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November 3, 2026 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Statement on Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 – 11.3.26  Bill would gut bedrock environmental laws that protect Southern Utah’s wildest places 

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Washington, DC – Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) have introduced the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA); a vote on the floor of the Senate to expedite the bill towards a final Senate vote could occur as soon as Monday, November 9. Below is a statement from SUWA DC Director Travis Hammill and additional information on the bill’s potential impact on public lands in Southern Utah. 

“Southern Utah’s wild places and cultural sites have remained intact in no small part because of bedrock environmental and historic preservation laws. This bill imperils those hard-won protections and places industry in the driver’s seat,” said Travis Hammill, DC Director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “If you care about keeping public participation a core component of public lands decisions, the federal government being forced to think before it acts, Tribal sovereignty, or clean air and water, you should be opposed to this bill and we encourage you to reach out your members of Congress, immediately.”  

Additional information: 

Here’s just a few ways the bill would impact Southern Utah’s wildest public lands: 

• It will lock in harmful development projects on public lands, preventing future administrations from taking any action on these permitted projects even if those projects were approved illegally. This includes permits for data centers, oil and gas drilling approvals, and hard rock mining authorizations. In Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, this bill could preclude future administrations from taking corrective action on the more than 110 mining claims filed on lands within the original boundaries of the monuments that President Trump unlawfully cut by nearly 90%. The bill will also make it extremely difficult for the public to challenge development of those mining claims, permanently greenlighting endless development and harm for these iconic landscapes.  

• It will undermine Tribal sovereignty while threatening sacred and irreplaceable cultural sites. Southern Utah holds tens of thousands of cultural sites reflecting thousands of years of human history. The bill effectively rewrites provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act to restrict what is considered an important cultural site, make consultation with Tribes and communities optional and require fewer environmental impacts to be taken into consideration. These changes would limit the power of Tribal Nations to define the places that matter to them and minimize if not eliminate opportunities for Tribal Nations to be heard. 

• It will fast-track the already rapid acceleration of data center proposals on public lands. In Utah and across the country, communities are demanding greater transparency and input as data centers are rapidly built. Proposals like Project Beehive in Carbon County have many unanswered questions about their legality and potential impacts, but would be expedited if the bill passed.   

• Decreases transparency in decision making by narrowing the projects subject to environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and limiting the public’s ability to review and comment on projects that impact public lands. 

Analysis and materials by other organizations and recent media: 

• 6 threats to public lands in the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, The Wilderness Society, Oct. 15, 2026 

• The National Congress of American Indians and 8 other tribal letter to Congress, arguing BAAJA undermines Tribal sovereignty and threatens sacred sites, Oct. 9, 2026.  

• Native American Rights Fund statement: “(BAAJA) has significant impacts on the ability of Tribal Nations to participate meaningfully in permitting issues that can effect their land, water, and cultural interests.” Oct. 15, 2026 

• Senate Permitting Reform Bill: If It Passes, Will It Work?, Center on Global Energy Policy, Oct. 27, 2026 

• NRDC Assessment of BAAJA, the 2026 Permitting and Transmission Bill, Oct. 27, 2026 

• More Than Just Parks: Senate Permitting Bill Is a Betrayal of Our Public Lands. Oct. 16, 2026 

• Center for Western Priorities: The Senate permitting bill would lock in data centers and nuclear waste on public lands. It only gets worse from there. Oct. 21, 2026.  

• The proposed U.S. infrastructure permitting reform bill would be a disaster for communities and for climate action, Oil Change International, Oct. 26 2026 

• A ‘Bipartisan’ Bill to Dismantle the Nation’s Bedrock Environmental Law, The Revelator, Oct. 23 2026 

• ‘Permitting Reform’ Is a Giveaway to Data Centers and Fossil Fuels, Common Dreams, Oct. 26, 2026 

• Why green groups won’t endorse the Senate permitting deal, Latitude Media, Oct.23, 2026 

• The Worst Thing That’s Ever Happened to Public Lands Could Be a New Bill You’ve Never heard Of, Wes Siler. Oct. 28, 2026.  

• John Podesta Says Permitting Deal Hands Trump ‘a Loaded Howitzer, Heatmap, Oct. 27 2026 

• Podesta warns of ‘loaded howitzer’ in permitting bill, Politico, Oct. 27, 2026 

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

The post SUWA Statement on Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 – 11.3.26  appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

For decades, Kenyan farmers have faced exposure to pesticides banned or restricted in their manufacturers’ home countries.

The post Kenya: Double standards in the agrochemical use and trade appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

After repeated delays, the Africa Energy Bank (AEB) was officially launched this week – tasked with financing oil and gas projects across the continent as global lenders retreat from such investments due to climate concerns.

Even as the world aims to transition away from fossil fuels, many African leaders have made clear they want to continue exploring and extracting the continent’s large oil and gas deposits – estimated at about 125 billion barrels of crude and more than 600 trillion cubic feet of gas – to fund economic development.

“The creation of the Africa Energy Bank reaffirms African governments’ determination to secure their own energy future,” said a statement announcing the institution’s launch at a meeting in Abuja, adding that the bank’s founders believed oil and gas remained vital to the continent’s energy systems.

The delays to the bank’s launch had raised questions about its momentum and whether it could mobilise investment to finance major African hydrocarbons initiatives in an era of energy transition.

The initial plan for the energy bank – a joint initiative of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) – was to start operations in January 2025, but the bank’s opening was repeatedly pushed back.

Quest for investment

The bank said it had authorised capital of $5 billion but did not disclose how much of that had been subscribed or paid in by shareholders. It vowed to focus on projects that would help strengthen productive capacity, reduce reliance on imported fuels and promote trade in energy goods across the continent.

• Sep 11, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Made in Nigeria: The race to build an African solar industry from scratch A solar power revolution is gathering pace in Africa and Nigeria wants a slice of the fast-growing industry, but competing with Chinese imports won’t be easy Read more
• Sep 21, 2026 Comment Why the global electrification agenda misses the point on Africa’s energy crisis  With hundreds of millions of Africans still lacking electricity access, global electrification goals must reflect the continent’s realities and deliver development alongside connections Read more
• Mar 2, 2026 News Uganda cites contentious IEA fossil fuel scenario backed by Trump administration Critics of the African nation’s oil ambitions say referencing the International Energy Agency’s most pessimistic scenario for climate action is a risky policy Read more

It estimates Africa’s energy investment needs at $200 billion, and energy analysts told Climate Home News the institution could struggle to mobilise enough resources to advance large-scale projects.

However, its backers said at the weekend launch that the bank would seek investment from governments, national oil companies, financial institutions and private investors across the continent to ensure that “Africa’s energy future is shaped by Africans”.

African-led approach to energy financing

Backers said the bank was needed because many traditional international lenders have curtailed financing for oil and gas projects, potentially hindering a more extended and gradual energy transition advocated by many African leaders as a way to ensure economic and social development.

Chantal Naidoo, executive director at Rabia – a South Africa-based just transition think-tank – said the creation of a bank to invest in fossil fuel projects reflected the complexities of switching to clean energy for African countries – noting the high cost of financing for clean energy projects.

Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight

At the same time, Naidoo said, the continent is expected to transition within a global system in which the rules are not applied equally – citing recent support for continued oil and gas development by the British and Norwegian governments. 

“A binary choice between fossil fuels and renewables does little to address these complexities,” Naidoo said.

“Momentum lies with renewables”

But many climate campaigners say the bank should prioritise renewable energy investment as Africa builds out much of its energy system for the first time, fueling growth in solar power.

Data from energy think-tank Ember, published in August, projects that the continent will install a record 17 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in 2026 – equal to about 100,000 solar panels every day. This would mark the third consecutive year of record growth, following increases of 51% in 2025 and 25% in 2024.

African governments strengthen waste rules as solar and battery use surges

Joseph Ibrahim, Nigeria campaign director for Secure Energy Project, a global advocacy organisation working to accelerate the energy transition, said Africa receives only about 2% of global clean energy spending, leaving plenty of scope for more.

“A new African energy bank should build on that momentum, not pull scarce public money away from it,” Ibrahim said.

The post Africa launches long-delayed energy bank to finance fossil fuel projects appeared first on Climate Home News.

Para pekerja di industri nikel Indonesia turut menopang industri energi terbarukan. Namun, mereka justru harus membayar harga yang sangat mahal.

English version

Di Indonesia bagian timur, di pesisir Pulau Sulawesi, terdapat kawasan industri nikel terbesar di Asia, yakni Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP). Di sana, para pekerja memproduksi nikel yang digunakan dalam berbagai produk, mulai dari baja tahan karat, baja karbon, perangkat elektronik, baterai kendaraan listrik hingga berbagai barang konsumsi lainnya.Spekulasi akan terus meningkatnya permintaan nikel sebagai bahan baku untuk mendukung pengembangan teknologi energi terbarukan dan kendaraan listrik telah mendorong pesatnya industri ini, sekaligus mendatangkan keuntungan besar bagi perusahaan-perusahaan asing maupun pemerintah Indonesia.Ironisnya, di balik pertumbuhan pesat industri tersebut, para pekerjalah yang harus menanggung dampak terberat dari proses produksi nikel.

Dalam kurun waktu sejak tahun 2015 hingga 2025, tercatat dari 107 pekerja meninggal dunia dan 240 pekerja mengalami cedera di berbagai fasilitas industri nikel di Indonesia. Sebanyak 40 kasus kematian di antaranya terjadi di IMIP. Menanggapi kondisi tersebut, para pekerja mulai mengorganisir gerakan untuk menuntut perlindungan keselamatan dan kesehatan kerja (K3) yang lebih baik. Namun, upaya mereka sering kali dihadapkan pada berbagai tindakan pemberangusan serikat pekerja (union busting) dan sikap permusuhan.

IMIP merupakan kawasan industri seluas 4.000 hektare yang mempekerjakan lebih dari 98.000 pekerja. Dalam satu dekade terakhir, Indonesia memberikan prioritas besar pada pengembangan industri nikel sehingga kini menghasilkan sekitar 60 persen dari pasokan nikel dunia. Berdasarkan penelitian tahun 2023, kawasan industri nikel di Morowali, Pulau Obi, dan Halmahera memasok sembilan pabrik yang secara keseluruhan menyumbang 40 persen produksi baterai kendaraan listrik. Hal ini menempatkan kawasan-kawasan tersebut sebagai tulang punggung rantai pasok industri baterai kendaraan listrik. Namun, keuntungan dari pertumbuhan industri ini masih terkonsentrasi pada kalangan politisi Indonesia dan investor asing, terutama dari Tiongkok dan Korea.

