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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mandarinfish are different.

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

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

The Trouble With Rubble

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

A reef is architecture and archaeology at once.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Fish That’s Hard to Count

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We don’t really know.

Where the Living Reef Comes Back In

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

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

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

That includes rubble.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Persistence Is Not Permanence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Persists

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

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

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

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

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

They gave me uncertainty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Menna Zayed, 2026 Africa Zero Waste Academy Participant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meeting Africans beyond conferences and international reports is powerful.

You begin to see the continent through people.

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

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

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

Learning that waste is never “just waste”

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

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

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

That shift sounds simple, but it changes everything.

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

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

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

Zero waste is not simply about having cleaner streets.

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

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

At the landfill, the conversation about waste became physical.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was difficult to ignore.

Seeing circularity in action

But Ghana didn’t just show us the problem.

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

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

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

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

The people who make the system work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That experience made something very clear to me:

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

Africa is not one waste story

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

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

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

But there were also common threads.

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

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

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

Beyond the sessions

And then there was Ghana itself.

Some of my favourite memories happened outside the official programme.

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

The most important thing about the experience is the people.

It is a community of people from across the continent.

What I brought back to Egypt

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

I began thinking more carefully about the connections between:

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

For me, this matters most in rural communities.

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

The waste conversation needs to broaden.

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

But also:

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

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

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

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

Not because you suddenly have all the answers.

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

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

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

Sometimes they are already there.

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

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

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

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

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

And the relationships certainly did not.

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

Because ultimately, zero waste is not only about waste.

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

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

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

Writer’s Bio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Biodiversity finance falling short

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reducing harmful subsidies as an alternative

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

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

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

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

Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more on E360 →

Host an event for National Clothing Swap Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philanthropies back community input 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The missing finance category

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resource mobilisation group under BAM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just transition finance here, there and everywhere

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

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

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

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

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

NDCs get serious about just transition

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

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

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

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

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

Labour rights lens puts focus on all workers 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Narrowing the development gap 

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

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

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

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

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

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

JTM can connect and coordinate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Extreme weather is creating a perfect storm of misinformation

a perfect storm of misinformation

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

By Ellis Juhlin, Nora Mabie, & Jacob Olness

Oct 29, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Would you trust an emergency alert written by AI?

• How to fact-check during and after a disaster

• Why trust Grist?

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

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

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

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

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

Anatomy of a conspiracy

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

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

May 2018: Santa Barbara County, California​

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

May 2023: Santiago, Chile​

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

August 2023: Maui, Hawai‘i

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

Old photos become a conspiracy

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

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

​

​

The conspiracy can't be stopped

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

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

​

The conspiracy spreads

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

Out of control

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

Anatomy of a conspiracy

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

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

May 2018: Santa Barbara County, California​

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

May 2023: Santiago, Chile​

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

August 2023: Maui, Hawai‘i

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

Old photos become a conspiracy

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

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

​

​

The conspiracy can't be stopped

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

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

​

The conspiracy spreads

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

Out of control

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

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

Mistrust in government

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pervasive social media

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

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

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

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

The rise of AI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Earlier this month, after Hurricane Isaias made landfall on the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane, the emergency management expert Laura Myers got a call from a meteorologist in Alabama. Myers is director of the University of Alabama’s Center for Advanced Public Safety, and she talks to state and local emergency managers around her region all the time. The meteorologist told Myers that a local emergency manager had published a graphic showing where Isaias might threaten the Alabama coast with a “sting jet” of high winds.

The problem? The emergency manager had generated the graphic using an artificial intelligence chatbot, and it wasn’t accurate. 

“That county emergency manager was trying to get his stakeholders to focus on the risk in that county, and so he had asked AI to help him,” she said. “It did what he wanted it to do, but it was not meteorologically accurate.”

Most emergency management agencies don’t permit employees to use generative AI, but Myers and most other emergency management experts agree that its usage is likely already pervasive at state and local disaster departments. There are hundreds of companies that are marketing AI tools to emergency managers for tasks like flood damage assessment and resource coordination, but public communication is one of the areas where government employees and startups have the most interest.

The reason? Most emergency managers aren’t very good at sending out alerts and quickly communicating about disasters with the public. That’s not because they’re emergency managers, but because they are human beings. They tend to write in jargon that non-experts might not understand, leave out information on the assumption that the public already knows it, and include irrelevant details that could distract people from what they actually do need to know. 

“A lot of agencies are really limited in resources and the number of people that they have,” said Jeannette Sutton, a disaster researcher at the University of Albany who has created a comprehensive dashboard that provides templates for disaster alerts. “I think they recognize it as a priority, but they don’t prioritize it until they realize they should have. They’re just trying to get their job done without screwing something up.”

Emergency department personnel with the city of New York monitor the watch-command room in Brooklyn on February 23, 2026, ahead of a winter storm.
Matthew Hoen / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Emergency managers are the government officials who are in charge of disaster response and recovery. At the state and local level, It is these officials and their agencies, not the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that make up the first line of defense after an extreme weather event. As such, emergency managers often like to say that “trust is our currency,” and it’s in their communication with the public that they build and lose this trust. 

As climate disasters become more frequent and widespread, there have been numerous examples of flawed human communication scrambling an emergency response. In 2016, for instance, adjacent counties in California issued a “voluntary evacuation” and a “mandatory evacuation” for the same wildfire. In Australia in 2019, officials warned about wildfires by using the phrase “Watch and Act,” which the government later said caused “significant confusion” because no one knew what it meant.

In some cases, inadequate communication can mean the difference between life and death. This happened in Montecito, California, after the 2017 Thomas Fire. A few weeks after the fire, a heavy rainstorm produced a deadly mudslide. The government of Santa Barbara County struggled to communicate the risk to residents still traumatized from the blaze and  experiencing a phenomenon that Sutton calls “warning fatigue.” The county sent alerts to everyone in the “voluntary evacuation zone” for wildfires, telling residents to “stay alert to changing conditions and be prepared to leave immediately.” Most of those residents should have left immediately, but to many the evacuation notice was optional; others just didn’t want to evacuate for a second time in a month. The mudslide killed 23 people and injured more than 160 others.

Governments that put out bad warnings are apt to lose the public’s trust said Sutton. “They’re losing the opportunity to be that voice to help people to be safe.”

After a series of erroneous evacuation alerts to L.A. residents sparked panic during an active wildfire season in January 2025, the director of the county’s emergency management department apologized. 
Chris Delmas / AFP via Getty Images

In theory, alerts are a perfect use case for artificial intelligence, and in particular for the generative AI systems that have developed at a dramatic pace over the past few years. FEMA provides training sessions for emergency managers to learn best practices for synthesizing and sending alerts, but many officials don’t remember all their training when an emergency arrives. A large language model is different. It can read hundreds of thousands of alerts in mere minutes, digest all the research on what works in similar scenarios, and then apply that to edit a human alert in seconds.

“If you’ve only sent one [alert] in your life, and that was 15 years ago, and you need to remember all your training, and you’re thinking ‘Hey, there’s a chemical plume coming my way, the phone’s ringing, the radio’s blaring, I need help,’ the AI is probably gonna do a better job than you are,” said Rob Dale, a former meteorologist who now runs the emergency management department in Ingham County, Michigan.

Dale has already used AI to draft a few practice alerts behind the scenes, but he’s never had to send one out. Ingham County is a small county in central Michigan, and it’s immune from major weather events like hurricanes and fires. If such an event did happen, Dale said he would have no issue allowing a chatbot to draft his incident communication, but he’d still want control over sending the alert out. 

Some experts believe the technology is already good enough to deploy. EM1, a startup that produces AI software for emergency managers, has used Sutton’s research to train a model that its executives say is already better than almost any human emergency manager. The company has tested this in-house model on a number of scenarios including wildfires and tsunamis. It can already match or exceed human capabilities on most benchmark tests.

Sutton gave Grist an example of how the software works: Grist provided her with a recent alert sent by a New Mexico county that was trying to warn residents about flooding on the San Juan River.

The original alert

“Breeched banks. The water is rising. EVACUATE NOW. McGee Park open for people and pets, RV.”

1 of 1

Sutton asked the EM1 model to evaluate and revise the alert. In a few seconds, it produced what she said is a far better alert, one that checks all the main boxes of disaster communication.

The new alert

“San Juan County: Floodwater is rising near [location]. People in [evacuation area]: LEAVE NOW for higher ground. Do not walk or drive through floodwater. McGee Park is open for people and pets. Check [official update source] for updates.”

