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The Congo Basin is one of the few places on Earth where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has failed to track the long-term shift in extreme heat and rainfall. The reason is a lack of readily available data. To fill this gap, scientists have digitized thousands of handwritten weather records, which reveal the impact of warming in the region. 

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Peak outages numbered approximately 950,000. Utilities said grid modernization efforts kept more customers from losing power and sped service restoration for those who did. FPL said its underground lines performed eight times better than overhead ones.

As the oil blockade cripples Cuba’s farms and food supply, the island is becoming a stark preview of what happens when fossil-fuel dependent agriculture collides with geopolitical and climate instability, and a powerful illustration of why an agroecological transition is becoming increasingly necessary.

In recent months, scenes from Cuba have become increasingly stark as access to energy, food, and water has become a daily struggle for most. The immediate trigger is fuel scarcity resulting from the de facto oil blockade imposed by the Trump administration since January 2026. But conditions on the island have been deteriorating for years, exacerbated by the decades-long blockade by the United States coupled with domestic structural challenges. Cuba, like most countries, depends heavily on imported oil to power its electricity grid, transport goods, and sustain its food system.

For ordinary Cubans, the consequences are dire. The state rationing system, once a pillar of food security, now covers only a small fraction of household needs. Market alternatives exist, but inflation has pushed them beyond the reach of many households. The average monthly wage is roughly US$20; a carton of eggs can cost half that. Food insecurity and malnutrition are no longer isolated concerns. They are becoming widespread.

Domestic food production has fallen for years. Staples such as rice, maize, and beans remain well below national demand. Farmers face acute shortages of diesel, fertilizer, animal feed, and spare parts. The consequences ripple across the food chain: land goes unploughed, irrigation systems sit idle, harvests are delayed, transport networks seize up, and food spoils before reaching consumers.

Today’s crisis is not a temporary disruption. It is part of a structural polycrisis in which energy scarcity, economic contraction, climate instability, and demographic decline reinforce one another. Cuba’s food system is not simply experiencing a bad moment. It is confronting the limits of fossil-fuel-dependent agriculture in an era of permanent instability.

Many proposed solutions—import more food, revive export-oriented industrial agriculture, restore fuel flows—remain trapped within the same agricultural paradigm that exposes it to crisis. They offer relief, but not resilience.

But Cuba’s story is not only one of crisis. It is also one of adaptation and resilience—and of a path not fully taken.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, Cuba abruptly lost access to fuel, fertilizers, and imported food. In response, the country embarked on an ambitious agroecological transformation.

Land was redistributed to cooperatives and family farmers who now manage more than 70 percent of agricultural land. Urban gardens spread through cities. Farmer-to-farmer networks trained more than 200,000 farming families in agroecological methods.

For a time, Cuba became a global symbol of what post-fossil-fuel agriculture might look like.

However, the transition remained incomplete.

As economic conditions improved intermittently, policymakers often shifted back toward conventional industrial agriculture. Agroecology was never fully institutionalized as the foundation of the food system. Instead, it was treated as an emergency substitute: embraced in crisis, sidelined in recovery.

That cyclical approach left Cuba with an unfinished transformation—and a food system still deeply vulnerable to external shocks.

Today, the constraints facing all types of farmers are immense. Beyond fuel shortages, they lack tools, seeds, equipment, refrigeration, processing facilities, and reliable transportation. Credit is scarce. Decades of outmigration have weakened the social fabric of rural areas. Bureaucratic hurdles remain high, and a centralized economy, coupled with state monopolies, leads to inefficiencies and stifles innovation. An estimated 40 percent of food produced in Cuba is lost before reaching consumers due to failures in harvesting, storage, transport, and processing.

And yet the productive potential remains considerable.

Critics often dismiss agroecology as idealistic or insufficiently productive. Yet the evidence increasingly points the other way. Global governance institutions now recognize agroecology as a comprehensive solution that goes beyond organic farming to redesign food systems around biodiversity, local knowledge, human health, and democratic governance, aiming to build resilience, equity, and local control rather than simply growing food differently.