Para pekerja mengemukakan kekhawatiran terkait limbah tambang yang tidak aman, jam kerja yang panjang, dan masalah kesehatan

Sebagian kasus kematian tersebut terjadi di fasilitas dimana perusahaan menyimpan limbah beracun dari kegiatan pertambangan, khususnya di fasilitas penyimpanan tailing dari proses high pressure acid leaching (HPAL). Mengacu pada laporan yang diterbitkan Earthworks awal tahun ini, telah diperingatkan bahaya yang ditimbulkan fasilitas tersebut bagi para pekerja, masyarakat sekitar, dan lingkungan. Richard Labiro, Direktur Yayasan Tanah Merdeka, menyatakan, “Saat ini di Indonesia, fasilitas tailing seperti ini memang seperti sudah didesain untuk menimbulkan bencana di kemudian hari. Risiko yang ditimbulkan limbah beracun dalam jumlah yang sangat besar dan terus bertambah ini harus ditanggung oleh para pekerja, masyarakat sekitar, dan lingkungan.” Tahun ini saja, seorang pekerja di IMIP meninggal dunia setelah longsoran tailing menimbun ekskavator yang sedang dioperasikannya.

Sejumlah peneliti menduga bahwa tingginya angka kecelakaan dan kematian di tempat kerja tersebut mempunyai kaitan dengan panjangnya jam kerja yang sepertinya sudah menjadi hal umum di kalangan pekerja IMIP. Salah satu pola kerja di kawasan industri tersebut mengkondisikan pekerja untuk bekerja selama 12 jam dalam dua sif berturut-turut, sehingga jam kerja mereka sering kali mencapai 60 jam dalam seminggu. Menurut WHO, jam kerja yang panjang adalah “bahaya serius bagi kesehatan” dan “berpotensi terbesar menimbulkan penyakit.”

Selain itu, para pekerja mulai merasakan banyak gangguan kesehatan yang bermunculan yang perlu diteliti lebih lanjut, dan mereka membutuhkan akses yang lebih baik untuk mendapatkan layanan pengobatan. Penelitian terbaru menunjukkan adanya tingkat pencemaran udara yang cukup tinggi di sekitar IMIP, khususnya terkait konsentrasi partikulat halus (particulate matter atau PM) yang pada titik puncak polusi dapat mencapai 10 kali lipat di atas batas yang direkomendasikan WHO. Paparan PM berkadar tinggi diketahui dapat menimbulkan berbagai gangguan pernapasan, kardiovaskular, dan fungsi kognitif. Para pekerja di IMIP sendiri telah mengalami gangguan pernapasan serta berbagai dampak kesehatan akibat paparan panas, suara bising, dan bahan kimia di tempat kerja. Namun, persoalannya bukan hanya kondisi kerja yang tidak sehat. Buruknya desain serta lemahnya regulasi terhadap fasilitas-fasilitas tersebut, terutama fasilitas pengelolaan limbah HPAL, juga harus diperhitungkan.

Para pekerja menanggung biayanya dan menawarkan solusi ketika kegiatan pertambangan tidak aman

Ketika kita berbicara mengenai masyarakat yang berada di garis depan, dan mereka yang terdampak kegiatan pertambangan, penting untuk diingat bahwa para pekerja merupakan kelompok pertama yang merasakan dampaknya, karena mereka berada paling dekat dengan lokasi kegiatan. Dalam pengelolaan tailing, ada sejumlah contoh nyata bagaimana para pekerja harus menanggung dampak terberat akibat buruknya pengelolaan tailing. Salah satu bencana tailing yang paling mengerikan pernah terjadi di Brumadinho, Brasil, pada tahun 2019. Bencana tersebut menelan begitu banyak korban jiwa karena kantin pekerja dibangun tepat di bawah bendungan tailing. Pada saat bendungan tersebut jebol, para pekerja sedang berada di kantin untuk makan siang.

Di Indonesia, para pekerja dan organisasi masyarakat sipil telah menyuarakan peringatan setelah terjadinya insiden-insiden di fasilitas tailing yang menyebabkan kematian pekerja di sejumlah lokasi industri nikel. Kondisi ini menunjukkan adanya persoalan sistemik terkait pengelolaan tailing dan keselamatan kerja di industri tersebut. Para pekerja mempunyai pengetahuan dan pengalaman langsung yang sangat penting untuk diperhatikan terkait keamanan fasilitas limbah pertambangan. Oleh karena itu, para pelapor (whistleblower) harus dilindungi dari tindakan pembalasan karena justru merekalah yang dapat membantu mencegah terjadinya kecelakaan. Menilik pengetahuan dan pengalaman yang mereka miliki, para pekerja dan serikat pekerja sudah seharusnya dilibatkan dan dijadikan bagian penting dalam pengambilan keputusan terkait keselamatan dan kesehatan kerja.

Para pekerja menolak hasil negosiasi Perjanjian Kerja Bersama (PKB) terbaru karena PT IMIP melakukan negosiasi dengan itikad buruk

Bulan lalu, serikat pekerja di IMIP menjalani negosiasi untuk kontrak kerja baru. Namun, hasilnya ditolak oleh para anggota serikat pekerja, yang menuduh bahwa perusahaan gagal mengikuti prosedur yang semestinya—mengubah draf akhir kontrak sehingga tidak lagi mencerminkan kesepakatan yang dicapai selama negosiasi—dan, pada akhirnya, mengabaikan banyak tuntutan utama.

Pada hari Sabtu, 31 Oktober, para pekerja menduduki kantor PT IMIP untuk memprotes PKB terbaru tersebut, serta cara pelaksanaan proses negosiasi dan penyusunan perjanjian. Mereka berencana melanjutkan aksi protes di kantor-kantor pemerintah mulai tanggal 3 hingga 7 November, untuk menuntut agar negosiasi dimulai kembali secara terbuka dan transparan.

Foto oleh FSPIM

FSPIM, sebuah federasi serikat pekerja yang mengorganisir pekerja di tiga provinsi di Indonesia, telah menyampaikan sejumlah tuntutan kepada manajemen IMIP:

1.     Memberikan upah layak yang meningkat sejalan dengan tingkat inflasi;

2.     Meningkatkan penerapan keselamatan dan kesehatan kerja (K3) dengan target nol kecelakaan dan kematian di tempat kerja;

3.     Menerapkan kebijakan yang tegas untuk melindungi pekerja perempuan dari pelecehan seksual dan kekerasan di tempat kerja, serta mempermudah proses bagi pekerja perempuan untuk mendapatkan hak cuti haid dan cuti melahirkan yang dilindungi oleh undang-undang; dan

4.     Menghormati hak pekerja untuk berserikat dan menghentikan segala bentuk pemberangusan serikat pekerja (union busting), termasuk intimidasi, tindakan pembalasan, dan pemutusan hubungan kerja (PHK).

Sebuah deklarasi mengenai pertambangan dan transisi energi yang disusun oleh Earthworks dan telah ditandatangani oleh 168 organisasi serta serikat pekerja menyatakan bahwa kepentingan masyarakat, lingkungan, dan hak-hak pekerja harus menjadi prioritas utama dalam mewujudkan transisi energi yang benar-benar adil dan setara. Deklarasi tersebut menyerukan agar hak asasi masyarakat adat, masyarakat yang berada di garis depan, dan para pekerja ditempatkan sebagai perhatian utama. Deklarasi ini juga mendorong agar dibuatkan solusi yang nantinya dapat mengurangi kebutuhan akan logam primer secara keseluruhan melalui berbagai strategi seperti penggunaan kembali, pengurangan penggunaan, daur ulang, serta desain produk yang memungkinkan komponen-komponennya mudah dibongkar. Deklarasi tersebut juga menyerukan perlindungan kesehatan dan keselamatan bagi pekerja dan masyarakat di setiap tahapan rantai pasok.

Kerusakan lingkungan dan dampak terhadap masyarakat yang terjadi di berbagai lokasi pertambangan nikel di Indonesia memiliki kaitan erat dengan berbagai dampak buruk dari pelanggaran ketenagakerjaan dan tidak dihormatinya hak-hak pekerja. Transisi energi yang adil tidak dapat dilakukan jika tidak meninggalkan pola-pola ekstraktif yang sama, yang telah turut menyebabkan terjadinya krisis iklim. Apabila perusahaan terus menggunakan pola-pola lama tersebut, dampak yang ditimbulkan terhadap pekerja, masyarakat, dan lingkungan akan saling berkaitan satu sama lain. Pada akhirnya, kondisi seperti ini justru menjadi penghambat bagi tercapainya kemajuan yang benar-benar berkelanjutan.

IMIP harus segera menanggapi tuntutan para pekerja dan membuka kembali negosiasi dengan cara yang adil dan transparan.

The post Di Tengah Terus Bertambahnya Korban Tewas dan Cedera, Pekerja Nikel Tuntut Reformasi appeared first on Earthworks.

Dirty Dozen™ food chemicals: propyl paraben Iris Myers November 3, 2026 EWG’s recommendation

Avoid or limit foods containing propyl paraben.

Propyl paraben is a synthetic preservative shown in studies to mimic the hormone estrogen, raising concerns about its potential to disrupt hormonal processes. 

Several studies have linked propyl paraben exposure to reproductive health effects. These effects include changes in sperm quality and testosterone levels in males and associations with egg quality and quantity and pregnancy outcomes in females.

What is propyl paraben?

Propyl paraben, part of the paraben family, is a synthetic preservative used to prevent the growth of bacteria, mold and yeast in food, personal care products, cosmetics and some pharmaceuticals, extending their shelf life.

Which foods contain propyl paraben?

Propyl paraben is typically added to baked goods such as tortillas, cookies, cakes and packaged snacks like chips and trail mix.

Look for propyl paraben in product ingredient lists, usually below or next to the Nutrition Facts panel, on the back of the package.

How is propyl paraben regulated?

The Food and Drug Administration oversees food additives and other ingredients. The FDA has permitted propyl paraben as a food additive since 1977, classifying it as “generally recognized as safe” under thresholds of 0.1 percent. 

In 2024, the FDA added propyl paraben to its list of chemicals under post-market safety reassessment.

The European Union banned propyl paraben from food in 2006, citing the EU’s food safety arm finding that it caused reproductive harm and hormone disruption in young rats at all doses tested – meaning no safe daily intake could be established.

Several U.S. states have acted to restrict or ban propyl paraben in food. In 2023, California passed a law to prohibit it in food sold in the state beginning in 2027. West Virginia and Arkansas passed similar restrictions in 2025. Numerous other states have proposed legislation to ban propyl paraben.

Propyl paraben is prohibited in certified organic foods under Agriculture Department organic standards, which bar synthetic substances.

What does the science say about propyl paraben?

Multiple studies have confirmed that even at low doses, propyl paraben can mimic the hormone estrogen in the body, potentially disrupting hormone-sensitive processes like reproduction, development and cell growth. 

In laboratory experiments, propyl paraben activated genes linked to tumor growth. It also encouraged the growth of breast cancer cells that respond to estrogen.

