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New Analysis: 1.5 Million Latinos Lose Food Assistance
Today, Unrig the Economy and Americans for Tax Fairness released a new analysis (in English and Spanish) showing that cuts to SNAP enacted under Trump and Congressional Republicans’ tax law have disproportionately affected Latinos. Since the law passed, more than 1.5 million Latinos nationwide are estimated to have lost food assistance that helped keep food on the table. Across just seven states, roughly half of all Latinos who have lost SNAP benefits nationwide have lost access to the program since July 2025.
“The Republican Tax Law took food assistance away from more than 1.5 million Latinos to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations,” said Leor Tal, Campaign Director for Unrig Our Economy. “Families are already struggling with the high cost of groceries and gas thanks to the war in Iran and tariffs. SNAP cuts make it even harder for Latino families – who are disproportionately impacted – to put food on the table.”
“The results are in: Trump and his GOP allies in Congress cut critical nutrition assistance that helps millions of Latinos and working people across the country meet their basic needs—all to deliver historic tax giveaways to billionaires and business elites,” said Jodie Rubenstein, Executive Director of Americans for Tax Fairness. “As is so often the case, working families and communities of color bear the brunt of Trump’s economic policies. We cannot allow billionaire wealth to grow unchecked while communities go hungry.”
Read Unrig Our Economy and Americans for Tax Fairness’ new report on Latino food assistance loss in English and Spanish.
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES — 20 OCTOBER 2026
Archive reference: SLF-2007-093
Publication date: 20 October 2026
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers — Shell, Gazprom and Russia
Previous instalment: The Sakhalin Papers LXXXII, 19 October 2026
Principal sources: Shell corporate announcements and financial reports; Nord Stream 2 AG’s arbitration notice and memorial; the European Union’s September 2020 jurisdictional memorial; Permanent Court of Arbitration Procedural Order No. 4; EU judicial records; and contemporaneous Reuters reporting.
Evidence classification: Authenticated primary documents; recorded legal allegations and responses; judicial findings; and separately identified editorial commentary.
There is a revealing passage in a legal document dated 26 September 2019.
The document was submitted on behalf of Nord Stream 2 AG, the Swiss-registered company responsible for constructing the controversial pipeline from Russia to Germany.
It was addressed to the European Union.
Its purpose was to commence international arbitration.
The company alleged that changes to European gas-market legislation had unlawfully damaged its investment.
It sought orders protecting its ability to operate the pipeline under the commercial arrangements originally envisaged.
And it reserved the right to seek financial compensation.
The document appeared three years before Shell wrote off its entire $1.126 billion Nord Stream 2 loan.
It also preceded Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Germany’s suspension of the pipeline’s certification process and the explosions that damaged sections of the Nord Stream infrastructure in September 2022.
The legal dispute was therefore not originally about the war.
It was about something more fundamental: whether an international investment treaty could be used to challenge the consequences of European legislation governing energy infrastructure.
Seven years later, the arbitration remains unresolved.
The previous instalment examined how European sanctions created uncertainty about whether the arbitration itself could proceed.
Today, we return to the beginning of the dispute and examine the underlying documents.
They reveal a disagreement extending beyond the commercial fate of a pipeline.
At issue are the rights of foreign investors, the regulatory powers of governments, and the circumstances in which changes to legislation can create international compensation obligations.
There is also a striking subsequent development.
The European Union withdrew from the Energy Charter Treaty on 28 June 2025.
Yet that withdrawal did not simply erase the legal history of investments made while the treaty was in force.
The treaty contains a provision designed to preserve certain investment protections for another twenty years.
The potential implications are considerable.
For Shell shareholders, the documents provide an opportunity to examine the legal environment surrounding a financing decision that eventually resulted in a substantial write-down.
1. THE DOCUMENT THAT IDENTIFIES SHELLWe begin with an important primary source.
Nord Stream 2 AG’s original Notice of Arbitration, dated 26 September 2019, is publicly available through the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law’s transparency registry.
Page 3 of the numbered notice, corresponding to page 5 of the PDF, identifies the financing arrangements concluded in 2017.
Among the companies named is:
Shell Exploration and Production (LXXI) B.V.
This is significant because it is not simply a retrospective description of Shell’s involvement.
It is the name of a Shell entity appearing in a contemporaneous legal document submitted by the pipeline company itself.
The notice records that financing agreements were concluded with Gazprom and five European energy companies, including Shell.
It also identifies the pipeline company’s gas transportation agreement with Gazprom Export LLC, concluded on 7 March 2017.
These arrangements formed part of the commercial structure through which the project was intended to operate.
The existence of Shell’s financing commitment is independently confirmed by Shell’s own announcement of 24 April 2017.
That announcement identified ENGIE, OMV, Uniper and Wintershall alongside Shell.
Each company committed financing and guarantees covering up to 10% of the project’s estimated €9.5 billion cost.
Gazprom remained the sole shareholder of Nord Stream 2 AG.
Thus, Shell was a financier rather than an equity shareholder in the pipeline company.
This distinction is important.
The claimant in the subsequent arbitration was Nord Stream 2 AG.
Shell was not the claimant.
Nevertheless, Shell’s involvement was expressly recorded in the investment documentation underlying the dispute.
The original arbitration notice therefore provides a useful independent cross-reference to Shell’s corporate announcement. UNCITRAL
Primary documents: Nord Stream 2 AG — Notice of Arbitration, 26 September 2019 and Shell’s authenticated April 2017 financing announcement, page 40.
2. APRIL 2019: THE DISPUTE BEGINS BEFORE THE DIRECTIVE TAKES EFFECTOn 12 April 2019, Nord Stream 2 AG initiated the formal process of seeking an amicable settlement under the Energy Charter Treaty.
The date matters.
The disputed European legislation had not yet formally been adopted.
Directive (EU) 2019/692 was adopted on 17 April 2019 and entered into force on 23 May 2019.
The directive extended important EU internal gas-market requirements to transmission pipelines connecting EU Member States with third countries.
Those requirements included the separation of gas transmission from production and supply activities, third-party access provisions and tariff regulation.
Nord Stream 2 AG maintained that the new rules would seriously interfere with the project’s commercial arrangements.
The company argued that the investment had been undertaken in reliance upon a different regulatory framework.
It also contended that the legislative changes unfairly targeted Nord Stream 2.
These were allegations advanced by the pipeline company, not established findings of unlawful discrimination.
Contemporaneous reporting confirms that the dispute was already attracting attention.
On 25 April 2019, Reuters reported that Nord Stream 2 had warned the European Commission of potential legal proceedings.
The report described a letter seeking assurances that the project would be exempted from the new requirements.
The Commission’s response was uncompromising.
Its position was that the legislation had been approved through the European Union’s established procedures and would apply.
The Reuters report also identified Shell among the project’s European financial backers.
This reporting is valuable because it establishes how the dispute was understood at the time, before the subsequent invasion of Ukraine transformed its political significance. Yahoo Finance
Contemporaneous source: Reuters, 25 April 2019 — EU Says New Energy Rules Apply to Nord Stream 2.
3. SEPTEMBER 2019: THE PIPELINE COMPANY INVOKES AN INTERNATIONAL TREATYOn 26 September 2019, Nord Stream 2 AG formally commenced arbitration against the European Union.
The legal basis was Article 26 of the Energy Charter Treaty.
The proceedings were brought under the 1976 UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration subsequently administered the case under reference PCA 2020-07.
The claimant was a company incorporated in Switzerland.
The respondent was the European Union itself.
This was an important distinction from disputes brought solely against individual European governments.
Nord Stream 2 AG relied upon Switzerland’s status as a contracting party to the Energy Charter Treaty.
It claimed to be a qualifying foreign investor with qualifying investments situated within the European Union.
Those investments included pipeline infrastructure, German landfall facilities, construction contracts and regulatory permits.
The company therefore argued that it was entitled to invoke treaty protections against conduct attributable to the European Union.
The original arbitration notice alleged breaches involving discriminatory treatment, interference with investment rights and violations of obligations to provide fair and equitable treatment.
It referred particularly to Articles 10 and 13 of the treaty.
Article 10 contains obligations concerning the treatment and protection of qualifying investments.
Article 13 addresses expropriation and measures having an equivalent effect.
But there was an important procedural question.
Had the European Union actually consented to international arbitration of this particular dispute?
That question became central to the litigation.
4. JULY 2020: THE 192-PAGE MEMORIAL REVEALS WHAT THE CLAIMANT WANTEDOn 3 July 2020, Nord Stream 2 AG submitted its principal memorial.
The document runs to 192 PDF pages.
It provides a detailed reconstruction of the project’s commercial arrangements, the development of European gas legislation, the competing political interests and the alleged consequences for the investment.
The memorial was accompanied by witness statements, expert evidence and numerous documentary exhibits.
Its contents are important for understanding the claimant’s position.
Nord Stream 2 AG argued that the amended European legislation damaged the commercial structure upon which the pipeline had been financed.
In particular, it objected to the consequences of applying unbundling, third-party access and tariff regulation requirements.
The company’s case was that the pipeline had been developed around a long-term transportation agreement with Gazprom Export.
That arrangement was intended to generate a predictable revenue stream.
The new European requirements, it argued, threatened to interfere with this structure.
The company also alleged that the legislation had been deliberately designed to disadvantage Nord Stream 2.
Again, this was the claimant’s allegation.
The memorial did not itself establish that EU institutions had acted unlawfully.
Nevertheless, the submission provides a detailed record of what the pipeline company believed had gone wrong.
It also reveals an aspect of the claim that is easily overlooked.
Nord Stream 2 AG was not initially seeking only a financial damages award.
Its principal requested remedy was regulatory.
The company wanted the tribunal to order the European Union, by means of its own choosing, to remove the application of specified gas-market obligations to Nord Stream 2.
In paragraph 527 of the memorial, the company identified particular provisions of the Gas Directive.
These included Articles 9, 10 and 11, together with specified provisions of Articles 32 and 41.
In the alternative, it sought compensation in an amount to be assessed.
This distinction matters.
The primary objective was to preserve the commercial viability of the investment by obtaining relief from the regulatory consequences being challenged.
Compensation was an alternative.
The company was seeking to protect an operating business, not merely recover money from a project that had already failed.
Primary document: Nord Stream 2 AG — Claimant’s Memorial, 3 July 2020. See particularly the summary of claim and paragraphs 527–529. International Arbitration Database
5. THE EUROPEAN UNION’S FIRST DEFENCE: YOU HAVE ALREADY CHOSEN A COURTOn 15 September 2020, the European Union submitted its Memorial on Jurisdiction and Request for Bifurcation.
This authenticated document is particularly revealing.
Rather than immediately concentrating upon the underlying commercial allegations, the EU advanced two objections to the tribunal’s jurisdiction.
The first concerned a legal principle commonly known as a fork-in-the-road provision.