1 of 1

The model identified and fixed several problems with the original text, which does not say who is sending the alert, name the specific location where flooding is happening, or clarify who needs to evacuate and give advice on how to do so safely. It misspells the word “breached,” and it doesn’t provide any guidance on where residents can seek further information. 

EM1 has contracts with around a hundred government agencies and school districts, but none are using it to automate their extreme weather alerts just yet. For the moment, they’re only using it to workshop plans and internal preparations. Even so, all the experts interviewed for this story said they are certain that many emergency managers are already using chatbots to write messages, even if they won’t admit it. Sutton said that the emergency managers who take her alert training sessions often present her with high-quality alerts they have drafted in seconds using ChatGPT or Gemini. 

“Official adoption is pretty low, but people are unofficially using it, absolutely,” said Sarah Miller, a professor of emergency management at Pierce College in Florida and a longtime instructor at the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center. “They’re using their own personal accounts, or they’re using free ones.”

• Extreme weather is creating a perfect storm of misinformation

• How to fact-check during and after a disaster

• Why trust Grist?

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It sounds like an easy trade-off: if AI is better and faster than humans, and the difference between a good alert and a bad alert can be life and death, we should be using AI for every heat wave and wildfire. Yet even researchers who are bullish on chatbot technology say that making the switch could backfire. Members of the public who are skeptical of AI or who don’t trust the government in the first place may spurn agencies that publish AI-generated graphics or social media posts. In Syracuse, New York, for instance, a union of public employees sued the local government for using an AI service to answer non-emergency 911 calls. 

“We trust things that we perceive [are] authentic and care about us,” said Ginny Katz, the founder of HazAdapt, a consultancy that helps disaster officials figure out how to use technology. “AI-generated content does not feel authentic.” There’s also a risk that chatbots could allow emergency managers to send out more alerts, and faster, which could increase the risk of warning fatigue.

As is the case in other areas where AI is being deployed, disaster experts say that for the moment the software is only as capable as the person using it. A seasoned emergency manager might be able to speed up their communication with the public by having a chatbot draft a series of alerts, but an inexperienced one rushing to create an urgent alert won’t know how to evaluate the output of a model like ChatGPT or Claude. 

Even though the technology is a ways off from being able to perform without a human expert in the loop, that hasn’t stopped many understaffed emergency management departments from using it. As for how the proliferation of AI-generated content is affecting public trust in government, experts say it’s too early to tell.

“If you had a human sending you a text message versus a computer sending you a text message, which one would you believe is being more accurate?” said Justin Snair, the founder of Preppr, another company that offers AI software to emergency managers. 

The answer, he said, depends on the person receiving it.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Would you trust an emergency alert written by AI? on Oct 28, 2026.

Jurema Werneck, Ruhat Sena Akşener and Samantha Klintworth are directors for Amnesty International in Brazil, Türkiye and Australia, respectively.

The climate crisis is also a human rights crisis – claiming lives and turning life upside down for countless communities across the world.

But while those profiting from fossil fuel expansion retain privileged access and influence over global climate negotiations, the people facing its harshest consequences, such as Indigenous peoples or those living in climate-vulnerable communities, remain largely shut out of the decision-making.

As directors of Amnesty International in Brazil, Türkiye and Australia, countries with a leading role in COP30 and COP31, we have seen how effective climate action depends on people being able to speak, organise, protest and participate.

• Oct 21, 2026 Investigations Turkish giant sponsoring COP31 cut climate goals then cashed in on oil boom COP31 sponsors should be screened for “climate integrity”. Yet Koç Holding has become a top partner while its oil refiner runs flat out and its climate targets slip Read more
• Oct 26, 2026 News Lula’s election win in Brazil raises hopes for zero deforestation drive Lula’s re-election makes it more likely Brazil can meet a key goal to end forest loss in the Amazon and builds confidence in a new fund to protect the world’s rainforests, experts say Read more
• Oct 7, 2026 News Australia says COP31 co-presidency will work on a cover decision Chris Bowen said the text could acknowledge the inevitable overshoot of 1.5C, while questions remain over the inclusion of the electrification goal Read more

Last year in Belém, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered every national delegation except Brazil’s, exposing the imbalance of power within climate negotiations. COP31 should confront corporate capture and expand public participation. Instead, serious concerns have been raised over whether civil society will be able to speak freely and safely in Türkiye.

Rights curbs worsen climate breakdown

The human rights needed to confront the climate crisis and demand justice are being eroded.

Authoritarian practices are supercharging climate breakdown by restricting protest, silencing defenders and shielding fossil fuel interests from scrutiny. Attacks on women, LGBTI+ people and members of other marginalised communities divide societies, weaken collective action and divert public attention while fossil fuel expansion continues.

That is why the assault on civic space in Türkiye, the host of COP31, should alarm every government preparing to attend the summit.

Indigenous people attend a protest outside the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, November 6, 2025. REUTERS/Adriano Machado Indigenous people attend a protest outside the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, November 6, 2025. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

In September, Turkish authorities launched a nationwide operation targeting LGBTI+ organisations, activists and human rights defenders. Homes, venues and offices were raided, people were arrested and imprisoned, and social media accounts belonging to activists, journalists and human rights groups were restricted, including that of Amnesty International Türkiye.

This is part of a decade-long crackdown that has weakened judicial independence, ignored international judgements and restricted peaceful assembly, association and expression. Whoever is targeted, the effect is the same: dissent is silenced and fear spreads.

For COP31 to succeed, Türkiye must end its human rights crackdown.

Worrying signals from Türkiye

Against this backdrop, the agreement between Türkiye and the UN on hosting COP31 is alarming.

Article 11.11 requires participants to respect Türkiye’s laws and regulations and refrain from interfering in its “internal affairs”. Article 11.12 reintroduces language on waiving immunity that was omitted from Brazil’s COP30 agreement.

Turkish authorities are already invoking vague notions of “public morality” and “harm to the family” to investigate people and restrict expression. The agreement could therefore have a chilling effect on activists, defenders and journalists.

COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs”

Could criticism of Türkiye’s fossil fuel policies, its treatment of environmental defenders or its crackdown on LGBTI+ organisations be characterised as interference in “internal affairs”? Nobody attending a UN climate conference should have to ask.

Türkiye and the UN should publicly guarantee that participants can speak, organise, report and protest peacefully without discrimination, intimidation, surveillance, detention or reprisals. Governments ought to challenge the agreement’s flaws before arriving in Antalya.

Progress, not perfection, at Brazil’s COP

COP31 must build on Brazil’s approach. Its COP hosting agreement committed to an inclusive and non-discriminatory conference, while its presidency adopted a more open and participatory tone. COP30 saw record participation by Indigenous peoples, but access did not guarantee influence: many key decisions continued to be shaped behind closed doors.

Commitments made in Belém ultimately depend on domestic political choices, and Brazil’s October election results point to a legislature that may be less willing to uphold them. This could put the rights of Indigenous peoples, Quilombola and traditional communities at greater risk.

When protections at home weaken, international spaces become even more vital for affected populations to speak out, and hold decision-makers accountable. COP31 must guarantee freedom of expression and peaceful assembly outside the “Blue Zone” (the UN-protected area) and grant civil society greater access to negotiations.

Comment: Coal mines and hypocrisy must not be Australia’s COP31 legacy

As documented by Amnesty International, communities resisting fossil fuel expansion and building fairer alternatives are facing harassment, surveillance, criminalisation, disinformation, violence and restrictions on peaceful protest. They include: First Nations people in Australia challenging offshore oil and gas exploration, artisanal fishers in Brazil’s Guanabara Bay fighting for environmental justice, and activists defending Akbelen Forest in Türkiye from coal mining expansion.

These communities are rights-holders, knowledge-bearers and political actors protecting territories and forging effective climate responses. Governments must protect them and ensure they have a meaningful say.

Confronting fossil fuel power

To defend human rights, governments must use COP31 to advance three urgent priorities.

First, they must end fossil fuel expansion and accelerate a full, fast, fair, funded and human rights-compliant transition away from fossil fuels. States most responsible must go further and faster, ending fossil fuel subsidies and redirecting public resources towards rights-respecting renewable energy.

Second, they must ensure the transition protects rights and leaves no one behind, including by making the new Just Transition Mechanism operational, funded and accountable.

A climate activist protesting the drilling of new coal seam gas wells holds a sign during a demonstration outside Origin Energy Ltd’s Annual General Meeting in Sydney, Australia, October 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams A climate activist protesting the drilling of new coal seam gas wells holds a sign during a demonstration outside Origin Energy Ltd’s Annual General Meeting in Sydney, Australia, October 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

And third, they must scale up public, grant-based climate finance for mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage, without pushing lower-income countries further into debt.