These findings suggest propyl paraben may play a role in breast cancer progression.

Studies in humans and animals have linked propyl paraben to reproductive harm. Research found associations between higher levels of propyl paraben in urine and reduced egg count in women. 

In men, propyl paraben exposure has been associated with reduced sperm count and quality and decreased testosterone levels. A 2026 study of mother-infant pairs found prenatal propyl paraben exposure was associated with fetal distress and adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Animal studies show propyl paraben can affect multiple generations: Prenatal exposure has been linked to reduced egg count across generations, while long-term low-dose exposure has been shown to promote mammary tumor growth. 

In mouse embryos, propyl paraben triggered oxidative stress, DNA damage and mitochondrial dysfunction, interfering with early embryo development.

Because people are exposed to propyl paraben both through food and personal care products, determining the long-term impact of dietary exposure alone is an area of ongoing research.

Find out more

Learn more about recommendations relating to propyl paraben – and the full EWG Dirty Dozen™ list of food chemicals – on EWG’s research page.

EWG’s Food Scores provides ratings for more than 150,000 foods and drinks based on nutrition, ingredients and processing concerns, and flags unhealthy ultra-processed foods to help you identify alternatives.

Propyl paraben is also added to cosmetic products as a preservative. EWG’s Skin Deep® cosmetic database helps to identify harmful chemicals in personal care and beauty products. EWG Verified® products meet the strictest criteria for transparency and health.

And the Healthy Living™ app lets you take these tools with you on the go.

Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN November 3, 2026

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• A record August and the second-warmest year to date
• A record-setting El Niño event
• Record heat across much of the world
• Good odds of being world’s warmest year 
• Datasets are split on whether 2026 is headed for a record
• 2027 very likely to be the warmest year on record
• Earth’s energy imbalance has more than doubled
• Arctic sea ice minimum tied for 10th lowest, Antarctic near record lows

With three-quarters of the year now past, it is virtually certain that 2026 will be the warmest or second-warmest year on record.

A rapidly strengthening El Niño, alongside human-caused global warming, made this year’s August the warmest on record and September the second-warmest. 

El Niño is the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that releases heat from the ocean into the atmosphere and temporarily boosts global temperatures.

Carbon Brief’s analysis gives 2026 a 67% chance of surpassing 2024 as the warmest year on record across an average of six global temperature datasets. 

In January, it is likely the groups that report global surface temperatures will be divided on whether 2026 officially beat 2024’s record. 

Currently, the odds for a record year range from as high as 97% in Berkeley Earth’s dataset to less than 20% in European Copernicus/ECMWF’s ERA5 reanalysis product.

With El Niño expected to intensify into the winter, Carbon Brief projects that 2027 will be 1.7C above pre-industrial levels, with a 96% chance that it is the warmest year on record.

In this latest “state of the climate” quarterly update, Carbon Brief finds:

• August 2026 was the warmest August on record in all six major datasets, at around 0.12C above the previous record. September was the second-warmest September, behind 2023.
• January-September was the second-warmest such period on record, at around 1.45C above pre-industrial levels, behind only 2024.
• El Niño broke the daily “Niño3.4” region record in September and has stayed above the previous record every day since. Nearly all forecast model runs have it as the strongest El Niño on record, with a peak of around 4C occurring this winter.
• Around 22% of the world’s surface saw its warmest July-September on record, including much of the tropical Pacific, the western Mediterranean and Iberia. Western Europe had its hottest summer on record and Spain its warmest September, beating the previous record by 0.7C.
• Carbon Brief projects that 2026 will end up around 1.52C above pre-industrial levels, with a 67% chance of beating 2024’s record. 
• Whether 2026 is declared the warmest year depends on the dataset; a record is likely in Berkeley Earth and NASA GISTEMP, is too close to call in HadCRUT5, JRA-3Q and NOAA and is unlikely in ERA5.
• Earth’s energy imbalance has more than doubled since the start of the satellite record, from around 0.5 watts per metre squared (W/m2) in the 2000s to around 1.25W/m2 over the past decade.
• The Arctic sea ice minimum was tied for 10th lowest in the satellite record, while Antarctic sea ice saw its third-lowest winter peak.
• This year’s record-setting El Niño will have its largest effect on global temperatures in 2027. Carbon Brief projects 2027 at around 1.7C above pre-industrial levels, with a 96% chance that it will be the warmest year on record.

A record August and the second-warmest year to date

Carbon Brief analyses records from six different groups that report global surface temperatures: 

• NASA’s GISTEMP
• NOAAGlobalTemp
• The Met Office Hadley Centre and University of East Anglia’s HadCRUT5
• Berkeley Earth
• Copernicus/ECMWF’s ERA5 reanalysis product
• The Japan Meteorological Agency’s JRA-3Q reanalysis product 

There are a number of additional groups that feature in Carbon Brief’s annual “state of the climate” update, but are not included here due to a lack of regular monthly updates.

The first nine months of 2026 were the second warmest on record in all six datasets, behind only 2024. 

The figure below shows annual temperatures in each dataset since 1970, along with the 2026 average to date.

Global mean surface temperatures datasets aligned on a common 1981-2010 baseline, then shifted by the average 1850-1900 to 1981-2010 warming (0.67C) in HadCRUT5, NOAA and Berkeley Earth. 2026 to-date dots are staggered horizontally to avoid overlaps and the HadCRUT5 is for January-August as September data was not available at time of publication.

The year got off to a comparatively slow start. Each month from January to June ran cooler than the same month in 2024, as the lingering effects of weak La Niña conditions gave way to a developing El Niño.

La Niña and El Nino are the cool and warm phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that reshapes weather patterns around the world. 

That changed in the third quarter of the year. July 2026 was the second-warmest July in the six-dataset average and a narrow record in the NASA GISTEMP and NOAA datasets. (NOAA’s own assessment described it as tied with July 2024.)

August then set a new record for the month by around 0.12C in the six-dataset average. It was the warmest August on record in every one of the six datasets, by margins ranging from 0.07C (HadCRUT5 and NOAA) to 0.13C (ERA5).

September temperatures stalled a little following the rise in July and August. At around 1.62C, it was the second-warmest September on record in all five datasets to have reported so far, around 0.08C below the record set in September 2023.

The figure below shows each month of 2026 alongside every year since 1940, with 2023, 2024 and 2025 highlighted.

Monthly averages of six global mean surface temperature datasets. The September datapoint excludes HadCRUT5 which had not reported at the time of publication.

Across the six-dataset average, July-September 2026 was effectively tied with the same period in 2023 as the warmest on record, at around 1.57C. It ranked first in GISTEMP and NOAA (and in HadCRUT5 for July-August), and second in Berkeley Earth, ERA5 and JRA-3Q.

The figure below shows the January-September average for every year since 1850. It shows how temperatures in 2026 to date sit at 1.45C – around 0.06C below 2024. 

A record-setting El Niño event

In September, El Niño crossed a milestone. The daily sea surface temperature anomaly in the “Niño3.4” region of the tropical Pacific – the area most widely used to gauge El Niño strength – broke the record, previously set in November 2015, to become the strongest event since the satellite era began in 1981. 

This year’s El Niño has remained above that record every day since. September recorded the highest monthly Niño3.4 region temperature anomaly since records began in the mid-1800s.

As of 18 October, the daily value stood at around 3.5C above the 1996-2025 average for the time of year and around 0.4C above the 2015 peak.

The figure below shows how El Nino is projected to keep intensifying until the end of this year. 

Average of 656 forecasts across 14 dynamical models. The lighter shaded area reflects the period when only seven models are available.

Carbon Brief examined 656 forecasts from 14 different climate models that were run between late September and mid-October. On average they estimate that this year’s El Niño will peak around 4C in December – more than 1C above the prior record. 

(Ten models expect a December peak and four anticipate a November peak.)

Based on an analysis of tree rings and coral sediments, it is possible that this will be the strongest El Niño event in a millennium.

Niño3.4 region sea surface temperature peak anomaly projected from 656 runs of 14 different dynamical El Niño models. Y-axis denotes the share of model runs in each 0.2C “bin”.

The forecasts have strengthened since Carbon Brief’s July “state of the climate” update, when El Niño was expected to peak around 3.6C. 

While human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are responsible for effectively all of the Earth’s long-term warming, temperatures in any given year are strongly influenced by short-term variations to the Earth’s climate associated with El Niño and La Niña events. 

Global temperatures tend to lag the tropical Pacific by around three months, which means an El Niño peaking around the end of 2026 will have its largest effect on global temperatures in 2027.

Record heat across much of the world

In addition to high global average surface temperatures, the past three months have seen records broken across many parts of the planet. 

The map below shows July-September 2026 temperatures relative to the 1981-2010 average in the ERA5 reanalysis. 

Globally, temperatures were 0.96C above that 30-year period and 1.58C above the ERA5 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

The El Niño is clearly visible as a band of exceptional warmth stretching across the eastern and central tropical Pacific, with temperatures more than 4C above average off the coast of Ecuador and Peru. 

Western Europe and the Mediterranean were also unusually warm, with temperatures around 3C above average over France and the western Mediterranean Sea. North-west Russia, the Canadian Arctic, south-central North America, eastern Africa and parts of west Antarctica were also exceptionally warm.

The most notable part of the planet that was colder than usual was the Weddell Sea sector of Antarctica, which came in at more than 2C below average for the season.

The map below shows how July-September 2026 ranked against every year in the ERA5 record (1940-2026) at each location. Areas in dark red saw their warmest July-September on record; blues show areas among the five coldest.

Areas where hot and cold records were set from July-September 2026 compared to the same period in all other years since the ERA5 dataset began in 1940. Share of global surface: 21.5% record warm, 49.9% top-five warm, 0.5% top-five cold and <0.1% record cold.

Around 22% of the world’s surface saw its warmest July-September on record and around half experienced one of its five warmest. By contrast, around 0.5% of the world saw one of its five coldest July-September periods.

Record warmth covered most of the El Niño region (including more than 90% of the Niño3 and Niño3.4 regions) along with sizeable parts of the south Atlantic (39%), the tropical Indian Ocean (34%) and the subtropical North Atlantic (25%, with 85% in its five warmest). 

On land, around 85% of France and Iberia saw a record-warm July-September.

In September alone, around 20% of the world’s surface saw its warmest September on record.

Overall, 55 countries set national records for September average temperatures, including Chile, Colombia, Italy, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, US and Venezuela.

Europe had an exceptional summer, with the western part of the continent experiencing its hottest summer on record. 

Copernicus reported that western Europe’s summer averaged 21.7C – 2.5C above the 1991-2020 average – beating the previous record set in 2003. A record 52% of the continent was exposed to “very strong” heat stress by the end of the season. 

Europe as a whole had its third-warmest summer, behind 2024 and 2022.

France had its warmest July on record, at 3.8C above the 1991-2020 average. Switzerland had its hottest summer since records began, averaging 17.2C. 