The expression describes treaty arrangements under which an investor may be required to choose between different dispute-resolution procedures.
Depending upon the precise treaty language, choosing one procedure can prevent the investor from subsequently pursuing the same dispute through another.
The European Union relied upon Article 26(3)(b)(i) and Annex ID of the Energy Charter Treaty.
It argued that its consent to international arbitration was conditional.
In particular, it maintained that an investor could not pursue the same dispute through arbitration after previously submitting it to the relevant courts or another applicable dispute-resolution procedure.
Nord Stream 2 AG had already challenged the 2019 directive before the EU General Court.
That action was filed on 25 July 2019.
The arbitration commenced two months later.
The European Union argued that the two proceedings concerned fundamentally the same dispute.
It also referred to litigation involving Germany’s energy regulator.
By September 2020, therefore, there were proceedings concerning Nord Stream 2 in several different legal forums.
The EU contended that this was precisely the situation the treaty’s restrictions were designed to prevent.
The company disagreed.
It maintained that its EU court challenge and international arbitration involved different legal rights and remedies.
The General Court action concerned the legality of the directive under European Union law.
The arbitration concerned alleged violations of international investment obligations.
Whether those distinctions were sufficient to defeat the EU’s objection was a matter for the arbitral tribunal.
Primary evidence: European Union — Memorial on Jurisdiction and Request for Bifurcation, 15 September 2020. See paragraphs 2–15. UNCITRAL
6. THE SECOND DEFENCE: WAS THE EUROPEAN UNION THE CORRECT RESPONDENT?The European Union’s second objection concerned responsibility.
This was more technical but potentially just as important.
The disputed measure was an EU directive.
Directives generally require Member States to implement their requirements through national legal arrangements.
The EU argued that the practical effects alleged by Nord Stream 2 AG would arise from decisions taken by Member States, particularly Germany.
It maintained that national authorities retained discretion over the implementation of the relevant provisions.
Consequently, according to the EU, any alleged injury could not simply be attributed to the European Union.
In legal terminology, this was described as an objection concerning jurisdiction ratione personae.
The expression concerns whether the tribunal has jurisdiction in relation to the relevant parties.
The EU’s argument was that it was not internationally responsible for the alleged consequences of discretionary national implementation measures.
Nord Stream 2 AG disagreed.
Its position was that the European Union’s adoption of the amended directive was itself capable of violating the treaty.
The company argued that the regulatory changes and their consequences could not be separated in the manner proposed by the EU.
This dispute illustrates an important difficulty in international investment arbitration.
Where legislation is adopted at one level of government and implemented at another, determining responsibility can involve complicated questions of international law.
The tribunal would need to examine the legal obligations, the measures actually taken and the causal relationship between those measures and any proven injury.
The European Union’s jurisdictional objections were therefore substantial legal arguments.
But they were not, at that stage, judicial findings. UNCITRAL
7. DECEMBER 2020: THE TRIBUNAL REFUSES TO DECIDE JURISDICTION FIRSTThe European Union wanted its jurisdictional objections decided before the tribunal examined the merits of Nord Stream 2 AG’s claims.
This procedure is known as bifurcation.
If a tribunal determines that it lacks jurisdiction, there may be no need to undertake a lengthy examination of the underlying allegations.
The EU therefore requested a separate preliminary phase.
Nord Stream 2 AG opposed that proposal.
It argued that the jurisdictional questions were closely connected with the substantive issues.
On 31 December 2020, the tribunal delivered Procedural Order No. 4.
The order is an authenticated primary document.
It records the arguments advanced by both parties and explains the tribunal’s reasoning.
The tribunal considered that the jurisdictional questions could not necessarily be resolved through a straightforward comparison of the different court proceedings.
It was concerned that an insufficiently detailed examination could lead to an incorrect application of the treaty’s restrictions.
The arbitrators also recognised that their eventual interpretation could have implications beyond Nord Stream 2.
Other international investment disputes involving the European Union might be affected.
The tribunal consequently rejected the European Union’s request for a separate preliminary jurisdictional phase.
It decided that the objections should be examined together with the merits.
But an important distinction must be emphasised.
This was not a determination that the European Union’s jurisdictional objections were wrong.
The tribunal expressly stated that it had reached no conclusion on their merits.
It had decided how the case should proceed, not whether Nord Stream 2 AG was entitled to succeed.
The tribunal also envisaged a separate damages phase, if necessary.
Thus, the immediate outcome was procedural.
The arbitration could continue to examine jurisdiction and liability together, leaving damages for possible later determination.
Primary document: Procedural Order No. 4 — Decision on Request for Preliminary Phase on Jurisdiction, 31 December 2020. See paragraphs 45–54. UNCITRAL
8. NOVEMBER 2024: A COURT REACHES AN UNFAVOURABLE CONCLUSION FOR NORD STREAM 2The separate proceedings before the EU courts continued.
On 27 November 2024, the General Court delivered an important judgment.
It dismissed Nord Stream 2 AG’s action challenging Directive 2019/692.
The judgment is particularly relevant because it examined the company’s assertions concerning regulatory expectations and the foreseeability of legal changes.
The court concluded that Nord Stream 2 AG had continued investing during a period when there was no assurance that the existing regulatory position would remain unchanged.
It considered that the company could foresee the possibility of the EU extending its gas-market requirements to pipelines entering from third countries.
The court also concluded that the company’s exclusion from the derogation available to pipelines completed before May 2019 did not establish a violation of the relevant principles of EU law.
Its conclusions addressed legal certainty, legitimate expectations, equal treatment and proportionality.
The judgment was a substantive defeat for Nord Stream 2 AG.
It supported the legality of the legislation under the EU legal standards considered by the court.
However, the ruling did not itself determine the separate Energy Charter Treaty arbitration.
The legal foundations of the two proceedings were different.
The distinction remains significant even where the underlying facts overlap.
The court’s findings may be relevant to the arguments and evidence considered by an investment tribunal.
They are not automatically a final answer to every question arising under international investment law.
There is another important qualification.
The 2024 judgment examined the regulatory situation surrounding the 2019 directive.
It did not establish that Nord Stream 2 was commercially viable under the entirely different geopolitical circumstances prevailing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Those later developments created additional and distinct obstacles.
Official judicial source: Court of Justice of the European Union — Press Release 195/24, 27 November 2024. Jus Mundi
9. JUNE 2025: THE EUROPEAN UNION WITHDRAWS FROM THE TREATYThe next development gives this historical dispute an additional dimension.
On 28 June 2025, the European Union’s withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty became effective.
The European Commission confirms the date on its official Energy Charter information page.
The withdrawal followed increasing concern that the treaty’s investment-protection arrangements were inconsistent with European and international climate-policy objectives.
Critics had argued that treaty protections could expose governments to compensation claims when they introduced measures intended to reduce fossil-fuel dependence.
Defenders of investment treaties emphasised the importance of legal certainty and protection against arbitrary or discriminatory government action.
The European Union ultimately concluded that withdrawal was appropriate.
But Article 47 of the Energy Charter Treaty contains a provision commonly described as a sunset clause.
Under Article 47(3), treaty protections continue to apply for twenty years to certain qualifying investments made before withdrawal took effect.
For the European Union, that period would extend to June 2045, subject to the applicable treaty conditions and any relevant legal disputes over interpretation.
The precise implications depend upon the investor, the respondent, the investment and the legal issues concerned.
A distinction is necessary between disputes involving investors from EU Member States and those involving investors from outside the Union.
Nord Stream 2 AG is incorporated in Switzerland.
Its position cannot automatically be equated with that of an investor incorporated within the European Union.
Furthermore, its arbitration commenced in September 2019, long before the EU’s withdrawal took effect.
The withdrawal therefore raises questions about the continuing application of treaty protections, but it does not establish that the original arbitration has been extinguished.
The proceedings remain listed as pending.
Official sources: European Commission — Energy Charter Treaty Withdrawal and Energy Charter Treaty — Article 47, Withdrawal and Continuing Investment Protection. PCA-CPA
10. THE COMPENSATION QUESTION: WHAT WOULD HAVE TO BE PROVED?It is tempting to examine a €9.5 billion pipeline project and assume that any successful investment claim could automatically involve billions of euros in damages.
That assumption would be unjustified.
An international investment claim generally requires the claimant to establish several distinct elements.
The tribunal must have jurisdiction.
The claimant must demonstrate that the relevant treaty protections apply.
It must establish a breach of those protections.
If compensation is sought, it must also demonstrate legally recoverable loss and the necessary causal relationship between the breach and that loss.
Additional questions may concern valuation, mitigation and the appropriate form of relief.
The fact that an investment has lost commercial value does not automatically establish that a government must compensate its owner.
Likewise, the existence of regulatory changes does not automatically constitute expropriation or unfair treatment.
Governments possess legitimate regulatory powers.
The legal difficulty lies in determining when the exercise of those powers crosses the threshold established by the applicable treaty.
Nord Stream 2 AG’s July 2020 memorial requested compensation in an amount to be assessed only as an alternative to its principal regulatory remedy.
The official Energy Charter dispute record does not identify a final compensation award.
Nor has the public arbitration record examined for this instalment established a final damages figure.
The project cost, Shell’s loan impairment and any potential compensation entitlement must therefore remain separate categories.
There is a documented investment, a documented financial write-down and an unresolved legal claim. They are not interchangeable.
11. THE SHELL CONNECTION: FROM A FINANCING AGREEMENT TO A $1.126 BILLION WRITE-DOWNFor Shell shareholders, the documents offer a clear chronology.
On 24 April 2017, Shell announced its participation in financing Nord Stream 2.
By September 2019, Nord Stream 2 AG was pursuing international arbitration over European regulatory changes.
In July 2020, the claimant submitted a detailed memorial explaining why it considered the legislation damaging to its investment.
In December 2020, the tribunal rejected the EU’s request to determine jurisdiction separately.
In February 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine fundamentally altered the project’s political and commercial environment.
Shell announced its intention to end its involvement in Nord Stream 2 and withdraw from Russian ventures.
In its 2022 Annual Report, Shell recorded that the loan had been fully written down in the first quarter of that year.
The amount was $1,126 million.
The report also confirmed that the final loan instalments had been made during the second quarter of 2020.
This provides a notable chronological detail.
Shell’s financing commitments were being completed while Nord Stream 2 AG’s dispute with the European Union was already underway.
That does not establish that Shell’s management failed to assess the regulatory risks.
Nor does it establish that the arbitration was regarded internally as financially material to Shell.
Those questions would require additional evidence concerning Shell’s internal investment assessments, contractual arrangements and management deliberations.
The publicly available documents establish the chronology, but not the confidential reasoning behind every decision.
Nevertheless, the chronology is relevant to shareholders examining how legal and geopolitical risks were managed.
There is also no basis in the material examined to conclude that Shell would automatically benefit from a successful award obtained by Nord Stream 2 AG.