Diversified agroecological farms in Cuba can produce around 7 tons of nutritious food per hectare annually—enough to meet the caloric and protein needs of roughly eight people. Scaling such systems across 200,000 family farms—covering just over two million hectares of the more than six million hectares of arable land—could enable Cuba to meet its national food requirements, with potential surpluses for tourism and export.

Recent reforms suggest renewed support for local agroecological food systems. Cuba’s 2022 Food Sovereignty Law and 2025 Agroecology Decree provide a framework for decentralizing food governance and supporting municipal food planning. But implementation remains uneven. After decades of centralized administration, many local governments lack the capacity and institutional culture needed to manage participatory, territorial food systems.

In June 2026, the government approved a package of 176 economic measures that open much of the economy to private actors. In July, it followed with a new Agricultural and Forestry Land Law that allows land rights to be inherited and transferred and opens idle state land to private businesses and foreign investors. Other new regulations give cooperatives the right to import inputs, export directly, set their own prices, form second-tier cooperatives, and partner with foreign investors. Decree-Law 161/2026 ends mandatory state intermediaries, lets supply and demand set prices, and creates an Agricultural Bank to finance the sector.

For cooperatives and family farmers, these changes could bring autonomy, fairer prices, access to credit, and secure land tenure. Second-tier cooperatives could pool resources for shared infrastructure, credit, and markets. But none of these measures explicitly prioritize agroecology. Without safeguards, they could concentrate land and capital in the hands of larger commercial players and pull production toward export and tourism markets instead of local food needs.

If agroecology is to move beyond rhetoric, it will require sustained investment in seed systems, irrigation systems, decentralized biofertilizer production, small- and medium-scale storage and processing facilities, transportation infrastructure, and renewable energy (solar, biodigesters, and wind turbines).

It will also require supporting the social infrastructure of transformation—farmer training, cooperative management, peer-learning networks, participatory governance, and local enterprises. And a rebalancing of roles across public institutions, new non-state actors, and civil society—each of which has a part to play in rebuilding a more resilient food system.

Funding that transition will require more than state spending or donor aid. Cuba must diversify its financing ecosystem – drawing on diaspora investment, impact capital, justice-oriented funds, climate finance, and local development banking alongside public and multilateral funds. But attracting that investment will require clearer rules, less bureaucracy, and more predictable economic governance. And of course, an end to the debilitating web of unilateral coercive measures imposed by the US for more than 60 years.

Done well, such investment could create rural jobs, reduce food waste, strengthen local economies, lower import dependence, and improve climate resilience—all while keeping wealth circulating within communities rather than flowing outward.

The lesson is clear. In a world of tightening constraints, resilience will not come from securing more oil and fossil-fuel fertilizers and pesticides. It will come from needing less of it.

For Cuba, that means embracing a transition already underway within its own agricultural traditions: toward agroecology, toward local production, and ultimately toward food sovereignty grounded in the strength of local ecosystems and communities.

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Photo courtesy of Leidy Casimiro

The post Op-Ed | Blockade Against Cuba Exposes the Fragility of the Global Food System appeared first on Food Tank.

After years of stagnation under the Biden administration, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has been revitalized with a series of recent primary electoral victories. The Democratic Party establishment collapsed after Kamala Harris’s disastrous presidential campaign, which allowed democratic socialists and progressives to emerge as prominent leaders in the mainstream opposition to Trumpism. Zohran Mamdani’s unexpected mayoral primary win and follow-up general election victory against disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo put the establishment’s fragility on full display, inspiring several other successful “insurgent” campaigns since last year.

At the same time, the problems that contributed to DSA’s stagnation in the early 2020s are resurfacing. Mayor Mamdani, Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and other prominent democratic socialists are distancing themselves from ‘radical’ commitments like defunding the police by labeling it “woke 1.0” craziness, even though DSA’s national platform commits to abolishing police and prisons. This certainly wasn’t the first time DSA officeholders contradicted the group’s proclaimed goals, but by embracing the amorphous label of wokeness as a pejorative, this time they also aligned with the wider right-wing campaign against free speech and public education.