The heat persisted into the autumn in south-west Europe. Spain had its warmest September on record, at 3.4C above the 1991-2020 average. This beat the previous record set in 1987 by a remarkable 0.7C.

Rivers across Europe saw their lowest summer flows since the European Flood Awareness System’s records began in 1992. By early September, the area burned across the EU was almost twice the 2006-25 average for the time of year, according to Copernicus, extending what had already been a severe fire season.

Elsewhere, the contiguous US had its hottest summer on record and its warmest September, with around 59% of the country in drought conditions. 

India’s monsoon, which tends to weaken during El Niño years, ended with 12.6% less rainfall than normal, the driest in 11 years.

This year’s El Niño event has strongly impacted the hurricane season, suppressing the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic while contributing to a record-setting number of tropical cyclones in the Pacific.  

Good odds of being world’s warmest year 

Carbon Brief’s projection for average global temperature for 2026 combines observed temperatures through September with the latest forecasts of the strength of El Niño. It uses a statistical model trained on the historical relationship between year-to-date temperatures, El Niño conditions and annual temperatures.

The figure below shows the six-dataset average for each year since 1970 (dark blue), the year-to-date January-September 2026 average (blue circle) and Carbon Brief’s 2026 estimate (red circle) with its 90% likelihood range (vertical red line).

The dark red dot marks Carbon Brief’s median projection for 2027, the bar the 50% range and line the 90% range.

The best estimate for 2026 is now around 1.52C above pre-industrial levels, with a 90% range of 1.50C to 1.55C. This is slightly higher – but effectively tied with – the prior record of 1.52C set in 2024.

It marks a slight increase from Carbon Brief’s previous projection of 1.51C, set out in its July’s “state of the climate” update.

There is an approximately 67% chance of setting a new record this year in the average of the six-datasets examined. 

The year 2026 also has a 93% chance of coming in above 1.5C in the six-dataset average (though not in every individual dataset), which would make it the second year above 1.5C, after 2024. 

However, a single year above 1.5C does not itself constitute a breach of the Paris Agreement goal, which reflects a longer-term average.

These odds also depend on assumptions that are hard to pin down. 

The El Niño forecast for October-December lies beyond any event in the record the model is trained on. The projection assumes the historical relationship between the strength of El Niño and its impact on global temperatures holds for an event this large. If the warming effect of this El Niño turns out to be no larger than that of the strongest past events, the odds of a record year for global temperature would be closer to 50%.

Datasets are split on whether 2026 is headed for a record

Different groups of scientific researchers around the world will announce their own results for 2026 in January. 

Across the six datasets that Carbon Brief explores there will likely be mixed results, with some datasets showing 2026 as the warmest year on record – and others showing it as the second warmest year.

Likelihood of a 2026 record in different datasets using Carbon Brief’s model. Carbon Brief’s projection is based on each dataset’s observations and record. Probability for HadCRUT5 is based on data through August, as September data was not available at time of publication.

Based on temperatures to-date and the current El Niño forecast, Carbon Brief estimates that a 2026 record is very likely in Berkeley Earth (97%) and likely in NASA GISTEMP (82%). It is about as likely as not in JRA-3Q (48%) and NOAA (34%) and unlikely in ERA5 (18%).

HadCRUT5 currently shows a 72% chance of a 2026 record, but this is based on data only through August. Plausible values for September – which the other datasets suggest was slightly cooler than August – would put its odds somewhere between around 50% and 80%.

The difference in odds comes down to how far each temperature group’s data for 2026 trails the prior record set in 2024. 

For example, over January-September, Berkeley Earth has 2026 around 0.03C cooler than the same months of 2024, so its final three months need to beat those of 2024 by around 0.08C. 

ERA5, by contrast, has 2026 around 0.09C behind 2024 over the same period, meaning October-December would need to run around 0.27C warmer than the last three months of 2024.

None of these datasets is “right”. They differ in how they fill gaps in regions where fewer observations are taken, such as the poles, and in which sea surface temperature records they use. 

The two reanalysis products, ERA5 and JRA-3Q, take a different approach altogether, using a weather model constrained by observations to estimate air temperatures everywhere, rather than combining land and ocean measurements.

There is precedent for a split decision. In January 2015, NASA and NOAA announced that the year 2014 was most likely the warmest on record, while the Met Office described it as tied with 2010. January 2027 could see something similar.

2027 very likely to be the warmest year on record

The biggest temperature effect of this year’s El Niño event will be felt next year. Just as the 2015-16 El Niño helped make 2016 the then-warmest year on record, an event peaking around the end of 2026 will have its largest influence on global temperatures in 2027.

Carbon Brief projects 2027 will end up at around 1.74C above pre-industrial levels, with a relatively wide 90% uncertainty range of 1.54C to 1.95C. 

This is based on the historical relationship between year-on-year temperature changes and El Niño conditions in the preceding autumn, factoring in the remaining uncertainty around where temperatures in 2026 will end up.

The figure below shows the six-dataset average for each year since 1970 (dark blue), along with Carbon Brief’s projections for 2026 (orange) and 2027 (red).

The dark red dot marks Carbon Brief’s median projection for 2027, the bar the 50% range and line the 90% range.

This gives 2027 a 96% chance of being warmer than any previous year, including 2026. There is a 98% chance that at least one of 2026 or 2027 will set a new record.

The estimate for 2027 is necessarily much more uncertain than for 2026. None of the year has been observed yet and the result depends on both the peak strength of the El Niño and how quickly it fades. 

As noted above, this year’s El Niño strength is currently projected to peak well beyond the strongest event in the record on which Carbon Brief’s model is trained. Carbon Brief predicts a rise in temperatures between 2026 and 2027 of around 0.2C due to El Niño – larger than the jump that followed any previous El Niño events. The projection assumes the historical relationship between El Niño and global temperatures will hold for an event this large, but it remains to be seen whether this is the case.

Nevertheless, even an average global temperature on even the low end of the range (1.54C) would exceed 2024 and, while Carbon Brief’s central estimate of 1.74C would beat it by more than 0.2C. 

If these projections bear out, the 2020s will have delivered new records in 2023, 2024, 2027 and, quite possibly, 2026.

Earth’s energy imbalance has more than doubled

The rise in global temperatures is a symptom of Earth’s rising energy imbalance. This is the difference between the energy the planet absorbs from the sun and the energy it radiates back to space. 

As long as this energy imbalance is positive, the Earth system accumulates heat, around 90% of which ends up in the oceans.

Earth’s energy imbalance has more than doubled in recent decades. This growing imbalance means the planet is accumulating heat ever faster and that global warming is accelerating. 

NASA’s CERES satellite instruments have tracked changes in this imbalance at the top of the atmosphere since March 2000. 

The figure below shows the Earth’s energy imbalance from 2000 to August 2026, with monthly values (faint line), 12-month averages (dark blue), calendar-year averages (dots) and the linear trend (red dashes).

Earth energy imbalance measured by NASA’s CERES satellites.

The Earth’s energy imbalance rose from an average of around 0.53W/m2 over the first decade of the record (March 2000 to February 2010) to around 1.25W/m2 over the most recent decade (March 2016 to February 2026) – a 2.4-fold increase.  

The highest annual energy imbalance recorded to date was in 2023 at 1.79W/m2, while the most recent 12 months (September 2025 to August 2026) averaged at 1.59W/m2.

Several studies, including 2026 research covered by Carbon Brief, have noted that the imbalance appears to have risen faster than most climate models simulate, though the reasons remain unclear.

The measurements also come with some caveats. CERES tracks changes in the imbalance well, but its absolute level is anchored to ocean heat content measurements. Changes to satellite orbits over time add a further uncertainty of around 0.1W/m2 per decade to the trend.

A 2021 study found that independent satellite and in situ observations “each yield statistically indistinguishable decadal increases” in the imbalance between 2005 and 2019. 

Over longer periods, CERES shows more energy being accumulated than ocean heat estimates set out by Institute for Atmospheric Physics data and by the authors of the Indicators of Global Climate Change report. 

The imbalance typically dips as a strong El Niño peaks and the ocean releases heat to space, as it did in 2024. Next year’s energy imbalance may be slightly lower.

Arctic sea ice minimum tied for 10th lowest, Antarctic near record lows

Around mid-September of each year, Arctic sea ice drops to an annual low, whereas Antarctic sea ice grows to its largest area of the year.

On 12 September, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum extent, at 4.60m square kilometres (km2) on the five-day average used by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). 

The 2026 minimum shares the 10th lowest spot – alongside 2008, 2010 and 2025 – in the nearly 48-year satellite record and was 1.21m km2 above the record low set in 2012, according to NSIDC.

That represents a modest recovery from earlier in the year, when Arctic sea ice set, or tied, record daily lows on 39 days between January and 2 July, following a joint-lowest winter maximum. 

Arctic sea ice extent has not set, or tied, a daily record low since 2 July and has been within the 1979-2010 range for the time of year since the start of August, though still well below the long-term average. 

(As Carbon Brief has previously explained, conditions earlier in the year are a poor predictor of the September minimum).

In the southern hemisphere, Antarctic sea ice reached its winter maximum on 14 September, at 17.59m km2. This was the third lowest on record, behind only 2023 and 2024. It recently fell sharply and hit record daily lows for much of the period since early October. 

The figure below shows daily Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent in 2026 (solid lines), compared with the 1979-2010 range (shading) and the record low for each day (dotted line).

Daily Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent in 2026 compared to the prior record low and the 1979-2010 historical range. 2026’s data runs until 17 October. Arctic minimum and Antarctic maximum calculated using NSIDC’s five-day mean. related Experts: How are climate scientists using artificial intelligence? 22.10.2026 Climate modelling UNEP: Opportunity has ‘been lost’ to meet 1.5C warming limit without ‘overshoot’ 21.10.2026 Climate pollutants Guest post: Why tough methane cuts are crucial for keeping warming ‘well-below’ 2C 01.09.2026 Climate pollutants Explainer: The CMIP7 emissions scenarios – and how they explore future climate change 01.09.2026 Climate modelling

The post State of the climate: 2026 likely to tie with 2024 as the warmest year on record appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Europa Oil & Gas has given notice that it will appeal against the rejection of its plans for gas drilling and lower-volume fracking at Burniston in North Yorkshire.

A formal announcement was posted on Burniston’s village notice board this morning. It comes more than 24 weeks after North Yorkshire Council refused the company’s planning application.

The appeal, which is likely to be decided by a government-appointed planning inspector, had been expected.

Europa has until Friday 13 November 2026 to submit its formal appeal.

At the time of writing, Europa had not informed the stock market. (A formal notice was published on 4 November 2026.)

DrillOrDrop has reported separately on reaction to the news.

Details

Today’s notice is part of the formal procedure for planning appeals, known as DMPO (Development Management Procedure Order) 2015.