Shell’s status as a financier must not be confused with ownership of the claimant company or entitlement to compensation awarded to that company.
The terms of the financing arrangements would be relevant to any separate question concerning possible recoveries.
Authenticated corporate source: Shell Annual Report and Accounts 2022 — Nord Stream 2 Disclosure, page 263. Shell Norway
12. DOCUMENTARY FINDINGS Established FactsShell and four other European companies entered financing agreements with Nord Stream 2 AG in April 2017.
Gazprom was the pipeline company’s sole shareholder.
The September 2019 arbitration notice specifically identified Shell Exploration and Production (LXXI) B.V. among the financing entities.
Nord Stream 2 AG commenced Energy Charter Treaty arbitration against the European Union on 26 September 2019.
Its July 2020 memorial alleged breaches of investment protections and requested regulatory relief or, alternatively, financial compensation.
The European Union contested the tribunal’s jurisdiction on two principal grounds.
On 31 December 2020, the tribunal rejected the EU’s request for a separate preliminary jurisdictional phase.
The tribunal did not determine the substantive validity of those objections in that procedural order.
On 27 November 2024, the EU General Court dismissed Nord Stream 2 AG’s challenge to the 2019 gas directive.
The European Union’s withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty became effective on 28 June 2025.
Shell’s 2022 Annual Report recorded a full $1.126 billion write-down of its Nord Stream 2 loan.
The arbitration remains identified as pending in the official public case record.
Allegations and Contested PositionsNord Stream 2 AG alleged that EU legislative changes unfairly discriminated against its investment.
It argued that the changes interfered with legitimate investment expectations and undermined the project’s commercial arrangements.
The European Union disputed the claimant’s interpretation of the treaty and objected to the tribunal’s jurisdiction.
It argued that the claimant had already pursued related proceedings before EU courts.
It also maintained that the alleged regulatory consequences would depend upon measures taken by Member States rather than conduct attributable to the EU itself.
The existence of these submissions is documented.
Their underlying allegations must not be presented as established findings.
Matters Not EstablishedThe examined records do not establish that the European Union unlawfully expropriated Nord Stream 2.
They do not establish that the arbitral tribunal has awarded compensation.
They do not establish that Shell directed or participated in the arbitration.
They do not establish that Shell would be entitled to receive proceeds from any future award.
They do not establish that the European Union’s withdrawal from the treaty has terminated the proceedings.
They do not establish that Shell’s executives ignored legal warnings or concealed information from shareholders.
Those distinctions are essential to the accuracy of the archive.
EDITORIAL COMMENTARY: THE UNINTENDED LONG LIFE OF AN ENERGY INVESTMENTThere is a broader historical lesson in these documents.
International energy projects are frequently developed over periods measured in decades.
Their financial structures depend upon assumptions concerning political stability, market access, regulatory arrangements and long-term demand.
Those assumptions can change.
Sometimes the changes are gradual.
Sometimes they are sudden and catastrophic.
Nord Stream 2 experienced both.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the project was already involved in a substantial legal dispute over European gas-market rules.
The proceedings concerned the rights of investors and the powers of governments.
Then came the war.
The pipeline’s commercial future changed dramatically.
Shell withdrew and recognised its financial loss.
Yet the original arbitration continued.
The fact that the European Union subsequently withdrew from the treaty under which the proceedings were commenced adds another layer of complexity.
A treaty designed to encourage long-term energy investment became controversial partly because of the protections it offered to investments that governments later considered undesirable.
That tension is not unique to Nord Stream 2.
It lies at the heart of a continuing international debate about the balance between investment protection and regulatory freedom.
Investors need predictable legal frameworks.
Governments need the ability to legislate in the public interest.
Neither proposition, standing alone, determines whether compensation is appropriate in a particular case.
The answer depends upon the applicable legal obligations and evidence.
From an archival perspective, the remarkable feature of Nord Stream 2 is how clearly its history illustrates the successive stages of international investment risk.
The financing commitments are documented.
The initial regulatory dispute is documented.
The arbitration submissions are publicly available.
The subsequent judicial decisions can be examined.
Shell’s financial write-down is recorded in its published accounts.
And the later complications arising from European sanctions have themselves generated further procedural orders.
For historians and shareholders, this creates an unusually extensive documentary trail.
The challenge is to avoid treating it as a single, uncomplicated story.
Nord Stream 2 was not one dispute. It became a sequence of commercial, legal, political and financial consequences extending across more than a decade.
The same distinction is essential when examining Shell’s historical involvement in Russia.
The company’s decision to withdraw from an investment does not necessarily close the historical record concerning how that investment was made, financed and assessed.
That record deserves careful examination.
SOURCE RECORD AND DOCUMENTARY PROVENANCEThe following primary and contemporaneous sources support this instalment.
1. Shell — 24 April 2017. The original corporate announcement confirms the financing agreements, participating companies, investment limits, project cost and Gazprom’s ownership of Nord Stream 2 AG.
Shell Corporate Press Releases 2017 — Nord Stream 2 Financing Announcement
2. Nord Stream 2 AG — 26 September 2019. The original arbitration notice identifies the claimant, respondent, legal basis, investment arrangements, alleged treaty violations and requested relief. It expressly names the Shell financing entity.
Nord Stream 2 AG — Original Notice of Arbitration
3. Reuters — 25 April 2019. Contemporaneous reporting establishes that Nord Stream 2 had warned the Commission of possible legal action before the arbitration formally commenced. It also records the Commission’s response.
Reuters — EU Says New Energy Rules Apply to Nord Stream 2
4. Nord Stream 2 AG — 3 July 2020. The claimant’s 192-page memorial sets out the allegations concerning investment protection, regulatory treatment, expropriation and the remedies requested.
Claimant’s Memorial — 3 July 2020
5. European Union — 15 September 2020. The EU’s memorial advances jurisdictional objections based upon the treaty’s dispute-resolution provisions and the attribution of alleged regulatory consequences.
EU Memorial on Jurisdiction and Request for Bifurcation
6. Permanent Court of Arbitration — 31 December 2020. Procedural Order No. 4 rejects the request for a separate preliminary jurisdictional phase without determining the substantive objections.
Procedural Order No. 4 — Full Decision
7. Court of Justice of the European Union — 27 November 2024. The official judicial announcement records the General Court’s dismissal of Nord Stream 2 AG’s challenge to Directive 2019/692.
Official Court Press Release 195/24
8. Shell — 2022 Annual Report and Accounts. Shell’s financial disclosures confirm the complete $1.126 billion write-down of its Nord Stream 2 loan.
Shell Annual Report and Accounts 2022
9. European Commission — Energy Charter Withdrawal. The Commission confirms the EU’s withdrawal from the treaty, effective 28 June 2025.
European Commission — Energy Charter
10. Energy Charter Treaty — Article 47. The treaty’s withdrawal provision establishes the framework for continuing protection of certain qualifying investments.
Energy Charter Treaty — Article 47
Archive disclaimer: This instalment draws upon authenticated corporate documents, international arbitration submissions, procedural decisions, legislation and judicial records. Allegations advanced by litigants are attributed to those parties and are not presented as findings of wrongdoing. Shell was a financier of Nord Stream 2 AG, not a claimant in the arbitration examined here. No finding is made that Shell directed the proceedings, concealed information or is entitled to any future arbitration recovery. Outstanding legal claims remain unresolved unless determined by the competent tribunal or court. Editorial commentary is distinguished from documentary findings.
The website’s general disclaimer also applies.
NEXT IN THE SHELL LEAKS FILES SLF-2007-094 — The Sakhalin Papers LXXXIV: The Foreseeability Test — What Shell and Its Partners Knew Before the Nord Stream 2 Investment Was Written OffThe next instalment will examine one of the most consequential findings in the European General Court’s November 2024 judgment.
The court concluded that Nord Stream 2 AG had continued investing despite being able to foresee changes to European gas-market regulation.
That conclusion raises an important question for investors.
What information was available to Shell and the other European financiers when they entered the project in 2017?
What changed during the following three years?
And how should the regulatory dispute already underway in 2019 be understood alongside Shell’s confirmation that the final Nord Stream 2 loan instalments were made in the second quarter of 2020?
The next investigation will reconstruct the documentary chronology using Shell’s published statements, European legislative records, the claimant’s own evidence and contemporaneous reporting.
It will distinguish risks known at the time from developments that could not reasonably have been anticipated.
The objective will not be to impose hindsight upon historical investment decisions.
It will be to establish what the contemporary record actually shows.
Because there is a fundamental difference between an investment becoming unsuccessful through unforeseeable events and an investment proceeding while material risks are already apparent.
Shell’s financial loss is documented.
The precise history of the risks surrounding that investment deserves closer examination.
The Sakhalin Papers continue.
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES — 20 OCTOBER 2026 was first posted on October 20, 2026 at 9:43 pm.©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net
What Birds Reveal About Fire, Forests, and Resilience
New map tracks data center applications moving through BLM’s pipeline
DENVER — The Bureau of Land Management appears to be considering at least 17 applications to build data center campuses on public land in the West, according to a new interactive map from the Center for Western Priorities. Our BLM Data Center Tracker, built from the agency’s own land records, also identifies at least 13 likely applications for infrastructure to support AI data centers, including access roads, water pipelines, telecom lines, and transmission lines.
Altogether, the map shows 35 active data center-related applications covering more than 24,000 acres in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. Last month, press reports and a congressional letter put the number at roughly 12 proposals over 17,600 acres.
What the map showsOf the 35 active cases on the map, it appears 17 are applications for a data center campus, identifiable by “Data Center,” “Gigasite,” or “Project” in the case name. Because some of these cases seem to be colocated the 17 applications may represent fewer distinct projects. Another 13 applications appear to be for supporting infrastructure, and five cannot be classified into either category based on publicly available information. The best way to use the map is to click into individual cases and read the text associated with the application.
Some of these proposals dwarf a typical data center. NPR reported that Valar Atomics’ Project Beehive in eastern Utah would cover more than 9,000 acres and be powered by small modular nuclear reactors, a technology that has not yet been deployed at commercial scale. A single developer, Copia, has filed 16 site and infrastructure proposals across five states, including an application associated with a 2,520-acre parcel near Las Vegas.
A rush with no rulesUnlike for solar, wind, drilling, or mining, there is no established permitting process for building data centers on public land. This absence hasn’t slowed the administration’s rush to build them, though. In June, BLM permitted a 167-megawatt data center near Boulder City, Nevada, without an environmental review. The Interior Board of Land Appeals halted the project in September after Boulder City and conservation groups challenged it. This week, a judge sent the project back for a proper environmental review.
On September 24, Representatives Jared Huffman, Dina Titus, and 13 other members of Congress sent Interior Secretary Doug Burgum 18 questions about data centers on public lands, including whether the public will be able to weigh in on these proposals. They asked for answers by October 8.
