the domestic market on a net basis.

The Santos-led GLNG venture, by contrast, has relied heavily upon purchasing gas from the Australian domestic market to fulfil international export commitments.

The ABC reported that GLNG’s net withdrawals and exports over the preceding decade were equivalent to approximately 20 per cent of eastern Australia’s annual domestic gas demand.

The underlying problem concerns the relationship between GLNG’s export capacity and its own available gas resources.

Its LNG plant was developed with production capacity exceeding the gas reserves available to support its export commitments.

Consequently, the project has purchased substantial quantities of gas from other domestic suppliers.

Critics argue that this has increased pressure on Australian gas availability and prices.

Santos disputes the criticism directed at its operations.

Nevertheless, the distinction is important.

Shell cannot fairly be characterised as having behaved identically to every other east-coast LNG exporter.

There is credible independent reporting that its Queensland operation has historically supported domestic supplies.

That should be acknowledged when assessing Shell’s objections to the proposed reservation scheme.

The Santos question: Will the biggest problem escape?

The ABC investigation identified another troubling issue.

Industry representatives, analysts and the Australian Workers’ Union have warned that changes to the draft reservation legislation could allow some exporters to escape much of their expected domestic supply obligation.

The concern focuses particularly on Santos-operated GLNG.

One contentious provision concerns existing export contracts.

The government has committed to protecting export commitments entered into before its December 2025 policy announcement.

That is understandable in principle.

Australia’s international customers have entered long-term arrangements on which they rely.

But critics fear that the proposed exemption rules could also protect extensions of some existing contracts.

The ABC highlighted GLNG’s agreement with South Korea’s KOGAS.

A five-year extension option beginning in 2030 could potentially shelter substantial export volumes from the intended reservation requirements.

There are also concerns about provisions allowing adjustments to exporters’ obligations where they claim insufficient available gas or difficulties meeting overseas commitments.

These provisions may be commercially necessary in some circumstances.

But they also create opportunities for differing interpretations and potentially unequal treatment.

Australian Workers’ Union national secretary Paul Farrow has warned that the draft contains what he calls “Santos-sized loopholes”.

His concern is that a policy intended to correct distortions in the gas market could end up imposing greater burdens upon exporters that have historically supported domestic supply.

Meanwhile, a venture accused of aggravating shortages might enjoy more favourable treatment.

These are allegations concerning the potential operation of draft legislation, not proof that exemptions have already been granted or misused.

But the questions deserve answers before the rules become law.

Is Shell being punished for contributing gas?

This is where Shell’s position becomes particularly interesting.

If the reservation scheme imposes substantial new obligations on QCLNG and APLNG while GLNG benefits from broad exemptions, the result could be commercially perverse.

Companies that have historically supplied domestic customers could face additional restrictions.

A company that has historically purchased domestic gas for export could receive protection because of its existing international contracts.

That outcome would be difficult to reconcile with the government’s stated objectives.

It could also weaken incentives for exporters voluntarily to support the domestic market.

Shell’s objections should therefore be examined in this context.

Its argument about maintaining appropriate investment incentives is not simply an attempt to protect export revenue.

There may be a legitimate concern that poorly calibrated legislation could create unfair outcomes between competing exporters.

The government must demonstrate that the proposed scheme will produce additional domestic supply rather than merely reshuffle existing gas sales.

Above all, obligations should reflect the actual contribution of each exporter and its capacity to supply more gas.

Shell’s earlier warning about investment confidence

Wake’s criticism is consistent with Shell Australia’s previously published position.

In an opinion article released by Shell on 19 September 2026, entitled Investment certainty builds strong nations, she argued that major energy investments compete internationally for capital.

Australia cannot simply assume that investors will continue funding projects regardless of changing regulatory conditions.

Shell emphasised the importance of predictable policy, adequate returns and a competitive investment environment.

The company linked those requirements to energy security and the development of additional gas supplies.

This is a standard argument among international energy producers.

But it also presents a legitimate challenge for policymakers.

There is little value in reducing domestic prices temporarily if the result is a serious shortage of economically viable production in subsequent years.

Equally, Australia cannot reasonably allow investment concerns to become an unlimited justification for leaving domestic consumers exposed to international energy prices.

Both considerations matter.

The government needs adequate investment.

It also needs a market that serves Australian energy users.

The international dimension: Australia’s Asian customers

Australia’s gas industry cannot be assessed solely as a domestic supply question.

LNG exports are commercially important to the country.

Customers in Japan, China, South Korea and elsewhere have made major investments in long-term supply arrangements.

International trading partners have a legitimate interest in contractual reliability.

The ABC reported that the Chinese embassy had raised concerns about equitable treatment under the proposed reservation scheme.

Chinese state-owned companies hold interests in major Australian LNG developments.

The embassy urged the Australian government to ensure consistent treatment of LNG exporters and international investors.

This adds another dimension to the policy challenge.

Australia must preserve its reputation as a reliable energy supplier.

But that international responsibility does not eliminate the government’s obligation to safeguard domestic energy security.

The appropriate balance should be determined through transparent legislation and enforceable rules, not preferential treatment for the most influential commercial interests.

COMMENTARY: The market works — but for whom?

Shell’s central assertion is that the proposed scheme risks damaging a market that is already functioning effectively.

That invites a fundamental question.

Functioning effectively for whom?

For LNG exporters, Australia’s position as a major international supplier has created substantial commercial opportunities.

For overseas customers, Australian gas has provided an important source of energy security.

For domestic consumers, however, the picture is less reassuring.

Australian manufacturers have complained about prices and uncertain availability.

Governments have repeatedly intervened to manage potential shortages.

And the possibility of future LNG imports into an LNG-exporting country has itself become part of the national debate.

These circumstances suggest that there are structural weaknesses requiring attention.

They do not prove that every proposed intervention is justified.

Nor do they prove that the government’s latest scheme is well designed.

But they do undermine any suggestion that commercial success in export markets automatically demonstrates satisfactory outcomes for Australian consumers.

The distinction matters.

Energy resources are developed by commercial enterprises.

Those enterprises are entitled to legitimate returns.

But governments are also entitled to establish policies intended to protect national economic interests.

The difficult question is how to reconcile those objectives.

There is a strong case for requiring LNG exporters to make a reasonable contribution to domestic supply.

There is also a strong case against imposing identical obligations upon producers operating under materially different circumstances.

And there is an especially strong case against creating exemptions that reward the very commercial behaviour the policy is intended to correct.

If the ABC’s reporting accurately identifies weaknesses in the draft, the government should address them.

Shell, for its part, should be willing to demonstrate how its proposed alternatives would ensure sufficient domestic gas availability rather than merely protect existing export arrangements.

Both sides should be judged by evidence.

Shareholders should also pay attention

For Shell shareholders, the controversy raises questions about regulatory risk and the long-term profitability of Australian gas investments.

QCLNG is an important component of Shell’s LNG business.

Changes to domestic reservation rules could influence the balance between Australian sales and international exports.

They could affect prices, contracting arrangements and future investment decisions.

But shareholders also have an interest in the sustainability of the wider market.

A gas export industry that fails to maintain public confidence may face increasing political intervention.

That could introduce greater uncertainty over time.

An arrangement perceived as fair to domestic consumers, investors and overseas customers may prove more durable than a system repeatedly subjected to emergency restrictions.

The Australian government’s challenge is therefore not simply to reduce prices.

It is to create a credible framework that secures sufficient supplies while maintaining incentives to develop new resources.

Shell’s challenge is to demonstrate that its preferred approach can meet those objectives.

Conclusion: A sledgehammer, or a necessary repair?

Cecile Wake may be correct that the proposed reservation scheme contains serious flaws.

Indeed, the ABC’s investigation provides grounds for concern about the fairness and effectiveness of the draft legislation.

But rejecting heavy-handed intervention is easier than explaining how Australia’s recurring domestic gas problems should otherwise be resolved.

A country blessed with enormous energy resources should not have to choose between honouring its export commitments and ensuring reasonable supplies for its own citizens.

The better question is how to design a system that achieves both.

Shell deserves recognition for its historical contribution to the domestic gas market through QCLNG.

That contribution strengthens its position when arguing for fair and carefully calibrated regulation.

But the government also has a legitimate responsibility to ensure that Australian consumers and industries benefit from the nation’s natural resources.

The danger is that a badly designed policy could satisfy neither objective.

It could discourage future investment while allowing some of the market practices blamed for domestic shortages to continue.

The real test of Australia’s gas reservation scheme is not whether Shell approves of it, or whether the government can claim to have confronted the LNG industry.

It is whether Australian consumers receive reliable and reasonably priced gas — without undermining the investment required to supply them in the future.

That is the standard against which both the government and Shell should be judged.

Principal sources

Reuters — 13 October 2026

Shell calls Australia’s gas reserve plan a ‘sledgehammer’ that risks market failure

The principal contemporary news report, including Cecile Wake’s criticism of the reservation scheme.

ABC News — 12 October 2026

Critics say ‘Santos-sized loopholes’ will make gas reservation a joke

Investigation by Daniel Mercer examining differences between the three Queensland LNG ventures and allegations that the draft scheme could favour GLNG.

Shell Australia — 19 September 2026

Investment certainty builds strong nations

Cecile Wake’s published explanation of Shell’s position on investment confidence, energy security and government intervention.

Australian Government — 2026

Gas Market Review and reforms

Official government account of the proposed reforms, consultation process and implementation timetable.

Australian Government — September 2026

Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme: Exposure Drafts

Draft legislation and explanatory material.

ABC News — 7 May 2026

Gas export restrictions and better domestic prices promised under new east coast reservation policy

Background reporting on the government’s policy announcement and the varying domestic supply contributions of Australia’s LNG exporters.

Editorial note: This article distinguishes Shell’s corporate position, the Australian government’s policy objectives, independent reporting and editorial commentary. The alleged legislative loopholes remain matters of debate concerning proposed legislation. No finding is made that Shell, Santos or any other exporter has acted unlawfully.

Site-wide disclaimer applies.

Shell Calls Australia’s Gas Reservation Plan a ‘Sledgehammer’ — But Who Should Control the Nation’s Gas? was first posted on October 13, 2026 at 7:47 am.
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'Our radical roots' Channel News brendan 13th October 2026 Teaser Media

What was supposed to be America’s first “autonomous” transit system is on pause in the midst of a fiscal crisis at the agency that built it — and some advocates say it could be a cautionary tale about deprioritizing a tried-and-true transit solutions in favor of untested ideas.

The Jacksonville Transit Authority recently announced that it would suspend operations on the Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation system, known locally as NAVI, amidst a $39 million budget shortfall that also temporarily shuttered the Florida city’s eight-stop monorail system, Skyway, and resulted in the layoffs of nearly 200 people.

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That shortfall eventually drew the attention of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who subpoenaed the JTA last week for a range of financial documents — including statements on NAVI ridership that have implications for state funding. (Information on more colorful expenditures, like massages, was also requested.)

Some local advocates, though, argue that the problems with NAVI began long before the current fiscal crisis, and speak to larger issues with an agency with a history of chasing shiny new technology when residents without cars are struggling to get around.

“It all spiraled out of control,” said Marcus Nelson, a Jacksonville native and public transportation activist. “[NAVI] was originally supposed to be affordable — and then it became this expensive monstrosity, which I guess that might not happen at all now.”

‘A lot of promises’ — but not many results.

Nelson isn’t the only Jaxson who has doubts about NAVI.

Even when it first launched in June of 2025, the system drew criticism for its $65 million price tag — $39.5 million of which came from local funds. That’s larger than the current shortfall, and indeed, the entire operating budget of some transit agencies, like the Michigan capital of Lansing.

“If there wasn’t this insistence to force this type of autonomous technology into the transit system and to be the first to do this, you’d have plenty of money within budget to maintain your core operations and keep the Skyway running — not lay people off,” said Ennis Davis, a local transpiration planner and co-founder of Jacksonville Magazine.

Running a downtown route of just 3.5 miles, mostly along a single road — and with a fleet of just 14 Ford shuttle vans, each with a capacity of only nine passengers — NAVI has also faced pushback for not meaningfully expanding shared mobility access in America’s single largest major city by land mass outside Alaska.

Jacksonville measures a staggering 747.3 square miles in all, and was recently ranked in the top 10 most-sprawling large metro areas in the country; critics say NAVI has little hope of scaling out to its farthest reaches and attracting meaningful ridership.

In November 2025, though, local investigative journalists even alleged that transit agency employees were being paid to spend hours on the autonomous vans to boost ridership and make NAVI appear more viable on paper. The agency denied this, and claimed employees were simply acting as “ambassadors to help riders become familiar with the service.”

Perhaps most outrageously, though, NAVI’s so-called “autonomous” transit system has never been truly autonomous, requiring a human “attendant” behind the wheel of each of its vehicles at all times.

And while there are federal restrictions outside JTA’s control on what type of cars are allowed to operate on local roads without drivers, some locals say the agency still fell short of its lofty promises. (The JTA did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)

“The technology is still risky,” said Davis, who is also a member of the downtown development review board for the city. “There are a lot of things beyond the city of Jacksonville’s control, beyond JTA’s control; there are federal regulations that have got to be dealt with. But still, a lot of the promises that JTA has made are not coming to fruition.”

‘Political poison’

In Davis’s view, though, perhaps the most damning aspect of NAVI was how it diverted attention and resources from the broader public transportation options Jacksonville sorely needs — which residents have demanded for years.

He traces that groundswell back to the 1970s, when Jacksonville first won its bid to build the Skyway automated monorail system with help from the federal Downtown People Mover program — though unlike the the NAVI, the Skyway is actually driverless.

Originally conceived as the last-mile component of a larger shared mobility plan, Davis says that system’s ambitions were quickly undermined by policies that incentivized suburban sprawl — not to mention ever-more driving. Jacksonville recently ranked in the top 20 most-dangerous US metros for pedestrians.

The Jacksonville Skyway

At its height in 2015, the Skyway logged just 5,000 riders a day in a city of more than a million. And since it was approaching the end of its useful life anyway, local officials were doubtful about its future.

“[Today, even the name] ‘Skyway’ is political poison,” Davis adds. “It’s associated with being a transit boondoggle; [the JTA] doesn’t want to use that term. So they decided, ‘we’re just gonna call it something new.'”

In acronym-happy Jacksonville, that rebranding and planning effort became known as “U2C,” short for the “Ultimate Urban Connector” program. Davis says, though, that despite past griping about the Skyway “boondoggle,” the process revealed that many residents actually wanted more public transportation options — and they even wanted to see the Skyway become a meaningful part of the larger shared network they’d been promised decades ago.

Rather than asking where Jaxsons wanted to go and then determining the best mode to get them there, though, critics say agency officials over-focused on the next-gen transit options they wanted to provide. On JTA’s website today, U2C is referred to simply as “a program to introduce autonomous vehicles (AVs) into the JTA’s transportation system.”

“The community overwhelmingly recommended that the Skyway be modernized and expanded,” Davis counters. “Somewhere along the line, though, JTA took that ‘as we’re going to advance new technology’ — so, autonomous vehicles.”

Now, the agency is asking the public to weigh in on six alternatives for the future of the Skyway — a list which Davis says presents dubiously high estimates for rehabilitating the monorail, potentially steering respondents towards AV-centric options like converting the track into an elevated road exclusively for NAVIs.

‘Zombie agency’

Still, both Davis and Nelson acknowledge that Jacksonville’s experiments with new transportation technology are not entirely to blame for JTA’s budget crisis.

Like most US transit agencies, the agency has struggled in the wake of COVID, especially in a state that systemically underfunds public services and whose voters may soon force even steeper cuts. Even with the help of federal grants, which NAVI and the Skyway both received, both advocates say expanding transit service in such an autocentric city can be an uphill climb.

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Still, Nelson argues JTA officials should be held accountable for pushing the NAVI solution as hard as they have — if any of them are still around, that is. CEO Nat Ford announced he was leaving the agency in July when the impending NAVI shutdown was first rumored; he’s set to take the helm at the Dallas Area Rapid Transit later this month.