COP31 will not deliver these outcomes without the knowledge and expertise of frontline communities.

Brazil must defend the participatory progress made at COP30. Türkiye must reverse its crackdown and protect civic space. Australia, as president of negotiations for COP31, should secure an ambitious, human rights-centred outcome while confronting restrictions on peaceful climate protest at home.

The climate crisis cannot be solved behind closed doors. The doors must remain open, and people must have the power to shape what happens inside.

The post COP31 must amplify people power, not oil lobby voices appeared first on Climate Home News.

Misinformation about extreme weather and disasters often starts small: Someone reposts a rumor on social media about government corruption or an AI photo of a shark swimming in floodwaters. It’s shared dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of times before huge swaths of people believe it as truth. 

Trying to fact-check during a crisis is stressful, and extreme weather makes you feel like there’s a lot to figure out and learn in a short period of time. That’s why it’s important to know ahead of time who you can trust, how to vet information, and how to talk to your friends and family about it. 

• Extreme weather is creating a perfect storm of misinformation

• Would you trust an emergency alert written by AI?

• Why trust Grist?

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Many well-intentioned people want to do their own research. But not all sources of information are equal — especially when your safety is on the line. Finding the right sources will help you avoid falling for — or fueling — rumors that aren’t true. 

Below is a list of reliable sources for extreme weather alerts, updates, and more.

Your local emergency agency: Your city, county, and state has an emergency management department. Emergency managers handle response efforts and communicate with the public in their jurisdiction about the disaster. Many of these agencies have an SMS-based emergency alert system that you can sign up for via text to get regular updates. In larger cities, it’s a separate agency. But in smaller communities, updates and alerts come from a sheriff’s office. 

Find specific details: Sometimes rumors about extreme weather or disaster conditions accidentally spread as people try to share information on social media that hasn’t been fact-checked. When in doubt, look for an official source. You can track extreme weather conditions on these websites:

• Poweroutage.US, managed by energy data platform Find Energy, tracks which states and counties are experiencing significant outages. 
• The National Interagency Fire Center tracks wildfires around the country.
• The National Hurricane Center tracks hurricanes in the bodies of water surrounding the U.S. 
• The National Weather Service active alerts page monitors severe weather through several filters including state, region, and type of weather.

National Weather Service: This agency, called NWS, is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and offers information and updates on everything from wildfires to hurricanes to air quality. You can enter your ZIP code on weather.gov and customize your homepage to get the most updated weather information and receive alerts for a variety of weather conditions. The NWS also has regional and local branches where you can sign up for SMS alerts. Local alerts in multiple languages are available in some areas.

Weather stations and apps: The Weather Channel, AccuWeather, Apple Weather, and Google, which all rely on NWS data, will have information on major storms. That may not be the case for smaller-scale weather events, and you shouldn’t rely on these apps to tell you if you need to evacuate or move to higher ground. 

Local news: The local television news and social media accounts from verified news sources will have live updates during and after a storm. Meteorologists at your local news station use NWS weather data. Follow your local newspaper, radio station, and television station on Facebook or other social media, or check their websites regularly. If you don’t have cable, these stations often livestream online for free during severe weather. Your local news may also have a live blog that is updated regularly. You can search this database for nonprofit news outlets, or this one for local journalism by state.

Official social media accounts: Many agencies and elected officials share quick updates on social media about extreme weather. If you are unsure whether information is coming from an official account, Google the name of the agency. Most official agency websites have links to their social media accounts. For example, the New York City Emergency Management’s website has a section on its homepage with all of its social accounts.

How to fact-check during a crisis

An extreme weather event can cause many emotions: fear, anger, grief, confusion. Knowing whom to trust and how to spot inaccurate information can help you keep a clear head when making decisions.  

Keep your questions short: When you hop on your phone or laptop, try to prioritize a few quick questions that you’re trying to answer. It’s important to look for specific details that apply to you or loved ones so that you can avoid doomscrolling through a deluge of details. For instance: If there’s heavy rain, look up something specific, such as when the rain is forecast to stop in your area or if there are evacuation orders for your county. 

Double-check the source: A lot of news is shared via social media, but it’s often hard to pinpoint where it comes from. Before you share something or act on it, re-read the information and look closely at any photos or videos.

First, ask yourself: Is there a source tagged anywhere? 

If the answer is yes:

• If you don’t recognize it as a news outlet, government website, or other vetted source, do a quick Google to confirm what it is. 
• Look around the source’s website and social media accounts to make sure they publish factual information, not solely opinions or conspiracy theories. 
• Send it to a friend, neighbor, or family member and ask them if it tracks with what they’re seeing online.

If the answer is no:

• Is there any identifying information that you can Google to confirm at least some of the information that you’re seeing? 
• Is there a logo or watermark on an image that you can search for to help confirm the source?
• Send it to a friend or family member and ask them if it tracks with what they’re seeing. 

If it’s hard to confirm anything, avoid sharing it. It could unfortunately be misinformation that’s making the rounds on your feed. 

Keep to official sources when possible: If you’re struggling to figure out where to find the correct information, look for the official accounts from your local and state agencies. Government agencies, newsrooms, and other trusted institutions can make mistakes, too, but you can trust they’ll address it and issue a correction if they do. They’ll also likely share updates as they receive new information about extreme conditions. 

Bookmark some fact-checking sites: As online rumors may continue spreading online, it’s important to find news sources that double-check information and explain sources. 

Here are a few:

• FactCheck.org
• SciCheck
• The Washington Post Fact Checker
• Snopes

Know the common myths: During every disaster, officials have to address rumors. During Hurricane Helene in 2024, for instance, there were conspiracy theories that FEMA was stealing supplies and food. Another common one is that agencies, like FEMA, will take away people’s land and homes after a disaster. 

Familiarize yourself with these myths and how to bust them whenever you see them being spread:

• Common disaster-related rumors (from FEMA)
• FEMA myth-busting for homeowners (from FEMA)
• More common myths about disasters (from Red Cross)

How to identify AI images and videos 

The internet has become inundated with content generated by artificial intelligence. About 34 percent of webpages published after ChatGPT was released in late 2022 showcase AI editing or authorship, according to an analysis from the Pew Research Center. There’s a lot to sift through, and some posts aren’t easily identified as AI-produced content, no matter how trained your eye is. Here are a few things you can look out for to help identify AI: 

• AI-generated written content doesn’t have a consistent writing style. Look for abrupt shifts in tone and formatting.   
• Some AI images look too airbrushed. A guide from the Global Investigative Journalism Network suggests zooming in on people’s faces. If there are no imperfections, no hair out of place, and no visible pores, that photo might be AI or has been heavily edited. 
• Look at the background of photos and videos, as well. Does a landscape shot of a city accurately reflect the skyline? Are buildings out of place or fake?
• Videos generated by AI sometimes have an overly polished look, and elements that may defy the laws of physics. 

How to debunk misinformation  

Most people are trying to be helpful when they share information online. They may be worried or angry, especially during or after a disaster. They likely truly believe what they’re seeing, even if it is incorrect. Below are some suggestions for approaching a conversation with a loved one, which can be difficult to navigate.   

Decide if it’s worth engaging: Research shows people listen to those they already trust. Arguing in the comments of a news article or Facebook post hardly goes well. Before you start the conversation, really think about the setting, the impact on your relationship, and the possible outcomes.

Assume best intentions and show empathy: Don’t approach a conversation about misinformation with your guns blazing — you’re trying to understand where someone is coming from, and they aren’t going to let you do so if you aren’t curious and calm. Most people that share misinformation believe it to be true. By asking questions and not assuming bad intent, you’ll have a better, more productive conversation. 

Have a real dialogue: Ask meaningful questions and try to understand the other person’s experience and emotions. This communication guide from the Environmental Defense Fund offers tips for this type of conversation, including offering to trade sources, acknowledging that it’s difficult to find sources to trust amid all the noise online, and finding common ground on something. Once you hear someone out, share your sources and explain how you fact-check for yourself when looking for information online. 

Learn when to take a step back: Some of your friends and family will be open to learning about misinformation, and some may not. If a handful of conversations don’t go well, it may be time to move on from speaking to that person about your concerns. A misinformation tool kit from the Initiative to Study Hate at the University of California, Los Angeles points out that continuing to force someone to have a conversation is only going to escalate the situation. 

If the conversation isn’t going anywhere, your loved one is simply not willing and maybe not ready to process what you’ve told them yet. That could change in the future, but for now it’s time to take a step back.  