The public’s view on data centers is clear. In a July poll of likely Wyoming voters, more than 90 percent of respondents said data centers are not an acceptable use of public lands. Nationally, Pew Research Center found the share of Americans who say data centers are mostly bad for the environment rose from 39 percent in January to 54 percent in September.
The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Deputy Director Lauren Bogard:
“Data centers are not like oil, gas, or minerals, which are extracted from public lands because that’s where they exist. Unlike mining or drilling, there are no natural resources that make it necessary to develop data centers on public lands, and there is no reason to assume data centers belong on them.
“Before even considering putting data centers on public lands, the Trump administration should be obligated to solicit public feedback on this idea. None of these projects should move forward without a permitting framework that lets communities decide where, how, or if data centers get built. That process must include robust, site-specific environmental review and public input opportunities, as well as meaningful, negotiated community benefits that ensure the public is compensated when private companies profit from public lands.”
MethodologyApplication (or case) data used to build the map comes from BLM’s Mineral & Land Records System, accessed through its public ArcGIS service across all four application statuses: pending, authorized, interim, and closed. Because BLM has no “data center” category for right-of-way cases, CWP runs two searches: one matching case and applicant names against terms such as “data,” “hyperscale,” “gigasite,” and “modular reactor,” and a second matching applicant names against developers confirmed to be active in the sector. The second search exists because early-stage cases are often filed with no name at all, under LLCs with names that give no hint of their purpose.
Each search returns roughly 300 raw hits, most of them false positives such as legacy radio licenses that use the acronym “SMR.” CWP’s pipeline reviews every hit against corporate records and press coverage. Parcel boundaries come directly from BLM’s survey data. The map is refreshed regularly and was last updated October 16.
This tracker provides a baseline count. An application with no name and an unidentified applicant won’t appear in this count, so the real number of data center-related applications received by BLM may be higher than this map shows. BLM often records zero acres for early-stage applications, so the map likely also undercounts acreage. Finally, a right-of-way application (which all of these are) is a request, not an approval, and pending cases may be withdrawn by the developer or denied by BLM.
Note: The public-facing API used to pull this data from BLM’s Mineral & Land Records System is unavailable as of October 20 at 10am MDT. The map reflects BLM data as of October 16, 2026, and CWP will refresh it (if possible) once the system is back online.
Data and full methodology: https://github.com/Center-for-Western-Priorities/blm-data-centers
Learn more:- The Trump administration is trying to build data centers on public lands – Westwise
- Data Center Doug wants to “manufacture intelligence” on your public lands – Westwise
- Democrats Demand Answers on Trump Plan to Build Data Centers on Public Lands – Truthout
- Trump Is Considering More Data Centers on Public Lands Than Previously Known – Washington Sun
- The Wilderness Society calls for AI data center moratorium on public lands – The Wilderness Society
The post New map tracks data center applications moving through BLM’s pipeline appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.
Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs
Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It called out Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitionsThe silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Greenpeace campaigner Raoul Monsembula in the peatland forest around Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of Congo, on September 15, 2017 (Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace)Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirementThe 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
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Rush nurses hold rally for patient safety
Job Opening: Land Access Program Manager
RAFI is currently hiring a Land Access Program Manager to lead in managing and facilitating RAFI’s land access project, serving as the main point of communication.
The post Job Opening: Land Access Program Manager appeared first on RAFI.
Burniston calls for more time to comment on revised fracking permit
Organisations in the North Yorkshire village of Burniston are urging the Environment Agency (EA) to extend its consultation on plans for drilling and fracking.
Photo: DrillOrDropThe deadline for comments is tomorrow (21 October 2026).
But local campaigners and councillors have called for more time to review two documents on the environmental permit, which the EA revised earlier this month.
The EA acknowledged what it called “drafting errors and “a small number of minor typographical errors and inconsistencies”.
Burniston Parish Council has called for an extension to the consultation of at least two months.
The local campaign group, Frack Free Coastal Communities, said it needed more time for a “comprehensive analysis of shortcomings that affect the EA’s technical analysis and appraisal of the permit application”.
DrillOrDrop asked the EA to respond to the local complaints and calls for more time. The organisation replied on 21 October 2026 refusing to extend the consultation. More details soon.
The organisation initially said it needed more time to reply to us. A spokesperson described the issue as “a fairly complex matter” that required “a lot of different input from different officers and teams”.
The spokesperson added:
“it may take a day or two to provide a response”.
DetailsThe EA announced on 3 August 2026 that it was “minded to approve” the permit for gas exploration and lower-volume fracking at a site on the edge of Burniston.
But after widespread criticism of the draft permit, the EA extended the consultation and then issued revised versions of the draft decision document and the draft permit.
Analysis of the amended documents by DrillOrDrop found at least 58 changes to the updated draft decision document and more than 20 in the draft permit report here.
Many complaints had not been addressed in the revisions.
The parish council chair, Richard Parsons, told DrillOrDrop:
“Burniston Parish Council and members of our community have become extremely concerned about the changes that have been made to the Environmental Agency report into the Burniston Gas drill licence. There have, very recently, been a large number of changes many of which do not just cover minor errors.
“We appreciate that the EA realise that in order to hold a proper public consultation the end date needed extending. Taking into account the volume and importance of the changes, closing this consultation on October 21st does not leave enough time for anyone to respond in any detail. Many of our residents did not receive the change of consultation date letter, from the EA, until October 14th.
“It is worth noting that most of the changes and the extension, were made as a result of the original consultation, whereby the many and important EA errors in the report, were pointed out.
“Burniston parish councillors have written to the Environment Agency requesting the public consultation is adequately extended to allow everyone to read, understand and comment in a timely manner. We would suggest this extension is for at least a further two months and whenever the EA make further changes, further extensions are applied.”
Frack Free Coastal Communities (FFCC) said:
“Revisions to the draft decision document are extensive and much more than the correction of minor typographical errors.
“The EA has admitted that they are aligning their terminology with that used by the applicant. Given the contradictions and inconsistencies in that terminology, some of which have been made worse by the revisions, proper public scrutiny of the revised document requires significant time.
“To close the consultation on 21st October does not give sufficient time and goes against the spirit of the EA’s published code of practice for consultations.”
FFCC also said:
“Letters to local residents informing them of the revisions and the new consultation deadline only began arriving on 12th October and some residents have not yet received theirs. This is contrary to the standards the EA holds itself to.”
It added:
“we require additional time to scrutinise the terminology used in the revised draft and compare it to the applicant’s documentation so that we can submit a comprehensive analysis of shortcomings that affect the EA’s technical analysis and appraisal of the permit application.
“This includes lack of evidence to support conclusions; confusion over the meaning of ‘phase’ and ‘stage’ of hydraulic fracturing and consequently over the potential volumes of fracking fluid to be used; and confusion about the purpose of the hydraulic fracturing (proppant squeeze) in the specific context of the target formations for the proposed well.”
DrillOrDrop will report separately on responses to the revised documents.
- The permit consultation is separate from the planning application, which was refused by North Yorkshire Council earlier this year.
SCC Staff Right to Recommend Merger Denial as Data Center Costs Mount
RICHMOND, VA — The staff of Virginia’s State Corporation Commission (SCC) recommended on Monday that regulators deny NextEra Energy’s proposed $67 billion acquisition of Dominion Energy as currently proposed, concluding that the companies have not proven that “adequate service to the public at just and reasonable rates will not be impaired or jeopardized.” The same day, Governor Abigail Spanberger filed expert testimony urging the SCC to reject the deal unless NextEra and Dominion agree to freeze base residential rates for six years, triple customer bill credits, and accept structural reforms to ensure “large data centers bear the cost of their own energy needs — not families.”
In testimony filed yesterday, SCC staff found that the merger would expose Dominion to the financial and business risks of NextEra’s unregulated, competitive businesses. Staff also flagged Dominion’s growing dependence on buying power from the regional market – 25% of the electricity it supplied in 2025, compared with 3% at NextEra’s Florida Power & Light – and noted that rising purchased power costs “appear to stem from growth in data center customers.” The companies’ proposed $10-a-month residential bill credit would “only somewhat mitigate” steadily rising bills, staff concluded. When the credits run out in 2031, a typical residential bill is projected to jump nearly 8% in a single year, to $226.55 a month.
Victoria Higgins, Virginia Director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), issued the following statement:
“Yesterday, the Commission’s own experts and the Governor of Virginia corroborated what families across the Commonwealth have been saying: this merger is a bad deal for Virginia. NextEra isn’t coming to Virginia to lower anyone’s bills. It’s coming to cash in on the largest data center market in the world, and it’s counting on ordinary Virginians to bankroll the buildout.
The byzantine corporate structure that would be spawned by this acquisition exposes regulated customers in Virginia to immense risk, particularly as we face an onslaught of infrastructure requests from data centers. A temporary $10 credit is a rounding error next to the billions in new power plants and market purchases needed to feed Big Tech. The SCC should listen to its staff and reject this merger.”
SCC staff said it would not oppose the merger if the companies accept a lengthy list of additional conditions, including an independent Dominion board of directors, limits on dividends, a 10-year guarantee of current Virginia employment levels, and a requirement that Dominion retain “ultimate decision-making authority” over how it meets demand from large load customers. Governor Spanberger, the first Virginia governor to intervene in an SCC case, said she remains “deeply skeptical” that the merger, “as currently structured, will adequately protect consumers.” Earlier this month, Lt. Governor Ghazala Hashmi became the first statewide elected official to flatly oppose the deal. Last week, Dominion’s 2026 Integrated Resource Plan update projected that a typical residential bill would climb by more than $100 a month over the next two decades, driven in large part by data center demand.
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Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
The post SCC Staff Right to Recommend Merger Denial as Data Center Costs Mount appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
The Arctic, As It Should Be: A Guide’s Perspective on Wilderness
At a recent National Wilderness Coalition fly-in in Washington, D.C., Kyle Milne was one of two Arctic guides who joined Alaska Wilderness League in meetings with members of Congress to share their firsthand perspectives and advocate for protections for Arctic lands. He shared some of the moments that have shaped his love for Alaska’s Arctic, and what wilderness means from the perspective of someone who makes his living guiding people through it. Below is the text of the speech he delivered in the U.S. Capitol.
I have spent the better part of the last five years falling in love with a place. And perhaps “place” isn’t the right word; the landscapes and wilderness areas I have fallen in love with stretch across the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic some 600 miles east to west, with personalities and characteristics that can differ as much as the desert Southwest from Cascadia.
I could sit here and tell you how my livelihood depends upon wilderness—how wilderness has paid my bills, fed me from fish and game, and provided me with purpose and connection. I could tell you about the ecological significance of the hundreds of thousands of caribou that move across the Arctic North Slope every year.
I could tell you about the people I’ve met living in villages and communities scattered across the north side of the state, who, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, still truly live off the land— foraging, fishing, and hunting—and who make me feel like a foreigner, a tourist, in a place I’ve come to know and love deeply.