“Obviously, it’s a pretty bad look to have a large public agency very loudly and proudly chasing this dream to then have their financial position erode in front of them — and then the CEO in charge runs off to another state,” Nelson added. “Taxpayers feel like they’re being handed a bag … In a state where it’s challenging to bring in new local funding for transit, you’re going to be stuck with this zombie agency walking around with all this infrastructure that they can’t really afford to take advantage of.”

‘The pain is the first step’

Davis says he’s still hopeful that Jacksonville’s transit future can be resuscitated — if they get back to basics and stop chasing “national firsts.”

He cites Miami as an example, whose notorious Metromover circulator also won a Downtown People Mover grant, only to face struggling ridership much like the Skyway. Over time, though, he says the city changed its land use policy to encourage transit-oriented development around its stations, alongside improvements to the larger transit network of which it’s a part; Metromover reported a 54.5 percent year-over-year ridership jump last month, bolstered by the World Cup.

If Jacksonville can think holistically, too, he hopes it can replicate its downstate neighbor’s success – and that starts with looking at how well the entire transportation landscape is working for people, not just swapping a monorail for a fleet of glorified shuttle vans that can’t even drive themselves like they claim.

“We really need to have an honest conversation about transit in general in Jacksonville, and understand that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution,” he adds. “We’ve always tried to come up with the thing that no one else has ever done, and [we’ve always said,] ‘We’re going to be the first and greatest and best at this.’ [But you can wait to] see other cities touch the hot stove and burn themselves; you don’t need to touch the hot stove, too.”

The Miami Metromover

In time, advocates are hopeful that the JTA can get its financial house in order and start expanding the transit network, even if service cuts and layoffs hurt for now.

Some of those needs might even be met by automated technologies, which Davis says he doesn’t oppose. But if they are, it should be because vehicles like NAVIs are truly the best fit for a specific mobility purpose, in a broader ecosystem of diverse mobility options — not because the agency wants to claim the title of “first in the nation.”

“I think it’s more of a cautionary tale of not bringing the community to the decision-making table of its future,” he added. “The pain we’re going through now is the first step. Some of these things that we’ve been trying to force people into just need to die.”

A version of this article is the first in a short series that was originally appeared on the author’s Substack. It is republished with permission; check back tomorrow for part 2.

I work at a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization, but that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about my experience working with each party. And a poor understanding of what is partisan and what is bipartisan in transportation leads to poor advocacy and bad outcomes.

I pick more on the Democrats because they make loads of speeches and promises about how much they share my organization’s transportation priorities, but they don’t show it in their legislating or administration of programs. Republicans are more honest about their trepidation or even opposition.

And while it surprises people to hear this, when Republicans agree with us, they are much more likely to champion those changes. For example the creation of the intercity passenger rail program in the 2015 surface transportation bill wouldn’t have happened without Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS).

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Let’s dig into this, starting with Democrats.

Democrats tend to claim that funding transit, rail, and walking and biking infrastructure is a priority. They talk about creating good-paying jobs and building a system that does not hurt the environment, public health, or the neighborhoods around it. But they tend to support the exact same projects and programs as those who do not champion these things.

Republicans talk about transportation investments that support a strong economy. They want the states to have control over federal funds and to support rural areas, improve freight movement, and to ensure that the user pays and that the user who pays reaps the benefits of the investments they fund. For the most part, they don’t actually end up funding projects that accomplish those outcomes.

Both parties do so much to undercut what they claim to care about.

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Democrats often focus on supporting spending that creates good construction jobs, but they are less concerned with whether the projects those jobs build accomplish anything or even cause harm. Republicans say they want to prioritize rural needs but then pour money into “fixing” urban congestion with highway expansions that create more congestion or they push highways through rural villages that hollow them out.

While both parties are foolish, they are not the same. Republicans would rather have nothing than something they don’t like. Democrats need something and make it clear they will take anything over nothing. So Republicans have a stronger negotiating position.

Republicans are also willing to use their administrative power to push their priorities, while Democrats prefer to write plans about what someone should do someday.

Some examples: I worked at the U.S. Department of Transportation during the Obama Administration. During those eight years, Congress passed and the President signed two transportation authorization bills. Both of them maintained the basic structure of the program that has existed since 1991:

• 80 percent of funding for highways (all guaranteed) and 20 percent for transit (not all guaranteed);
• no reward for improvements in priorities like safety or repairing crumbling infrastructure, and no accountability for doing worse;
• small programs (e.g., Transportation Alternatives, the Highway Safety Improvement, and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement programs) to fix the ongoing damage caused by all of the rest of the much bigger programs; and
• continued support for tools that made it hard to do what we claimed we wanted, like a benefit-cost analysis that quantified mostly congestion benefits, travel demand modeling that was consistently wrong, and design standards that produced unsafe results, etc.

Democrats don’t take their progressive stances into transportation.

For example, when Democrats talk about addressing climate change, they mean that they want the auto companies to produce more efficient cars, not that they want to produce a more efficient transportation system.

There is a bipartisan version of this too. Such as when members of both parties say they want safer roads, they mean they want people to behave better on the roads, and maybe that auto manufacturers should build safer cars, when pushed. They do not mean that they would require roads to be designed in ways that produce safer results.

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The first Trump Administration did not move a transportation bill. The Biden Administration did, with some fanfare.

Biden’s bill included a lot more money, but for the most part, the same structural problems bulleted above continued — though credit to them for funding rail investment and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Unfortunately, they made both programs cumbersome, and most of the money was still sitting unused when the second Trump Administration took over, allowing them to rescind those grants and repeal or change those programs.

Last summer, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed a bill, almost unanimously, that cuts transit and rail, ends the climate and EV charging programs, and includes almost none of the smaller programs that fix the damage caused by the big programs, except for a couple safety programs that the Trump Administration has already said they will not to be used as the law intends.

Committee Democrats — especially the progressives — praised the bill publicly, but privately said that this was “the best they could do” in the current political environment. However, most have also made clear that, if the political environment changes in the next Congress, they will feel pressure to support the same bill, because they voted for it already.

One has to wonder who is actually supporting the progressives’ supposed priorities.

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Progressive leadership does not tend to result in progressive transportation policy. If groups that want the outcomes that progressives claim to care about, then they need to dial up the pressure for real actions.

Speeches don’t create change. And decades of saying that they wish they could do more started sounding hollow years ago.

Tomorrow I will focus on the so-called progressives and champions of multimodal transportation at the state level. Spoiler alert: it is the same as at the federal level.

• What really cuts down on traffic is access to driving alternatives. Yet the proposed Bipartisantransportation bill, the BUILD America 250 Act, would cut transit by 20 percent while raising road construction funding by 8 percent. (Transportation for America)
• Surprise, surprise: A network of protected bike lanes is more likely to get people pedaling than a patchwork of sharrows and off-road paths, according to a University of New Mexico study. (Cycling West)
• Darrell Owens dunked on two California newspapers’ editorials urging voters to reject a Bay Area transit funding referendum. (The Discourse Lounge)
• I-35 traffic from San Antonio to Dallas is so bad that it’s making San Antonio drivers reconsider Amtrak. (MySA)
• Speed cameras have been successful in slowing down Minneapolis drivers on the five roads where they’ve been tried. (Star Tribune)
• North Carolina suspended its 41-cents-per-gallon gas tax, but drivers are not likely to see the full savings. (Raleigh News & Observer)
• Portland is expanding its sidewalk cleaning program to historically underserved areas. (Oregonian)
• Helena, Montana is considering establishing fixed-route bus service. (Free Press)
• Vancouver police are out in force ticketing e-scooter riders for not wearing helmets. (Daily Hive)
• Pedestrian deaths in Toronto are up 24 percent this year (CBC). While perhaps not directly related, it doesn’t seem like now is a great time to start tearing up bike lanes (Sun).
• Edinburgh may extend the times when certain lanes are restricted to buses beyond traditional rush hours. (Reporter)

Study: Hundreds of chemicals linked to breast cancer in lab and animal studies in high use in the U.S. Anthony Lacey October 13, 2026

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosis among women and cases are on the rise. Anyone can get breast cancer – but it’s most common in women.

A new peer-reviewed study looks at where Americans are exposed to chemicals that may contribute to that rise. Published in Environmental Health Perspectives, the analysis found that hundreds of chemicals tied to breast cancer risk in animal and laboratory studies turn up in everyday products, food, drinking water, pesticides and air pollution.

It was led by scientists at the Silent Spring Institute, with co-authors from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco. 

In this study, the researchers found breast-cancer-relevant chemicals in consumer products, food, drinking water and drinking water supplies, pesticide products, medications and building materials. 

Many of the chemicals are produced in large amounts. In 2019 alone, 143 were made in or imported to the U.S. in volumes of 1 million pounds or more.

A 2024 analysis by the same authors identified 920 chemicals that caused mammary gland tumors in animal studies or changed hormone activity in ways linked to breast cancer. This study tells us where we could potentially be exposed to those chemicals.

Breast-cancer-relevant chemicals

In their 2024 study, the Silent Spring researchers created the list of 920 chemicals they call breast-cancer-relevant chemicals. A chemical made the list if it did at least one of the following:

• Caused mammary gland tumors in rats or mice in at least one study.
• Increased estrogen or progesterone production in lab tests using human cells. 
• Activated the estrogen receptor, the switch inside cells that responds to estrogen.

The researchers also checked whether each chemical can damage DNA, another way chemicals can lead to cancer. Many chemicals on the list do more than one of these things. Chemicals with strong hormone effects that also damage DNA were the most likely to cause mammary tumors in animals.

Presence on this list is not proof that a chemical causes breast cancer in people. It flags chemicals that need more research, especially when many of us are exposed to them every day.

What the authors found

The team combined data from more than a dozen federal databases that track how chemicals are produced, used, released into the environment and measured in people.

Some of the chemicals are well known, including bisphenol A, better known as BPA, bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, the solvent dichloromethane and parabens. Others, such as p-cresol and 2,4-dimethylphenol, have received much less attention.

Federal biomonitoring data show many of these chemicals, or the compounds they break down into, are in almost all people. The “breakdown products” of methylparaben, the sunscreen active ingredient oxybenzone, several phthalates and certain pesticides were detected in more than 95% of people tested.

Industrial facilities reported releasing nearly 82 million pounds of these chemicals into the air, water and land in 2024. When the researchers included all sources of air pollution, such as vehicles, wildfires and the burning of fossil fuels, estimated emissions topped 2 billion pounds in 2020.

Consumer products

Most of the breast cancer chemicals, about 500, were present in the consumer products category. Of those, 181 are also hormone disruptors and 88 are genotoxic, meaning they can damage cellular genetic material, which can lead to mutations or cancer. 

Among these commonly used ingredients in personal care products are chemicals like parabens, phthalates and bisphenols. 

Also on the list are ingredients in hair dyes like resorcinol and p-phenylenediamine, which causes mammary tumors in animal studies. They can also damage DNA and increase production of estrogen and progesterone in lab tests. 

Studies have linked hair dye use to breast cancer risk.

Prescription skin-lightening creams can contain hydroquinone, which also increased estrogen and progesterone production in lab tests. The researchers note these products are more likely to be used by women of color, which could add to existing disparities in exposure. 

Pesticide products

The study also highlighted pesticide products as an important source of exposure to breast cancer chemicals. People can be exposed to pesticides in multiple ways, including as residues on produce and in drinking water. Pesticides may also be found in products in the home, such as insect repellents, medical treatments and pest control. 

The study reported 485 chemicals found in pesticide formulations. But the authors point out that only about one-third of them are currently registered with the Environmental Protection Agency as active ingredients. 

In most cases, before a pesticide can be sold, the EPA requires extensive toxicity testing of its active ingredients, including long-term studies of whether they cause cancer.

The other chemicals are classified as inert ingredients – solvents, preservatives and other chemicals that help a product work. Inert ingredients do not require tests as stringent as those for active ingredients. Only sometimes they are required to be on product labels. This means people using these products usually can’t tell which inert ingredients they contain. 

Using national biomonitoring data collected between 2017 and 2020, the study reported that organophosphate pesticides (like malathion, which is commonly used on crops) were found in more than 90% of  the U.S. population. 

This finding adds to existing concerns about widespread “forever chemicals” PFAS pesticide use, including mixtures of pesticide classes frequently detected on produce. 

Food and water

The researchers report 462 of these chemicals in food. Of these, 83 are on the Food and Drug Administration’s list of substances added to food, which means they are expected to be there. The others may be present as contaminants that migrate from packaging and processing equipment or be present as contaminants for other reasons, such as pesticide residues. 

Others are chemicals formed when meat is cooked at high temperatures and some, such as soy compounds, occur naturally in plants.

People who rely more on packaged and ultra-processed foods may face higher exposure to chemicals from food additives and packaging.

The authors also reported 162 breast-cancer-relevant chemicals, such as pesticides and industrial solvents, likely to be present in drinking water. 

Some chemicals form as byproducts when drinking water is disinfected. These disinfection byproducts, or DBPs, emerge when disinfectants such as chlorine react with naturally occurring organic matter in water. 

Some DBPs have been linked to cancer and other health concerns.

Among the pesticides linked to breast cancer and reported present in drinking water, 50 have current registrations, but 37 no longer have a current EPA registration. 

The data source the authors used to identify chemicals in drinking water, the EPA’s CPDat, reports only whether a chemical has been found in drinking water. It does not report where or how much of it was found or when the detection occurred. 

Pharmaceuticals

The researchers also found 142 breast-cancer-relevant chemicals in medications sold in the U.S. Most of the active ingredients fall into a few groups: hormone treatments, chemotherapy drugs, treatments for infections and parasites, anti-inflammatory drugs and blood pressure medications.

This does not mean you should stop taking medication. Many of these drugs treat serious conditions, and some, like hormone therapies, have been shown to interact with the hormone system because they have been designed for that purpose. 

Totality of exposures

The study highlights the widespread occurrence of breast-cancer-relevant chemicals. People are not just exposed to one chemical at a time. They’re exposed to hundreds of chemicals from multiple sources over the course of their lives. Even if most are at low levels, exposures add up.

The national biomonitoring data cited in the study show how common these combined exposures are. Research shows that exposure to chemical mixtures, or multiple chemicals that can add up or sometimes interact together to multiply each other’s effects, creates a total health risk that is measurably more harmful than those from the chemicals acting alone. 

And in most cases, regulations for chemicals do not take cumulative exposures into account.

What you can do to reduce exposure 

• Check EWG’s resources for safer products. Use our Healthy Living App, Skin Deep® and Guide to Healthy Cleaning and look for products with low hazard scores or our EWG Verified® mark.
• Invest in a home water filter for improving water quality. Consult the EWG Tap Water Database to find out what’s in your water. EWG’s water filter guide can help you find the right filter for your budget. Shop organic, when possible, to reduce pesticide exposure. Consult the EWG Shopper’s Guide Pesticides in Produce™ to find out which fruits and vegetables have the highest and lowest pesticide residues, so you can make the best decisions for your family. And see EWG’s Guide to Washing Produce. 
• If you have questions about a medication, especially if you have a history or higher risk of breast cancer, talk with your doctor or pharmacist before making changes.

Other actions you can take

• Know your family history. If possible, find out whether anyone in your family has had breast cancer. Some genes with mutations increase risk of developing this type of cancer. 
• Get screened early. Preventive procedures such as regular breast cancer screenings are important to detect breast cancer early, which can also make it easier to treat. As of 2026, experts suggest screening for breast cancer starting at age 40. 

Areas of Focus Food & Water Family Health Women's Health Toxic Chemicals BPA Pesticides October 13, 2026

From California to France to the G20, “tax the billionaires” is shifting from slogan to concrete proposal. Beyond the revenue it would raise, it draws a sharp line between those who profit from crisis and everyone else. As the far right turns economic insecurity into a politics of scarcity and division, the billionaire enemy could become the foundation for a different political “we.” But only targeting a handful of people at the top risks leaving broader inequalities untouched.