Pre-bunk for future extreme weather: Some friends and family may seem receptive to conversations. It may be worth “pre-bunking” information with them before extreme weather comes back around. This may include sharing vetted sources of information or mentioning that certain rumors may spread and how to fact-check them. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How to fact-check during and after a disaster on Oct 28, 2026.

At the forefront of a bioregional approach to sustainability, which can be traced back to the ‘70s, are Regenerate Whatcom and its parent network, Regenerate Cascadia.

Rather than viewing human beings primarily through categories such as gender, race, appearance, or social status, human ecology begins with the shared needs and experiences that unite us all.

Lunch hour was busy at the Haywood County Public Library in Canton, North Carolina, where the midterm election wasn’t the only thing on people’s minds as they cast early ballots on October 19. The region has seen a lot of natural disasters in the past few years, and many residents are still rebuilding after Hurricane Helene. Repeated flooding has unsettled Sandra Moody, a straight-ticket Republican voter.

“Well, we’re not weather people,” Moody said with a hoarse laugh, “but these floods that keep coming — they’re supposed to be 500-year floods. You’re like, ‘What is going on?’”

Two years after the storm, recovery remains far from complete. Helene caused nearly $60 billion in damage and recovery needs, and about $10 billion in federal assistance has been provided so far. Even after accounting for state funding and insurance payments, the state pegs the unmet need at roughly $41 billion.

Half of all North Carolinians are dissatisfied with the government’s response, compared to 37 percent who are satisfied, according to a poll commissioned by television stations WRAL and WSOC. In western North Carolina, which bore the brunt of Helene’s fury, just 5 percent said they are “very satisfied” with how officials are handling things.

The lingering dissatisfaction looms over two surprisingly competitive races closely tied to the recovery. North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, which includes much of the area hit hardest by Helene, is considered a toss-up. In the state’s Senate race, Democrat Roy Cooper, who was governor when the storm hit, has maintained a double-digit lead over Republican Michael Whatley, whom President Donald Trump tapped as his point person on the recovery.

This is something of a reversal from the 2024 election. As Republicans campaigned in Helene’s immediate aftermath, the party hammered the Biden administration over its response to the disaster. Two years later, Republicans control the White House, Congress, and the federal agencies responsible for the recovery.

Trump, who joked that he wouldn’t send North Carolina additional aid if Whatley lost, has drawn connections between aid and the election in other races. He announced $17.9 million in disaster assistance for Wisconsin while promoting Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany. He also approved an Ohio disaster declaration just before campaigning with Republican Senator Jon Husted but left 15 others pending. Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, promised $858 million to North Carolina during a recent campaign stop near Asheville.

The White House has denied that disaster decisions are politically motivated, but the episodes underscore a question hanging over the midterms: Politicians are treating recovery as an electoral issue. It is much less clear whether voters are doing the same.

Western North Carolina offers one place to look for an answer. NC-11 encompasses 16 largely rural, mountainous counties along with solidly Democratic Asheville. Trump carried the district by 9.5 points in 2024, and its voters have sent three successive Republicans to Congress: Mark Meadows, Madison Cawthorn, and Chuck Edwards.

But Republican Jennifer Balkcom, who entered the race three months ago after Edwards withdrew, is running even with Democrat Jamie Ager. A pro-Trump political action committee recently canceled more than $1 million in television advertising supporting Balkcom, and the race is considered a toss-up. 

For some voters, Helene figures into the election for reasons beyond the recovery. Maggie Panther, a Democrat voting early in Canton, said the storm reinforced her concerns about climate change and the increasingly severe weather it is bringing. “I hate to sound totally partisan, but I know that there’s one party that’s trying to do something about climate change, and there’s one party that is denying it,” she said. “And so, I vote accordingly.”

Ager, a fourth-generation farmer whose grandfather served three terms in Congress, has focused on the economic impact of the storm and on the many residents who are still awaiting FEMA reimbursement and struggling to rebuild.

“We were trying to do everything we could to get back up on our feet here at the farm and everywhere else,” Ager said. “As time kept dragging on and recovery was clearly insufficient, [we were] hearing from neighbors and folks in the community about their frustrations.”

Helene has become an issue in the Senate race as well, though the questions about recovery center more directly on Whatley’s role in the federal response.

Whatley’s role in the recovery — widely described as Trump’s “Helene recovery czar” — has haunted him in the campaign. A recent investigation by the Asheville Citizen-Times found no communication between Whatley and FEMA in the two years after the storm, with only six text messages and five phone calls documented between Whatley and a state official coordinating hurricane recovery. The Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, has pulled its financial support from the race as Cooper maintains a healthy lead in the polls.

Cooper and Whatley have blamed each other for the slow pace of Helene aid while defending their own records. Neither agreed to an interview, but commented by email. Whatley’s campaign said he helped “deliver more aid for Hurricane Helene than any other natural disaster” in the state’s history. Cooper’s campaign argued that Whatley “has completely failed in his role as federal recovery czar” and said the state has received just 16 percent of the funding it needs.

But despite sparring over Helene, mailers and ads for both campaigns are shifting attention to economics and crime.

Political scientist Chris Cooper at Western Carolina University said Helene has figured less prominently in campaign ads and mailers than he expected. That may be because neither candidate has much to gain from drawing attention to an unpopular recovery.

“One reason why Hurricane Helene hasn’t come up quite as much during this election is because both candidates have some experience that might allow folks to blame them for what almost everyone agrees was a poor response,” said Cooper, who is not related to the former governor.

Read Next Two years after Hurricane Helene, survivors are taking lessons for the future Katie Myers & Laura Hackett

The WRAL/WSOC poll supports that idea. Despite the candidates’ attempts to blame one another, it found no meaningful difference between Cooper and Whatley supporters in their views of the government’s response to Helene. It follows a pattern that Cooper has previously seen after hurricanes, which until Helene had largely impacted the eastern part of the state.

“I cannot think of a single disaster in North Carolina or elsewhere, where afterward public opinion was, ‘Boy, we really got this recovery right,’” he said. Generally speaking, voters tend to blame the government, he said, which means someone who wasn’t involved with the response, like Ager, may have a better shot at winning.

Research suggests that disasters can influence how voters judge elected officials. Penny Liao, an economist at the think tank Resources for the Future, said incumbents can benefit from a strong response and timely aid, while a poor recovery can work against them.

“The disaster itself is usually not very good news for the incumbent, but if there is large aid or a timely response, generally the incumbent can potentially benefit from it,” she said. On the other hand, a failure to prepare for a disaster or a poor response “is not going to be rewarded.”

Whether that dynamic is playing out in North Carolina may become clearer after the election. Political responsibility for Helene spans parties and levels of government: ADemocratic administration was in the White House when the storm hit, a Republican one has overseen much of the recovery, while a Democratic governor and Republican-controlled Legislature share power in Raleigh.

Residents remain deeply dissatisfied with the recovery, and two races closely linked to Helene have become unexpectedly competitive. But so far, voters’ frustration is easier to measure than its effect on their votes, and it may well be that whoever is in office during a troubled recovery, regardless of party, will pay a political price.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Hurricane Helene haunts the midterms in North Carolina on Oct 28, 2026.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reelection as president of Brazil gave Indigenous communities a measure of relief after a campaign in which his opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, promised to halt recognition of new Indigenous territories and push for more mining and development.

“For Indigenous peoples, the reelection of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is more than a victory, and it is bigger than Brazil,” said Edson Krenak, who is Indigenous Krenak. “It is not about victory; it is about the possibility to dream and to fight without fear of death.”

But Sunday’s runoff election strengthened Bolsonaro’s movement in Congress, where his Liberal Party won the largest number of seats in both houses and the broader right gained a Senate majority. Leaders warned that this could open their territories to mining, weaken environmental protections, and roll back land rights, making it much harder for Lula to advance his Indigenous and environmental agendas.

Climate Observatory, a nonprofit coalition of 172 organizations, said 70 percent of the incoming lawmakers oppose the climate and environmental agenda, according to The Associated Press.

The stakes were especially high for Indigenous peoples because Bolsonaro campaigned on policies aligned with those of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, whose presidency from 2019 to 2023 saw an increase in mining, land grabs, deforestation, and attacks on their rights. Amazon deforestation reached a record in 2022, and Indigenous leaders say their communities endured unchecked violence from illegal mining operations during the elder Bolsonaro’s time in office.