I could tell you about all those things, but for me, when I really distill the significance of wilderness down, it comes in the form of short vignettes: memories, experiences, times up North that gave me a cold shiver down my spine.
My time up North is scrambling across hundreds of square feet of fossilized coral, embedded in the bedrock shoreline of the Firth River.
It is waking up in a tent on the toe of the Sadlerochit Mountains, the furthest north mountain range in Alaska, to the guttural grunts, soft clacking tendons, and distinct barnyard smell of 30,000 caribou that have wandered into camp in the middle of the night-less night.
It is a musk ox scratching its hindquarters on my tent at 3 a.m.
It is standing on top of a nameless peak near the Kongakut River and seeing thousands of square miles of rolling tundra hills, then flat and barren coastal plain, then low sand barrier islands, then blue ocean, and finally white sea ice on the northern horizon.
It is what isn’t seen from that same nameless peak: no buildings, no vehicles, no dots on the horizon or boats steaming across the ocean; no evidence that the 21st century has made its way this far north just yet.
It is stumbling upon house pits, flakes, atlatl and spear points, arrowheads, scrapers, whalebone structures, and decomposing driftwood cabins—evidence of the tenacity, ingenuity, and courage of pre-contact Iñupiaq people; people who have been, are, and always will be, a part of the land.
It is a family of ermines fearlessly flitting across ground, feet, legs, dry bags, and packs, coming to say hello to a group of rubber-clad rafters loading their boats.
It is the supreme indifference of Mother Nature as sustained 35-mile-per-hour winds flatten tents, snapping poles and shredding fabric, as July snow stings eyes and exposed skin.
It is awe, and a little fear, in the eyes of a city planner from right here in Washington, D.C., as we kneel on the tundra, staying motionless while a herd of bull caribou with antlers as tall as us walk within touching distance, unaware of our presence.
It is a conversation with a Gwich’in elder in the Wright Air Service terminal in Fairbanks, Alaska—the calm confidence he exudes as he shares the best way to survive a night in the open, with no tent, when winter temperatures dip to 50 degrees below zero.
It is three polar bears, two cubs and one sow, glowing gold in the 3 a.m. light from the sun hovering above the horizon, hopping across the jumble of shore-fast sea ice to avoid getting their paws wet in meltwater ponds.
It is a landscape that demands your presence, your empathy, and your attention.
Kyle Milne is a born and raised Alaskan. He has worked as a fly-fishing guide, wildland firefighter, Arctic guide, and in the nonprofit sector. He first visited Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2021, and since then it has always had a hold on a piece of him.
City of Albany Passes No Coal Resolution
On October 19, 2026, the City of Albany joined Richmond, Emeryville, and Berkeley as East Bay city governments close ranks against coal transport, handling, and storage of coal in our communities. Albany’s City Council passed Resolution 2026-77 unanimously, with one councilmember absent.
A half-dozen speakers addressed the City Council in support of the resolution. The youngest speaker gave this comment:
Hi, I’m Oliver from Cornell Elementary, and I believe we should be against the coal facility because doing this will cause climate change and damage our ecosystems and our health.
Other speakers included Albany residents Ben Eichenberg on behalf of San Francisco Baykeeper, Katy Vigil-McClanahan, Allie Johnson, Tom Athanasiou, and Lucinda Young speaking on behalf of the Albany Climate Action Coalition. The speakers in favor of the resolution can be viewed on a YouTube recording of the meeting, starting at 1:36:45.
In addition to opposing “transport of coal and petcoke through the city and through nearby cities … [and] the handling and storage of coal at the proposed OBOT facility in Oakland,” Albany’s resolution “urges the Air District to adopt measures that would strengthen regulation of coal and petcoke as components of fugitive dust” and “to ensure that any air permit it issues to the OBOT facility fully protects Oakland and other Bay Area workers and residents from exposure to dangerous coal and petcoke emissions.”
Albany also threw its support behind California’s newly enacted law, AB40, that requires a “full, up-to-date Environmental Impact Report under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)” in the course of evaluating any application for an air permit for the Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal (OBOT).
No Coal in Oakland thanks the City of Albany for its insistence on protecting the health and safety of all residents of the East Bay; and on opposing the mining, transport, and burning of coal that would add to our planet’s ongoing climate crises.
Albany’s Resolution 2026-77 can be accessed on the City of Albany website. Image: speakers on Resolution 2026-77 at the Albany City Council meeting of 2026-10-19. Clockwise from upper-left: Lucinda Young, Ben Eichenberg, Katy Vigil-McClanahan, and Allie Johnson. Credit: Zoom screenshots.
Trump aide attempts to dodge blame for DC golf course tree cutting spree
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s deputy chief of staff, Gregory Wischer, told a federal judge Monday that the felling of more than 500 trees at Washington’s East Potomac Golf Links over Columbus Day weekend was not part of President Donald Trump’s plan to renovate the course.
Wischer, a political appointee who oversees many of Trump’s D.C. “beautification” projects, pinned the work on a 2019 Park Service landscape report. He also sparred with Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands, who testified last week that Wischer directed him to proceed on October 5 and that acting director Jessica Bowron approved the plan the next day. “I never said go execute,” Wischer said Monday. “The direction came out of your mouth,” plaintiffs’ attorney Abbe Lowell shot back.
Lowell then showed photos from Trump’s June 28 tour of the course with Burgum and architect Tom Fazio, including one of Wischer carrying conceptual golf course proposals. Wischer acknowledged that Fazio’s son texted him the design Trump posted Sunday, and said he “can’t recall” contacting Tom Fazio. Judge Ana Reyes said there was “no universe” in which the timing was a coincidence.
On Sunday, Trump announced the course would close on November 15 for 15 months under a plan Interior developed “under the auspices of Secretary Doug Burgum.” That night, the Justice Department told Reyes there was “no final agency action” because the Park Service “has not completed its review.”
Quick hits 6 threats to public lands in the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act Judge halts controversial plan to build road in North Cascades riverbed Forest Service employees warned against sharing the chief’s travel plans after he visited Juneau Yellowstone receives record $105 million gift for infrastructure, conservation, access In Fairbanks, Interior Secretary Burgum touts deregulation and data centers Judge grills Trump administration over plans to overhaul Washington golf courseAssociated Press | New York Times | POLITICO
Arizona joins legal revolt over Trump’s Colorado River plan Data center project proposed on federal land gets sent back to square one Quote of the dayThe irreversible destruction these provisions would cause to treasured places like the Arctic, the Boundary Waters, Bears Ears, and Chaco is simply not a reasonable or necessary tradeoff.”
—The Wilderness Society on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act
Picture ThisThe marbled orb weaver, aka the “pumpkin spider,” gets its seasonal nickname from its round abdomen and brilliant orange coloring.
These colorful spiders build wheel-shaped webs that are perfect for catching insects that wander into their carefully spun traps.
This one was spotted sitting on a red fall leaf at @ShenandoahNPS, looking ready for spooky season.
Photo by Alan Downie
Feature image: East Potomac Golf Course at Hain’s Point; Source: National Parks Gallery/Picryl
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No Kings Coalition Issues Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg Demanding Answers on Meta’s Censorship of Historic Early Vote Mobilization
Today, the No Kings Coalition sent an open letter to Meta Platforms, Inc. Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding immediate transparency and public answers regarding the sudden suspension of its official Instagram account during the nationwide No Kings: Vote Early day of action on Saturday, October 17.
On Saturday, as millions of Americans assembled across nearly 3,000 events in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., Meta unexpectedly suspended the coalition’s Instagram account at 1:30 p.m. ET, when public engagement and livestreaming were peaking. The page was completely hidden, and administrators were locked out without justification.
While Meta later admitted in an email that it had wrongly taken the account offline and restored public visibility just after 3 p.m. ET, account administrators remained locked out of the account’s backend for over four hours, preventing real-time communications from reaching millions of Americans. Public comments from representatives of Meta citing a "technical glitch" do not sufficiently explain these actions or the significant delay in restoring access. In the open letter, the coalition demands a public response to 9 detailed questions no later than 5:00 p.m. PT on Wednesday, October 21, 2026.
The questions demand transparency regarding specific policy violations, enforcement logs, potential communications between Meta and the Trump administration, internal content moderation directives, hashtag throttling, automated AI moderation protocols, emergency redress human review guarantees, and high-profile account "whitelist" practices.
"This raises serious questions among the public about why these actions were taken and the implications during the election season. Critical voter information or civic participation should not be blocked, throttled, or otherwise interfered with if Meta aspires to be a trusted actor in our democracy," the coalition writes in the letter. "The public deserves answers."
The full text of the open letter sent to Meta leadership is included below and is available online at nokings.org/metacensorship. Additionally, the No Kings Coalition is having a mass virtual call on Wednesday, October 21 at 8 p.m. ET to share updates and discuss what’s next as the coalition transitions into nonpartisan election defense.
To speak with a representative of the No Kings Coalition, email media@nokings.org.
FULL TEXT OF OPEN LETTER TO META PLATFORMS, INC.
October 19, 2026
Mark Zuckerberg
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Meta Platforms, Inc.
Attn: Diana Powell McCormick, Joel Kaplan, Adam Mosseri
1 Meta Way
Dear Mark Zuckerberg:
The No Kings Coalition writes in alarm at actions taken by Meta that resulted in removal and revocation of account administrator access to the coalition’s Instagram account during the largest single-day early vote activation in American history.
On Saturday, October 17, millions of Americans came together for No Kings: Vote Early. At the height of our national day of action around 1:30pm ET, Meta unexpectedly suspended the No Kings Coalition’s Instagram account. The page was completely hidden, and administrators were locked out for hours without any justification. Meta did not respond to our team for approximately 90 minutes.
At 3:03pm ET, only after intense public backlash, Meta restored the account to viewable status. At this time, Meta admitted in a response email that they had wrongly taken the account offline. However, administrators were still unable to access the account for more than four hours until 5:41pm ET.
Public comments from representatives of Meta do not sufficiently explain these actions or the significant delay in remedying the so-called “technical glitch.” This raises serious questions among the public about why these actions were taken and the implications during the election season. Critical voter information or civic participation should not be blocked, throttled, or otherwise interfered with if Meta aspires to be a trusted actor in our democracy.
The public deserves answers. As such, the No Kings Coalition demands public response to the following questions. Americans are voting, and the election is fast approaching. Time is of the essence. Responses to these questions should be shared publicly no later than 5:00pm Pacific Time on Wednesday, October 21st.
- What specific actions from the No Kings Coalition account were alleged to have violated Meta’s policies, and which policies were implicated? Will Meta release the enforcement logs related to this incident?
- What, if any, communication has Meta or its representatives had with the Trump administration about No Kings and other pro-democracy protests? Who were you in contact with, and what topics were discussed?
- Did Meta have any communications with the Trump administration related to the October 17th No Kings day of action, either before, during, or after the 17th?