This article is an 11-minute read. In the time it takes to finish reading it, the world’s most chronically online billionaire, Elon Musk, could add another 11 million dollars to his wealth – more than most people around the world will earn over their entire working lives – without having to do much of anything at all, other than, perhaps, angrily “tweet”.

And those millions add up fast. When SpaceX went public in June 2026, Musk became the first person Forbes had ever valued at more than one trillion – after his wealth had grown by more than 550 billion dollars over the previous year.

But Musk is not the only one. The US has Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg; Europe has its own billionaire class, from Bernard Arnault and his family in France to Amancio Ortega in Spain; China has Zhong Shanshan; and India has Mukesh Ambani. The list goes on, as do the zeros. By 2025, billionaire wealth reached a record 18.3 trillion dollars, increasing by more than 16 per cent in that year alone.

Beyond the numbers, what does any of this mean for our societies? For decades, there has been a rather convenient economic story about what happens when wealth grows at the top: it generates investment, jobs, and growth whose benefits eventually spread to everyone else, or “trickle down”. Yet wealth has become increasingly concentrated: the richest 10 per cent now own around three quarters of global wealth, while the poorest half own just 2 per cent.

The result is not simply inequality. At a certain point, the extraordinary concentration of resources in the hands of a very small number of people also becomes a concentration of power. Billionaires own or control major companies, media, and digital infrastructure; they finance political campaigns; some enter politics themselves. Others do not need to hold office for access. It has become common to see Elon Musk alongside presidents and heads of government, Mark Zuckerberg sitting down with political leaders, and some of the world’s wealthiest people moving through spaces of political power to which very few people have access. Nobody elected them to those rooms. Their invitation is, in large part, their wealth.

That concentration of wealth and power becomes particularly difficult to ignore when set against what everyone else has been asked to absorb. Austerity after the financial crash was followed by a pandemic and then a prolonged cost-of-living crisis. Eurofound’s 2025 survey found that 61 per cent of respondents in low-income EU households were struggling to make ends meet. Yet between 2020 and 2022 alone, billionaire wealth increased more than it had over 23 years between 1987 and 2010.

This divergence between those at the top and everyone else matters politically. When governments talk again about what societies can afford and what must be sacrificed, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus on what “ordinary people” must give up without also confronting what those who have accumulated the most should be expected to give back.

What even is wealth?

Which brings us back to Musk’s 11 million dollars, which is not a salary. Musk does not receive a million-dollar pay cheque every sixty seconds. Much of his wealth comes from his ownership of companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, whose increasing value allows his wealth to grow without anything resembling a conventional income. And that distinction matters enormously when it comes to taxation.

Work remains remarkably easy for states to see and tax. Billionaire wealth is a different creature. It can appreciate without being sold, sit inside companies and be reorganised through legal structures in ways that wages cannot. Someone can therefore become billions richer without reporting anything resembling those billions as taxable personal income.

Tt becomes increasingly difficult to focus on what ‘ordinary people’ must give up without also confronting what those who have accumulated the most should be expected to give back

The result is a peculiar political economy. Governments can tell an ordinary worker with extraordinary precision what she owes from her next euro of salary, while struggling to answer a seemingly simpler question about some of the richest people ever to have lived: what constitutes their fair share?

There is also a curious asymmetry in how we think about wealth. We are very accustomed to drawing poverty lines, minimum incomes, measures of deprivation. States have developed remarkably sophisticated ways of calculating exactly how little someone can have before they officially count as having too little. Far less attention has been devoted to drawing a line at the other end: can someone have too much?

That is beginning to change. For instance, political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns has made the case for limitarianism – the idea that there should be an upper limit to how much wealth an individual can hold. Others, like University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, have focused on designing a wealth tax for the ultra-rich.

The idea has travelled well beyond academia. In 2024, under Brazil’s G20 presidency, Zucman was commissioned to develop a proposal for a coordinated minimum tax on the world’s billionaires, based on the principle that they should contribute at least 2 per cent of their wealth each year. And in California, home to many Silicon Valley billionaires, voters will decide this November on Proposition 40, which would impose a one-off 5 per cent tax on billionaire wealth to help fund healthcare.

These proposals differ substantially in their design, scale, and ambition. But taken together, they point towards a simple idea gathering political momentum: tax the billionaires.

Taxing the untaxable?

How exactly to do that remains contested – and the usual objections are never far behind. Wealth, we are told, can move across borders; billionaires can change their tax residence; some assets are difficult to value; assets tied up in companies are not necessarily available as cash; and sufficiently determined billionaires can employ sufficiently determined accountants to find ways around whatever rules governments create.

These are not imaginary problems. Several European countries have abandoned recurrent net wealth taxes over the past few decades amid concerns over avoidance, valuation, and administrative complexity. IMF economists have also questioned whether annual net wealth taxes are always the most effective instrument, arguing that stronger taxation of capital gains and inheritance may sometimes work better.

But these are, ultimately, problems of design. Tax systems already value assets, trace ownership, and deal with people and companies operating across borders. International information-sharing has made hiding financial wealth offshore more difficult, while international coordination – the entire logic behind Zucman’s G20 proposal – is precisely an attempt to prevent the world’s wealthiest people from playing one tax system against another.

None of this makes taxing billionaire wealth easy. But “difficult to tax” and “should not be taxed” are two quite different arguments.

Zucman estimates that, in proportion to their income, France’s approximately 100 billionaires currently pay half as much tax as the average French person. Correcting that imbalance, which is not unique to France, would improve the fiscal situation of cash-strapped governments. It could mean more resources for healthcare, housing, education, and public transport, or help meet the enormous investment required for the green transition. California’s Proposition 40 makes that connection particularly tangible: take a relatively small (5 per cent) share of excessive private wealth and direct most of it towards healthcare.

There is also the redistributive effect of the tax itself. If wealth at the very top has been accumulating far faster than it has for everyone else, taking some of that wealth back into the public realm can narrow the distance between the top and the rest – particularly when it pays for services on which people with the least depend most. That alone would be a substantial argument for doing it. But it may not be the most politically consequential one.

The perfect enemy

There is one thing billionaire taxation does exceptionally well: everyone knows who it is not about.

That is because, unlike “the rich”, “billionaire” has a very clear boundary. Someone earning 100,000 euros a year, a homeowner sitting on an expensive property, a successful small-business owner or someone who inherited a few millions might all be considered rich – or not – depending on who is drawing the line. And even well-off people have a tendency to draw that line somewhere just above themselves.

There is a distinctly populist logic to that structure. Political scientist Cas Mudde famously defines populism as dividing society into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups: “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”. Few political demands draw that boundary as cleanly as “tax the billionaires”.

The billionaire line sits so far up the wealth distribution that almost nobody risks mistaking themselves for the target. Politically, that distance matters. “Tax the billionaires” singles out an extraordinarily small group while leaving almost everyone else standing on the other side. The “them” is remarkably easy to identify; the potential “us” is enormous.

California’s Proposition 40 makes that political divide unusually concrete: a little over 200 billionaires, according to the campaign, would be subject to the tax, while 90 per cent of the revenue would go towards healthcare. And it is precisely this ability to make distribution so immediately legible that gives the demand its wider political significance.

Across Europe, far-right parties have become adept at connecting experiences of insecurity – unaffordable housing, strained public services, stagnant wages, shrinking welfare provision – to immigration. The details vary between countries, but the underlying story is familiar: resources are scarce, ordinary people are losing out, and somebody else is getting what should have been theirs. Migrants, refugees, and welfare recipients become visible explanations for problems whose causes are considerably more complicated.

Part of the power of that politics is that it gives insecurity a direction. It tells people not only that something has gone wrong, but who is benefiting at their expense and, ultimately, who belongs on either side of “us” and “them”.

Progressive politics has often struggled to offer an equally legible account. For Greens, the problem can be particularly acute. Climate politics is easily caricatured by its opponents as a growing list of things ordinary people will have to surrender or pay more for: your car, your boiler, your flight, perhaps even your steak. However unfair the caricature, it pulls political attention towards what millions of people consume rather than towards who owns, accumulates, and exercises economic power.

“Tax the billionaires” points in a different direction.

Who are “we”?

There is nothing particularly new about politics trying to construct a “we” out of people who do not occupy exactly the same economic position. Political coalitions have repeatedly been built across existing class boundaries, and those boundaries have shifted as societies and economies have changed.

There are particularly striking precedents for organising those coalitions against concentrated economic power. During the New Deal years of the 20th century, Franklin Roosevelt – himself hailing from an affluent family – railed against what he called the “economic royalists”. Thus, he was placing concentrated private power on one side and a much broader democratic coalition on the other. Decades later, Occupy Wall Street found an even simpler formulation: “We are the 99%.”

Neither required everyone inside the “we” to be economically equal. And “tax the billionaires” doesn’t either. A renter on a relatively high salary, a nurse who owns her home, a factory worker, a precarious university lecturer, a delivery rider and a small-business owner may have very different economic interests and may not understand themselves as belonging to the same class. Yet they all have something rather obvious in common: none is remotely close to being a billionaire.

That makes for an unusually broad political coalition – one capable, at least in principle, of bringing together people who might otherwise have little reason to see their economic interests as shared. But bringing people onto the same side of a political dividing line is one thing; giving them a common politics is another.

Roosevelt’s attack on concentrated wealth was attached to a much broader political project. The New Deal did not simply ask wealthy Americans to contribute more to public coffers. It strengthened collective bargaining, regulated finance, expanded social protection and public investment, and challenged aspects of concentrated corporate power.

Occupy’s “99%”, meanwhile, proved extraordinarily successful at changing the language through which inequality was discussed. The “1%” escaped the occupations themselves and entered mainstream political vocabulary. But turning that enormous “99%” into a durable political organisation or a common programme proved much harder. The billionaire version stretches the boundaries of that “we” even further, placing people with vastly different levels of wealth and economic power on the same side of the line.

But in so doing, it can also obscure the inequalities and conflicts among everyone who is on the same side. What is income to a landlord is rent to a tenant; what increases returns to shareholders may come at the expense of wages; what preserves the value of a large inheritance also preserves inequalities between those who inherit and those who do not.

In other words, the slogan “tax the billionaires” risks serving as a diversion from tackling inequality more broadly.

Beyond the billionaires

And there is plenty beneath the billionaire line to look at. A billion euros of private wealth does not appear from nowhere. It grows within an economy in which companies and land have owners, profits are divided between workers and shareholders, wages reflect very different levels of bargaining power, housing can function as both a home and a financial asset, and wealth can be passed from one generation to the next. Long before the tax authorities arrive, decisions have already been made about who owns what, who receives what, and who has power over whom.

This is where a distinction emerges between redistributing wealth and changing how it is distributed in the first place. A billionaire tax largely does the former. Once enormous wealth has accumulated, the state takes a share of it and redirects those resources towards society. That can make the final distribution less unequal – particularly when the money funds public services and social protection on which people with lower incomes depend.

Changing how wealth is distributed in the first place means intervening earlier. It means looking at workers’ bargaining power and how profits are shared; at who owns companies, housing and land; at what is publicly or collectively owned and what remains privately controlled; and at how large amounts of wealth are inherited across generations.

None of this is an argument against billionaire taxation; after all, it can raise substantial revenue, redistribute resources, and slow accumulation at the very top. Nor do redistribution and changing the underlying distribution need to be mutually exclusive. But if the politics ends at the billionaire line, much of what created the inequality on either side of it remains beyond reach.

Perhaps this is where the real political potential of “tax the billionaires” lies. The billionaire may be the most visible expression of a much broader distribution of wealth and power.

And this matters at a moment when the far right has become remarkably successful at explaining insecurity through competition between locals and immigrants over scarce resources. Billionaire politics offers a very different account: away from who might be receiving too much, and towards who has accumulated so much, how they did so, and what that accumulation allows them to do.

For Greens and the wider left, that offers something more than a new source of tax revenue. It offers the possibility of contesting the politics of scarcity itself. And in doing so, it unsettles the premise on which so much of that politics rests: that there is simply not enough to go around, and that politics is therefore a matter of deciding who among the rest of us must make do with less. Before accepting that ordinary people must compete over what is available – who gets the house, the hospital bed, the welfare payment or the secure job – it asks us to look at where resources and power have actually gone, who owns them, who controls them, and how they became so concentrated in the first place. And why, in societies capable of producing such extraordinary private wealth, does the political conversation so often begin with what everyone else must learn to live without?

That does not make scarcity imaginary. Housing can genuinely be in short supply, public services can simply lack capacity, and governments face real choices about resources. But those shortages do not tell us, by themselves, how the resources a society does have should be distributed, who should contribute more, or whose claims should be placed in competition with who else’s. Those are political choices too.

But constructing a convincing “them” is still easier than building a meaningful “we”. If that “we” is to mean more than simply everyone who doesn’t own a billion euros, it eventually has to acquire political content: what should be more equally shared, what forms of power should be challenged, and what people should be able to expect from the society they belong to.

That is why “tax the billionaires” is perhaps most powerful as the point of departure. It can raise revenue and redistribute wealth at the very top. But it can also serve to open a much broader argument about who owns companies, housing, and land; how economic power is distributed between workers and owners; and how much of the wealth societies produce should remain privately controlled in the first place.

The risk is that the politics stops at the slogan. The opportunity is that it does not.

24th Provincial Seed Fair in Catamarca for the Exchange of Native and Local Seeds A transformative practical experience with a story to tell Article by BePe... explore BePe's campaigns here

 In a global context of extreme violence that has escalated into various forms of war, life—and, above all, the planet’s habitability for the human species—is seriously and gravely threatened. Meanwhile, those who hold the power to make decisions on behalf of the people remain entrenched in their many layers of denial. And today, more than ever, the relationship between the global and the local is glaringly evident.

Thus, in Catamarca, where extractive violence wages war against us by exploiting, plundering, and poisoning our sacred resources, local governments—puppets of corporate power—remain blind and deaf to the Earth’s rebellious cry. As we know, Catamarca is not an isolated case in Argentina, nor in Latin America and the Caribbean, nor in Africa, nor in the Global South. We recognize that this violence is cruel and widespread; yet the Earth’s strength and courage is far-reaching, for this strength is ancestral and the spring which gave rise to Life.

Throughout these more than 500 years of imperial, capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal wars, the Earth has made its voice heard through the Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala and Africa, right up to the present day. Today, as the war intensifies, that nonviolent struggle has become an unwavering voice in the slogan “Water is worth more than gold,” proclaimed by countless assemblies, communities, and socio-environmental organizations throughout the world. And the Earth itself cries out with the peoples: its elements are shaken; its climates and the gases that regulate life-sustaining conditions become unstable and unpredictable; the illness caused by the long war endured manifests itself in devastation and phenomena labeled “natural” when they are not.

And we do not merely cry out and resist; we also re-exist through collective experiences that open up possible futures of lives worth living. For example, the forms of re-existence emerging in the Bolsón de Fiambalá, a land formation in the Andean foothills (1), with a landscape of immeasurable beauty and mystery. Mystery in the face of the invisible balance of living energies that combine extreme temperatures, winds, snow, semidesert aridity, brackish and fresh waters, with human and non-human cultivation—all of which generate and reproduce Life.

Photos by BePe: Seed Fair festivities in Fianbalá, Catamarca, Argentina

There, where corporate power sees only speculative profit and calls the object of imperial possession the “Lithium Triangle,” mega-corporations have set up shop under the protection of local governments that call themselves democratic. Currently operated by the Zijin Mining Group, the high-Andean Tres Quebradas lagoons are being plundered of lithium to fuel weapons of war and luxury goods in the Global North. As is well known, the destruction caused by extractive mining is never limited to the mine site itself: in this case, it irrevocably affects an entire ecosystem of perennial snowfields, surface and groundwater—both brackish and fresh—that sustain unique animal and plant species and maintain the climatic balance between the high peaks and the agriculturally productive valleys.