By embracing the amorphous label of wokeness as a pejorative, this time DSA officeholders also aligned with the wider right-wing campaign against free speech and public education.

Writers and caucuses on the right wing of DSA were quick to defend Mamdani and AOC. Ben Burgis at Jacobin accused critics of putting “radical-sounding but half-baked ideas” onto a pile, then pointlessly defending them even when they’re “unpopular” and “genuinely poorly thought-out,” simply to out-Left others. Eric Blanc, another Jacobin writer, is quoted by Burgis saying:

It’s frankly just a mistake that the national DSA took certain positions that are both marginalizing for us in the short term and just politically wrong even in the long term… In what world does it make sense, if our goal is to organize millions of people and to overcome the Democratic establishment and to defeat Trumpism, to take a position that you know is just going to give fuel to your opponents, and for which there’s no practical upshot right now? Taking that sort of doctrinaire ideological position seems to me a reflection of a lack of experience and a lack of engagement in mass politics.

In short, Blanc and Burgis are suggesting that it is not the officeholders’ “mass politics” that need correcting; it’s their critics’ “political instincts.” They shrug off the reality that ‘woke’ and initially unpopular movements like Black Lives Matter or Abolish ICE inspired millions of people to protest against state violence toward working-class people of color. These movements pushed a large share of young working-class people of color to embrace revolutionary abolitionist ideas en masse and inspired others to get involved in political or labor organizing.6More than 20 percent of Democrats supported abolishing the police and 34 percent supported defunding it in 2021. These might be minority positions but it took one year for them to be adopted by millions while it took hundreds of DSA campaigns and millions of dollars for a third of Democrats to support socialism in 2026. See https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-a-third-of-democrats-now-identify-as-democratic-socialists

So is it just wokeness to oppose workers being mandated to fund the high-tech repression campaigns run by various armed state agencies? What makes DSA’s electoral approach democratic or socialist if grassroots activists must be accountable to their rightward-drifting officeholders, and not to the working-class movements they belong to? DSA leaders criticize the limits of democracy under capitalism, but in what ways does their strategy challenge the capitalistic and technocratic logics of electoral campaigning?

Anti-wokeness and electoralism

Wokeness, a term coined by Black activists to raise awareness of racial injustices, is now a right-wing pejorative used by elites to dismiss movements for social justice. Identity politics, critical race theory, diversity, equity, and inclusion have served similar purposes for right-wing witch-hunts across U.S. public institutions in recent years. McCarthyite taboos around these terms were reinforced by right-wingers, centrists, and some ‘leftists’ to rally reactionary forces against movements like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and Abolish ICE in various institutional settings since the 2010s. For the purposes of this piece, I use ‘wokeness’ here descriptively—not as praise or condemnation—but to name the set of demands around abolition, racial justice, and opposition to carceral institutions that have been dismissed by electoralists as politically inconvenient.

The leftmost version of anti-wokeness has become influential in DSA and Jacobin since 2020. Adolph Reed was the initial figurehead of a movement centered on accusing George Floyd protestors of embracing ‘professional managerial class’ privilege and an identitarian outlook that is antithetical to working-class politics. Since Reed, other anti-woke Leftists like Burgis have taken the mantle. Anti-wokeness allows its proponents to rationalize the de facto deprioritization of oppression struggles, deprioritizing campaigns against repressive state policies that disproportionately impact women, people of color, and queer people. Anti-woke writers and activists argue that because large sections of the working class hold ‘culturally’ conservative attitudes on these issues, wokeness is a political liability in organizing workers, particularly around electoral campaigns.

Yet in the explosive moments that woke movements dominated news cycles, socialists like Mamdani and AOC had embraced woke demands like defunding the police and abolishing ICE, even when their popularity remained far from universal even within DSA and the Left. DSA officeholders only became less vocal about ICE deportations and U.S. support for Israel under the Biden administration. But more recently, DSA electeds re-embrace some woke policies, as boycotting Israel and abolishing ICE became much more popular through the uprisings that involved participation by DSA members.