His son finished more than 2 million votes ahead of Lula in the first election earlier this month, but neither candidate secured the 50 percent required to win outright. That result sparked fear in Indigenous communities and environmental advocates, who warned that the future of the Amazon was at stake. Lula came back to win Sunday’s runoff by roughly 4.4 million votes, securing a fourth nonconsecutive term as president.

In an interview between the two rounds of voting, Toya Manchineri, the general coordinator of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon, or COIAB, said Indigenous peoples across the rainforest were deeply concerned about the possibility of a Bolsonaro win. Much of the last three years of Lula’s administration were spent undoing the damage the Bolsonaro administration caused, Manchineri said.

Manchineri said Lula’s term has largely been a period of rebuilding as Indigenous peoples gained greater roles in decision-making. “We were only beginning to see the resources returning,” he said.

In 2023, the administration established the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and appointed Sônia Guajajara to lead it. Lula also revitalized the federal Indigenous affairs agency FUNAI after Bolsonaro had used it to support agribusiness, despite Indigenous resistance. The government also announced just before the election that Amazon deforestation had fallen to its lowest level since recordkeeping began in 1988, according to the AP.

Still, Indigenous leaders said the progress made under Lula has not resolved deeper conflicts over land, development, and decision-making.

“Lula’s victory prevents a president who promised to halt Indigenous land demarcation from taking office, but our territories are far from safe,” Alessandra Korap Munduruku, coordinator of the Munduruku Pariri Indigenous Association, said in a statement. “We have demanded that Lula’s government respect our decisions and listen to Indigenous peoples before advancing projects that affect our rivers and forests. Congress has become more dangerous for us, and we must remain organized. Our struggle does not end with an election’s outcome.” 

For Indigenous organizations, Lula’s victory is cause for hope, but they must now work with a Congress dominated by lawmakers who have already voted in favor of easing environmental protections and against Indigenous land claims. Given that dynamic, Krenak expressed concern about the difficulty Lula may face advancing his agenda. “The costs of negotiating with the Congress and Senate will be very high, if ever successful,” he said.

The election also came amid years of Indigenous voters struggling to access the polls. Earlier this month, a court denied a request for transportation assistance filed by Indigenous peoples in the Javari Valley in northern Brazil. Other efforts were more successful: Court rulings elsewhere helped secure government transportation for Indigenous voters in remote areas, while Indigenous communities across the Amazon organized to increase turnout, AP reported.

“Despite the challenges faced throughout the electoral process, Indigenous peoples of the Amazon made their voices heard at the polls across all nine states of the Brazilian Amazon, reaffirming their commitment to democracy, national sovereignty, and the defense of Indigenous rights. We marked the ballot boxes in defense of life, our territories, and Brazil’s future!” COIAB said in a statement. “Brazil’s future is Indigenous, and it begins in our territories! WE ARE THE ANSWER!”

For Krenak, however, Lula’s victory is only the beginning. He said he wants to see more meaningful progress during the president’s next term.

“By 2030, success should not be measured by how many Indigenous leaders stand beside officials at summits,” he said, “but by whether Indigenous peoples gain real authority to prevent their territories [from becoming] sacrifice zones, but territories of life, reciprocity, and generosity.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline For Indigenous peoples in Brazil, the election results offer a reprieve — not a resolution on Oct 28, 2026.

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• ‘Moving the goalposts’
• ‘£1bn shortfall’
• Accounting changes
• Methodology

The UK has beaten its target to provide £11.6bn of climate aid to developing countries by 2026 – but only through “questionable accounting”. 

As part of its obligations under the Paris Agreement, the UK pledged to give at least £11.6bn in overseas “climate finance” between 2021 and 2026.

Now, Carbon Brief analysis reveals that around £2.1bn of the funds the UK counted towards this goal did not come from new spending.

Instead, the government relabelled existing funding for development banks, private-sector investment and aid for Afghanistan, Sudan and other war-torn nations as “climate finance”.

Without these changes, the UK would have fallen nearly £1bn short of its target.

Carbon Brief’s analysis is based on numerous FOI requests and reveals the otherwise-unpublished details of the UK’s climate-finance spending.

Experts and MPs say the use of “questionable” accounting shows the UK is “cutting corners” to hit its climate goals, while making unprecedented cuts to its foreign aid budget. 

‘Moving the goalposts’

The UK and other developed countries are obliged under UN climate treaties to provide “new and additional” climate finance to help developing countries tackle climate change. 

They also have specific targets to “mobilise” $100bn of climate finance per year through to 2025 and “at least” $300bn by 2035.

As the UK’s contribution to international climate finance, in 2019 the Conservative government pledged to provide £11.6bn between the financial years 2021-22 and 2025-26. This amounted to “doubling” its previous five-year target.

Since then, successive governments have slashed the amount of money going towards foreign aid, citing economic strain and a need for more defence spending. This has placed great pressure on the £11.6bn target, which comes from the UK aid budget. 

In order to retain the target while cutting aid, the Conservative government decided in 2023 to loosen the criteria for what it defined as “climate” spending.

This enabled the UK to remain committed to the £11.6bn goal, without spending more on new climate projects, by simply relabelling existing funds. The current Labour government has opted to maintain this approach, while pledging to cut aid spending even further.

The move has been strongly criticised by campaigners, MPs and even the UK’s official aid watchdog, who have described it as “creative accounting” and “moving the goalposts”.

‘£1bn shortfall’

The UK government has announced that it met the £11.6bn target, but has not released the full details of how it did so – or even the total amount provided by 2025-26.

FOI data obtained by Carbon Brief over the course of several months reveals that, in fact, total climate finance over the past five years reached £12.8bn – with a record £4bn in the past year alone.

However, Carbon Brief analysis of government data also shows that around £2.1bn – nearly a fifth of the total – comes from the government’s accounting changes.

Without these changes, as the chart below shows, cumulative UK climate finance would only have reached around £10.7bn by 2026, leaving a shortfall of £924m.

This final figure of £2.1bn is higher than forecast by the UK Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), which estimated in 2024 that the total amount of “reclassified” climate finance would reach £1.7bn.

The government has stressed that its accounting changes are “consistent” with “internationally agreed ways of calculating ICF”, used by other major donors.

(Experts have noted that, traditionally, the UK was viewed as taking a more rigorous approach to climate-finance accounting, which is notoriously unregulated and opaque.)

A recent International Development Committee (IDC) report noted that developed countries have committed to providing “new and additional” climate finance to developing countries, which is generally interpreted as extra funds on top of existing aid. 

Evidence gathered by the IDC concluded that, alongside aid cuts, the UK’s accounting changes have “eroded” the “additionality and credibility” of its climate finance.

Responding to Carbon Brief’s findings, IDC chair Sarah Champion said the data “shines a new light” on the committee’s findings:

“The picture is not getting any better. If questionable accounting has been used to get around a £1bn shortfall on ICF spend between 2021-22 and 2025-26, this only underlines my concerns that the government has been cutting corners to maintain headline climate-spending commitments, rather than working to deliver genuine climate and nature outcomes.”

These accounting changes remain relevant as the UK begins its next phase of international climate finance, while cutting the aid budget further. 

The government has pledged £6bn of foreign aid for climate projects over the next three years. This makes the UK one of the only major donor countries to set out a new climate-finance target for the period after 2025, despite a global pledge to scale up support.

Nevertheless, the new UK goal amounts to a halving from £4bn in the financial year 2025-26 to £2bn a year, on average. Previous Carbon Brief analysis also shows that the continued use of “questionable  accounting” is likely to make up around a third of the new target.

Responding to Carbon Brief’s analysis, a UK government spokesperson says: 

“We are proud to have both hit, and exceeded, our third international climate-finance target – and will continue to work hard on protecting climate and nature. 

“Climate change and nature loss pose a real and significant threat to global security and prosperity. That is why the UK is leading action on climate and nature, and prioritising climate finance in its aid budget.”

Accounting changes

The UK’s accounting changes break down into three major components, which are behind most of its upward revision in climate-finance spending.

The first is counting a share of “core” funding for multilateral development banks (MDBs) as climate finance. 

This refers to un-earmarked contributions that governments provide to support these banks in their work, which includes providing loans and grants to developing countries.

Counting this spending as “climate finance” adds £1.1bn to the total of £12.8bn, split mainly between the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

As the chart below shows, this is by far the largest chunk of extra climate finance resulting from the UK’s accounting changes.

A spreadsheet with details of these accounting changes can be viewed here.

This revision has been justified on the grounds that the World Bank and other banks have clear targets for funding climate-relevant projects, using their core funding.

However, MDBs have also faced criticism for their lack of transparency around climate finance and their reliance on loans, rather than grants. (In contrast, nearly all of the UK’s climate finance so far has been grant-based.)