It is precisely in one of those valleys—the one nestled in the Bolsón de Fiambalá—that peasant families live in villages whose names allude to the local geography or recall ancient indigenous terms: Medanitos, Tatón, Chuquisaca, La Mesada, Palo Blanco, Quebrada de Zárate, Las Papas, La Ciénaga, Antinaco, Quebrada del Cerco. People, families, communities bearing the colonial wound etched into the memory of their bodies and their lands, where the monoculture of grapevines—to name just one of those wounds—accelerated the processes of soil desertification and the impoverishment of life. However, despite the imposition of a capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal system, these families came together as Peoples, transforming the stigma of those wounds into courage, dignity, and organized struggle.

It did not happen overnight; nor did it follow a linear, unidirectional path. Because becoming a community involves engaging in processes of community dialogue, the course of which is not the focus of this article. We do, however, wish to highlight the fundamental importance of these processes for wisely safeguarding the ways of life that sustain the community with sustainability and justice.

It was during the final years of the 1980s when the gatherings, the collective readings of contexts, and the critical interpretation of situations referred to as “gaps between rich and poor” (2)… gradually expanded into circles of analysis and reflection, which added complexity to existential issues and defined praxis as a form of communal struggle. When the time came to harvest the first fruits from the gardens, they felt that Mother Earth, caressed by peasant hands, had regained her power to bring forth life and had given them food…

26th Provincial Catamarca Seed Fair Poster 2026

Nearly forty years after those early organizational efforts, these farming families are part of ACAMPA, the Abaucán Farmers’ Association—named after the river that provides them with food and a sense of identity. They farm using agroecological methods and live in community with a sense of shared identity. They run a community FM radio station whose broadcasts reach all the communities in Bolsón. And, since 2001, they have been organizing—in collaboration with BePe—a seed fair featuring native and heirloom seeds.

Going against the grain of the decisions made by those who call themselves politicians and business people—but who are merely modern-day versions of the conquerors of the 15th through 18th centuries—the Peoples of Bolsón de Fiambalá re-exist in defiance of the systems of death imposed for millennia. They unmask the lies of those who claim to be representatives of democracy and agents of progress. They exercise political and economic power in the service of the reproduction of Life.

On 12th September this year, the fair—which had begun with a dozen stalls—spanned a grounds that accommodated more than 200 tables where farming families displayed the fruits they had harvested, raised, and processed. The 24th Provincial Fair for the Exchange of Native and Creole Seeds took place. What had once been a local event has spread to various parts of the province of Catamarca and to the neighboring provinces of Santiago del Estero and La Rioja. What began as a display of seeds expanded to include seedlings, farm animals, nuts, sweet and savory preserves, various types of textile crafts, wines, and fruit syrups… and most importantly; the scale of this growth also served to foster values, promote autonomous and dignified ways of life, and share transformative knowledge and practices.

While the dominant powers expand the frontiers of extraction in the Global South—currently in the name of the misnamed “energy transition”—grassroots policies have been building ecologically sustainable territories open to economically independent horizons. In the face of the denial of the future engineered by oligarchic elites, these small-scale initiatives scattered across various regions of the Global South build bridges toward possible and necessary futures.

 

References:

1. It is a depression or flat valley, completely surrounded by mountains, with no access to the sea. In this case, the basin—with an area of approximately 2,000 km²—borders the puna, a desert high plateau ranging in elevation from 3,000 to 6,000 meters above sea level. Both regions are characterized by the presence of volcanoes and high-Andean lakes (as well as salt flats in the puna).

2. An explicit way of describing socioeconomic inequality during those years; it served as a key to a critical interpretation of reality.

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

Listen to the audio version >>

This is the first of a new series on the Green New Deal 2.0.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations, New York addresses the audience during the session ‘Time Is Running Out for Water’ at the Annual Meeting 2008 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 24, 2008. Photo credit: Remy Steinegger, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

In 2008, in the depths of the Great Recession, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “investment that fights climate change, creates millions of green jobs and spurs green growth.” He said what the world needs, in short, is a “Green New Deal.”

The project of a Green New Deal rapidly picked up momentum around the world. Green New Deals became official policy in many countries, endorsed by the UN, the international trade union movement, and even by the IMF. China, India, and the European Union began “implementing some of the policies envisioned by the Green New Deal.” But within a couple of years a global counterattack demanding austerity stymied much of the drive for massive investment to implement climate protection and economic justice. The Green New Deal appeared dead.

The Green New Deal was reborn a decade later when the youth Sunrise climate movement in the U.S. held a sit-in in the office of Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi demanding she support a resolution for a Green New Deal proposed by newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Drawing on the proposals a decade earlier for a Global Green New Deal, the resolution called for a “new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal.” The Green New Deal amassed support among congressional representatives, progressive organizations, and young people across the country. A poll found that more than 80% of registered voters “strongly support” or “somewhat support” the general concepts behind a Green New Deal. A poll five years later found that “the Green New Deal is still incredibly popular.”

Notwithstanding its popularity with the public the Green New Deal met implacable opposition from the fossil fuel industry and hostile forces in both the Democratic and Republic parties. Upon his election as president, Donald Trump declared the Green New Deal dead and proceeded to devastate both climate protection and social justice.

Nonetheless, even in the Trump era the Green New Deal has continued as a force in American life – from below. It has continued to be implemented through little-noticed initiatives by community groups, unions, city and state governments, tribes, and other nonfederal actors pursuing the climate protection and social justice goals of the Green New Deal. I have described it as the “Green New Deal from Below.”

The Green New Deal has proved perennial because it addresses the basic problems faced by our people and planet. It is a project that in all its varied manifestations takes the necessity for climate protection as the basis for a broad program for social reconstruction — a visionary program designed to protect the earth’s climate while creating good jobs, reducing injustice, and eliminating poverty. It can be the basis for what many have called a “just transition” to a climate-safe world.

The Green New Deal 2.0 and the Polycrisis

Environmental activists protesting for change – A group of activists gather in an urban setting, holding signs that call for action against climate change. Their placards bear powerful messages. Photo credit: Lomb, Adobe Stock

The Green New Deal project is more necessary than ever. But many things have changed since the earlier Green New Deals. We need to redefine the Green New Deal for today, tomorrow, and the long-range future. Let’s call it the Green New Deal 2.0.

The Green New Deal 2.0 will not be defined by one or another thinker or leader, but by a broad social process of dialogue and experiment. This series is offered as a contribution to that social process.

In earlier Green New Deals, the elimination of fossil fuel extraction and burning was a costly though necessary duty. Today, “Greentech” — technology that reduces or repairs harm to the environment – is transforming the economics of energy and therefore of the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal 2.0 will be potentiated by a Greentech revolution that makes fossil free energy cheaper and more competitive than fossil fuel energy.

The emergence of the first Green New Deal coincided with the end of a long period of economic globalization combined with the geopolitical hegemony of the United States. That has been followed by what is often referred to as the “Polycrisis,” a period of global disorder that continues to intensify day by day. The Green New Deal 2.0 will have to survive and develop under the conditions created by the Polycrisis. And to succeed it will need — working with other forces — to quell the Polycrisis and establish a viable world order.

Here are some of the key dynamics of the Polycrisis that a Green New Deal 2.0 will have to contend with:

• Climate devastation: The extraction and burning of fossil fuels has continued to grow, leading to a rapid increase in fires, floods, storms, heatwaves, and other devastating manifestations of global warming.
• Inequality: The world’s 12 richest billionaires now have more wealth than the poorest half of humanity, or more than four billion people; meanwhile, one in four people globally face hunger.
• Democracy Deficit: Countries around the world face autocratic, plutocratic, and kleptocratic rule; repression of political opposition; degradation of electoral procedures; and monopolization of communications media.
• Rise of Fascist and Para-Fascist Movements: Parties and movements with fascist characteristics, such as authoritarianism, racism, hostility towards migrants, abuse of women, suppression of dissent, expanded policing powers, celebration of violence, and might-makes-right ideologies control many countries, exercise de-facto veto powers in many others, and impose terror and brutality on many peoples.
• Fragmented Globalization: While globalization as a regulated system has largely broken down, international trade has continued to grow, but it is increasingly shaped by geopolitical economic warfare focused on the struggle to control global economic networks, such as data flows, platform rules, AI systems, and the critical minerals and energy infrastructures that power them.
• Unleashed Warfare: There are at least 65 active conflicts across 35 countries, the highest number recorded since World War II – with a doubling of international conflicts from four to eight since 2024. The objectives of military power have expanded from defense and domination to outright plunder; as the International Crisis Group put it, Trump’s “lawlessness, revisionism and cavalier use of force” risk “normalizing the idea that war is an OK way for powerful states to get what they want.” According to an analysis of “Systemic Risk And Escalation Dynamics In Global Politics,”

“The 2026–2027 period marks a critical phase in the international system, best described as a systemic crisis of governability. Across multiple regions, crises—both active and latent—are increasingly interconnected, creating conditions in which local tensions can quickly escalate into broader instability. . . and trigger escalation beyond political control.”

• Vicious Circles of Conflict: Conflicts aggravated by tit-for-tat escalation are creating dangers that are in nobody’s interest and that nobody can control. The war between Ukraine and Russia, with their European, Chinese, and other backers and their American manipulator seeking opportunities for plunder provides a prime example: the war has produced growing levels of devastating bombing of civilian areas on both sides; cycles of drone war escalation; and threats of nuclear escalation.

  Address by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Parliament of Lithuania. Photo credit: The Presidential Office of Ukraine, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

• Breakdown of International Cooperation: International cooperation for peacekeeping, arms limitation, climate protection, economic cooperation, water use, fighting pandemics and other public health threats, and action to address threats from new technologies, such as nanotechnology, drones, and Artificial Intelligence, have atrophied or worse. Donald Trump has withdrawn the U.S. entirely from 66 international organizations responsible for addressing such global needs.
• Rising and Resisting Powers: The Polycrisis is marked by the rivalry between China and the U.S. –an example of what is sometimes known as the “Thucydides trap” of conflict between rising and dominant powers.
• War Crime Wave: Israel, backed by the U.S., has conducted what the International Court of Justice has found may constitute genocide in violation of international law. Both Russia and Ukraine are conducting massive attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure that are clearly crimes against humanity. The US attack on Iran is nothing but a war of aggression – itself a war crime. International law, often flouted in practice, is now being openly scorned in principle. Donald Trump said in a recent interview with The New York  Times, “I don’t need international law.” His aide Steven Miller explicitly spelled out the doctrine of might makes right: “We live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
• Geopolitics Trumps All: The wellbeing of people, democratic governance, and even the survival of humanity have all been made subservient to the pursuit of superpower domination. This reality was recognized in Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s widely publicized Davos proclamation of “a rupture in the world order” where “geopolitics is submitted to no limits, no constraints. Call it what it is – a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion.” Polycrisis geopolitics is now shifting, to borrow a term from Richard Falk, toward “nihilistic geopolitics” oblivious to meaning, morality, or knowledge. Rational, realistic pursuit of national self-interest is increasingly passing over into bullying and plunder, with little regard to their actual consequences.
• Incoherence: The Polycrisis is complex, contradictory, and chaotic. Apparent trends and tendencies conflict. Policymaking is increasingly erratic, incoherent, and self-contradictory, with results far different from those intended.
• Unpredictability: The world order has become even more unpredictable. As Margaret MacMillan put it in the New York Times, “We are living in a time of what’s been called radical uncertainty. We are in a transition in which the previous system is unraveling but we don’t yet know what comes next.”
• Decline of Social Learning: World actors increasingly plunge into self-destructive actions without recognition that past experience has proven their futility. Aggressive use of tariffs in the past has regularly led to trade wars and mutual impoverishment, yet it is burgeoning. Rearmament and other preparation for war predictably leads not only to mutual impoverishment, but to increased likelihood of military conflagration, yet it continues to escalate. Maniacal investment in bubbles like AI have repeatedly led to devastating crashes, yet the mania continues without either public or private restraint.
• The folly factor: As the Polycrisis deepens, the gap between rational self-interest and foolishness grows wider. As Monica Duffy Toft pointed out in the New York Times, the withering of cooperation to address common threats leads to “more flashpoints among nuclear-armed powers, more nuclear proliferation, less cooperation on global threats and a system structurally incapable of mitigating the risks it creates.”

While each of these dynamics is devastating in itself, their interaction makes the Polycrisis appear even more intractable.

Every aspect of a Green New Deal 2.0 will be affected by every aspect of the Polycrisis. Obviously, the Green New Deal 2.0 will not be able to quell the Polycrisis all by itself or all at one blow. But quelling it must be the horizon and provide the perspective from which it works. In particular, the Green New Deal 2.0 must

• Halt fossil fuel burning to halt global warming
• Implement the Greentech revolution to halt fossil fuel burning
• Use the Greentech revolution to reverse deteriorating social conditions for people in the U.S. and around the world
• Establish global cooperation sufficient to achieve these objectives

The next commentary in this series will present an overview of the Green New Deal 2.0. 

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The post The Green New Deal 2.0 vs. the Polycrisis first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

PARA SU PUBLICACIÓN INMEDIATA: 13 de octubre de 2026

Grupos exigen que se ponga fin al financiamiento público de la incineración en la reunión anual del Banco Mundial

Hoy, la Alianza Global por Alternativas a las Incineradoras (GAIA) ha publicado un informe titulado «The Burn Book: Incineradoras que amenazan el clima, la salud pública y nuestras finanzas».  La publicación analizó datos de veinte incineradoras y propuestas de incineradoras en todo el mundo, centrándose en la deuda pública y los subsidios, el cambio climático y la contaminación del aire, los subproductos tóxicos y otros problemas comunes relacionados con la industria, identificando patrones clave que surgieron independientemente de los contextos regionales. El lanzamiento de esta publicación coincide con la Semana Global de Acción contra la Incineración, del 13 al 16 de octubre, con eventos de solidaridad programados en todo el mundo. 

«Como muestran estos ejemplos, las incineradoras o las llamadas plantas de “energía a partir de residuos” no resuelven por arte de magia nuestros problemas de residuos, sino que crean otros nuevos», afirma Marcel Howard, coordinador de proyectos especiales de GAIA y autor del informe. 

«No solo cargan a las comunidades con emisiones tóxicas al aire y al clima, así como con una deuda pública agobiante, sino que también necesitan volúmenes masivos de residuos para seguir funcionando, lo que socava los esfuerzos municipales por conservar los valiosos recursos naturales. Con nuestra crisis climática cada vez más grave y el rebasamiento de los límites planetarios, ya no tenemos más tiempo que perder en mantener a flote esta industria contaminante». 

El informe pone de manifiesto varias tendencias clave: 

• Las incineradoras de “energía a partir de residuos” convierten los desechos en contaminación atmosférica tóxica y cenizas. Según datos públicos, solo estas incineradoras produjeron al menos 1.7 millones de toneladas de cenizas tóxicas al año —el equivalente en peso a 230 Torres Eiffel—. También existe una gran cantidad de evidencia sobre contaminantes atmosféricos que amenazan la salud humana, entre ellos el monóxido de carbono, el óxido nitroso, las dioxinas y los furanos. Muchas comunidades cercanas a estas plantas se quejaron de olores, problemas respiratorios y contaminación del suelo. 

• Estas instalaciones tienen una gran huella climática. A pesar de que los estudios demuestran que la incineración para la generación de energía produce más emisiones climáticas que cualquier otra fuente de energía, muchas de las incineradoras de la lista no monitorean ni divulgan públicamente sus niveles de emisiones. Las once que sí contaban con datos disponibles emiten un total acumulado de 5.5 millones de toneladas métricas de CO2eal año, el equivalente a 1.3 millones de autos de pasajeros. 