- Did any government, political party, outside organization, or advertiser contact Meta about the account or the No Kings events in the 30 days prior to removal? If so, who and what was requested?
- Did Meta have any communications with the Trump administration about prior actions from No Kings or other pro-democracy protests?
- Has Meta had any communications with the Trump administration about voter education and mobilization or anything else related to the 2026 midterm elections?
- Does Meta have any internal directives or policies for teams managing account access or content moderation related to demonstrations of free speech, pro-democracy protests, or content critical of President Trump or the federal government?
- Why did #NoKings stop populating content on Instagram’s desktop site for a portion of the afternoon on October 17 while the official No Kings account was down? Was No Kings content, including content from other accounts, subject to any restriction, suppression, reduced distribution, or other limitation on its visibility or reach during any part of October 17?
- A Meta representative cited “automated systems” as part of the explanation for how this happened. To what extent are AI agents involved in building, monitoring, or administering these automated systems?
- Will Meta guarantee human review of all automated midterm-related content moderation actions within one hour of initial action between now and when the winners of the election are seated? What emergency redress options will you put in place to ensure voter access efforts that experience similar account disruptions can reach a human being to review their account status?
- Meta has published information on Meta’s use of various whitelist protocols that prevent automated systems from banning or removing content from certain high profile accounts. How do those systems treat President Trump and his allies? How do those systems treat No Kings or other civil society efforts to encourage voter participation?
- Will Meta guarantee that its policies and algorithms will not put a thumb on the scale for or against any candidates or parties during the 2026 midterm elections?
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to your timely public response.
Sincerely,
The No Kings Coalition
No Kings events are nonpartisan and are designed to increase participation from all eligible voters. A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action and no civil disobedience. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events. Weapons of any kind, including those legally permitted, should not be brought to events.
Op-Ed | Nourishing the World: Expanding Humanity’s Ambition for Food, Health, and the Planet
Can we change the future of food and health by changing the words we use? Consider what happens when we shift our ambition from surviving to thriving. From conserving ecosystems to regenerating them. From extending lifespan to fostering healthspan. Words shape our mindsets, the stories we tell, and how we act. A single word can expand an entire ambition.
As we reflect on World Food Day and reports emerging from this year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and Climate Week NYC, we are witnessing an expansion of one of humanity’s greatest collective ambitions: from feeding the world to nourishing it. For generations, feeding the world has inspired food initiatives and international cooperation that have helped sustain billions of lives. With hundreds of millions still experiencing hunger and food insecurity, ensuring everyone has enough to eat remains urgent, while our ambition must evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities of today, tomorrow, and the future we are creating.
Feeding the world has long been intertwined with the challenge of a growing population. That trajectory is changing. The U.N. projects that the global population will peak later this century. Alongside these demographic transitions, rising diet-related disease, biodiversity loss, conflict, and climate risks are reshaping what we must deliver.
The call for a broader ambition has grown over the past two decades, gaining momentum with the rise of food systems approaches. In 2016, Lawrence Haddad and colleagues called for a global research agenda to shift from feeding the world to nourishing it.In 2021, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres identified Nourish All People as a priority for transforming food systems. More recently, calls for international cooperation have reinforced the urgency of healthy diets and sustainable food systems. This year’s World Food Day theme, “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow,” recognizes the power of science, traditional knowledge, ingenuity, and cooperation to transform food systems. What makes this moment extraordinary is that advances in science are expanding what we can imagine, discover, and achieve for humanity.
Nourishing the world expands our focus beyond how much food we produce to consider its quality, the health and dignity of those who produce and eat it, and the ecosystems that sustain it. When recently asked at the SDG Media Zone at UNGA81 what I had learned from communities around the world, my answer reflected what many have understood for generations: food is nourishment. What does it mean to make nourishment the measure of our ambition?
A critical measure for advancing nourishment is food quality. Food quality goes beyond calories and nutrients to encompass the molecular composition of food and the conditions in which it is grown, produced, processed, and prepared. Together, these shape its nutrient density, molecular diversity, biological activity, safety, flavor, and other sensory qualities. By connecting agriculture, the environment, and human health, food quality offers a way to measure and improve what our food systems deliver. Nourishment is greater than any single measure. It also depends on whether food is accessible, desirable, culturally meaningful, and produced in ways that sustain people, livelihoods, and ecosystems.
Nourishing the world is not an incremental ambition. We cannot feed people first and nourish them later. We already produce enough calories globally. Our ambition must be to develop creative solutions to ensure nourishing food reaches everyone. Consider the ingenuity of Mumbai’s dabbawalas, who have delivered millions of home-cooked meals across the city for generations, a remarkable but declining tradition.
Nourishment must be cultivated from the beginning, through the incredible edible biodiversity we conserve and cultivate, the crops and livestock we breed, the health of our soils and waters, and how food is grown, processed, and distributed. It must also shape the incentives, policies, and institutions that determine whose knowledge is valued, whose livelihoods are supported, and who can access nourishing food. This includes our ability to transform raw ingredients into nutritious, delicious, and culturally meaningful meals. Nourishment begets nourishment, creating a virtuous cycle across people, communities, and ecosystems. Rooted in dignity, this transformation will look different in every place.
In a Nature Food comment, my colleagues and I drew inspiration from mangroves, whose resilience depends on diverse, interconnected root systems. Food systems likewise depend on interconnected agricultural systems, economies, governance, diets, and knowledge. To change what our food systems deliver, we must transform their foundational roots: what they are designed to achieve, what they reward, and how success is measured. When we prioritize yields and nutrients, we risk overlooking the many dimensions of nourishment. What we measure shapes what we manage, and what we incentivize shapes what we produce.
Imagine agricultural landscapes where biodiversity flourishes alongside productive farms. Where agricultural success is measured not only by yield per hectare, but also by food quality and its potential to nourish people. Where farmers are rewarded for nourishing people and regenerating ecosystems. Where diverse food economies thrive, food waste declines, and innovations emerge. Where healthier diets help reduce the trillions of dollars in health and economic costs associated with poor diets, and healthier people realize their full potential. Where nourishing food is desirable, accessible, and rooted in culture and choice.
This vision must extend to every community across the planet. Nourishment is a universal ambition, and its expression must reflect the diversity of people and places. Realizing it requires cooperation across agriculture, environment, economic development, health, and education. This ambition must continue to evolve, drawing on the world’s diversity of knowledge, cultures, and capabilities. The world of 2050 will not be the world of 2100.
This World Food Day, I am honored to join global partners through The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI) in advancing the ambition to nourish the world. Our contribution to this global call is to enable a growing global ecosystem to generate, integrate, and translate standardized molecular evidence on food and health that can accelerate food systems innovation to nourish people and the planet. Together, we are expanding the extraordinary frontier of food and health discovery.
Through PTFI, we are generating evidence across a remarkable spectrum of food systems innovations, from ancient crops grown using regenerative agricultural practices to entirely new classes of food products. We are collectively advancing our understanding of what this evidence means for human health. AI-enabled molecular modeling is helping generate hypotheses about how food molecules interact with human biology. We are connecting molecular evidence with existing epidemiological studies to investigate relationships between food quality and health, while conducting experimental and clinical research to test biological significance. However, we have only begun to scratch the surface of what remains to be discovered.
The path ahead calls for greater collective effort and investment to scale this work and translate emerging evidence into new approaches for characterizing and scoring food quality, as well as evidence-based recommendations and thresholds that can strengthen national and international food and health guidelines. Equally exciting is the opportunity to create entirely new markets and inspire a new generation of innovation. Imagine the possibilities unlocked by molecular evidence on food and health: creating new nourishing products, reimagining food procurement, and transforming how we understand, value, design, manage, and reward food systems.
Along this journey, we must recognize and value traditional knowledge while upholding Indigenous Data Sovereignty, equitable data access, and principles of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), ensuring that innovation does not come at the expense of the communities whose knowledge and resources make it possible.
Building on The Rockefeller Foundation’s pioneering investment in PTFI, alongside investments from other philanthropic partners, we have an extraordinary opportunity to meet the moment by mobilizing new and creative forms of capital to accelerate discovery and innovation for the future we want food to make possible.
Just as words expand our ambitions, new ambitions may call for words we have yet to imagine.
From surviving to thriving. From conserving ecosystems to regenerating them. From extending lifespan to fostering healthspan. From feeding the world to nourishing it.
This essay is part of Food Tank’s Flourish Series: Food and Health from Molecules to Systems, authored by Selena Ahmed, exploring how food connects us to the living world while asking what it means to flourish. For more in the series, click here.
The post Op-Ed | Nourishing the World: Expanding Humanity’s Ambition for Food, Health, and the Planet appeared first on Food Tank.
CUANDO LAS COMUNIDADES GANAN, EL MUNDO GANA.
20 historias inspiradoras de victorias contra los incineradores de basura
20 de octubre de 2026A lo largo de los últimos 25 años de GAIA, hemos sido testigos del cierre de más de 375 incineradores en todo el mundo. En esta serie dedicada a la Semana Global de Acción contra la Incineración, destacamos más de 20 ejemplos inspiradores de comunidades que han salido victoriosas frente a incineradores y propuestas de construcción de incineradores en sus ciudades.
Desde intervenciones apasionadas e informativas en reuniones del consejo municipal, pasando por consultas técnicas con instituciones financieras internacionales, hasta campañas históricas de peticiones y la obtención de apoyo de la comunidad internacional, descubre los factores clave de las siguientes victorias contra las falsas soluciones tóxicas en todo el mundo.
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WTE ARAUCANÍA
Lautaro, región de La Araucanía, Chile
Año de cierre/suspensión: 2022
Factor clave para el éxito:
Participación pública: Más de 17.000 comentarios por escrito durante la etapa de consulta pública del proceso de evaluación ambiental.
Campaña educativa: Participación constante del público en general al poner a disposición información crítica y fácil de entender.
Coalición: Formación de una fuerte coalición entre las comunidades mapuches, el municipio y las organizaciones ambientales.
Experiencia técnica: Evidencia pericial relevante y altamente calificada en las audiencias.
Defensa consistente: Vigilancia constante y continua a lo largo de las diferentes etapas del proceso.
Visibilización del rechazo a la incineración en Europa y promoción de la estrategia Basura Cero: en paralelo con el rechazo a la incineración de basura, se promovió la implementación de la estrategia basura cero, mostrando ejemplos en el mundo. También se expuso la contaminación de incineradores en Europa.
Recursos:
Artículo relevante: https://araucaniadiario.cl/contenido/35379/rada-celebra-nuevo-rechazo-a-la-incineracion-de-basura-en-chile
Sitio web de RADA: www.radaraucania.org
Miembros que participaron en la victoria: Red de Acción por los Derechos Ambientales (RADA), Comunidades mapuches, municipio de Lautaro.