This flip-flopping on wokeness is a byproduct of the electoralist logic embraced by right-wing DSA caucuses that make up DSA’s leadership majority (Groundwork, Socialist Majority, North Star, and the right-wing of Bread and Roses). Electoralism refers not to electoral participation itself but to the logic that treats elections as the primary or exclusive mechanism for building working-class power. Right-wing DSA caucuses view electoral campaigns as the vehicle for a legislative transition to socialism, and these ideas have dominated the largest chapters of DSA throughout both waves of DSA’s growth (2016-20, 2025-now). Given the limited time and resources electoral campaigns have, electoralists argue that DSA must prioritize organizing universalist reforms, such as Medicare for All or the much more amorphous “affordability agenda,” at the expense of ‘woke’ demands like defunding the police or abolishing ICE. DSAers who have tried to reframe this (unnecessary) contradistinction by advocating for progressive redistribution of police funds have had an uphill battle within DSA, with electoralist leadership factions gaining more influence from wins while pushing against efforts that center demands they deem too woke.

Electoralism became the dominant approach in DSA because the group’s growth came from its chapters’ involvement in Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaigns and their more localized successors. Electoralist caucuses grew more rapidly because they were the ones primarily recruiting cadres through these campaigns. Many of these organizers had already internalized the logic of electoralism and believed Sanders provided the opening we need to take advantage of in the absence of strong workers’ movements.

However, for most members, electoralism has not been a stepping stone toward becoming more active in DSA or getting involved in other organizing. Most DSA members (70–80%) are not active in the day-to-day activity of their chapters outside of elections. Electoralist caucuses reinforce this dynamic by moving decisions about political direction to caucus spaces or online and only bringing major questions back to members in their chapters when they can outnumber the opposition or limit the scope of discussion. As a result, there is very little reason to attend chapter meetings in many DSA chapters beyond just getting updates on campaigns that are ongoing elsewhere.

Other critical currents (Marxist Unity, Reform and Revolution, left-wing of Bread and Roses, various anarchists and popular frontists) position themselves further to the Left by identifying electoral wins as reflections of movement power, but not as mechanisms of class power. The DSA-left is also involved in electoral campaigns, but it defends holding endorsed officeholders  “accountable.” Nevertheless, these groups rarely agree on what accountability should mean. The disagreements around how to enforce accountability policies have fragmented the Left for years, undermining its ability to end an ongoing de facto non-accountability policy.

AOC and Mamdani, who rode the waves of radicalization generated by grassroots movements to abolish ICE, defund the police, and end the Israeli genocide, embraced anti-wokeness in this context where they are aware that DSA currently has no enforced accountability mechanism to pressure them and that DSA needs them more than they need the organization.

What’s so bad about electoralism?

While anti-woke stances might help electoralists and officeholders reach their short-term aims under certain conditions, embracing these stances is fundamentally anti-solidaristic. Discounting movements that center the rights of oppressed communities moves the socialist movement away from the long-term goal of building strong and democratic working-class organizations that can challenge and overturn capitalist rule. DSA’s leading factions’ alliances with officeholders ultimately limit the organization’s willingness and ability to stand up for independent working-class movements that might conflict with electoral imperatives.

These movements have been more central to DSA’s and the Left’s growth in recent years than electoralists give credit. Others have shown that DSA’s electoral successes have been more reliant on external movements, including Black Lives Matter, specifically the George Floyd protests, and Abolish ICE actions. These movements transformed mass consciousness in major cities, far more than any one group’s internal strategic decisions. They also created the space for DSA campaigns to present themselves as mechanisms to institutionalize movement gains. But when DSA leaders move right, the mass energy dissipates to be replaced by burnout and disillusionment. As a result, DSA had been stagnant for multiple years until the Palestine solidarity encampments revived grassroots energy and provided political foundations for the Mamdani campaign’s success by discrediting the Zionist establishment in New York and elsewhere.

The real question is how socialists can sustain working-class movements without falling into the dual traps of ultra-Left self-marginalization and electoralist compromises as exemplified by DSA officeholders.