• La “generación de energía a partir de residuos” es un desperdicio de dinero. Las veinte incineradoras analizadas han acumulado hasta la fecha casi 7 mil millones de dólares en inversiones, y una parte de esa suma proviene directamente de los contribuyentes en forma de subsidios gubernamentales y préstamos municipales. En algunos casos, los municipios están en la obligación de pagar millones de dólares en deuda que se extiende por décadas. Las incineradoras de residuos son la forma más costosa de gestión de residuos. 

• Quemar residuos socava la reducción de residuos. Una vez construidas, las incineradoras de “energía a partir de residuos” requieren grandes volúmenes de residuos para mantenerse en funcionamiento, y muchos municipios tienen contratos de “pagar o entregar” que desincentivan la reducción de residuos. Gran parte del material quemado en estas incineradoras podría haberse convertido en compost, reciclado o evitado por completo.  

Mientras el Banco Mundial celebra sus reuniones anuales en Bangkok, Tailandia, comunidades de todo el Sur Global exigen que se ponga fin al financiamiento público de la incineración disfrazada de acción climática. El Atlas Ciudadano sobre Soluciones Falsas para el Clima y la Economía Circular de GAIA Asia-Pacífico reveló que 42 de los 59 proyectos del Grupo del Banco Mundial evaluados en Asia-Pacífico apoyaban tecnologías de incineración entre 2015 y 2026. Desde la incineradora «Smokey Mountain» propuesta en Manila hasta las 12 plantas industriales de conversión de residuos en energía respaldadas por el Banco Asiático de Desarrollo (ADB) y el Banco Asiático de Inversión en Infraestructura (AIIB) en Tailandia, estos proyectos amenazan a las comunidades, los medios de vida de los trabajadores del sector de residuos y la justicia ambiental.

Declaraciones de miembros de GAIA cuyas campañas contra las incineradoras aparecen en el «Burn Book»: 

Elisah Pals, fundadora y miembro de la junta directiva de Basura cero Países Bajos (Zero Waste Nederland): 

«La incineración es un camino equivocado, incluso para un país como los Países Bajos. Ya luchamos contra la contaminación del aire, el agua y la tierra, y sin embargo seguimos importando residuos para mantener en funcionamiento las incineradoras. Incluso cuando logramos producir menos residuos, podemos terminar enfrentando sanciones. Los problemas de dependencia son reales aquí. Ese es un mundo al revés. Necesitamos prevención, no más razones para quemar».

Karen Wirsig, gerente sénior del programa de plásticos de Environmental Defence Canada:

«Quemar residuos es sucio y costoso, y a menudo recae en las comunidades que tienen menos poder para decir que no. Los gobiernos que quieran abordar un problema creciente de residuos deben enfocarse en la reducción de residuos, no en cuentos de hadas tóxicos».

Alejandra Torres, subdirectora de Incidencia y Organización, Ironbound Community Corporation:

«Quemar basura no es la respuesta correcta para gestionar los residuos. La incineradora de Ironbound, en Newark, Nueva Jersey, ha superado su vida útil y cada vez es más contaminante y costosa. Nos inspiran las comunidades que han logrado impulsar prácticas y empleos basura cero, cerrar incineradoras y garantizar que los subsidios para energía limpia se destinen a energía realmente limpia. ¡Un mundo mejor es posible!»

Jane Bremmer, presidenta de Toxics Free Australia: 

«Australia tiene una oportunidad única de evitar los errores de Europa, el Reino Unido y Estados Unidos en materia de gestión y eliminación de residuos al optar por un modelo de “ciudad basura cero” en lugar de incineradoras. Ninguna comunidad merece soportar la carga adversa para la salud y el medio ambiente que supone incinerar los residuos de otra ciudad o industria. Si bien existen formas más seguras y efectivas de gestionar los residuos de cualquier país, la incineración sigue siendo indefendible».

Rossano Ercolini, presidente de Basura cero Italia (Zero Waste Italy): 

«La incineración es el pasado contaminante. Destruye recursos que deberían compartirse con el futuro. La incineración va en contra de la economía circular y promueve un modelo lineal de usar y tirar».

Victor Argentino, Instituto Polis: 

«Impulsadas en las ciudades como una “solución rápida” en lugar de la inclusión de los recicladores de base  y la recolección selectiva, las incineradoras o plantas de conversión de residuos en energía (WTE) en Brasil refuerzan el racismo ambiental al ubicarse en zonas periféricas de bajos ingresos».

Jai Muhammad, activista de WALHI Java Oriental: 

«Para que podamos llevar una buena vida, debemos respirar aire limpio. ¡Y para respirar aire limpio, hay que cerrar las incineradoras!»

Sue Maxwell, presidenta de Basura cero BC (Zero Waste BC):

«La incineración está frenando las medidas hacia el objetivo basura cero, ya que es muy costosa y condena a las comunidades a la contaminación y al desperdicio de recursos».

Contactos de prensa:

Manuela Quaroni

manuela@no-burn.org

Nota para el editor:

• Hoy, Zero Waste Europe ha publicado un informe titulado «Exceso de capacidad de incineración en Europa: Actualización de datos para 2026», en el que se concluye que la capacidad de incineración de residuos de la región no se ajusta a sus objetivos actuales de generación y reducción de residuos.
• GAIA ha publicado «Incineración de residuos 101: Lo que necesitas saber sobre las llamadas incineradoras de “energía a partir de residuos”», que ofrece una visión general de las últimas investigaciones sobre los daños asociados con la incineración de residuos.
• A lo largo de la semana, GAIA y sus miembros organizarán eventos virtuales en el «Global Action Lab», una oportunidad para escuchar de primera mano a los miembros de GAIA sobre cómo la incineración de residuos está afectando a sus comunidades. 

###

GAIA es una alianza mundial de más de 1,000 grupos de base, organizaciones no gubernamentales y personas en más de 100 países. Con nuestro trabajo buscamos impulsar un cambio global hacia la justicia ambiental mediante el fortalecimiento de los movimientos sociales de base que promueven soluciones para los residuos y la contaminación. Imaginamos un mundo justo y sin residuos, basado en el respeto a los límites ecológicos y los derechos de las comunidades, donde las personas estén libres de la carga de la contaminación tóxica y los recursos se conserven de manera sostenible, en lugar de ser quemados o vertidos. 

The post Un análisis de veinte incineradoras de residuos en todo el mundo revela amenazas para el medio ambiente, las inversiones y la salud pública first appeared on GAIA.

Despite the high-tech name of “waste-to-energy” and its sustainability claims, GAIA’s documentation of the financial, climate, and human health impacts of twenty incinerators worldwide paints a very different picture. Although these twenty incinerators and incinerator proposals ranged across the globe, they told the same story: decades of debt, a dark cloud of air pollution, and the burning of resources that could have been recycled, composted, or prevented altogether. 

Below are the toplines from GAIA’s research into these twenty incinerators, called  The Burn Book: Incinerators that Threaten the Climate, Public Health, and our Finances. For more in-depth information you can read the report itself.

Read The Report Read The Press Release Attero Moerdijk Facility – Netherlands .stk-fw9xuqb {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 1997, Attero’s Moerdijk plant is one of the Netherlands’ largest waste incinerators. The plant has emitted roughly 945,000 MT of CO2 in a single year, was supported by a $269.4 million USD (€233 million) European Investment Bank (EIP) loan, and was tied to contracts requiring 510,000 MT of waste annually—commitments that later generated financial disputes when increased waste separation reduced municipal waste deliveries.10 11 Rather than eliminating waste, Moerdijk demonstrates how a large, capital-intensive incinerator can create decades-long dependence on maintaining waste throughput while generating hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2 and ash annually.

Runcorn Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) – United Kingdom .stk-lw6v25u {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 2014–2015, Runcorn is one of the UK’s largest waste incinerators, permitted to burn 1.1 million MT annually in an industrial area surrounded by communities living and working nearby that have spent years reporting odors, noise, dust, vermin and other disturbances.56 57 The facility released approximately 1.11 million MT of CO2 in 2025 and generated more than 218,000 MT of bottom and fly ash, while its development was supported by long-term Greater Manchester waste commitments and substantial public financing, including a direct European Investment Bank (EIB) loan.58 59 Community opposition ultimately contributed to legal action by nearly 200 households and a reported $1.3 million USD (£1 million settlement), while residents and campaigners continue to press for stronger monitoring, enforcement, transparency and protection from the cumulative impacts of one of Britain’s largest incinerators.60 61

Hempstead Resource Recovery Facility (Reworld Hempstead) – USA .stk-xeh36zw {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 1989, the Hempstead Resource Recovery Facility (Reworld Hempstead) is a large waste incinerator located in Westbury, New York, operated by Reworld (formerly Covanta), and capable of processing approximately 944,000 MT of waste annually.103 The facility generates substantial greenhouse-gas emissions and roughly 197,000 MT of incinerator ash per year, much of which has historically been disposed of at the Town of Brookhaven Landfill, adjacent to the predominantly Black and Latino community of North Bellport, where regulators have documented a groundwater plume contaminated with PFAS and 1,4-dioxane.104 While the plume has not been specifically attributed to Hempstead’s ash, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) fined Reworld $878,500 in penalties in 2025 for nearly a decade of historic violations in ash-management practices.105 Hempstead is also supported by a long-term put-or-pay contract requiring payment for at least 381,000 MT of waste annually through 2034, reinforcing dependence on incineration even if municipal waste deliveries decline.106

Essex County Resource Recovery Facility (Reworld Essex) – USA .stk-jggh5s1 {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 1990, the Essex County Resource Recovery Facility (Reworld Essex) is a large waste incinerator located in Newark’s heavily industrialized Ironbound neighborhood, where it is operated by Reworld and permitted to burn approximately 894,000 MT of waste annually.139 The facility released roughly 854,000 MT of direct fossil and biogenic CO2 in 2023, alongside hundreds of metric tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and other air pollutants, adding to the cumulative pollution burden facing the surrounding environmental-justice community.14 The facility generates roughly 177,000 MT of incinerator ash annually that must be transported elsewhere for processing or disposal.141 142 For decades, the Ironbound Community Corporation and allied environmental-justice organizations have challenged the facility’s pollution and called for its closure, stronger enforcement, and an end to Newark’s dependence on waste incineration.143

Timarpur-Okhla Waste-to-Energy Plant – India .stk-zzg0urs {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 2012 in one of the most densely populated parts of New Delhi, the Timarpur–Okhla Waste-to-Energy Plant burns up to 711,750 MT of municipal waste per year beside residential communities, hospitals and schools.178 The facility has received substantial government support—including publicly supplied waste, nominal cost land, an approximately $1 million USD (₹10 crore) central government subsidy, public sector financing and carbon credits—while residents have spent more than a decade challenging its pollution and expansion.179 180 181 Regulatory monitoring has repeatedly documented pollution problems: government testing found violations for particulate matter and dioxins/furans as early as 2013, while 2021 monitoring measured dioxins/furans at nearly ten times the legal limit and hydrogen chloride at nearly four times the limit.182 183 Despite this history of violations and community opposition, the facility has pursued a major expansion that would increase waste processing capacity by another 1,000–1,200 MT/day.184

Amager Bakke (CopenHill) – Denmark .stk-x677skk {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 2017, Amager Bakke—also known as CopenHill—is a municipally owned mass-burn waste incinerator in Copenhagen operated by Amager Resource Center (ARC). Although promoted internationally for its architecture, ski slope, energy efficiency and advanced pollution controls, the facility has also become a prominent example of the financial and climate risks associated with oversized incineration infrastructure. Amager Bakke was financed through approximately $682 million USD (DKK 3.95 billion) in publicly backed borrowing, while its owner municipalities later loosened restrictions on imported waste after lower than expected local waste volumes weakened the project’s finances.233 234 ARC currently reports stack emissions of approximately 560,000 MT of CO2 per year, while local and regional advocates have argued that the plant’s scale and long-lived debt create pressure to maintain high waste throughput even as Copenhagen seeks to increase recycling and reduce residual waste.235 236

Isséane Incinerator – France .stk-nnkre40 {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 2007–2008, Isséane is a large publicly owned waste incinerator embedded in the densely populated Paris metropolitan area, with over one million people living within 5 km of the facility.276 In 2024, the plant burned 536,000 MT of waste and released 252,060 MT of fossil CO2, alongside NOx, particulate matter, mercury, heavy metals and dioxins; it also generated approximately 89,300 MT of bottom and hazardous fly ash, with fly ash transported to hazardous-waste facilities outside Paris.277 Built at a cost of approximately $836 million USD (€600 million) largely through public financing, Isséane has faced sustained criticism over its short stacks, cumulative pollution in an already heavily urbanized area, health monitoring, and the financial and infrastructural dependence created by large-scale incineration.278 279

Kwinana Energy Recovery Facility – Australia .stk-0bxmez9 {height:10px !important;}

Australia’s first large-scale operational municipal waste incinerator, Kwinana Energy Recovery was developed at a cost of approximately $474 million USD (A$668 million) and is permitted to burn up to 460,000 MT of waste annually in the heavily industrialized Kwinana area south of Perth.313 314 The project received $16.3 million USD (A$23 million) in direct federal grant funding and up to $63.8 million USD (A$90 million) in debt financing from the Australian Government-owned Clean Energy Finance Corporation, while participating councils entered 20-year waste-supply agreements committing residual municipal waste to the facility.315 316 The plant’s own pre-construction lifecycle assessment estimated 115,165 MT CO2e/year in gross greenhouse gas emissions, while residents and environmental groups have raised concerns about air pollution, cumulative industrial exposure, long-term waste contracts and the potential diversion of materials from recycling and composting.317 318 Since waste burning began, residents of nearby Medina have reported recurring burning-plastic/rubbish odors, and Western Australian authorities have acknowledged increasing odor complaints.319

Reppie Waste-to-Energy Facility – Ethiopia .stk-qfu0w19 {height:10px !important;}

Reppie was inaugurated in 2018 as Africa’s first large-scale municipal waste incinerator, after the Ethiopian government spent approximately $120 million USD developing the facility beside Addis Ababa’s longstanding Koshe landfill.380 381 Designed to burn 1,400 MT/day—approximately 511,000 MT/year—the plant now processes only about 396–650 MT/day, while roughly 3,000 MT of waste can still arrive at the adjoining landfill each day.382 383 The facility’s underperformance has created continuing public costs: its annual operating cost is approximately $6.09 million USD (800 million Ethiopian birr), while Addis Ababa faces more than $1.83 million USD (240 million Ethiopian birr) annually in compensation to Ethiopian Electric Power associated with power-generation shortfalls.384 385 Residents and waste pickers living around Reppie and Koshe report smoke, odors, respiratory and skin problems, continued landfill expansion and loss of livelihoods, while interviewed waste pickers reported an average 50% decline in income following introduction of the incinerator.386

Beddington Energy Recovery Facility – United Kingdom .stk-m458ufd {height:10px !important;}

Beddington Energy Recovery Facility is a mass-burn municipal waste incinerator in south London built for approximately $308 million USD (£205 million) and operating under a 25-year residual waste contract between Viridor and the four councils of the South London Waste Partnership.431 432 The facility burned 330,484 MT of waste in 2025 and released 338,934 MT of carbon dioxide, while its environmental permit now allows it to receive up to 382,286 MT/year following a controversial capacity increase approved by the Environment Agency in June 2026.433 434 The facility has faced sustained community opposition over air pollution, waste imports, traffic and regulatory oversight. Concerns intensified after investigators determined that Beddington had exceeded its daily nitrogen oxide emissions limit 916 times between 2022 and 2024 without those exceedances being correctly reported at the time.435 436

Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) – USA .stk-a0y5qqe {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 1989, the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) is located next to the historically black and working-class neighborhoods of North Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is owned by Hennepin County and operated by Great River Energy (GRE HERC Services LLC). Minnesota has the third-highest number of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) incinerators in the country, with six of the seven located in an environmental justice community.494 Over the past 37 years, the HERC facility has become the top polluting facility in Hennepin County, contributing roughly $16 million in health damages, and at least 1-2 premature deaths annually from particulate matter alone, according to a PSE Healthy Energy study.495 496 In October 2024, the Minneapolis City Council passed a resolution pushing to end waste incineration at the HERC by December 31, 2027, and fully decommission the facility by 2033.497 However, this timeline is a recommendation to the county, with county officials not committing to an enforceable closure timeline.