Under Articles 13 and 36 of the DMPO, an appellant must give 21 days’ notice of the appeal to any owners or tenants of the site.

The appeal will then be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS), where it will be validated.

PINS will set out a timetable for the appeal process.

The local planning authority – in this case North Yorkshire Council – must then notify all interested parties about the appeal and give them a deadline in which to submit written representations.

This is separate from the 21-day deadline mentioned on today’s notice.

We understand Europa’s notice contains at least one inaccurracy. PINS no longer uses the Appeals Case Portal referred to at the end of the notice.

Background

Europa had previously said it was “disappointed with the LPA’s [local planning authority’s] decision and strongly disagrees with the basis of the refusal”. It had said it was “confident that on appeal the planning permission will be approved”.

North Yorkshire Council’s planning committee refused the application, against the advice of officials, on five grounds:

• Harm to the heritage coast and landscape
• Proximity of the site to homes and amenities
• Harm to the setting of the North York Moors National Park
• Impact on tourism and lack of economic gain
• Conflict with the council’s climate commitments

The Burniston proposal has been strongly opposed locally and nationally.

All the local parish and town councils had objected and more than 1,600 individuals objected to the planning application. Other opponents included Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Salby and Newby Village Trust, Frack Free Coastal Communities, Frack Free Scarborough, Frack Free Ryedale, North Yorkshire Moors Association, CPRE and Friends of the Earth.

Since the North Yorkshire planning decision, the government has revised the rules for onshore oil and gas in England.

The new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the planning blueprint for decisionmakers, made the following key changes in August 2026:

• Removed a requirement to give “great weight” to the economic benefits of onshore oil and gas proposals
• Removed a previous requirement to “plan positively” for onshore oil and gas developments
• Introduced a new policy to refuse onshore oil and gas extraction proposals except in defined circumstances

Europa has separately applied for an environmental permit for the Burniston operation.

In August, the Environment Agency, which issues permits, said it was minded to approve the company’s application.

Local people have urged the EA to reconsider its draft decision. They have also criticised errors and missing information in the EA’s draft decision documents and what has been described as a close working relationship with Europa. A formal complaint has been made about the Burniston permit process.

Canada and the European Union’s commitment to strengthen cooperation on energy security and the energy transition lays the foundation to put clean growth and climate priorities at the heart of their alliance, according to experts.

In a seven-page joint statement agreed at the end of a two-day summit in Montreal on Friday, both sides committed to work more closely on investment in critical minerals, green grids, energy sources, battery storage and the protection of energy infrastructure. 

They agreed to assess opportunities for long-term energy connectivity across the Atlantic, including through a feasibility study on liquefied gas (LNG) exports to Europe. The statement also includes a pledge to “deepen targeted industrial cooperation” on technology value chains and “address bilateral trade barriers”.  

“Canada and the European Union have sent a clear and unwavering signal that closer cooperation on decarbonisation and climate resilience will be central to their new strategic alliance,” said Canadian Climate Institute president Rick Smith. “The task now is to turn talk into action.” 

Foundation for climate action  

The EU and Canada’s “alliance for the future” aims to deepen their partnership across investment, trade and economic security to weather geopolitical tensions and global threats, including “the existential threat of the interdependent crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean and land degradation, and pollution”. 

These threats are “increasingly impossible to ignore as the impacts of extreme heat, wildfires, floods, and other disasters become more disruptive and expensive,” Smith said.  

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The statement reaffirms existing commitments established by the Canada-European Union Green Alliance, which both parties described as “our compass for advancing decarbonisation while also strengthening competitiveness, affordability, and economic security”.  

Investment in critical minerals  

During the summit, the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced a “new chapter” for its presence in Canada, beginning with accelerated investment in critical minerals. 

“At a time when both sides of the Atlantic are working to reduce strategic dependencies, we want to turn our partnership into investment in real projects, from mining and processing to recycling,” EIB Vice-President Nicolas Beer said in a statement. “That is how we build supply chains that are not only more secure, but more competitive too.” 

Joanna Kyriazis, director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada, welcomed the EIB announcement as a “bright spot of the summit” and “one of the few tangible actions”.  

“As the EU and Canada seek to advance a partnership anchored in ensuring mutual security and navigating an uncertain world, it is essential that electrification remains a north star… one of the greatest ways we can advance both short- and long-term affordability, competitiveness, and energy security,” she said.  

Feasibility of Canadian LNG exports to the EU  

In addition, the agreement calls for a joint long-term feasibility study on LNG exports to Europe, although no immediate investment was announced to support this.  

A media briefing circulated by climate advocacy groups in advance of the summit had warned that a call for such a study would support Canada’s efforts to rebrand gas, a highly polluting fossil fuel, as a reliable, low-carbon energy source.  

Yet, the agreement was interpreted by some observers as a Canadian concession following more than a year of rhetoric predicting a boom in Canadian gas exports to the EU and elsewhere.   

• Oct 27, 2026 News National climate plans now promise half the emission cuts expected by UN The US exit from the Paris Agreement and weak new pledges leave 2035 emissions just 6% below 2019 levels, against 12% projected last year Read more
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“What is clear is that the EU is reducing its gas consumption drastically,” Adrian Hiel, director of the Brussels-based Electrification Alliance, told the Globe and Mail. “The long-term trend is clear and by the middle of the next decade, Europe should be out of the LNG game.” 

Last year, The Energy Mix and Berlin-based Clean Energy Wire reported on mounting doubts that serious European demand for additional gas supplies would ever materialise after Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson touted LNG exports to Germany in “as little as five years”. 

Rapprochement on a ‘trade irritant’ 

In the lead-up to the summit, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Canadian iron, steel, fertiliser and aluminium would not be exempt from carbon tariffs under the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), as it moves toward full implementation in 2034. 

The CBAM is a trade tool designed to protect the continent’s domestic industries from competitors in countries with less stringent carbon controls. 

Unlike other non-EU members like Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and the UK, Canada is unlikely to be exempted from the CBAM because there are no plans to link its carbon market to Europe’s.  

However, at the end of the Montreal summit, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a press conference they had made progress on finding joint solutions to the issue, which von der Leyen described as a “trade irritant”.  

Canada’s EU ambassador, Jonathan Wilkinson, formerly the environment and climate minister, said Canada sees it as a problem that the CBAM “did not acknowledge Canadian producers were doing their part to reduce their greenhouse gas footprint by paying an industrial carbon price”.  

He “confirmed diplomatic talks are heading in the right direction but not resolved”, CBC reported. 

A longer version of this story was originally published by The Energy Mix as part of its partnership with Small Change Fund. 

The post Canada, EU agree deeper cooperation on energy and cleantech supply chains appeared first on Climate Home News.

The call came from a home in Hyde County, a rural expanse of coastal farmland and marsh in North Carolina. Paramedic Quinn Reece jumped into an electric aircraft with one seat, two wings, and eight propellers. It is called a BlackFly, and at about 14 feet long it looks like an oversized drone. Moments later it rose like a helicopter, then flew like an airplane.

As she raced toward the emergency at about 60 mph, a dispatcher described the location. Reece quickly realized that the app the county uses for emergency response had given the wrong location. Because she had flown over the area before, Reece had an idea of the correct location. She zipped over in the aircraft, confirmed where the call had come from, and relayed the information to paramedics headed that way. She was on the scene and administering care 20 minutes before they arrived.

That is exactly what Brook Cox, the county’s emergency medical services chief, hoped to see. She launched the six-month trial with a company called Pivotal in March to see if its BlackFly could help medics more quickly reach patients in a county that covers 1,459 square miles of land and water. The county conducted more than 300 training flights prior to using the aircraft for two 911 calls.

Air taxis and flying cars have long defined the promise of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs. This is the vision the Federal Aviation Administration has highlighted through the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, which works with manufacturers to test the emerging aircraft in real-world settings. Last week, Archer Aviation announced plans for aerial taxi services in three Texas cities and Joby Aviation began demonstrations in Florida.

Hyde County is among those exploring more immediate uses for these machines. The FAA program considers emergency medical response an important application, particularly in rural areas. Similar aircraft powered by the sun that can stay aloft for weeks are being developed to monitor climate threats like wildfires, methane emissions and ice melt.

The great promise of electric aviation is to help decarbonize flight. These developments point to a fast-approaching future for electric aviation. It just might not arrive in the form we expected.

Pivotal’s BlackFly can take off like a helicopter and fly like an airplane, making it a promising tool for emergency response in rural areas, where it can launch quickly, fly directly to an emergency, and land close to the scene. Courtesy of Pivotal

Kristina Menton, Pivotal’s vice president of flight, points to a December 2024 flight as proof the technology could be a boon to EMS. A BlackFly took off from a Los Angeles County fire station and landed in a backyard in Malibu, demonstrating it could fly directly to a private address.

Menton acknowledged that single-seater aircraft are a new approach for a field that has typically employed separate crews for flight and EMS operations. BlackFly’s simplified controls allow one person to serve as both pilot and medic. “The aircraft is a breeze,” Cox said. “It really takes the guesswork out of it because you have a screen and you have all these prompts that you have to go through.”

Carl Dietrich, who founded Jump Aero in 2019 to build electric aircraft for EMS, sees Pivotal’s work as proof of concept rather than competition, something that can only help the sector grow. “It shows that other organizations believe that this is a real opportunity,” he said.

Jump Aero is building a different kind of aircraft, the JA1 Pulse, which has been in development for seven years. Dietrich expects it to reach 288 mph, compared with 63 mph for the BlackFly. He said eVTOLs aren’t necessarily replacing helicopters or ambulances, but adding something new to emergency response: an aircraft that is easy to fly and can launch almost immediately without warming up.

“It’s ideal for rapid response missions because you don’t pay any maintenance penalty for going to full power instantly,” he said. This is particularly important in a field that aims to arrive within eight minutes of a call, while rural response times average nearly 15 minutes.

There are, of course, limitations, including battery range and weight capacity. The BlackFly can travel 20 miles on a charge and carry 200 pounds, while the JA1 Pulse is good for 70 miles and 350 pounds. The aircraft clearly aren’t meant to transport patients; their utility lies in being able to quickly reach an emergency and stabilize a patient until an ambulance arrives. Reece carried a cardiac monitor, airway supplies, and a “primary response bag” of essential gear that would allow her to assess a patient and begin treatment immediately.

Rural areas may present an easier path to introducing the technology, said April Zhang, director of advanced air mobility at the University of South Florida’s Center for Urban Transportation Research. “In the urban area, it’s probably more challenging to find the right landing and takeoff sites,” she said. Menton said other counties are already looking at Hyde County’s experience and considering similar programs. 

Zhang points to the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program as a way for manufacturers and public agencies to collaborate on applications. Beyond EMS, she sees traffic surveillance and cargo deliveries as other potential uses.