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PLANTA DE PIROLISIS DE DUMAGUETE
Dumaguete, Filipinas
Año de cierre: 2025
Factor clave del éxito: El poder de la ciencia comunitaria, la experiencia sobre el terreno y el liderazgo de los miembros de las comunidades afectadas, incluidos los trabajadores del sector de residuos, las amas de casa, los residentes, los estudiantes y los maestros de Dumaguete.
Estudio de caso y recursos:
Informe «Clearing the Air»
Lee sobre la conferencia de prensa aquí: https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1253343
Miembros involucrados en la victoria: WOW, DWWA (Asociación de Trabajadores de Residuos de Dumaguete), GAIA
PROPUESTA DE PLANTAS DE CONVERSIÓN DE RESIDUOS EN ENERGÍA EN 4 CIUDADES
Gujarat, India
Año de cierre/suspensión: 2025
Factores clave del éxito:
1. El análisis del informe de EIAS y la identificación de cómo este viola las normas de desempeño del Banco Mundial
2. La difusión de las voces locales a nivel global
3. Documentación de los impactos sobre el terreno de la empresa de incineración de basura con generación de electricidad (WTE) y su análisis financiero.
Recursos: Carta al Banco Mundial, carta colectiva firmada por 174 organizaciones
Miembros involucrados en la victoria: Alianza por un Gujarat sin Incineradoras, incluyendo a CFA, IAP y las comunidades afectadas
PROPUESTA DE INCINERADORA EN VARIOS PAÍSES
Indonesia, Malasia, Filipinas, Singapur, Tailandia y Vietnam, China y Hong Kong
Año en que se cerró o detuvo el proyecto: 2024
Factor clave del éxito: Esfuerzos colectivos de campaña, incluso en espacios estratégicos como la Reunión Anual del AIIB, además de una carta técnica enviada al AIIB (Banco Asiático de Inversión en Infraestructura) y la denuncia de la relación de la empresa de incineración con la corrupción y la contaminación
Recursos: Documento del proyecto del AIIB, artículo sobre el caso en AIIB Observer
Miembros involucrados: Miembros en Indonesia, Malasia, Filipinas, Singapur, Tailandia y Vietnam, China y Hong Kong, GAIA Asia-Pacífico
PROPUESTA DE PLANTA DE GENERACIÓN DE ENERGÍA A PARTIR DE RESIDUOS EN TE AWAMATU
Te Awamatu, Aotearoa Nueva Zelanda
Año de cierre/suspensión: 2025
Factores clave para el éxito: Oposición pública con más de 900 comentarios por escrito + sólidos testimonios de expertos en contra de la planta durante las audiencias de la Junta
Gran participación comunitaria
Excelente formación de una coalición entre la comunidad, los maoríes y las organizaciones ambientales
Pruebas periciales relevantes y altamente calificadas en las audiencias
Recursos:
Sitio web de la campaña, presentación de GAIA
Llamado a enviar observaciones al proyecto de incinerador de Te Awamatu https://zerowaste.co.nz/action-alert-make-a-submission-on-the-te-awamutu-incinerator/
Miembros que participaron en la victoria: Zero Waste Aotearoa, Regeneration Not Incineration
PROPUESTA DE LA INSTALACIÓN DE RECUPERACIÓN DE MAPO
Mapo-gu, Corea del Sur
Año de cierre/suspensión: 2026
Factores clave del éxito: Creación de una alianza para luchar contra esta propuesta de incinerador.
La determinación de los residentes y una sólida organización comunitaria: la feroz oposición y la persistencia de la comunidad fueron la fuerza impulsora que mantuvo la campaña hasta el final.
Victoria en el litigio: La comunidad ganó una demanda al revelar fallas procesales.
Amplia solidaridad de la sociedad civil: la campaña construyó una amplia coalición que se extendió más allá del grupo de residentes, reuniendo a residentes, organizaciones de la sociedad civil y la oficina del distrito local.
Recursos: La ciudad de Seúl descarta el plan de la planta incineradora de Mapo-gu https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2026/03/03/D2EWSGFRPVEDZH6R5PJZWZY26E/
Miembros que participaron en la victoria: Mapo Resource Circulation Network
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APROXIMADAMENTE 200 INCINERADORES
Varias ubicaciones, Reino Unido
Año de cierre: desde 2007
Factor clave del éxito: Los logros de los activistas pueden atribuirse a muchos factores, entre ellos:
- El uso de argumentos basados en hechos y respaldados por evidencia, incluyendo los daños causados por la incineración de residuos
- El asesoramiento, la orientación y el apoyo para establecer contactos por parte de una red sin fines de lucro consolidada: UKWIN
- Una fuerte y sostenida oposición pública que se traduce en el respaldo político de los funcionarios locales
Estudio de caso y recursos:
Act Locallyhttps://ukwin.org.uk/files/pdf/BiIG-success-for-Buttington.pdf
From concerned locals to national change: How Dovesdale Action Group built power and won Why Oppose IncinerationMiembros que participaron en el logro: UKWIN, comunidades locales, organizaciones asociadas y redes aliadas
INCINERADORA MUNICIPAL DE RESIDUOS
Skalica, Eslovaquia
Año de cierre o suspensión: 2026
Factores clave del éxito:
- Monitoreo temprano y recopilación de información: dar seguimiento a los avances en la gestión de residuos y recopilar información sobre el proyecto desde el inicio del proceso de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental (EIA), lo que permitió a los activistas contar con tiempo suficiente para comprender la propuesta y responder de manera efectiva.
- Identificar y empoderar a los residentes locales afectados: encontrar personas activas en la comunidad que pudieran verse directamente afectadas por el proyecto, involucrarlas a través de reuniones públicas y campañas de información, y apoyarlas para que se convirtieran en defensores locales clave.
- Brindar apoyo constante por parte de las ONG y los expertos: crear un foro en el que las ONG y los expertos puedan explicar el proyecto y sus posibles impactos a los residentes, las autoridades locales y los defensores de la comunidad, al tiempo que se haga hincapié en la paciencia y la perseverancia necesarias para mantener la campaña a largo plazo.
Recursos:
Puedes encontrar más información sobre nuestra lucha conjunta aquí:
Artículos relevantes:
Spaľovne? Po skládkovaní druhé najhoršie riešenie! Spaľovanie odpadov je škodlivým prežitkomhttp://skalickyobzor.sk/cms/zo-skalickej-spalovne-je-medzinarodny-skandal/
http://skalickyobzor.sk/cms/podme-porovnat-oba-varianty-likvidacie-odpadu-ceh-zevo-kontra-mbu/
http://skalickyobzor.sk/cms/je-dokazane-uz-dnes-spalujeme-skalicky-odpad-v-cementarni-v-rohozniku/
Miembros que participaron en la victoria: la comunidad local, Priatelia Zeme – SPZ (Amigos de la Tierra – SPZ)
INCINERADORA ALIMENTADA CON RDF
Pavlikeni, Bulgaria
Año de cierre/suspensión: 2026
Factores clave del éxito:
Una comunidad local unida y el apoyo de las empresas locales: los residentes se unieron más allá de sus diferencias para proteger el ambiente limpio de la región, las tierras agrícolas fértiles y la calidad de vida, y las empresas locales también respaldaron la campaña.
Sólidos conocimientos técnicos, legales y científicos: abogados, biólogos, ecologistas y otros expertos técnicos aportaron conocimientos fundamentales, mientras que la organización ambientalista Za Zemiata apoyó la campaña con su experiencia y capacidad legal.
Una movilización pública sin precedentes y una perseverancia constante: más de 20.000 personas de la región firmaron una petición, lo que generó una gran atención mediática y demostró una fuerte oposición pública. Cuatro años de batallas legales requirieron una perseverancia constante, mientras que la demanda exitosa de Za Zemiata contra la incineradora de Sofía ayudó a mantener la esperanza de que la campaña pudiera tener éxito.
Recursos:
<ESTUDIO DE CASO PRÓXIMAMENTE>
Miembros involucrados: Za Zemiata, comunidad afectada, red de aliados
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PLANTA DE INCINERACIÓN A GRAN ESCALA DE DRAKENSTEIN
Drakenstein, Sudáfrica
Año en que se detuvo el proyecto: 2016
Factor clave del éxito: Las comunidades y organizaciones locales se opusieron al proyecto de incineración a gran escala propuesto, de 25 millones de dólares, incluyendo preocupaciones en torno a la participación de empresas extranjeras y la Agencia de Comercio y Desarrollo de EE. UU.
Recursos:
Organizaciones que participaron en la victoria: Drakenstein Environmental Watch (DEW), Asociación de Wellington contra la Incineradora (WAAI), groundWork, la Asociación Sudafricana de Recicladores (SAWPA), GAIA y los residentes de la comunidad
PROYECTO DE GENERACIÓN DE ENERGÍA A PARTIR DE RESIDUOS EN MAURICIO
La Chaumière, Mauricio
Factor clave del éxito: Poner de relieve la incompatibilidad de la planta de conversión de residuos en energía Gamma Covanta, de 300.000 toneladas, en una isla donde aproximadamente el 70% de los residuos son residuos verdes y de cocina.
Recursos: https://www.lalitmauritius.org/en/newsarticle/843/the-la-chaumire-waste-to-energy-project-criticized/
Miembros que participaron en la victoria: Collectif des Opposants a l’Incineration de Déchets, DION y groundWork
PLANTA DE INCINERACIÓN A GRAN ESCALA
Johannesburgo, Sudáfrica
Año de cierre o suspensión: 2013
Factor clave del éxito: Reconocer y seguir el ejemplo de los 500 recicladores de base, poniendo sus voces y sus medios de vida en el centro de la campaña.
Recursos: Marcha contra la destrucción de empleos por la energía sucia
Miembros involucrados: SAWPA, groundWork y la Alianza Internacional de Recolectores de Residuos (IAWP)
PLANTA DE PIROLISIS DE NEUMÁTICOS DE OGIJO (ALTO PERFIL TECNOLÓGICO)
Ogijo, Nigeria
Año de cierre o suspensión: 2025
Factores clave del éxito: La ciencia ciudadana que llenó el vacío en los datos oficiales para documentar la contaminación cerca de la planta de quema de residuos.
Recursos:
Informe «Clearing the Air»
Miembros involucrados en la victoria: Comunidades afectadas, Green Knowledge Foundation
¿Te sientes inspirado para actuar en tu comunidad?Comienza con el documento «Cómo las comunidades pueden rechazar la incineración y ganar» y la guía comunitaria «Incineración de residuos: lo básico», y conoce las incineradoras que aún amenazan a las comunidades en el «Burn Book» de GAIA. Luego, únete a la Semana Global de Acción para Detener la Incineración.
The post CUANDO LAS COMUNIDADES GANAN, EL MUNDO GANA. first appeared on GAIA.
Council warned against unlawful Horse Hill approval
A legal letter from a campaigner has warned Surrey County Council that approval of drilling and production at the Horse Hill oil site would be unlawful.