Benowo Waste-to-Energy Plant – Indonesia .stk-n619ngl {height:10px !important;}

The Benowo Waste-to-Energy Plant in Surabaya is Indonesia’s first commercially operating large-scale municipal waste gasification facility, developed through a 20-year Build-Operate-Transfer agreement between the Surabaya City Government and PT Sumber Organik.549 550 Its thermal gasification unit, formally inaugurated in 2021 after an approximately $54.2 million USD (Rp704.4 billion) investment, is designed to process 1,000 MT of waste per day, or 365,000 MT/year, and generate up to 12 megawatts of electricity.551 The public-private arrangement guarantees PT Sumber Organik payment for at least 1,000 MT/day even when the city delivers less waste, while the national electricity utility purchases the plant’s electricity at a preferential $0.1335 USD/kWh tariff.552 553 Communities around Benowo have raised concerns about odors, respiratory illness, ash and the absence of transparent toxic-emissions data, while community air monitoring found daily-average PM2.5 concentrations exceeding the World Health Organization guideline on all 31 monitoring days, with maximum concentrations reaching roughly eight times the guideline.554

Maishima Incineration Plant – Japan .stk-ym9q7hw {height:10px !important;}

Osaka’s Maishima Incineration Plant is a publicly owned mass-burn waste incinerator that began operating in 2001, with two 450-MT/day furnaces capable of burning up to 900 MT/day.625 Designed by Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the highly decorated facility cost approximately $492.0 million USD (¥60.9 billion) to construct and became controversial over its unusually high public cost.626 627 Recent FY2024 records show 32,762 MT of Maishima ash and other incineration residues sent to landfill.628 629 The plant also became the center of a major environmental controversy in 2013–14 when Osaka burned approximately 15,300 MT of disaster debris transported more than 700 kilometers from Iwate Prefecture following the Fukushima disaster, despite opposition from residents concerned about possible radioactive contamination.630 Residents sought an ordinance establishing Osaka’s financial responsibility if health damage occurred, but the Osaka Municipal Assembly rejected the proposal in February 2013.631 Osaka authorities maintained that monitoring showed the material could be processed safely.632

Emerald Energy-from-Waste Facility – Canada .stk-ek34p2z {height:10px !important;}

Operating since 1992, the Emerald Energy-from-Waste Facility is located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. The company is beginning construction on a phased expansion in 2027 (approved in 2025) to increase capacity from approximately 182,000 to 912,000 MT/year, processing non-hazardous municipal and commercial waste— generating electricity, steam, with plans to eventually produce hydrogen. A recent report from the region’s Medical Officer of Health and Commissioner of Health Services warns that additional emissions from the expanded facility would increase cumulative exposure to air pollutants – posing serious health risks to nearby residents, many of whom are considered to be vulnerable.658

Joinville Energy Recovery Unit (URE) – Brazil .stk-578xvco {height:10px !important;}

The Joinville Energy Recovery Unit (URE), which began operating in October 2025, is a new waste-to-energy facility constructed inside the city’s Parque de Educação Ambiental Bororós and designed to process 110 MT of municipal waste per day, or approximately 40,150 MT/year.686 Rather than directly feeding untreated waste into a conventional moving-grate furnace, the facility mechanically processes municipal waste into a dry fuel marketed as Composto Biossintético Industrial (CBSI), which is subsequently burned in a steam boiler to generate electricity.687The project has faced significant local opposition: environmental advocates, recycling organizations and academics have argued that burning CBSI still constitutes waste incineration, questioned its potential air emissions and challenged whether Joinville should invest more heavily in recycling, environmental education, and composting instead.

Rome Waste-to-Energy Plant – Italy .stk-70z2xq6 {height:10px !important;}

Construction began in May 2026 on Rome’s planned 600,000-MT/year waste incinerator at Santa Palomba, with first waste deliveries scheduled for September 2029. The nearly $1.12 billion USD (€946.1 million) project will bind Rome to a 33-year concession for one of Europe’s largest new municipal waste incinerators, even as the city plans to increase separate collection to 70% by 2035. The facility is expected to generate approximately 150,000 MT of bottom ash each year, while its experimental carbon capture system will initially address only part of the plant’s CO2 stream. Local governments and community groups have opposed the project over its size and location, raising concerns about air pollution, health, water resources, traffic, existing contamination and the potential for a large, long-lived incinerator to compete with waste reduction and recycling.

Pomona Waste-to-Energy Incinerator – Zimbabwe .stk-edkc9xn {height:10px !important;}

Harare’s planned Pomona Waste-to-Energy incinerator is the centerpiece of a controversial $344 million USD, 30-year waste concession that requires the city to pay for minimum quantities of waste whether or not they are actually delivered.  The contract transfers control of Harare’s principal dumpsite to private operator Geo Pomona and ultimately requires as much as 1,000 MT of municipal waste every day, creating a long-term financial incentive to maintain a large residual waste stream.  The project has also become intertwined with a major international corruption controversy: Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption Structure identified Mirel Mërtiri and Klodian Zoto as the de facto owners of Geogenix B.V., the Dutch parent company behind the Pomona concession, and alleges that they concealed their beneficial ownership and benefited from falsified invoices connected with Albania’s Tirana incinerator concession. Documents reported by Albanian media also identify Mërtiri as a Geogenix negotiator in Zimbabwe. In Harare, residents’ groups, civil society organizations and elected officials have challenged the Pomona agreement over its procurement, cost, minimum-payment guarantees and diversion of scarce public resources.

Energy Recovery Unit Barueri (URE Barueri) – Brazil .stk-yolhjxw {height:10px !important;}

Now under construction in the densely urbanized western São Paulo metropolitan area, URE Barueri is designed to become Brazil’s first large-scale mass-burn municipal waste incinerator, processing approximately 300,000 MT of waste per year when operations begin in 2027. The project has drawn sustained community opposition over its proximity to residential areas, projected air emissions, ash generation, licensing history, and potential competition with recycling and composting.  The original environmental review projected approximately 293 MT/year of nitrogen oxides (NOx), 73 MT/year of sulfur oxides (SOx), 73 MT/year of carbon monoxide and 15 MT/year of particulate matter, while estimating that ash and slag would equal 12–14% of incoming waste.  At the same time, Barueri’s 2026 waste plan shows that the plant’s 870-MT/day capacity is roughly three times the amount of residual municipal waste the city itself generated in 2024, meaning the facility is explicitly designed to receive waste from surrounding municipalities as well. The project is tied to a 30-year public-private partnership, long-term electricity contracts and approximately $77 million USD (R$395 million) in tax-incentivized infrastructure debt, creating financial and contractual commitments that will extend for decades.

3-in-1 WtE Complex: Khiang Kan Energy Plant + Me Preme Energy Plant + Phraofa Power Plant – Thailand .stk-5ue16rg {height:10px !important;}

Three industrial waste incinerators are being developed side-by-side at the Hi-Tech Kabin Industrial Estate in Prachinburi Province, Thailand. The three plants are part of Gulf Development’s larger 12-incinerator GWTE Circular Economy Project, backed by more than $500 million USD in debt financing arranged by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other lenders, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Under Thai regulations, the individual 9.9-MW plants fell below the 10-MW threshold requiring a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and instead proceeded through the less stringent Code of Practice process, despite their close proximity and common corporate ownership. Local residents and civil society organizations have challenged this fragmented assessment, arguing that the three facilities should be evaluated together for their cumulative pollution and health impacts. Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission investigated complaints that residents opposing the projects were excluded, restricted and intimidated during public hearings, concluding that the process lacked genuine public participation.

Vallon Incinerator Plant – Switzerland (Closed in 2005) .stk-y74zdni {height:10px !important;}

Operating from 1958 to 2005, the municipally owned Vallon incinerator burned Lausanne’s household waste for nearly five decades in the densely populated Vallon neighborhood. Although designed to burn approximately 73,000 MT of waste annually, the aging facility experienced recurring combustion and pollution-control problems, including historical exceedances for particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury. Decades after the plant opened, extensive dioxin and furan contamination was discovered in soils across Lausanne, with Swiss authorities identifying the former Vallon incinerator as the probable principal source. Residents had complained about black particulate fallout, smoke, odors and potential health risks since the 1960s, and the contamination discovered after closure has turned Vallon into a long-term environmental-liability case involving soil remediation, public-health monitoring and demands for greater government accountability.  A new facility named the Tridel Waste-to-Energy Plant was built and currently operates at the same location of the former Vallon Incinerator.

The post GAIA’s “Burn Book” Documents the Hazards of the Waste-Burning Industry first appeared on GAIA.

Groups Demand End to Public Financing for Incineration at World Bank Annual Meeting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 13 October, 2026

Today, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives’ (GAIA) has released a report entitled, The Burn Book: Incinerators that Threaten the Climate, Public Health, and our Finances.  The publication analyzed data from twenty incinerators and incinerator proposals worldwide, focusing on public debt and subsidies, climate and air pollution, toxic byproducts, and other common issues surrounding the industry– identifying key patterns that emerged regardless of regional contexts. The release of this publication is timed with a Global Week of Action to Stop Incineration October 13-16, with solidarity events planned around the world. 

“As these examples show, incinerators or so-called ‘waste-to-energy’ plants don’t magically burn away our waste problems– they create new ones,” states Marcel Howard, GAIA Special Projects Lead and author of the report. 

“Not only do they burden communities with toxic air and climate emissions and crippling public debt, but they also need massive volumes of waste to stay in operation, undermining municipal efforts to conserve precious natural resources. With our escalating climate crisis and overshoot of key planetary boundaries, we have no more time to waste on keeping this polluting industry afloat.” 

The report surfaces several key trends: 

• “Waste-to-energy” incinerators turn waste into toxic air and ash pollution. Based on public data, these incinerators alone produced at least 1.7 million tons of toxic ash per year– the equivalent in weight to 230 Eiffel Towers. There is also significant documentation of air pollutants that threaten human health– including carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, dioxin, and furans. Many communities surrounding these plants complained of odors, respiratory issues, and ground contamination. 

• These facilities have a large climate footprint. Despite studies showing that waste-to-energy incineration produces more climate emissions than any other power source, many of the incinerators on the list do not monitor or publicly disclose their emissions levels. The eleven that did have available data release a cumulative 5.5 million metric tons of CO2e per year, the equivalent of 1.3 million passenger cars. 

• “Waste-to-energy” is a waste of money. The twenty incinerators profiled have racked up nearly $7 billion of investments to date, with a portion of that directly from taxpayers in the form of government subsidies and municipal borrowing. In some cases municipalities are on the hook for millions of dollars in debt that stretches for decades. Waste incinerators are the most expensive form of waste management. 

• Burning waste undermines waste reduction. Once built, “waste-to-energy” incinerators require large volumes of waste to stay in operation, and many municipalities have “put-or-pay” contracts that disincentivize waste reduction. Much of the material burned in these incinerators could have been composted, recycled, or avoided altogether.  

As the World Bank convenes its annual meetings in Bangkok, Thailand, communities across the Global South are demanding an end to public financing for incineration disguised as climate action. GAIA Asia Pacific’s Citizens’ Atlas on False Climate and Circularity Solutions found that 42 of 59 World Bank Group projects assessed in Asia Pacific supported incineration technologies between 2015 and 2026. From the proposed Smokey Mountain incinerator in Manila to 12 industrial waste-to-energy plants backed by ADB and AIIB in Thailand, these projects threaten communities, waste workers’ livelihoods, and environmental justice.

Statements from GAIA members whose incinerator campaigns are featured in the Burn Book: 

Elisah Pals, Founder and Board Member, Zero Waste Nederland: 

“Incineration is the wrong direction, including for a country like the Netherlands. We already struggle with air, water and land pollution, yet we continue to import waste to keep incinerators running. Even when we succeed in producing less waste, we can end up facing penalties. Lock-in problems are real here. That is the world turned upside down. We need prevention, not more reasons to burn.”

Karen Wirsig, Senior Plastics Program Manager, Environmental Defence Canada:

“Burning waste is dirty and expensive and often ends up in communities that have the least power to say no. Governments that want to address a growing waste problem need to focus on waste reduction, not toxic fairy tales.”

Alejandra Torres, Assistant Director of Advocacy & Organizing, Ironbound Community Corporation:

“Burning trash is not the right answer for managing waste. The incinerator in the Ironbound, Newark, NJ, has surpassed its lifetime and is getting dirtier and costlier. We are inspired by communities who have managed to advance zero waste practices and jobs, shut down incinerators, and ensure that clean energy subsidies go to real clean energy. A better world is possible!”

Jane Bremmer, Chair, Toxics Free Australia: 

“Australia has a unique opportunity to leapfrog ahead of the mistakes of Europe, the UK and the US on waste management and disposal by choosing a Zero Waste City model instead of incinerators. No community deserves to carry the adverse health and environmental burden of incinerating another town or industry’s waste. While there are safer, more effective ways to manage any country’s residual waste, incineration remains indefensible.”

Rossano Ercolini, President, Zero Waste Italy: 

“Incineration is the polluting past. It destroys resources to be shared with the future. Incineration is against the circular economy and promotes a linear throw-away model.”

Victor Argentino, Instituto Polis: 

“Pushed in cities as a ‘quick fix’ over waste picker inclusion and separate waste collection, incinerators or WTE in Brazil reinforces environmental racism by being placed in low-income, peripheral areas.”

Jai Muhammad, Campaigner, WALHI East Java: 

“In order for us to live a good life, we must breathe clean air. And in order to breathe clean air, incinerators must be shut down!”

Sue Maxwell, Chair, Zero Waste BC:

“Incineration is blocking action on zero waste as it is so expensive and locks communities into pollution and wasting resources.”

Press contacts:

Claire Arkin, Global Communications Lead, GAIA

claire@no-burn.org | +1 510-604-7833

Note to Editor:

• Today, Zero Waste Europe has released a report, Incineration overcapacity in Europe: 2026 Data Update, which finds that the region’s waste-burning capacity is misaligned with its current waste generation and reduction goals.
• GAIA has released Waste-Burning 101: What You Need to Know about So-Called “Waste-to-Energy” Incinerators, which provides a broad overview of the latest research around the harms associated with waste incineration.
• Throughout the week, GAIA and its members will be hosting virtual events in a Global Action Lab, an opportunity to hear from GAIA members first-hand about how waste incineration is impacting their communities. 

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GAIA is a worldwide alliance of more than 1,000 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 100 countries. With our work we aim to catalyze a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution. We envision a just, zero waste world built on respect for ecological limits and community rights, where people are free from the burden of toxic pollution, and resources are sustainably conserved, not burned or dumped. 

The post Analysis of Twenty Waste Incinerators Worldwide Shows Threats to Environment, Investments, Public Health first appeared on GAIA.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 12 OCTOBER 2026 SLF-2007-085 The Sakhalin Papers LXXV: From Sakhalin to the Baltic — Shell Joins Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 Project as Europe Divides On 4 September 2015, Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden joined Gazprom chairman Alexey Miller and four other European energy companies in signing an agreement to develop Nord Stream 2. The proposed pipelines would double the capacity of the existing Baltic Sea route for Russian gas exports to Germany. Shell described the project as necessary for Europe’s future energy needs. Six days later, the Slovak prime minister publicly condemned the agreement as a betrayal of Ukraine and Slovakia. Within weeks, the European Parliament was raising concerns about energy dependence, security and the political consequences of bypassing established transit countries. The authenticated corporate announcements, contemporary journalism, parliamentary records and subsequent court proceedings reveal how a project promoted as commercial infrastructure became a major geopolitical controversy.