FAA policy may also give public agencies an easier path to using eVTOLs than commercial operators. Andrew Mearns, a commercialization consultant at Multicopter Aerospace Consulting, said EMS organizations can often operate under the FAA’s public aircraft rules, which could allow them to fly without the credentials required of a commercial pilot.

Cost is another appeal. Pivotal’s model sells for $190,000, while Mearns said helicopters can cost from $500,000 to $10 million. Operating costs will vary with the specific model, but generally speaking an electric aircraft might be about 80 percent cheaper than a similarly sized machine that burns fossil fuels, Mearns said.

Emergency response is one avenue where electric aviation is beginning to find a practical use. Another is taking shape much higher in the atmosphere.

Unmanned stratospheric aircraft can reach altitudes of 65,000 feet, about twice as high as commercial aircraft. Solar-powered versions can remain aloft for weeks or months, making them well suited to long-term environmental monitoring.

“If you imagine these solar-powered aircraft just circling the L.A. County area, collecting soil moisture, vegetation moisture data, with complex math models and deep learning mapped to that, you can have improved risk profiles better than the models that are currently there,” said Craig Mascarenhas, an aerospace researcher at Harvard University. The aircraft could also spot fires more quickly and help map them for first responders.

Mascarenhas leads engineering research for Harvard’s branch of the Stratospheric Airborne Climate Observing System, where he is helping develop and deploy solar-powered electric aircraft with Electra.Aero, MIT and others. He said their applications go beyond wildfires.

“It’s hurricane monitoring and tracking, methane emiss monitoring, understanding ice dynamics across the world,” he said. “The instruments will be swapped, but the topology of the aircraft will remain the same.”

The aircraft themselves could offer environmental benefits too. Mascarenhas said eVTOLs could reduce greenhouse gas emissions when they replace fuel-burning helicopters, but the climate case is less clear when they replace efficient ground transportation.

“Vertical flight is inherently energy-intensive, and an electric aircraft is not necessarily more energy-efficient or lower-carbon per passenger-mile than an electric car, bus, or train,” he said.

For Pivotal, EMS in Hyde County is just the beginning. Menton said the company’s broader vision is to “revolutionize transportation” by making short electric flights accessible to more people.

But for now, some of the technology’s most immediate uses may be the specialized applications already being tested in places like Hyde County and high above it.

Correction: This story originally underestimated how much cheaper an eVTOL aircraft might be to operate.

toolTips('.classtoolTips7','A powerful greenhouse gas that accounts for about 11% of global emissions, methane is the primary component of natural gas and is emitted into the atmosphere by landfills, oil and natural gas systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, and wastewater treatment, among other pathways. Over a 20-year period, it is roughly 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Electric aviation is taking off in unexpected ways on Nov 3, 2026.

Arthur Matherne is used to speeding his airboat across a southeastern stretch of the Louisiana coast where lakes and bayous have widened as the Gulf of Mexico’s salty water has moved in, dissolving marshes and swamps.   

But in one tucked-away patch of the Barataria Basin’s 1.6 million acres, the semi-retired tour guide eases off the throttle as he tries to remember his way through channels that have grown tighter by the year. Grasses are overtaking the shallows, and oak branches are spreading overhead, dangling Spanish moss over waterways he once barreled through.

“All this, it’s filling in,” Matherne said after shutting off his airboat’s roaring propeller. “Right here, it used to be three feet of water. Now it’s three inches.” 

What Matherne is seeing is a striking reversal of a pattern that has defined southern Louisiana for the past century. While much of the coastal zone has receded at about 11 square miles per year from erosion and other forces compounded by climate change, the wetlands here are gaining ground.

The reason is just a few miles away. Near Luling in St. Charles Parish, the Davis Pond Freshwater Diversion has funneled Mississippi River water into the basin since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built it in 2002 to combat saltwater intrusion. But something unexpected happened. The diversion also carried the muddy river’s sediment into the wetlands, raising the bottom and helping create new land. 

“It’s had this unintended consequence of building land,” said Jacob Berkowitz, an Army Corps of Engineers wetland scientist. “This became one of the strategies that’s considered a key to addressing coastal land loss in Louisiana.”

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers scientist Jacob Berkowitz discusses the growth of wetlands south of the Davis Pond Freshwater Diversion. Tristan Baurick / Verite News

Yet even as Davis Pond demonstrates the land-building potential of river diversions, Louisiana has abandoned its most ambitious attempt to put that approach to work. Last year, the state canceled the massive Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, a $3 billion project inspired by Davis Pond and once heralded by the state as “the largest and boldest environmental restoration project in U.S. history.” Though it broke ground in 2023, work stopped shortly after Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican and one of the diversion’s most prominent critics, took office in 2024. He officially terminated the project, which would have been located 20 miles south of New Orleans, in July 2025. 

Landry called the diversion a costly and ineffective “experiment” that would harm the commercial fishing industry by flooding parts of Barataria Bay with too much fresh water and sediment, pushing out shrimp and burying oysters. 

“This project is going to break our culture,” Landry told state lawmakers in 2024. “It will destroy the shrimping industry — which is already struggling — and destroy the oyster beds.” 

Landry’s administration also canceled a companion project — the $1.8 billion Mid-Breton Sediment Diversion, aimed at reviving dying wetlands southeast of New Orleans. 

Despite Landry’s opposition to these projects, his administration is quietly planning more diversions along the Mississippi, albeit on a smaller scale.

Officials with the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, or CPRA, declined to discuss the state’s diversion plans, but a Verite News review of the authority’s budget documents indicates the state plans to spend at least $340 million on five projects over the next several years that would divert Mississippi River water to restore coastal wetlands. That represents a big increase over past spending on diversions. Since 2007, CPRA has completed just three diversion projects totaling $47 million, according to the agency’s 2027 annual plan.

While some state leaders may disparage diversions, CPRA scientists still believe using river water to rebuild land and restore wetlands is a sound approach. At its core, a diversion mimics how the Mississippi functioned before levees walled off its floodplain, preventing the river from overflowing its banks or breaking through them at points called crevasses, according to Brian Gossman, a CPRA coastal scientist, who spoke at a public lecture in March. 

“The natural process that we’re attempting to harness is the Delta cycle,” Gossman said. “It’s the same process that built all of coastal Louisiana over millennia. We’re just using it in a targeted way.”

An airboat travels through a canal south of the Davis Pond Freshwater Diversion in Louisiana. Water and sediment from the diversion have helped build land and increased the growth of wetland trees and grasses.
Tristan Baurick / Verite News

Nearly all of the CPRA’s diversion spending would go to one project — the restoration of Maurepas Swamp, a Chicago-sized wetland along the west edge of Lake Pontchartrain, about 25 miles from New Orleans. 

The $334 million project, which broke ground in 2024, will install gates in the Mississippi River levee near Garyville in St. John the Baptist Parish and channel up to 2,000 cubic feet per second of water into Maurepas, which remains one of the country’s largest swamps despite losing thousands of acres of cypress and tupelo forest. Levees built in the early 1900s cut the swamp off from fresh water and sediment, leaving its trees vulnerable to saltwater intrusion.

According to CPRA, the diversion will rebuild lost land and flush out stagnant, salty water, rejuvenating about 45,000 acres. It’s set for completion late next year. 

The authority hasn’t totally given up on diverting sediment into the Barataria Basin. After canceling the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, the agency dusted off an earlier, much smaller version of the project: the Medium Diversion at Myrtle Grove. Proposed more than 25 years ago, the project would divert up to 15,000 cubic feet of river water per second into the basin — about one-third of Mid-Barataria’s typical operating rate. To speed up the creation of marsh, the authority would also dredge sediment from the Mississippi and pump it directly into the basin. 

The Myrtle Grove project’s timeline and budget are unclear. CPRA’s budget documents indicate about $1.7 million could be spent on it between 2027 and 2029, but the full cost will likely be much more. In 2012, the project was estimated at $278 million, or about $480 million in today’s dollars. 

CPRA’s spending plans would also boost the Davis Pond diversion. The agency has proposed spending $3 million, shared with the Army Corps, to study how the diversion could be operated to build more land. 

Research led by Tulane University in 2019 suggested that boosting the diversion’s average flow from 1,000 cubic feet per second to between 4,000 and 7,000 cubic feet per second could deliver more sediment to nearby wetlands. But if the flow is too high, researchers warned, the sediment will be flushed away.  

In St. Charles Parish, home to Davis Pond, finding ways to increase the diversion’s flows has strong support. In its 2025 habitat restoration plan, the parish endorsed the proposed CPRA study, citing criticism that the diversion’s operations were “not being aggressive enough” to maximize its benefits. 

Watching Davis Pond’s silty flows creep past his airboat, Matherne agreed the diversion should release more water and sediment. “Right now, it’s like pissing in an Olympic-size swimming pool,” he said. “We need more flow.”

The Army Corps built the diversion to improve oyster beds that had become too salty as coastal marshes receded. Oyster abundance in the area has fluctuated since the diversion was built, but recent monitoring data suggest populations on public beds were above their 10-year averages in 2024, according to Danielle Richardi, a CPRA coastal scientist. Shrimp catches south of the diversion hit a nearly four-decade high that same year, she said. 

Matherne said he’s seen a marked increase in wildlife. Alligators are more plentiful, he said, pointing out more than a dozen of the reptiles as his boat traveled the maze of waterways near the diversion. “All the alligators you see — that’s a fraction of what’s out there,” he said. “Come back at night, and you’ll see their eyes shining all over.”

Matherne stands on a platform used by scientists to track the growth of new land created by the Davis Pond Freshwater Diversion. The semi-retired tour guide says the wetlands south of the diversion are expanding, and wildlife is thriving.
Tristan Baurick / Verite News

Several studies have documented how accumulated sediment has built land near the diversion, although researchers in recent years have reached conflicting conclusions about the overall impact on wetland acreage. 

In 2019, Louisiana State University coastal sciences professor Eugene Turner challenged conventional thinking about river diversions with a study linking Davis Pond to increased wetland loss. Turner found that the annual rate of wetland loss near Davis Pond nearly tripled after the diversion began operating, increasing from 0.36 percent to more than 1 percent. The increase was greater than in nearby wetlands unaffected by the diversion. 

One explanation might have to do with what’s in the water. While the diversion was intended to restore the Mississippi’s pre-levee connections to surrounding wetlands, the river’s water has changed dramatically over the past century. It now carries high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus, much of it from fertilizer and manure runoff from farms and wastewater discharged by cities upstream. Turner argues that the excess nutrients produce wetland plants that are, essentially, flabby and weak. 

“If your garden is fertilized too much, it puts all its growth aboveground,” he said. “It falls over because its roots never had to work hard.”

Turner believes that lower nutrient levels encourage plants to develop stronger root systems, making marshes more resistant to erosion. He likens some of the apparent land gains from diversions to a “green toupee.” The wetlands may look as though they’re filling in, but strong winds or currents can easily strip away the vegetation.