The woke Left movements’ direct connection to DSA’s growth suggests that organizing outside of the electoral arena is not only important but essential to shifting class consciousness. This is not to say socialists should abstain from elections. Dismissing certain avenues of Left organizing as woke prevents socialists from building the mechanisms of working-class power that can pressure elected officials to act instead of waver. Even if some of these movements do not exclusively center the economic inequalities generated by capitalism, they show how repressive state institutions enable capitalist rule in oppressed communities. The real question is how socialists can help to sustain working-class movements without falling into the dual traps of ultra-Left self-marginalization and electoralist compromises as exemplified by DSA officeholders.

DSA and infrastructures of working-class dissent

There are at least three areas where electoralism limits the socialist movement’s ability to drive transformative change: labor organizing, community organizing, and internationalism. By prioritizing ties to officeholders at the expense of supporting bottom-up movements, DSA electoralists limit the group’s capacity to build independent infrastructures of dissent within working-class communities outside of elections.

DSA’s labor organizing work has contributed to some new union campaigns through the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), but so far EWOC has functioned autonomously from DSA’s much more visible electoral campaigns. In practice, this meant the group primarily functioned to direct workers to the relevant allied unions and organizations such as the CWA, UE, Workers United, Labor Notes, and others. Beyond EWOC, DSA’s local labor working groups and various bureaucratically run union-endorsed national labor campaigns were short-lived with only limited exceptions.

While there is no doubt that some labor activists in DSA hold broader conceptions of “class struggle unionism” and “rank-and-file strategy,” DSA’s outsourcing of labor activist training through EWOC depoliticizes the group’s overall approach to labor activism. The scope of EWOC and DSA labor work in general is limited by the priorities of electoralist leaders. Electoralists have to retain good relations with union leaders to get campaign endorsements and support for efforts like EWOC. The partial dependency of DSA on labor leaders’ endorsements and resources limits DSA’s ability to organize against leadership conservatism within unions.

At the neighborhood level (at least in NYC), DSA canvassers no doubt contribute to normalizing the socialist label, usually by equating socialism with redistributive demands. However, when it comes to organizing against landlords, police, ICE, and for trans people, people with disabilities, and immigrant workers, the organization’s leaders often take sectarian stances, insulting activists as “unsatisfiable” instead of fighting the policies that oppress working-class people. These stances often undermine the organization’s ability to retain activists from diverse communities, contributing to the outsized representation of white professionals from elite colleges in DSA membership and leadership.2NYC-DSA membership poll from this year shows that the group is 60 percent white and 12 percent Jewish with 63 percent of members participating. Most recently, NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo has been exposed for misrepresenting his home address and employment history to falsely claim being a tenant and a union member. This is not an inherently unresolvable problem, but the current practice of DSA provides little-to-no space for young organizers who do not prioritize electoral campaigns. Engaging with neighborhood-level activism like tenant unions, ICE-watch, or progressive diaspora organizations can allow the Left to recruit and develop cadres from more diverse backgrounds.

Finally, the electoralist dominance of DSA promotes very narrow and unprincipled conceptions of internationalism. While DSA moved toward a more pro-Palestine orientation in 2017, this did not mean consistent opposition to the Israeli occupation. Current NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo and others on the DSA-right defended then-Congressperson Jamaal Bowman, voting to dismantle the Palestine Solidarity Working Group after it had campaigned to censure Bowman in 2021. Bowman provoked this by voting to fund the Israeli Iron Dome and visiting Israel and the West Bank on a propaganda tour by the liberal Zionist political advocacy group J Street. The Palestine working group became subordinate to the International Committee, whose leadership is appointed by the DSA’s national leaders.

DSA’s International Committee (IC) also took a largely one-sided ‘campist’ position on the basis of opposing U.S. imperialism. The first major step in this direction was pushing the national organization to align with the São Paulo Forum in 2021. São Paulo Forum includes leaders of the Latin American center-left like the Brazilian Workers’ Party and Bolivian MAS, but also other authoritarian parties like Venezuela’s PSUV and Nicaragua’s Sandinista movement. By aligning with parties of government, DSA positioned itself against grassroots opposition movements in these and other countries. While defending these regimes against U.S. imperial interventions, independent of their political content, the IC remained skeptical of opposition movements in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Iran, as backing them could be perceived as U.S. imperial policy. The dismissal of the working-class agency in favor of alliances with ‘anti-imperialist’ regimes is anti-solidaristic, much like anti-wokeness, and it discourages DSA and U.S. Leftists from engaging with independent working-class struggles in these countries.