Archive reference: SLF-2007-085
Publication date: 12 October 2026
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers — Shell, Gazprom and Russia
Principal authenticated records: Gazprom and OMV joint corporate announcement, 4 September 2015; European Parliament briefing, 1 October 2015; US Treasury sanctions announcement, 12 September 2014; EU regulatory and judicial records.

Contemporaneous reporting: Reuters, 18 June and 4 September 2015; Associated Press, 10 September 2015; Euractiv, 10 September 2015; Agence Europe, June and October 2015.

Judicial context: Court of Justice of the European Union, Nord Stream 2 AG v European Parliament and Council, Case C-348/20 P, judgment of 12 July 2022. Used solely to distinguish the original 2015 shareholding proposal from the ownership and financing arrangements subsequently adopted.

Evidence standard: Corporate announcements establish what was signed and publicly proposed, not whether every anticipated share acquisition or investment subsequently occurred. Contemporary political statements are attributed to their speakers. Subsequent judicial findings are identified separately from the events of 2015. No allegation is made that Shell violated sanctions or that the September agreement was unlawful.

Introduction: Shell’s Russian ambitions cross Europe

The previous instalment, The Shell Leaks Files — 11 October 2026, examined the expanding strategic relationship between Shell and Gazprom.

On 18 June 2015, Ben van Beurden and Alexey Miller had signed agreements concerning their wider cooperation and the proposed third LNG production train at Sakhalin II.

The Sakhalin expansion depended upon additional gas from Gazprom-controlled resources.

But on 7 August 2015, the United States imposed export-control restrictions specifically targeting the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field, an important potential source of that gas.

Those restrictions complicated the commercial assumptions underlying the expansion.

Yet Shell’s ambitions in Russia were not limited to Sakhalin.

At the same St Petersburg forum in June, Shell had also participated in discussions about constructing additional gas-export infrastructure across the Baltic Sea.

That proposal was considerably more than an extension of an existing commercial partnership.

It envisaged two new offshore pipelines delivering Russian gas directly to Germany.

The additional capacity would equal that of the original Nord Stream system.

And it would provide Gazprom with another major route to European customers without passing through Ukraine.

On 4 September 2015, the proposal advanced from preliminary understandings to a shareholders’ agreement.

Shell’s chief executive personally signed it.

The political reaction was immediate.

1. The authenticated record: 4 September 2015

The most important primary document is Gazprom’s official announcement issued at 08:00 on 4 September 2015.

Its title was:

“Gazprom, BASF, E.ON, ENGIE, OMV and Shell sign Shareholders Agreement on Nord Stream 2 project.”

The signing took place at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia.

The participants were:

• Alexey Miller — Gazprom.
• Kurt Bock — BASF.
• Klaus Schäfer — E.ON.
• Pierre Chareyre — ENGIE.
• Rainer Seele — OMV.
• Ben van Beurden — Royal Dutch Shell.

The announcement confirmed that the companies had signed a shareholders’ agreement concerning the construction of Nord Stream 2.

It identified New European Pipeline AG as the proposed project vehicle.

The plan envisaged two offshore pipeline strings running from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea.

Their combined annual transport capacity would be approximately 55 billion cubic metres of natural gas.

Gazprom presented the project as an expansion of the existing Nord Stream system, applying experience acquired during its development and operation.

The announcement is an authenticated corporate record.

It identifies the signatories, the proposed structure and the commercial purpose of the agreement. Gazprom

Importantly, the announcement was independently reproduced by one of the Western participants.

OMV published its own official release on the same day.

The two records agree on the principal facts.

Primary source: OMV — Shareholders’ Agreement on Nord Stream 2, 4 September 2015

This provides strong documentary confirmation of Shell’s participation.

There is no need to rely on anonymous sources or retrospective recollections to establish that van Beurden signed the agreement.

2. Shell’s proposed 10 per cent interest

The September agreement set out a proposed ownership structure.

Gazprom would hold 51 per cent.

E.ON, Shell, OMV and BASF/Wintershall would each hold 10 per cent.

ENGIE would hold the remaining 9 per cent.

Gazprom would therefore retain majority control.

The Western partners collectively expected to hold 49 per cent.

For Shell, the proposed 10 per cent participation represented a potentially significant investment in European gas infrastructure.

But there is a crucial documentary distinction.

The September agreement specified intended shareholdings. It does not, by itself, prove that Shell subsequently acquired the proposed equity interest.

That distinction is particularly important because the project’s ownership arrangements changed.

Later regulatory objections prevented the original Western participation structure from being completed as planned.

Shell ultimately became a lender rather than a shareholder in the project company.

The later court record confirms that Gazprom remained the sole shareholder of Nord Stream 2 AG, with Western companies, including Shell, contributing through financing arrangements.

That subsequent development must not be projected backwards onto September 2015.

At the time of the Vladivostok signing, the publicly announced intention was for Shell to acquire a 10 per cent interest.

The fact of the agreement is established.

Completion of the proposed share acquisition is a separate question. Italaw

3. What the new pipeline would do

The original Nord Stream project consisted of two offshore pipelines connecting Russia and Germany beneath the Baltic Sea.

The first began operating in 2011.

The second followed in 2012.

Together, they provided approximately 55 billion cubic metres of annual transport capacity.

Nord Stream 2 proposed to add another two pipelines.

If completed and fully utilised, the four lines would provide a combined nominal capacity of approximately 110 billion cubic metres annually.

That was a major potential expansion of Russia’s direct gas-export infrastructure to Germany.

The route also had a fundamental geographical characteristic.

It bypassed Ukraine.

This was commercially significant because Ukraine had historically been a major transit country for Russian gas entering European markets.

Gas transported through Ukraine also passed through infrastructure in neighbouring countries, including Slovakia.

Transit arrangements generated revenue and gave those countries an important role in Europe’s energy system.

The Baltic route offered Gazprom an alternative.

It could transport gas directly to Germany without using Ukrainian transit infrastructure.

That possibility was central to the controversy.

It is important, however, to distinguish pipeline capacity from actual deliveries.

An additional 55 billion cubic metres of capacity did not automatically mean an additional 55 billion cubic metres of European gas consumption.

Nor did the agreement establish that all existing transit volumes would immediately be transferred away from Ukraine.

Those outcomes depended upon future production, contracts, market demand, regulatory requirements and operational decisions.

The authenticated agreement established the intended infrastructure capacity.

Its eventual commercial utilisation remained uncertain. OMV

4. Ben van Beurden’s public justification

Shell’s chief executive did not leave his reasons for supporting the project entirely to speculation.

The joint corporate announcement included his statement.

Van Beurden argued that natural gas would remain an important component of Europe’s energy supply for many years.

He pointed to declining European domestic gas production.

In his view, additional import infrastructure would be needed to meet future demand.

This was a recognisable commercial argument.

Natural gas played an important role in European electricity generation, industry and heating.

Domestic production in several mature European gas provinces was declining.

Additional imports could help replace that lost production.

Shell was also a major participant in international gas markets and LNG production.

The commercial logic behind investment in gas infrastructure was therefore consistent with the company’s wider business strategy.

But the argument contained an important omission.

Van Beurden addressed Europe’s anticipated demand for natural gas.

He did not, in the quoted statement, explain why meeting that demand specifically required additional dependence upon infrastructure transporting gas from Russia.

There is a distinction between needing gas and needing more Russian pipeline capacity.

Europe could pursue additional imports through several routes and from different suppliers.

Those alternatives had different costs, capabilities and limitations.

The September corporate announcement presented Nord Stream 2 as an answer to future European gas demand.

It did not independently establish that Nord Stream 2 was the only available or most secure solution.

Source: The joint corporate announcement, including van Beurden’s statement

5. Gazprom’s argument: a more reliable route

Gazprom’s public position was equally clear.

Alexey Miller welcomed the proposed doubling of the Baltic Sea route.

He argued that declining European domestic gas production would create demand for additional imports.

He also stressed the importance of having major international energy companies participate.

For Gazprom, Western corporate involvement offered several advantages.

It provided prospective investment partners.

It offered commercial and technical expertise.

And it demonstrated that important European energy companies remained willing to undertake substantial business with Gazprom despite the deterioration in relations between Russia and the West.

Gazprom presented the project as strengthening the security and reliability of European gas supplies.

But the meaning of security was contested.

For Gazprom, an offshore route bypassing established transit countries could reduce exposure to disputes involving those countries.

For Ukraine and Slovakia, the same route could weaken their economic and strategic positions.

For critics within the European Union, it could increase reliance upon a single external gas supplier.

The disagreement therefore concerned competing definitions of energy security.

Security of a particular transport route was not necessarily the same as security through diversification of suppliers.

That distinction would become central to the European political debate.

6. The project had already been prepared in June

The September shareholders’ agreement did not emerge without warning.

On 18 June 2015, Shell, Gazprom, E.ON and OMV had signed memoranda concerning additional gas-transmission infrastructure across the Baltic Sea.

The proposal involved the same additional annual capacity of approximately 55 billion cubic metres.

Contemporary Reuters reporting identified the political context immediately.

Russia was facing Western sanctions over Ukraine.

Gazprom was seeking additional routes to European customers that did not depend upon Ukrainian transit.

The June memorandum demonstrated corporate interest.

The September agreement moved the project forward by specifying a proposed ownership structure and implementation vehicle.

That progression is important.

A memorandum of intent indicates the parties’ willingness to explore a project.

A shareholders’ agreement represents a more developed contractual framework.

But neither should automatically be treated as proof that construction was inevitable.

The project still required financing arrangements, regulatory approvals, technical preparations and commercial commitments.

The September agreement therefore marked a significant development without resolving every obstacle. La Tribune

7. The political contradiction: sanctions and new investment

The timing made the agreement unusually sensitive.

Russia had annexed Crimea in March 2014.

Western governments had introduced sanctions.

Those sanctions were expanded later in 2014.

In September of that year, Washington had imposed restrictions affecting certain Russian deepwater, Arctic offshore and shale-oil activities.

The European Union had introduced its own measures affecting finance, technology and specified energy-sector activities.

Shell’s annual reporting subsequently confirmed that the restrictions had caused it to pause certain Russian liquids-rich shale-exploration activities.

The previous instalments documented those operational consequences.

Yet in June and September 2015, Shell was advancing new commercial arrangements with Gazprom.

Was this necessarily a contradiction in law?

No.

The 2014 sanctions were targeted restrictions.

They did not amount to a blanket prohibition on all business dealings with Gazprom.

They did not automatically prohibit every transaction involving Russian natural gas.

Nor did they establish that the Nord Stream 2 agreement was unlawful.

The US Treasury’s September 2014 announcement shows the particular financial and energy activities being restricted. U.S. Department of the Treasury

Nevertheless, there was an unmistakable political tension.

Western governments were attempting to impose economic costs upon Russia because of its conduct in Ukraine.

At the same time, major Western energy companies were agreeing to pursue infrastructure that could strengthen Russia’s capacity to sell gas directly to European markets.

The companies could argue that they were operating lawfully and addressing legitimate energy needs.

Critics could argue that the proposed infrastructure conflicted with the strategic objectives behind Western policy.

Both positions must be understood.

The documentary record does not support replacing that debate with an unsupported allegation of sanctions evasion.

8. Six days later: Slovakia calls the agreement a betrayal

On 10 September 2015, Slovak prime minister Robert Fico delivered an exceptionally strong response.

Speaking alongside Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Fico condemned the agreement between Gazprom and its Western European partners.

He described it as a betrayal of Slovakia and Ukraine.

The language was unusually blunt for a disagreement over energy infrastructure.

But the underlying concern was substantial.

Slovakia had historically received Russian gas transported through Ukraine.

Transit arrangements were economically important.

Ukraine also depended upon revenues from transporting Russian gas to European customers.

A major alternative pipeline system could reduce those revenues.

Fico argued that European governments had been discussing ways to support Ukraine while Western companies were simultaneously pursuing a project that could undermine Ukraine’s transit role.

His criticism was therefore not limited to the potential loss of income.

He regarded the arrangement as inconsistent with European political commitments to Ukraine.

The reaction was documented contemporaneously by Associated Press and Reuters-linked reporting.

Yatsenyuk also condemned the project.

He characterised it as damaging to Ukraine’s interests.

At their joint appearance, Yatsenyuk estimated that Ukraine could lose approximately $2 billion annually in transit revenues, while Slovakia could lose approximately $800 million.

Those were political estimates of potential future losses.

They were not established financial consequences of the unbuilt pipeline.

The importance of the statements lies in what they reveal about the contemporary political response.

Only six days after Shell signed the agreement, the governments of two countries directly affected by the proposed route were publicly condemning it. Fox News

9. Ukraine’s objection went beyond transit fees

Ukraine’s concerns were not purely commercial.

For many years, Ukrainian infrastructure had played an important role in transporting Russian gas to Europe.

That role gave Ukraine economic revenue and a degree of strategic importance.

A substantial reduction in transit could weaken both.

From Kyiv’s perspective, Nord Stream 2 threatened to remove part of the economic and political relationship connecting Ukrainian infrastructure with European energy security.

The political circumstances were especially sensitive.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine continued.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea remained internationally contested.

Relations between Moscow and Kyiv were severely damaged.

A new route bypassing Ukraine could therefore have consequences extending beyond pipeline tariffs.

The commercial partners did not necessarily share that interpretation.

Germany and the participating companies could reasonably argue that infrastructure decisions should reflect economics, reliability and future market demand.

But for Ukraine, the project could not be separated from the wider conflict.

This explains why the September agreement attracted a reaction far beyond the energy industry.

It had become a question about the relationship between European commercial interests and European political commitments.

10. Poland joins the opposition

Poland also viewed the proposal with concern.

The September reporting recorded criticism from Polish president Andrzej Duda.

Poland was concerned that new Baltic infrastructure could strengthen Gazprom’s position in the European gas market.

There were also concerns that infrastructure benefiting Germany and Gazprom could be developed without adequate consideration of the interests of other European countries.

The issue was not simply whether Germany wanted additional gas.

It concerned the consequences for the wider European energy system.

The original Nord Stream route already bypassed several countries in central and eastern Europe.

Nord Stream 2 would substantially increase the capacity of that route.

For countries seeking to reduce dependence upon Russian gas, the project appeared to move in the opposite direction.

These concerns would later develop into concrete regulatory action.

At the time of the September agreement, however, they were part of a growing political controversy.

Poland’s government had not yet determined the outcome of the proposed ownership arrangements.

That development lay ahead. Euractiv

11. The European Commission had already defended Ukrainian transit

There is another contemporary record that helps explain the institutional disagreement.

On 21 June 2015, shortly after the preliminary Baltic pipeline agreement, European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič spoke at a security forum in Bratislava.

Šefčovič was responsible for the Energy Union.

He emphasised the strategic importance of continuing Russian gas transit through Ukraine.

He pointed to the capacity of Ukraine’s existing pipeline network.

He also questioned the economic logic of constructing expensive infrastructure primarily to bypass an established transit country.

The remarks were reported by Agence Europe on 23 June.

The Commissioner was not issuing a legal judgment against Shell or the proposed project.

He was articulating an important policy concern.

The European Union’s Energy Union strategy emphasised energy security, integration and diversification.

A project that concentrated additional transport capacity on a route controlled by the same major external supplier raised questions about its consistency with those objectives.

The Commission’s concern therefore predated the September signing.

This is an important historical distinction.

Opposition to bypassing Ukraine did not arise solely because of the September agreement.

It was already part of the European policy debate. Agence Europe

12. October: the European Parliament formally raises the alarm

By October 2015, the controversy had reached the European Parliament.

On 1 October, Parliament issued an official briefing announcing a debate scheduled for 7 October.

The briefing explicitly named Shell alongside Gazprom, E.ON, OMV, BASF/Wintershall and ENGIE.

It stated that Members of the European Parliament were concerned that the project could increase dependence upon Russia.

They also feared that it could weaken Ukraine and adversely affect European countries bypassed by the pipelines.

The briefing identified Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland among the countries whose political, security and economic interests were under discussion.