Read Next Nearly 1.5M people in Louisiana depend on this strip of marsh. But it needs saving. Tristan Baurick

Two of Turner’s colleagues disputed his findings in a 2023 study. John White and John Day, also LSU coastal sciences professors, found that the first 20 years of Davis Pond’s operations had actually led to a net gain of 1.3 square miles of land. Their study said Turner came to an “erroneous conclusion” by incorrectly using data “that was clearly labeled as inappropriate for the task.”

The researchers asserted that Turner’s satellite data were too imprecise to distinguish small patches of wetlands from open water, potentially making land appear to have disappeared when it hadn’t. 

Turner stands by his findings, arguing they more accurately portray how diversions affect coastal wetlands and warn of the damage they can cause if poorly managed. 

Opponents of the Mid-Barataria diversion regularly cited Turner’s research and added several more concerns, including CPRA’s projections that the huge diversion could bury oyster beds under sediment and that added fresh water would likely push shrimp farther offshore, making them harder to catch. Combined with the project’s $3 billion price tag, those concerns cratered political support.

“Considering the uncertainties and questionable environmental outcomes recognized by various agencies … it was necessary to abandon the current project,” CPRA Chairman Gordon Dove wrote in a column in The Times Picayune. 

Although CPRA has yet to fully explain its new approach to diversions, smaller and cheaper projects appear to be a priority. Turner welcomes that shift, but argues diversions should also operate at lower flows to avoid washing away vegetation that he believes excessive nutrients have weakened. He also recommends building diversions in areas with sandy soils rather than the soft, unstable soil in many marshes.

“It’s not that they won’t work,” Turner said. “These diversions give you lessons. We should learn from them.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Louisiana’s accidental blueprint for restoring its coast on Nov 3, 2026.

Blackstone, one of the largest private equity firms in the world, officially changed the name of its dedicated energy investment fund to include the phrase “energy transition” in 2022, having already ceased investing in oil and gas production five years earlier. The pivot toward a new energy future has not diminished interest in the fund. In mid-October, Blackstone announced that the fund pulled in $8.7 billion in investor money this year, reportedly turning away an additional $3 billion to stay under its maximum investment cap. 

Blackstone’s is one of several energy transition funds at private equity firms that have consistently grown over the past decade. That growth has continued even as general climate-oriented investment has fallen over the last few years. Colloquially, “energy transition” refers to the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy that is necessary to limit the worst impacts of climate change. But on Wall Street, the term can mean something a bit different. Some transition funds — including Blackstone’s — see opportunities for profit in natural gas, data centers, and rising electricity costs.

“I know a lot of the investors out there do consider gas a transition fuel,” said Ryan Loughead, a senior associate and former climate solutions analyst for BloombergNEF, an energy research firm.

Private equity funds take new investor money every few years and then use it to buy existing companies, maximize their profits, and then sell them, returning the money from the sale to investors. Unlike publicly traded companies, whose stocks are available for anyone to buy, private equity firms typically take investments only from large organizations, like pension funds, or very wealthy individuals, and they have faced criticism for prioritizing returns at the expense of workers and the environment.

The transition to renewable energy has been a booming business for private equity firms. “Transition funds” in private equity have raked in $178 billion between 2021 and the beginning of 2026, triple the amount raised by comparable funds dedicated to fossil fuels and general energy, according to Loughead’s research. They’ve maintained their popularity even as other forms of climate-related investments have flagged in the United States, with climate-related venture capital on track to suffer its worst year this decade. (While private equity funds buy out established companies, venture capital funds make smaller investments in startups.) 

These shifts have coincided with changes in federal policy, as well as the overall economy. The Biden administration’s signature climate law once spurred innovation in new technologies, but Republicans in Congress repealed most of that legislation last year. Meanwhile, the tech industry’s data center buildout is creating surging demand for electricity and drawing trillions of dollars from investors.

In the financial industry, the energy transition has grown into a sophisticated economic trend with established players and markets, said Dan Cohn, an energy finance analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a think tank focused on the energy transition. Private equity funds don’t typically demonstrate investor interest in a budding industry so much as a view that the industry is becoming economically important. 

“Investors are sensing oncoming scarcity [of electricity] and are positioning themselves accordingly,” Cohn said. “That speaks to both the moment of rising electricity demand, but also the maturity of clean energy technologies.”

But while these funds seek to capitalize on high demand for electricity, they don’t all show a clear commitment to reducing emissions. Blackstone’s fund is explicit in its view that methane gas, a fossil fuel and the primary component of natural gas, is essential to the energy transition. The fund no longer invests in oil and gas fields, but it does invest in natural gas plants. When Blackstone rebranded it in 2022, the fund’s director, David Foley, explained why natural gas plants were still on the table. “A lot of the capital invested in the energy transition is going into simple renewable power generation assets like solar and wind,” he told an industry publication. “While this is important, just adding renewables to the grid doesn’t necessarily mean you can shut down and remove existing sources of power, such as coal and gas.”

Blackstone, headquartered in New York City, is one of the world’s largest private equity firms. Don Bitzer / Getty Images

This year, the fund announced investments in six companies, including a natural gas plant operator and a data center cooling technology company, alongside a company focused on renewable energy development and some transmission and grid technology companies. Blackstone did not reply to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, the private equity firm Brookfield governs its transition funds partly through an explicit commitment to decarbonization and emissions reductions. The company has said it can invest in natural gas in cases where it replaces dirtier fossil fuels, but Brookfield has also drawn criticism for describing gas expansion as part of the energy transition.

Similar funds in Europe, like Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Energy Transition Fund, are far more focused on clean energy sources like green hydrogen, with little emphasis on natural gas.

“‘Energy transition’ is a flexible term,” Cohn said. “And I’m unsurprised to see either the gas or electrical equipment and data center-related companies in some of these funds. That is perfectly consistent with how I know some investors think about the energy transition.”

BlackRock, another private markets giant unrelated to Blackstone, explicitly defines “transition” investing as something different from “sustainable” investing: “not all sustainable strategies are transition, and not all transition strategies are sustainable,” its website reads. 

That partial overlap could complicate investors’ claims about how sustainable their portfolios are.

At least three major government-managed investors in Blackstone’s energy transition fund have explicit climate investing goals. The Oregon Treasury, Minnesota State Board of Investment, and San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System all have some form of climate-related goal or plan for their investments. These entities have committed a combined $525 million to the fund, according to Private Equity International, an analytics firm.

These investors did not reply to requests for comment before publication of this article, but the wide range of standards for climate- and energy-related investments has already created confusion. In Oregon, a state representative formally asked the state’s treasury this year to more clearly define what it reports as “climate-positive” investments, which it uses as a category in its public reports.

Investors may have a financial incentive to include gas in their view of the energy transition. Transition funds that include gas tend to have slightly higher returns than those that don’t, Loughead said. And Loughead and Cohn both said the massive rush to invest in the data center boom has permeated funds nominally concerned with the clean energy transition.

Off Wall Street, the question of whether natural gas and data centers have a role to play in the energy transition is hotly debated. Natural gas has cut emissions from the power sector when it has replaced coal, while data centers have spurred investment in grid improvements and clean energy sources. But using natural gas still produces significant emissions — both when it’s burned and when it leaks out of infrastructure — and data centers are spurring more fossil fuel use, potentially slowing progress on global power sector emissions. Plus, some grids are already finding ways to provide reliability with cleaner alternatives to gas, like batteries, which can store renewable energy to use when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Most climate and environmental groups argue emphatically that gas should not be seen as a transition fuel.

“Natural gas no longer functions as a credible bridge in the energy transition,” wrote Shruti Shukla, a senior advocate on international energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council in a 2025 article, adding that the fuel “risks slowing decarbonization, raising system costs, and locking economies into avoidable volatility.”

And in the long run, it may not even come to be seen on Wall Street as a questionable investment, according to Cohn. As fuel price spikes continue driving the world toward renewables, fossil fuels may become less and less attractive as investment opportunities. 

“There are other very prominent solutions like solar, wind, and batteries, which will mature and continue to see price declines, and so the view that you need gas is increasingly contested,” Cohn said.

This post has been updated to more accurately characterize the nature of BlackRock’s business.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline On Wall Street, the ‘energy transition’ includes natural gas and data centers on Nov 3, 2026.

COP31 marks a critical juncture in the global effort to translate diplomatic pledges into tangible climate action. 

At the start of the Iran conflict, the price of sulfur was about $500 per metric ton for sulfur originating from the Middle East. It now sits above $800.

The economizing individual knows how to relish what one has, delight in the savvy of frugality, and thrive while doing so.

European summer 'deadliest' for heatwaves Channel News brendan 3rd November 2026 Teaser Media

Having clung to the technologies that built its past fortunes, Europe’s car industry missed the electric revolution. Now, just as the EU considers a tougher stance on Chinese competition, German and European carmakers are teaming up with Chinese companies for cutting-edge components and software. Can Europe protect industrial jobs while catching up on technology?

This article will feature in the Green European Journal’s winter 2026 print edition, dedicated to the rise of China and its implications for Europe. Subscribe now and be among the first to receive a copy in December.

There is a story about the German car industry I keep hearing again and again. Most recently, one of Germany’s best-known economists told me that story again. It is a comforting story. The car industry had a big crisis in the 1990s and came out of it with flying colours. It has hit more crises since and always bounced back. Sure, the current crisis is big, maybe the biggest ever, but there is no reason to think that this time is different.

I beg to differ. This is not the usual competitiveness crisis. Nor have German automakers fallen behind the competition in the product cycle. What is happening to the European car industry is that the motorcar from the analogue era is being replaced by products that look increasingly like digital devices.

A good analogy is the story of typewriter producer Smith Corona, one of the great US manufacturing success stories. It successfully managed several technological transitions. Mechanical typewriters became electric. Electric typewriters became electronic. In the 1980s, when the personal computer was launched, the company added word-processing functions to the typewriter, and turned it into a miniature computer. But Smith Corona could not imagine a world in which the typewriter itself disappeared. The personal computer was not a better typewriter; it was able to do what a typewriter did, but it could do so much more.

The German car industry has reached a Smith Corona moment – with some differences. An electric car is still recognisably a car. It has four wheels, seats, and a steering wheel. However, this superficial similarity disguises the scale of the technological change that is under the hood. The combustion engine, transmission, exhaust system, and much of the mechanical complexity around them disappear. In their place come batteries, power electronics, electric motors, sophisticated thermal management, and, increasingly, a software architecture controlling the entire vehicle.

An electric revolution

A German engineer, Gottlieb Daimler, invented the car – which he named after his daughter, Mercedes. Another engineer, Nicolaus August Otto, had earlier invented the combustion engine. Based on those two 19th-century inventions, one of the most successful industries on earth grew stronger and stronger, creating healthy profits well into this century. But the components that generated most of those profits – engines and transmission systems – are precisely the ones that are now disappearing.