Moreover, the US has been pressuring MDBs to drop their climate plans altogether. Indeed, the Trump administration has already forced the World Bank to abandon its overall target to put 45% of its funds towards climate finance. 

Jon Sward, environment project manager at the Bretton Woods Project NGO, tells Carbon Brief:

“One thing removing the overall [World Bank] target definitely does is it adds…a lack of predictability of the flows going forward.”

The second-largest UK accounting change – contributing nearly £600m – comes from automatically counting 30% of humanitarian aid as climate finance, if it is going to one of the countries judged most vulnerable to climate change.

This includes some of the most war-torn and low-income nations in the world, such as Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Crucially, this means projects are counted even if they have no discernible link to climate change, such as helping “conflict-affected” people in Yemen and orphans in Zimbabwe.

The Center for Global Development (CGD) has described this revision as “arbitrary”, given every aid project is already screened for any climate-relevant components.

The third significant portion comes from counting more of the government’s private-sector investments via British International Investment (BII) as climate finance. BII is a publicly owned, for-profit company that invests in developing-country businesses and is partially funded with injections of UK aid money.

The UK government decided to start calculating the climate share of its BII spending based on real-world BII investments, rather than a default, fixed share of 30%.

Data obtained by Carbon Brief via FOI suggests that £133m of extra BII funding was labelled as climate finance over the first four years of the £11.6bn target. 

However, government records of BII climate finance have been inconsistent, making it difficult to estimate the total impact of accounting changes. Therefore, Carbon Brief has used an earlier internal government forecast that estimated this change would add a total of £266m over the five-year target period.

BII has increasingly turned its attention to investing in clean power in recent years, reaching more than £1bn in “climate investments” in 2025.

However, the company has faced criticism for investments that “conflict” with UK priorities – including legacy fossil-fuel investments – as well as channelling aid money to “billionaires”.

There was also some extra spending that the government decided to count as climate aid – notably, £99m of “spending on COP26”, from when the UK hosted the climate summit. 

Shruti Agarwal, senior climate finance adviser at Save the Children UK, tells Carbon Brief the reduction in overall “financial effort” by the UK is a “concerning pattern that must cease”. She adds:

“[The UK should] strengthen transparency by publishing timely, detailed data on international climate spending and stop classifying expenditure as climate finance retrospectively, as seen with COP26 expenses.”

Methodology

Carbon Brief obtained the full datasets of international climate-finance spending via FOI, covering the five-year period 2021-22 to 2025-26. For more details and to access the full dataset, see Carbon Brief’s analysis of the £12.8bn in spending over this period.

In addition, Carbon Brief requested details from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) of what climate-finance spending would have been prior to the 2023 accounting changes, for the period 2021-22 to 2024-25.

Carbon Brief then used this information to calculate the impact of accounting changes in 2025-26, combining the figures to work out the full impact.

A spreadsheet with the full details of the accounting changes can be viewed here.

UK climate-finance figures have been subject to regular revisions. While this analysis is based on final figures provided via FOI requests in recent months, it is possible that departments will still change the figures in future releases.

Related UK budget 2026: Key climate and energy announcements 28.10.2026 UK policy Analysis: How the UK spent more than £11.6bn on climate aid since 2021 28.10.2026 UK policy Q&A: Why are UK energy bills so high – and how could they be lowered? 27.10.2026 Oil and gas Revealed: Expensive gas behind ‘nearly 90%’ of rise in UK electricity bills 21.10.2026 Oil and gas

The post Revealed: UK relied on £2bn of ‘questionable accounting’ to hit its climate-aid goal appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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• The UK has supported around 500 climate projects since 2021
• UK climate aid has reached record levels – but is set to drop
• Afghanistan received more bilateral climate aid than any other country
• Development banks and private-sector funders are among the biggest beneficiaries
• Methodology

The UK has spent £12.8bn on climate aid for developing countries since 2021, according to official figures obtained by Carbon Brief.

Freedom-of-information (FOI) requests reveal how the UK has used its “climate finance” to support everything from solar projects in Mozambique to carbon offsets in the Amazon.

UK climate funding, which reached a record £4bn this year, has supported roughly 500 aid projects, climate funds and private-investment initiatives over the past five years.

With this spending, the UK has surpassed its £11.6bn climate-finance target for this period, although Carbon Brief analysis shows that it has partly relied on “questionable accounting”.

This target is part of the UK’s ongoing responsibility under UN climate treaties to financially support developing countries in their efforts to tackle climate change.

Despite being central to its international climate policy, the UK government does not routinely release data on progress towards its climate-finance goals.

Here, Carbon Brief has published the data in full for the first time and pulled out key trends since 2021. 

The UK has supported around 500 climate projects since 2021

According to the FOI data obtained by Carbon Brief, at least 493 projects, funds and institutions received UK climate finance between 2021-22 and 2025-26.

These included £45m to help Ukraine curb its reliance on fossil fuels, £40m in cash transfers for Kenyans affected by drought and £30m to provide flood resilience in Nepal.

Larger sums were provided to projects spread across multiple countries, often with the stated goal of “mobilising” additional finance from the private sector.

For example, the UK channelled £198m into a World Bank-backed project to help Colombia, Cambodia and others create and sell “high-integrity” carbon offsets.

The UK also provided £229m to a group that uses foreign aid to attract private capital for projects in predominantly low-income nations, such as a solar farm in Uganda and a “sustainable aviation fuel” project in Pakistan.

All of the funded projects can be viewed in the interactive table below. 

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The UK has been criticised by campaigners and MPs for its lack of transparency around climate finance data. 

In line with its international obligations, the government routinely releases its climate-finance figures to the UN – albeit with a two-year delay. 

However, it does not publish this data broken down by financial year, making it impossible to accurately gauge progress towards the £11.6bn goal. 

The data gathered by Carbon Brief is therefore the most comprehensive attempt to track this information to date. Carbon Brief has been periodically tracking this data since 2017.

UK climate aid has reached record levels – but is set to drop

The UK government committed in 2019 to spending £11.6bn of the nation’s aid budget on “climate finance”, between 2021-22 and 2025-26.

This is the nation’s contribution to an international goal to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year between 2020 and 2025.

Developed countries are obliged under UN climate treaties to financially support developing countries, assisting their efforts to cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

However, alongside other major donors, such as the US, the UK has dramatically cut its aid budget, placing significant strain on the nation’s climate finance.

Despite this, FOI data shows that UK climate finance reached a record £4bn in 2025-26, as shown in the chart below.

Not accounting for inflation, this amounts to a tenfold increase from 2011-12, when the UK started providing climate finance.

The £11.6bn target was met comfortably, with £12.8bn provided over the five-year period. 

However, as separate Carbon Brief analysis shows, the target was only met due to the government reclassifying £2.2bn of existing foreign aid as climate finance, without spending any more.

Rather than setting a new five-year goal, in March 2026 the Labour government committed to spending “around £6bn” of UK aid as climate finance over the next three years. On average, this would mean £2bn in climate aid annually – roughly half the level achieved in the financial year 2025-26.

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This amounts to a significant reduction from the £11.6bn pledge, especially once accounting changes and inflation are factored in, as Carbon Brief analysis shows.

Alongside the £6bn in climate aid, the government has also pledged to invest £6.7bn from outside the aid budget to “drive climate and nature outcomes”. 

Rather than grant funding, this support will include private investments, export credit and guarantees to development banks. The UK already provides such finance, but has not previously counted it towards its climate-finance targets.

Afghanistan received more bilateral climate aid than any other country

The vast majority of UK climate finance was delivered “multilaterally”, meaning it supports large funds or institutions working in multiple countries. 

More than 80% of the funding since 2021 is therefore listed as helping “developing countries” in general, or whole regions such as “Africa”.

Of the £2.1bn (17%) that was delivered “bilaterally”, with the UK directly supporting climate projects in specific countries, the biggest beneficiaries are nations in east Africa and south Asia. Around two-thirds of this funding goes to nations classified as “least developed”.

For many years, Ethiopia has been the top recipient of bilateral UK climate finance, largely due to long-running projects supporting ecosystem restoration and drought resilience.

However, Afghanistan overtook Ethiopia over the £11.6bn period, with £256m of its aid labelled as climate-related, compared to Ethiopia’s £226m. (The UK does not provide aid via the Taliban, instead channelling it through partners, such as UN agencies.)

Afghanistan is struggling with floods and low electricity access. However, the UK’s apparent surge in support for the nation is not, in fact, due to new climate-related initiatives.