This is particularly valuable evidence.

It is not merely a newspaper describing criticism of the project.

It is an authenticated parliamentary publication establishing that Nord Stream 2 had become a formal subject of debate within an EU institution.

The questions went directly to the central issues.

Would the project increase European dependence upon Russian gas?

Would it undermine diversification?

Would it weaken Ukraine?

Would it disadvantage countries excluded from the new route?

These were questions that the September corporate announcement had not resolved.

Primary parliamentary source: European Parliament — MEPs to debate plans to expand Nord Stream, 1 October 2015

Contemporaneous reporting of the debate held on 7 October recorded strong criticism from a number of MEPs.

Some urged the European Union to oppose the development.

Others argued that the project was inconsistent with the Union’s efforts to diversify energy supplies.

The political battle had clearly begun. Agence Europe

13. The fundamental dispute: diversity of routes or diversity of suppliers?

Nord Stream 2 exposed a significant disagreement over energy-security terminology.

For the participating companies, the project offered a new transport route.

That could provide operational advantages.

It might reduce exposure to interruptions involving existing transit arrangements.

It could connect Russian production more directly with large Western European gas markets.

But critics argued that the project did not diversify the underlying gas supplier.

The gas would still originate in Russia.

Gazprom would remain the principal supplier and the controlling corporate participant.

Additional transport capacity could therefore strengthen an existing supplier’s commercial position rather than reduce dependence upon it.

Both arguments had substance.

Multiple routes can improve resilience against a failure affecting one route.

But multiple routes originating from the same supplier do not eliminate the risks associated with dependence upon that supplier.

The September disagreement was therefore not merely semantic.

It concerned two different models of energy security.

One emphasised reliable infrastructure and adequate import capacity.

The other emphasised supplier diversification and reduced strategic dependence.

Shell publicly supported the first argument.

Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland and a number of European parliamentarians emphasised the second.

The documents demonstrate that this disagreement was visible from the project’s earliest formal stages.

14. The shareholders’ agreement did not settle the regulatory position

There is another important distinction between the September announcement and the project’s eventual development.

The agreement was a corporate instrument.

It did not constitute approval from every relevant regulator.

The proposed pipelines would operate across an international maritime environment and connect with European gas infrastructure.

Their development raised questions involving construction permissions, environmental assessment, energy regulation and competition law.

Different legal questions required consideration under different rules.

The fact that Gazprom and its Western partners signed a shareholders’ agreement did not determine how every provision of European energy law would apply.

Nor did it remove the possibility of objections from national competition authorities.

That became highly significant when the proposed ownership structure was examined.

It is important not to apply later legislation retrospectively.

The legal framework governing pipelines to and from third countries was subsequently amended.

Those later developments cannot simply be treated as if the same provisions already governed the September 2015 agreement.

The correct historical approach is to examine the law as it stood at the time, then trace subsequent changes.

15. What the subsequent court record establishes

A later judgment provides authoritative confirmation of the distinction between the original corporate proposal and the project’s subsequent legal structure.

On 12 July 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgment in:

Nord Stream 2 AG v European Parliament and Council of the European Union, Case C-348/20 P.

The case concerned amendments to EU natural-gas market legislation introduced in 2019.

Those amendments extended certain rules governing the internal gas market to pipelines connecting EU member states with third countries.

The proceedings concerned the admissibility of Nord Stream 2 AG’s challenge to the legislation.

The Court held that the company’s action was partially admissible and referred the relevant issues back to the General Court.

It did not make a finding that Shell’s 2015 agreement was unlawful.

Nor did it determine that Shell had violated sanctions.

The judgment is nevertheless important for the documentary history.

Its account of the project’s later corporate structure identifies Gazprom as the sole shareholder of Nord Stream 2 AG.

It also records financing arrangements involving five Western companies, including Royal Dutch Shell.

The contrast with the September 2015 announcement is significant.

In September 2015, Shell was publicly identified as an intended 10 per cent shareholder.

Under the later arrangements described by the Court, Shell was a financing participant, not a shareholder in the project company.

The development between those two positions belongs to the next stage of the story.

The judicial record confirms that the original ownership plan did not become the permanent structure of the project. Italaw

16. The importance of Shell’s participation

Shell was not a peripheral participant in the September agreement.

Its chief executive was one of the signatories.

The company’s public statement endorsed the commercial justification for the project.

The proposed ownership structure allocated Shell a significant minority interest.

And the agreement was part of a broader relationship with Gazprom that extended from Sakhalin LNG production to European gas infrastructure.

The connection with earlier events is particularly important.

In 2006–07, Shell had surrendered majority control of Sakhalin II following the confrontation surrounding the project’s development.

Gazprom became the controlling shareholder.

Shell nevertheless remained involved.

By 2014, the companies were discussing LNG expansion.

In June 2015, they entered a wider strategic cooperation agreement.

And in September 2015, Shell joined Gazprom and other European companies in proposing one of Europe’s largest new gas pipeline projects.

The relationship had therefore evolved far beyond the original Sakhalin investment.

Shell was no longer simply preserving an existing Russian asset.

It was actively exploring further commercial integration with Gazprom.

The September documents establish that much.

They do not establish that Shell supported Russian government actions in Ukraine.

Nor do they show that participation in the project constituted a sanctions violation.

Those claims would require evidence not present in the records examined here.

The significance of the agreement lies in the extent of the proposed cooperation and the political environment in which it was pursued.

Documentary Findings Established by authenticated corporate records

On 4 September 2015, Ben van Beurden signed the Nord Stream 2 shareholders’ agreement at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

The signatories represented Gazprom, BASF, E.ON, ENGIE, OMV and Royal Dutch Shell.

The proposed project involved two additional offshore pipelines across the Baltic Sea.

Their combined annual capacity would be approximately 55 billion cubic metres.

Gazprom’s announced ownership share was 51 per cent.

Shell’s proposed interest was 10 per cent.

The agreement identified New European Pipeline AG as the intended project vehicle.

Van Beurden publicly justified the project by reference to Europe’s future gas requirements and declining domestic production.

These facts are confirmed by the 4 September Gazprom and OMV announcements. Gazprom

Established by contemporaneous reporting

Reuters reported the June and September agreements as developments in Gazprom’s effort to expand direct gas-export infrastructure to Europe.

The proposed route would bypass Ukraine.

On 10 September, Slovak prime minister Robert Fico publicly condemned the agreement as a betrayal.

Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk also opposed it.

Both leaders warned of substantial potential losses of transit revenue.

Those losses were forecasts attributed to the political leaders, not independently established consequences.

Polish political leaders also expressed opposition to the project. La Tribune

Established by European institutional records

On 1 October 2015, the European Parliament announced a debate concerning Nord Stream 2.

Its briefing explicitly identified Shell and the other participating companies.

It recorded concerns about dependence upon Russian gas, Ukraine’s strategic position and the interests of European countries bypassed by the proposed route.

The debate was scheduled for 7 October.

Contemporaneous reporting confirms that the project attracted substantial criticism from MEPs.

These records establish political opposition.

They do not establish a judicial ruling that the September agreement was illegal. European Parliament

Established by subsequent judicial proceedings

The Court of Justice’s judgment of 12 July 2022 confirms that Nord Stream 2 AG subsequently operated under a structure in which Gazprom was the sole shareholder and Western companies, including Shell, were involved in financing.

The judgment concerned later EU gas-market legislation.

It does not establish wrongdoing by Shell.

It is relevant here because it prevents the proposed 2015 shareholding arrangements from being mistakenly presented as the project’s final ownership structure. Italaw

Not established

The documents do not establish that Shell breached sanctions by signing the September 2015 agreement.

They do not establish that Shell endorsed Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

They do not establish that Shell had completed the acquisition of its proposed 10 per cent shareholding.

They do not establish that construction had received every required approval.

They do not establish that the proposed pipelines would automatically replace all Ukrainian gas transit.

They do not establish that the project was economically unnecessary.

They do not establish that it was economically indispensable.

And they do not establish that the September agreement settled the project’s eventual ownership, financing or regulatory position.

Commentary: A Commercial Decision With Political Consequences

The September 2015 agreement illustrates a recurring difficulty in the relationship between multinational energy companies and governments.

Infrastructure investments are often presented in commercial terms.

And frequently, those commercial arguments are substantial.

Europe needed natural gas.

Domestic production was declining.

New infrastructure could offer additional import capacity.

Shell and the other companies participating in the agreement were pursuing opportunities within their established areas of expertise.

There was nothing inherently surprising about major energy companies considering another large gas pipeline.

But Nord Stream 2 was not being proposed in an ordinary political environment.

Russia had annexed Crimea.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine continued.

Western governments had introduced economic sanctions.

The European Union was attempting to strengthen energy security and maintain support for Ukraine.

Within that environment, Shell and other Western companies agreed to pursue infrastructure that could reduce Ukraine’s role in Europe’s gas supply system.

For Gazprom, the attraction was obvious.

A direct Baltic Sea route could reduce reliance upon existing transit countries.

It could also strengthen Gazprom’s relationships with major Western European energy businesses.

For Shell, the attraction was different.

Participation offered a prospective stake in important gas infrastructure and an opportunity to deepen an already substantial commercial relationship with Gazprom.

The company’s public argument focused upon European energy demand.

But commercial logic did not remove the political implications.

A project can be economically attractive to its investors while creating serious disadvantages for countries outside the investment agreement.

That was precisely the concern expressed by Ukraine and Slovakia.

Their objections were not evidence that Shell had broken the law.

They were evidence that the commercial consequences of the project extended beyond its immediate shareholders.

There is a broader point about corporate responsibility.

Energy companies are entitled to pursue lawful commercial opportunities.

But large energy infrastructure can influence national security, international relations and the economic resilience of entire countries.

Those consequences deserve consideration alongside projected financial returns.

The September announcement demonstrated that Shell considered additional Russian gas infrastructure commercially desirable.

The reaction from Ukraine, Slovakia and the European Parliament demonstrated that important political institutions saw the project differently.

That divergence deserves to be preserved in the historical record.

The lesson of Sakhalin

There is also a revealing continuity with the earlier Sakhalin story.

Shell had experienced the consequences of Russian political and regulatory power during the Sakhalin II confrontation.

The company’s original majority position had been substantially reduced.

Gazprom had taken control.

Yet Shell remained commercially committed to the relationship.

By 2015, the companies were discussing expansion in Sakhalin and infrastructure in Europe.

The partnership had survived a major dispute over the ownership and development of Sakhalin II.

It was now surviving serious geopolitical tension.

But the Nord Stream 2 agreement would encounter obstacles of its own.

This time, the pressure would not arise primarily from Russian environmental regulators or negotiations over production-sharing arrangements.

It would emerge from European institutions and competition authorities.

The proposed ownership structure, confidently announced in September 2015, would prove particularly vulnerable.

That later development provides an important reminder about the difference between corporate ambition and completed investment.

The September agreement was real.

The signatures were real.

Shell’s participation was real.

But the proposed ownership arrangements were not immutable.

And the political controversy had only begun.

Principal Documentary Sources

1. Gazprom — 4 September 2015

Gazprom, BASF, E.ON, ENGIE, OMV and Shell sign Shareholders Agreement on Nord Stream 2 project.

The central primary document confirming the Vladivostok signing, participants, proposed shareholdings, pipeline capacity and executive statements.

Read Gazprom’s official announcement

2. OMV — 4 September 2015

Gazprom, BASF, E.ON, ENGIE, OMV and Shell sign Shareholders’ Agreement on the Nord Stream 2 project.

Independent company-authored confirmation of the terms and Shell’s participation, including van Beurden’s statement.

Read OMV’s official announcement

3. Reuters — 18 June 2015

Contemporaneous reporting of the preliminary Baltic gas-transmission agreement involving Gazprom, Shell, E.ON and OMV.

Reuters report: Gazprom announces agreement with Shell, E.ON and OMV

4. Reuters — 4 September 2015

Contemporaneous account of the shareholders’ agreement, estimated project cost and anticipated construction timetable.

Reuters: Gazprom and European partners sign Nord Stream 2 agreement

5. Associated Press — 10 September 2015

Reporting of the objections raised by Slovak prime minister Robert Fico and Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, including their estimates of potential transit-revenue losses.

Associated Press: Ukraine and Slovakia condemn Nord Stream 2

6. Agence Europe — 23 June 2015

Contemporaneous reporting of European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič’s position on the strategic importance of continuing gas transit through Ukraine.

Šefčovič calls for continued gas transit through Ukraine

7. European Parliament — 1 October 2015

MEPs to debate plans to expand Nord Stream pipeline from Russia.

Official parliamentary briefing identifying Shell and other participating companies and setting out concerns about energy dependence, Ukraine and bypassed EU countries.

Read the European Parliament briefing

8. Agence Europe — 9 October 2015

Contemporaneous reporting of the 7 October European Parliament debate and opposition to the project.

European Parliament debate: Opposition to Nord Stream 2

9. US Department of the Treasury — 12 September 2014

Official announcement of the expanded Russian financial and energy-sector sanctions in force before the September 2015 agreement.

US Treasury: Expanded sanctions against Russia

10. Court of Justice of the European Union — 12 July 2022

Nord Stream 2 AG v European Parliament and Council, Case C-348/20 P.

Subsequent judicial record concerning EU gas-market regulation and the project’s later corporate and financing structure.

Read the Court of Justice judgment

11. OSW Centre for Eastern Studies — 26 April 2017

The Nord Stream 2 financing agreements.

Independent analysis documenting the eventual financing structure and explaining how the original shareholding arrangements failed following Polish competition objections.

Read the OSW analysis

Archive disclaimer: This instalment distinguishes authenticated corporate documents, contemporary political statements, independent journalism, parliamentary records, subsequent judicial material and editorial interpretation.

The 4 September 2015 shareholders’ agreement is evidence of the participating companies’ stated intentions and contractual arrangements at that date. It must not be treated as proof that all proposed equity acquisitions were ultimately completed.

The Court of Justice proceedings cited concern subsequent EU gas-market legislation, not a prosecution of Shell or an adjudication of its conduct in September 2015.

No sanctions violation, unlawful transaction or other misconduct by Shell is alleged or established in the documents examined.

Site-wide disclaimer also applies.

NEXT: The Ownership Plan Unravels — Poland Challenges Gazprom and Shell’s Nord Stream 2 Joint Venture

The September 2015 agreement proposed that Gazprom would hold 51 per cent of Nord Stream 2, with Shell and four other Western companies holding the remaining shares.

But the plan encountered an obstacle that the signing ceremony in Vladivostok had not resolved.

Competition law.

In December 2015, the participating companies sought approval from Poland’s competition authority for their proposed joint venture.

The application would eventually be examined by Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, known as UOKiK.

In July 2016, the authority published objections.

It was concerned that the proposed concentration could strengthen Gazprom’s already substantial position in the Polish gas market.

The applicants subsequently withdrew their notification.

The original multinational ownership structure could not proceed as planned.

Shell remained interested in the project, but its participation would eventually take a different form.

A subsequent financing agreement would leave Gazprom as the project company’s sole shareholder, with the Western companies providing substantial funding.

The documentary trail is unusually clear.

The proposed shareholding structure can be found in the September 2015 corporate announcements.

The Polish competition authority’s objections were publicly reported in July 2016.

And the later financing arrangements were documented in 2017. PAP

The next Shell Leaks File — SLF-2007-086 — will examine how Poland’s competition authority challenged the original Nord Stream 2 ownership structure, why Gazprom’s Western partners withdrew their proposed share acquisitions, and how Shell’s involvement survived the failure of the initial plan.

It will also examine an important distinction for shareholders.

A company can cease to be a proposed equity partner in a controversial project without necessarily ceasing to provide the money required to build it.

The evidence establishing how that distinction applied to Shell lies in the corporate, regulatory and financial records that followed the Vladivostok agreement.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 12 OCTOBER 2026 was first posted on October 12, 2026 at 8:22 pm.
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