In the electric era, the most important and commercially most lucrative technologies are battery chemistry and manufacturing, semiconductors, power electronics, software, and artificial intelligence. The competitive advantage consequently shifts.

Chinese producers supplied almost three-quarters of the batteries installed in electric cars worldwide

Batteries illustrate Europe’s problem. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China produced about 70 per cent of the world’s electric vehicles (EVs) in 2025 and more than 80 per cent of its battery cells. It also produced about 85 per cent of cathode active materials and more than 90 per cent of anode active materials, the primary chemical ingredients in a battery. Chinese producers supplied almost three-quarters of the batteries installed in electric cars worldwide.

Scale has translated into cost efficiency. The IEA estimates that in 2025, battery-pack prices in China were about 35 per cent lower than in Europe. Chinese producers benefit from a combination of supply-chain integration, accumulated manufacturing experience, higher production yields, and intense domestic competition. This matters because the battery is one of the largest single costs in an electric vehicle. This is not a disadvantage Europe can bridge.

The technological frontier is also moving rapidly. In April 2026, the Chinese battery maker CATL announced a third-generation battery with an energy density of 280 watt-hours per kilogram and a claimed range of 1000 kilometres. One version even claimed a 1500-kilometre range. It also announced a new battery capable of charging a car in six minutes. I have not tested this myself, and there is no doubt some marketing hype surrounding these claims. But it is also clear that the innate disadvantage of electric cars – limited range and the time it takes to charge them compared to filling a petrol tank – is slowly disappearing.

Europe is not technologically absent. Germany produced 1.67 million electric cars in 2025, making it the second-largest EV production location after China. Forty per cent of German passenger-car production was already electric. BMW recently said its new generation of battery cells increases energy density by 20 per cent, and charging speed and range by up to 30 per cent. The problem is therefore not that Germany cannot manufacture electric cars. The problem is where the technologies, intellectual property, supply chains, and economies of scale surrounding those cars reside.

The contrast is clearest in China itself. Electric cars accounted for almost 55 per cent of Chinese new-car sales in 2025, compared with 28 per cent in Europe. That gives Chinese manufacturers an enormous home market in which to develop products, reduce costs, and gather experience.

Price competition is brutal. In 2025, nearly 70 per cent of battery-electric cars sold in China were already cheaper, before subsidies, than their combustion-engine equivalents. In Europe, by contrast, fewer than 10 per cent of available battery-electric vehicle (BEV) models cost less than 30,000 euros.

Software adds another dimension. The car is increasingly becoming a software-defined product whose functions can be changed after manufacture. Driver assistance is part of this transformation. As of October 2026, Tesla reports more than 15 billion miles driven using its self-driving system. It is not autonomous, but driver-supervised. Still, Tesla is years ahead of all of its European competitors.

Germany retains an important lead in one narrower category. In December 2024, Mercedes-Benz received German approval for Drive Pilot, a Level 3 autonomous driving system that can operate at up to 95 km/h on German motorways. BMW also offers Level 3 driving under more restrictive conditions. China approved its first Level 3 production vehicles in December 2025. But these systems are not to be confused with fully autonomous driving. It is incomparably easier to let a car drive on a motorway than in a city, where children and animals step into the street and must be identified immediately.

Different systems operate at different automation levels and under different regulatory conditions. The strategic question is who develops the software platforms, computing architecture, artificial intelligence, and data ecosystem from which increasingly automated cars will evolve. This is in many ways not fundamentally different from the old fuel-driven car, where the big money was earned through patented technologies.

Employment and joint ventures

It is telling that European manufacturers are increasingly seeking partnerships for precisely these value-added technologies. In September, Stellantis’ Chinese joint venture agreed to work with Chinese autonomous-driving developer Momenta. BMW’s new strategy similarly envisages greater reliance on Chinese partners for autonomous-driving and integrated software technology.

We can already see the economic consequences of the shift in the value-added supply chains away from Germany. German passenger-car production was 4.15 million vehicles in 2025 – slightly higher than in 2024, but still 11 per cent below 2019. During the first half of 2026, production remained 15 per cent below its 2019 level. Employment figures are more revealing. Germany’s automotive workforce fell from 772,949 in 2024 to 731,928 in 2025. Employment among parts suppliers fell by 11.1 per cent in a single year. Hardly a day passes without some news that a well-known car supplier company has to close down.

This is where the electric transition becomes socially important. A simpler drivetrain needs a different supply chain. An industry organised around engines, transmissions, exhaust systems, and thousands of specialised components cannot simply substitute batteries for petrol tanks while leaving everything else unchanged.

The German manufacturers’ difficulties in China add to the problem because China had become their second home market. China was the big story in German industry in the last decade. That’s where they invested. Volkswagen delivered 2.69 million vehicles in China in 2025, 8 per cent fewer than in 2024. More strikingly, the company’s Chinese BEV deliveries collapsed by 44 per cent to 115,500, even as its electric sales grew strongly in Europe. This is an important distinction. Volkswagen is capable of selling electric cars. What it struggles to do is compete in the world’s largest and most technologically aggressive electric-car market.

BMW’s China sales fell from about 848,000 vehicles in 2021 to 626,000 in 2025, a decline of roughly 26 per cent. Mercedes sold 552,000 cars in China in 2025, down 19 per cent in a year. Its passenger-car adjusted return on sales fell from 8.1 per cent in 2024 to 5 per cent in 2025, with the company citing lower volumes, particularly in China, alongside tariffs and pricing pressure.

By 2026, restructuring moved from warning to implementation. Volkswagen’s operating margin fell to 3.8 per cent in the first half of the year, compared with 7.9 per cent in 2022. In September, its supervisory board approved 50,000 job reductions, bringing the total agreed under successive restructuring measures to around 100,000, while the future of four German plants remained unresolved. BMW, traditionally the strongest of the three German premium manufacturers, announced around 8000 job cuts in July after its automotive operating margin fell to 2.3 per cent in the second quarter.

BMW’s response contains another indication of where the industry is heading. It intends to increase localisation in China and use more Chinese technology, while considering exports from China to Southeast Asia. In other words, a German car company can remain successful while progressively shifting parts of the technological and manufacturing centre of gravity away from Germany.

The same pattern is visible outside Germany. Stellantis provides perhaps the most interesting European example. While it previously invested heavily in electrification, under its current CEO Antonio Filosa it has retreated from the idea of a rapid transition to electric cars. In February 2026, it announced approximately 22.2 billion euros of charges associated with a strategic reset towards what it calls customer “freedom of choice” – a euphemism for failing to keep up with the latest technology. Stellantis has not quite exited electric cars, but it has recognised that its earlier assumptions about the speed of electrification proved too expensive.

The paradox is that Stellantis is simultaneously becoming more dependent on Chinese electric technology. It has pursued production with Chinese partners in Europe, including plans involving Dongfeng’s Voyah brand in Rennes. Chinese BYD has discussed acquiring underused European factories, including plants belonging to Stellantis and other manufacturers.

Volkswagen is moving in the same direction on batteries. In September 2026, China’s Gotion agreed to invest 1.1 billion euros for a 49 per cent stake in Volkswagen’s battery plant in Valencia. These investments may preserve European manufacturing employment. But ownership of a factory and ownership of the underlying technology are not the same thing.

What tariffs can’t do

As European car companies lose market share, profitability, and jobs, governments are taking notice. The German government of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats even created a special section on cars in its coalition agreement, defining it as a key industry worthy of protection. At EU level, a discussion is raging about whether to increase tariffs on Chinese cars.

This debate comes after the EU imposed countervailing duties on Chinese-made BEVs in October 2024, based on a finding that Chinese producers benefited from subsidies that threatened injury to European manufacturers. The additional duties range from 7.8 per cent for Tesla’s Chinese production to 17 per cent for BYD, 18.8 per cent for Geely, and 35.3 per cent for SAIC, on top of the EU’s normal 10 per cent car tariff. In 2026, the European Commission began accepting price undertakings as an alternative in individual cases, including an agreement covering Volkswagen’s China-built Cupra Tavascan.

Tariffs can change prices and the geographical location of production. They can make Chinese imports less competitive and give European factories more time. They can also encourage Chinese manufacturers to build inside Europe, which is already happening. What they cannot do by themselves is create battery chemistry, manufacturing expertise, software platforms, or competitive products. Nor can an EU tariff protect Volkswagen, Mercedes, or BMW in China, Southeast Asia, Latin America, or other export markets. Protection can therefore defend a domestic market without restoring global competitiveness. On the contrary, the history of protectionism has not been an encouraging one. It helps over short periods, but the innovation gap usually widens.

What [tariffs] cannot do by themselves is create battery chemistry, manufacturing expertise, software platforms, or competitive products

This is why the distinction between a cyclical crisis and a structural one matters. Germany will continue making cars. Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes will not disappear like Smith Corona. Premium brands may prove more durable: Rolex survived the digital watch because at the luxury end the purpose of a watch is not to tell the time. The same may be true of a Mercedes S-Class, a Porsche 911 or a top-end BMW. But the big money in the German car industry comes not from these models, but from the Volkswagen Golf and Polo ranges, the BMW 3 series, and the Opel Astra.

The German car industry is not simply a collection of famous brands. It is a network of factories, engineering companies, chemical producers, machine-tool manufacturers, component suppliers, research laboratories, and highly paid skilled workers spread across the country. In 2025, more than 730,000 people were still directly employed in Germany’s automotive industry. Its economic significance extends far beyond that number.

The way ahead

The Smith Corona question is not whether Germans will still build cars in 20 years from now. It is about who will own the technologies, where the high-value-added components will be produced, where the software will be written, and how many German and European workers will be needed.

The German car industry managed to exert regulatory influence that exceeded its size precisely because it was commercially so successful, and because it fed a large value chain. This is how it kept competitors out of the market – by getting the EU to impose safety and quality standards on components, on which German suppliers specialised. This form of regulatory control was also one reason successive German governments, even those with participation of the Green Party, never introduced a speed limit on motorways. Components need to be a lot more durable if the car has the theoretical ability to drive at 250 km/h. You can still speed on German motorways, but the car industry failed to teleport its past successes into the new era of electric cars and autonomous driving.

The German car industry still has a lot of engineering know-how that will be relevant in the age of the electric car

Europe has never experienced industrial decline on this scale before. When industries die, the best long-term strategy is not to protect them, but to let them settle down and find their own way to maximise value. The German car industry still has a lot of engineering know-how that will be relevant in the age of the electric car. The best outcome would be for it to build new commercial relationships, including foreign joint ventures, rather than forcing it to stick to its existing business models. Protectionism turns second-rate companies into third-rate companies. Instead of investing in new growth sectors, we are wasting money protecting the unprotectable.

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