Instead, it is the result of the UK automatically labelling 30% of aid for all humanitarian projects in this country as “climate finance”, following a controversial accounting change.

This shift affected other climate-vulnerable and war-torn nations, meaning Somalia (£139m), Sudan (£136m) and Yemen (£130m) were also among the top recipients of “climate aid”.

Where the UK has provided large sums of climate finance to projects in middle-income nations, they are typically aimed at “mobilising” private-sector investment, rather than achieving humanitarian goals.

Examples include £83m to support Brazil’s Amazon Fund – a carbon offsetting initiative – and £43m to boost UK investment in India’s low-carbon infrastructure.

Development banks and private-sector funders are among the biggest beneficiaries

The largest chunks of UK climate finance are channelled via international climate funds and other bodies, which in turn use that funding to support climate projects in developing countries.

Despite recently cutting its 2024-27 support for the Green Climate Fund, the UK still provided £1.5bn to this flagship UN fund – more than any other initiative.

British International Investment (BII), a publicly owned, for-profit company that invests in developing-country businesses and is partially supported with UK aid money, received almost £1.4bn.

The UK has increasingly been relying on BII to meet its climate-finance goals, partly reflecting the body’s decision to prioritise clean-energy investments, rather than fossil fuels.

Other major recipients of UK climate finance are multilateral development banks, particularly the various arms of the World Bank and the African Development Bank. This reflects the UK’s decision to start counting “core” funding for these banks as climate finance.

The government’s accounting changes – which have boosted the significance of BII and MDBs in UK climate finance – have faced criticism from experts, MPs and the UK’s aid watchdog. For more, see Carbon Brief’s full analysis of these changes.

Methodology

All of the international climate-finance data used in this piece was obtained via FOI requests. Carbon Brief has compiled the data into a spreadsheet, which can be accessed here.

UK climate finance comes from the aid budgets of four departments, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) providing three-quarters of the total.

The remainder comes predominantly from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), with much smaller sums from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST). 

BIST has also released a dataset detailing the hundreds of climate-science projects in developing countries – or benefiting those countries – that have been supported with UK climate funds.

UK climate-finance figures have been subject to regular revisions. While this analysis is based on final figures provided via FOI requests in recent months, it is possible that departments will still change the figures in future releases.

Related COP17: Key outcomes agreed at the UN biodiversity conference in Yerevan 31.10.2026 COP17 Yerevan Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks 29.10.2026 China policy Analysis: China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 to avoid as much CO2 as Brazil emits in a year 29.10.2026 China policy UK budget 2026: Key climate and energy announcements 28.10.2026 UK policy

The post Analysis: How the UK spent more than £11.6bn on climate aid since 2021 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

The carbon colonialism frontline Channel News brendan 28th October 2026 Teaser Media

As Turkey prepares to host the world’s largest climate summit in Antalya, its official rhetoric masks a long-running policy of expanding fossil fuel exploration and accelerating nuclear projects under foreign dependency. In this context, COP31 is bound to become yet another greenwashing spectacle. Still, Turkey’s grassroots movement continue to resist the government’s authoritarian push for more extraction, fighting instead for energy democracy and ecological justice.

The 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) will be held from 9 to 20 November in the Turkish city of Antalya. Touted as the “implementation COP”, the hope is that it will provide a platform for forging global consensus on realistic emission cuts and fossil fuel phaseout.

This edition of the world’s largest climate summit will be held against a backdrop of intense geopolitical rivalry and tension. China, the world’s foremost producer of green energy, has signalled its intent to use the conference to push back against Western tariffs on its clean technology, including solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric cars. Meanwhile, the US under Trump 2.0 has cast its lot with fossil fuels, while the EU faces energy insecurity due to oil and gas supply chain disruptions, and slashes green policies in the name of competitiveness despite growing climate impacts.

Turkey itself is heading to this COP as a country that imports two-thirds of its primary energy – nearly all of it fossil fuels. Still, a centrepiece of the summit is Ankara’s “35 by 35” proposal, a global target for electricity to ‌meet 35 per cent of the world’s energy demand by 2035 (compared to today’s approximately 20 per cent). This comes even as, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has made no secret of its ambitions to become a major fossil fuel transit hub between the Middle East and Europe. And while Ankara has struck deals with China covering mining, critical minerals, renewables, and nuclear power, it has also intensified oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean, putting it at loggerheads with Greece and the EU.

For the Turkish government, COP31 is an opportunity to divert attention from a prolonged macroeconomic crisis. Climate diplomacy serves Erdoğan not as a genuine ecological commitment but as a pragmatic instrument of governance, designed to attract foreign capital and secure international legitimacy in a domestic context where social opposition has already been silenced.

Greenwashing continues

Just as Egypt (COP27), the UAE (COP28) and Azerbaijan (COP29) used their host status to pursue energy deals worth billions, and Brazil (COP30) pressed ahead with oil licensing and auctions in the run-up to its summit, Turkey is approaching COP31 with a dual strategy: it is leveraging the global electrification narrative to mask deep-seated policy contradictions and position itself as a hub for clean technology.

On the one hand, the Turkish government has negotiated with China on battery investments, urging Western donors to shift defence spending toward climate finance, and staging high-profile domestic events including the state-sponsored “NextGenCOP30.5” youth summit on Yassi Island (renamed Democracy and Freedom Island in commemoration of the 1960 coup). On the other hand, rather than outlining a coal phaseout strategy, Ankara has said it would raise national emissions through 2035, signed new international natural gas agreements, and regularly issues emergency expropriation decrees for domestic oil and gas exploration activities. In other words, COP31 will be another act of greenwashing by a government that is actively increasing carbon emissions and promoting fossil fuels.

This contradiction became most evident on 10 October, when a presidential decree authorised urgent land expropriations across Antalya and the Mediterranean coast to accelerate oil and gas exploration led by the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO). Indeed, this institutional greenwashing was already embedded in Turkey’s official climate commitments for the 2053 net-zero goal, as the state’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) promised a 41 per cent reduction by 2030, which in fact implies an additional 11 per cent increase beyond the roughly 30 per cent emission level that would occur without mitigation measures. After the launch of Turkey’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) in August, this policy environment became even more complex, as the system risks legitimising continued industrial pollution through tradable allowances instead of enforcing real emissions limits.

In fact, with Turkey’s emissions expected to rise by 16 per cent by 2035, absolute reduction targets have been deferred to an unspecified future date. This trend is also confirmed by 2026 data from the European Commission’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. According to these data, Turkey rose two places in the global emitter ranking, now accounting for 1.13 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and standing as the world’s 14th-largest greenhouse gas emitter.

Ultimately, behind Ankara’s climate diplomacy lies a familiar calculus of regime survival. Just as growth in the construction and energy sectors was leveraged to maintain political hegemony in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, the government now regards ESG funds, green loans, and the revenues expected from COP31-related economic activity as vital liquidity to manage macroeconomic tensions before the 2028 presidential election. These pressures stem from inflation, which peaked at 85 per cent in late 2022 before stabilising at around 30 percent, as well as the roughly 80 percent depreciation of the Turkish lira.

Murky renewables

Beyond political rhetoric, an analysis of the Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation’s national power grid data reveals that these contradictions have roots in the energy system itself. At first glance, while fossil fuels constitute 38 per cent of total installed capacity – with imported natural gas alone making up 19 per cent – the remaining 62 per cent is officially labelled as renewable energy. However, 40 per cent of this renewable share comes from hydroelectric projects that disrupt river flows, exacerbate regional water stress, and face persistent local opposition, while solar and wind account for only 21 per cent and 15 per cent of installed capacity, respectively.

But that is not the full picture. According to Ember Climate data, actual production levels reveal the structural limitations of Turkey’s renewable energy production more clearly. For instance, solar energy accounted for only 6 per cent in January 2026; in June, one of the peak summer months, solar contributed just 16.5 per cent of total generation, while wind contributed 13.5 per cent. In contrast, countries with broadly comparable solar resources, such as Portugal and Italy, regularly derive around 20 to 30 per cent of their monthly electricity generation from solar during peak months. Italy’s renewable energy output can exceed 40 per cent of total electricity demand during high-generation summer periods, while Germany, despite having only a third of Turkey’s solar potential, generates more than 20 per cent of its summer electricity from solar through more effective use of its infrastructure.

Addressing these structural shortfalls requires a drastic acceleration: as officially declared in its 2053 net-zero targets, Turkey must urgently develop a concrete roadmap to deploy 120 GW of solar and wind energy by 2035. This has not been done so far, and current solar generation capacity remains limited due to institutional barriers. Moreover, the lack of mechanisms within the current legal framework to encourage households or local communities to feed the electricity they generate back into the grid has left small-scale projects mired in licensing procedures, bureaucratic delays, and inadequate grid capacity.