Horse Hill, Surrey, January, 2026. Photo: Goldman Environmental PrizeThe site, near Redhill, was stripped of its planning permission in a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in June 2024. The court said the original permission granted in 2019 was unlawful because it failed to assess the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the end-use of the oil.
Oil production has been suspended since October 2024.
The site operator, Horse Hill Developments Limited (HHDL), it is now seeking to reinstate the permission. If granted, this would allow the company to drill four new production wells and extract 600,000 tonnes of oil over 20 years.
Use of the oil would release about two million tonnes of greenhouse gases, HHDL has estimated in new environmental information.
Dennis May, a member of Frack Free Misson who supported the Supreme Court case by Sarah Finch and the Weald Action Group, is the latest campaigner to oppose the application. (More details here and here)
In a letter from the law firm, Leigh Day, he argues:
- The assessment of emissions from the use of the oil was “so flawed” that permission could not lawfully be granted under the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations.
- The proposal contravened local planning policy, including the influential development plan, because it had not demonstrated the need for more drilling and production. The plans would also have “a significant adverse effect on the climate”.
- The proposal was not supported by national policy
The letter concluded:
“The Proposed Development is contrary to Development Plan policy, will have no guaranteed benefits for national energy security, receives no national policy support, and will have a major adverse impact on the climate.
“For all of these reasons permission should be refused. A decision to grant consent, on the basis of the information currently before the Council, would be unlawful, irrational and in breach of the EIA Regulations.”
Core fuelHHDL had characterised the project as a “core fuel sector” activity under the Energy Act 2023. This seeks to maintain and improve core fuel sector resilience and ensure continuity of supply in the UK.
But Mr May’s letter said projects for the commercial extraction of crude oil were not included in the statutory definition of the core fuel sector. The letter said:
“HHD issimply wrong in law in its assertion that the activity is wihtin the core fuel sector regime”.
It added:
“HHD is wrong to seek to conflate its project for the commercial extraction of crude oil with the powers of the Secretary of State to safeguard downstream core fuel supplies.”
Climate impactThe company had also argued in the new information that the emissions from use of the oil would be “not significant” for climate change and that drilling and production at Horse Hill would contribute to national energy security.
Mr May’s letter said there was “no credible basis for suggesting the impact on the climate would not be significant”.
HHDL’s assessment of the climate impacts was “deeply flawed”, the letter said. Methods used to give context to the significance of the emissions did not follow relevant guidance and/or were misleading, it said.
The letter added
“When the correct principles are applied it is absolutely obvious that the grant of permission for new oil and gas development … will have a major adverse effect on the climate.
“The applicant’s scattergun calculations may make it difficult to establish the precise magnitude of the effect with confidence, but it will self-evidently be significant in EIA terms. Any suggestion to the contrary is smoke and mirrors.”
“The FEI [further environmental information] submitted by HHD is logically unsound and legally inadequate. On that basis alone, permission for the proposed development should be refused.”
Policy supportThe letter said HHDL was wrong to argue that the application benefitted from “active national policy support” in the National Policy Statement for Energy
It said the statement did not support the argument that new oil and gas extraction should be considered as infrastructure for which there was an urgent need.
Mr May countered any argument that the application was not for new oil and gas infrastructure. He said previous lawful planning permissions at Horse Hill had been for exploration and appraisal, not production. The first permission for production had been quashed by the Supreme Court.
The revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – the blueprint for decision-making – removed the previous positive weight given to the economic benefits of onshore oil and gas development, the letter added. The NPPF also removed the requirement on decision-makers to “plan positively” for onshore oil and gas.
Decision dateNo date has been confirmed for deciding the Horse Hill application.
But Surrey County Council told us today the January 2027 meeting of the planning committee was “currently looking the most likely”.
This meeting is expected to be on Wednesday 27 January 2027 at 10.30am. The committee usually meets in the council chamber at county council headquarters, Woodhatch Place, 11 Cockshot Hill, Reigate, Surrey, RH2 8EF.
energy B deal on Horse Hill
energy B has announced an agreement that would give it total control of the suspended Horse Hill oil site in Surrey.
Horse Hill oil site in Surrey. Source: Google Earth downloaded 21/7/2026In a stock market statement this morning, the company said it had agreed to buy the remaining stakes in Horse Hill, held by Arkadian Strategic Metals plc and Azzuro Resources.
The deals will cost a total of £167,748, energy B said.
In June 2026, energy B agreed to buy the majority interest in the site, near Gatwick Airport, then held by UK Oil & Gas plc (UKOG).
Today’s announcement would give energy B full ownership of the operator, Horse Hill Developments Limited (HHDL), the company said.
All three deals must be approved by the industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA).
Energy B said formal application for the change of control was made to the NSTA on 30 September 2026.
DrillOrDrop recently asked NSTA whether the deal with UK Oil & Gas had been approved. The regulator said it could not comment on individual cases.
Production haltedOil production at Horse Hill has been suspended since October 2024. This followed the landmark Finch ruling by the Supreme Court, which quashed planning permission at the site.
The court ruled that the consent had been granted unlawfully in 2019. The decision-maker, Surrey County Council, had failed to assess the greenhouse gas emissions from using Horse Hill oil, known as downstream or scope 3 emissions.
HHDL submitted a new planning application in May 2026 for further drilling and long-term oil production at Horse Hill.
The application has been widely criticised by environmental campaigners, particularly over the assessment of scope 3 emissions. (Details here and here.)
Surrey County Council suggested today that a decision on the Horse Hill plans would not be made in 2026. A spokesperson said the date of the deciding planning committee meeting had not been confirmed but January 2027 was “currently looking the most likely”. More details
Neil Ritson, chief executive of energy B, said today:
“These minority interest buyout agreements are important to us as they will give us day to day control of the Gatwick energy site going forward. This will allow us to streamline our approach to the future field development and in dealing with the UK Government and regulators.
“We hope to restart production at the site early 2027 but timing depends on the discussions that are ongoing with the Surrey Country Council and the field’s planning amendments that are currently before them.”
Fundraisingenergy B also said it had received firm commitments to raise £100,000 in share issues.
These include a £50,000 conditional subscription from the company’s chair, David Lenigas.
He said today:
“Consolidating our ownership of the Gatwick energy site into one single entity under energy B paves the way to reopen the site and supply British oil and gas to the British market.
“Historically, all of the oil from Gatwick has gone to the Fawley refinery near Southampton. It is the largest refinery in the UK, and it supplies about a fifth of the nation’s refinery capacity.
“Around 85% of its products travel to five distribution terminals plus, Heathrow, Gatwick and Birmingham airports. The oil from HH-1 also goes into the mix for Fawley’s dedicated jet fuel pipelines to the major airports.
“The Gatwick energy site can again be a home-grown contributor to Britain’s energy security.”
The case for a more sustainable tire that comes apart on purpose
Researchers in Spain have shown that a modular tire in which tread and casing are designed as separate pieces stays together while in use, provided that it’s properly inflated.
“This is an encouraging step toward a more sustainable tire architecture, where the worn tread could potentially be replaced while the main tire structure is reused,” says study team member Farshad Afshari, a PhD researcher at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)..
A modular automobile tire could be easier to recycle compared to conventional ones, which require time- and labor-intensive separation of rubber treads and sidewalls from steel belts and bead cores. It would also use materials more efficiently, since there would be less material to replace at any given time.
A modular tire could also be better for the environment. Conventional rubber tires are a prominent source of microplastic pollution because tiny rubber particles degrade due to friction and enter the air and waterways. But the modular design could open up the possibility of making each component of the tire from safer and more easily recyclable materials.
It’s a compelling idea in theory, but would the components of a modular tire actually stay together in practice?
Afshari and his collaborators built a scaled-down prototype of their ECOTIRE modular tire concept, in which tread and casing are mechanically interlocked through a series of bumps and hollows like the two halves of a waffle iron.
They tested the tire on a custom-built rolling test rig in the lab to see how the tire would fare while varying parameters such as load, turning radius, inflation pressure, and slip. This last component is a source of mechanical stress induced by driving conditions such as braking and cornering.
.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Researchers devise a unique upcycling use for old tires: Producing drinking water.
“Our research shows that a tire with a replaceable tread can maintain a stable mechanical connection during rolling, even under demanding slip conditions, without relying on adhesives or permanent bonding,” Afshari says.
“One particularly interesting observation was how strongly inflation pressure influenced the stability of the connection,” he adds. At normal inflation pressure, the tire’s components stayed together under all conditions tested. But at half the normal pressure, the tread and casing could separate, especially under a combination of high load, tight rolling radius, and greater slip conditions.
The researchers tested the tire for over 12,000 revolutions, equivalent to more than 7 kilometers. At the end of the experiment there was no indication of wear and tear on the tread or the rest of the tire—promising albeit preliminary evidence of the tire’s durability.
In the prototype, both tread and casing are made from silicone rubber, but the researchers anticipate using a different material in eventual manufactured tires.
“The next major steps include developing full-scale prototypes using materials representative of commercial tires and evaluating their performance under more realistic driving conditions,” Afshari reports. “This would involve braking and traction forces, transient maneuvers, temperature variations, road irregularities, and long-term fatigue and wear.” Head-to-head tests with conventional tires will be another key milestone further down the road.
Source: García-Pozuelo D. et al. “Measurement of rolling stability and slip angle effects on a modular ECOTIRE.” Measurement 2026.
Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine.
Horse Hill decision unlikely in 2026
The decision on plans for drilling and long-term oil production at the Horse Hill oil site in Surrey is unlikely to be made this year (2026).
DrillOrDrop asked Surrey County Council when the application was likely to be considered by its planning committee. The council told us this morning:
“The January [2027] meeting is currently looking the most likely but is still to be confirmed”.
The January 2027 meeting is likely to be on Wednesday 27 January 2027 at 10.30am. The committee usually meets in the council chamber at county council headquarters, Woodhatch Place, 11 Cockshot Hill, Reigate, Surrey, RH2 8EF.
ApplicationThe application, by the site operator, Horse Hill Developments Limited (HHDL), seeks permission to drill four new production wells and extract oil for 20 years.
A previous permission for the work, granted in 2019, was quashed by the Supreme Court in the landmark Finch Ruling in June 2024.
The court said the permission had been unlawful because Surrey County Council failed to consider the climate impact of emissions from using Horse Hill oil.
Oil production at the site has been suspended since October 2024.
HHDL submitted a new application to reinstate permission in May 2026. It was published in mid June 2026.
Since then, environmental campaigners have objected to the application, particularly its claims that there would be “no significant” impact on climate change or that it had national policy support.
The most recent criticism warned the county council that approval of the application would be unlawful. Report coming soon.
- energy B, the company which agreed to buy the majority stake in HHDL, announced today a deal to buy the remaining share. More details soon.
Correction: January meeting of Surrey’s planning meeting is on Wednesday 27 January 2027 (not 2026 as previously stated)
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