Complicating these problems is the fact that while small-scale initiatives are systematically obstructed, land allocations and financial support flow directly to large corporations and foreign capital. For example, despite having 185 GW of solar energy potential and 300 sunny days per year, Turkey has instead signed an intergovernmental agreement with Saudi Arabia, akin to the Akkuyu nuclear deal with Russia, for energy production on its own territory. In domestic discourse, the government portrays such projects as cost‑free investments that will leave Turkey with new facilities. Yet these agreements in fact oblige Turkey to purchase the energy from the producing state, turning these ventures into a source of economic loss in the long run, even if they appear beneficial in the short term before elections. What is more, when renewable energy projects are pursued through centralised state‑backed deals, they also trigger dispossession, which in turn fuels social opposition.

The nuclear gamble

The critical reliance on foreign sources embedded in Turkey’s energy policy is most evident in its long-standing nuclear ambitions, officially framed as a 20-GW capacity target under the 2053 net-zero strategy. Beyond the 4.8-GW Akkuyu plant currently under construction, revised plans include a 5.6-GW facility in Thrace, a 4.8-GW plant on the Black Sea coast in Sinop, and a 4.8 GW allocation for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

As the Akkuyu project illustrates, this ambitious roadmap faces serious limits: 16 years after the intergovernmental agreement with Russia to complete the plant was signed, not a single reactor has entered commercial operation. That is more than double the global average construction timeframe of seven to eight years. As the world’s first nuclear power plant built under the “Build-Own-Operate” (BOO) model, Akkuyu does not reduce dependence on Russian energy, as Turkish officials initially claimed. On the contrary, by granting a foreign state ownership over sovereign national territory, it deepens Turkey’s strategic dependence on Russia. Moreover, while officials often claim Akkuyu NPP will meet 10 per cent of national electricity demand, long-term energy projections suggest that its contribution will be lower. With electricity consumption projected to approach 500 TWh by 2035, Akkuyu’s expected annual generation of 35 TWh would cover only about 7 to 8 percent of demand.

This structural mismatch is compounded by severe ecological risks: Akkuyu relies on cooling water from the Mediterranean Sea, which is warming 20 per cent faster than the global average, heightening the risk of climate-driven operational disruptions. Yet, instead of adapting ecological safeguards to these climate realities, the government has granted regulatory exemptions. Crucially, the discharge water temperature from the Akkuyu plant has been exempted from the 35°-Celsius thermal limit set by the national Water Pollution Control Regulation.

The project’s waste management framework exposes another structural inequality in the allocation of risk. Although official statements suggest that spent fuel will be managed domestically, existing regulations and international practice indicate that fuel from the VVER‑1200 reactors, which are also used at Akkuyu, will instead be shipped to Russia for reprocessing. Under Russian federal law, foreign radioactive waste cannot be permanently stored on Russian territory. Consequently, once plutonium and uranium are extracted, the remaining high-level waste must be returned to Turkey. As a result, while Russia extracts usable materials for strategic and industrial purposes, Turkey is left with the burden of managing high-level radioactive waste that will remain hazardous for up to a million years.

This waste will force Ankara to confront the question of long-term disposal, and there is even a possibility that the management of long-lived isotopes may ultimately compel Turkey to build a deep geological repository; a multi-billion-euro infrastructure project akin to Finland’s Onkalo facility, which is designed to isolate waste for 100,000 years. Under centralised and authoritarian governance, however, even the siting of a radioactive waste management facility follows a rigid top-down approach. Indeed, in 2022, Turkey’s Ministry of Energy was reportedly considering Polatlı, an agrarian region near the capital Ankara with relatively lower seismic activity, as a potential site for a radioactive waste facility, without consulting local populations or securing community consent.

In addition to environmental and strategic risks, the Akkuyu project fails to integrate with Turkey’s labour market and technical infrastructure. While official sources reported that construction employment once approached 30,000, Russia’s economic bottlenecks due to the ongoing war in Ukraine have already reduced this figure to 10,000; it will decline even further upon operational launch, requiring only about 4,000 long-term workers. Because the specific terms of the BOO agreement with Turkey explicitly exclude technology transfer, local engineers and workers will be confined largely to mid-level technical support roles, reinforcing structural dependence on foreign expertise. This institutional gap is tied to a longer historical legacy: during the restructuring that followed the 1980 military coup, the ranks of experienced scientists in Turkey’s public nuclear research sector were severely diminished.

Resistance and repression

Between 2018 and 2025, Turkey issued 22,855 mining licenses and received 13,342 initial applications, systematically converting agricultural land and ecologically sensitive zones into industrial sites. This expansion of extractive concessions and large-scale energy projects unfolded alongside escalating administrative and legal pressures on civil society and local environmental movements. By narrowing the channels of public participation in environmental decision-making and repressing opposition in the public sphere, the central government has systematically suppressed local resistance to secure compliance with large state-backed initiatives.

In recent years, a common thread among COP host countries has been not only high carbon emissions but also authoritarian forms of governance that refuse dialogue with social opposition and systematically rely on administrative coercion. In Turkey, grassroots activism against ecologically destructive projects has faced severe repression, particularly since the 2016 state of emergency, proclaimed after an attempted coup. Environmental activism is not merely a debate among urban intellectuals; as state-backed mining and energy projects steadily expand into rural areas, it has evolved into a direct struggle by local communities to defend their land, water, and livelihoods. As Human Rights Watch has documented in the lead‑up to COP31, the state increasingly employs criminal investigations, arbitrary detentions, and administrative fines to suppress this local resistance.

For instance, in Mugla’s Akbelen Forest, where local villagers have mobilised against coal mine expansion since 2019, state authorities have deployed law enforcement to safeguard corporate extraction. Security forces have repeatedly dispersed nonviolent protesters with tear gas, water cannons, and pepper spray. Turkish activists and residents also face arbitrary detentions, administrative fines, and continuous identity checks around their protest encampments; a police strategy of spatial surveillance designed to intimidate the community and erode ongoing resistance.

Similar dynamics unfolded in the Black Sea region during the 2026 protests against gold mining on the Perşembe Plateau. Situated across the Korgan and Aybastı districts of Ordu city, this high-altitude plateau sustains pastoral livelihoods and livestock farming. Although the area holds legally protected pasture status, the Ministry of Environment granted a mining permit in 2024 without public consultation. Residents only became aware of the project after preliminary site operations directly contaminated their drinking and irrigation water supplies. In June 2026, a court-appointed expert report validated these concerns, warning that gold extraction through cyanide leaching posed a lasting threat to the region’s groundwater reserves. Yet, despite these judicial findings and ongoing legal challenges, security forces repeatedly suppressed peaceful local demonstrations with pepper spray, tear gas, and arbitrary detentions.

Meanwhile, In Rize province’s İkizdere Valley, state intervention assumed an explicitly coercive form when a limestone quarry was opened to supply raw materials for a state-backed logistics port. The quarry directly threatened local tea cultivation, old-growth forests, and essential water sources. To bypass community opposition, the government issued urgent expropriation decrees and imposed district-wide movement restrictions under the pretext of maintaining public order. Despite heavy security blockades and administrative fines, residents, spearheaded by rural women, sustained road blockades, direct physical interventions to protect trees, and legal petitions against the project.

Autocratic greenwashing vs. energy democracy

These cases demonstrate that Turkish state institutions and security forces have acted in tandem to guarantee corporate access to natural resources. By bypassing community consultations, disregarding judicial and scientific assessments, and criminalising nonviolent protest, the central government systematically shuts down public participation. Under the guise of regional development and energy security, state authority dispossesses local populations of their land, water, and livelihoods.

In countries where domestic opposition is suppressed, international climate conferences provide host governments with an opportunity to project a progressive image and secure foreign capital in a politically sanitised environment. For foreign investors and state delegations, this authoritarian arrangement ensures predictability and shields large‑scale energy and infrastructure deals from public scrutiny.

At the same time, grassroots initiative networks such as the People’s Climate Summit (PCS) – formed as a collective platform for excluded civil society to articulate a common voice against COP31, encompassing the local struggles discussed above in Akbelen, Persembe, and Ikizdere – are building solidarity across environmental, labour, and human rights movements. By confronting extractivist projects and demanding community‑led energy democracy, these alliances articulate the most vital alternative vision of a just transition: they embody alternative imaginaries of ecological justice and democratic transition.