While there are disagreements in DSA on all these questions, the prevailing consensus has been to try to prioritize good relations with U.S. progressives and foreign heads of state, whether they be authoritarian, social democratic, or communist, even if that means ignoring or dismissing some independent workers’ movements.

The Roads to working class power through dissent

In this context, movement-focused forces on the socialist Left must prioritize building independent and democratic sources of power in workplaces, communities, and across borders to withstand the pull of electoralism and other forms of socialism from above like campism.

Recent surge of organizing among city workers, public school teachers, higher education workers, nurses and services point toward some sectors with openings where socialists can contribute to the formation of a new militant minority. These efforts could help socialists move beyond a referral model of labor organizing by building rank-and-file committees in key bargaining units. Promoting socialist and solidaristic abolitionist views against repressive policies is essential there not only on moral grounds, but on tactical grounds if we want to redirect the trillions of dollars that go to the military, police, ICE, and other armed forces of capitalist rule.

Community-level organizing among immigrant workers against police violence, ICE, brutal working conditions in service jobs, and slumlords can also help us build ties with workers in more precarious jobs or living conditions. Precarious workers in low-income minority and immigrant neighborhoods must rely on community connections to sustain their lives in the absence of social welfare provisions. If we dismiss minority and immigrant workers’ more localized rebellions against state forces that are putting their boots on their necks, how can socialists expect to build an active majority of workers who fight for their own liberation?

If we do not build the democratic infrastructures of dissent across areas where workers can leverage power independently of electeds, our movement is bound to repeat the cycle of electoral ‘wins,’ reaction, and political disillusionment on the Left.

Finally, by positioning socialists as defenders of independent and democratic workers’ movements internationally and learning from limited precedents, socialists can help build solidarity networks across borders to develop foundations of cross-border actions. Some limited but meaningful examples of cross-border worker resistance emerged in response to the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, even in the face of political repression. If socialists waver on principled defenses of working-class democracy in all its diversity within and outside the U.S. to win votes, we are simply counterposing democracy in one country against that in another.

There is no doubt socialists have a long way to go building an international working-class movement capable of pushing back against capitalism’s increasingly authoritarian turn amid ecological collapse. While the growing popularity of socialism and progressive ideas is no doubt encouraging, the driver of the socialist movement cannot be the goodwill of elected officials. If we do not build the democratic infrastructures of dissent across areas where workers can leverage power independently of electeds, our movement is bound to repeat the cycle of electoral ‘wins,’ reaction, and political disillusionment on the Left.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: dbking; modified by Tempest.

The post Anti-Woke electoralism appeared first on Tempest.

Crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne each recently piled £36 million into Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s political party.

The story amplified recent scandals about the party’s donors, with scrutiny mounting over the funding of Farage and his outfit.

In light of these recent developments, DeSmog has taken a closer look at the financial interests of Reform’s donors, to understand which sectors have been backing the party and why they’re interested in bringing about a Farage government. 

Delo and Harborne made their money from the cryptocurrency sector, but DeSmog’s analysis shows that they – and Reform’s other major donors – have business ties spanning far beyond this one industry. 

Farage’s party has taken substantial amounts of money from members of the Sunday Times Rich List, fossil fuel interests, the landed gentry, property developers, offshore investors, and has been forced to return large sums to those who aren’t allowed to donate to UK parties.

Meanwhile, campaigners and MPs continue to push Andy Burnham’s Labour government to stop a few super wealthy individuals from bankrolling our political system. 

The Major Players

Excluding Reform’s new £72 million windfall, more than 72 percent of all recorded donations to the party since the 2024 election have come from just three people, including Delo and Harborne.

Harborne, who has lived in Thailand for 30 years and is worth £18 billion, is comfortably Reform’s biggest backer, having given £15 million to the party since the last general election (£47 million including his recent donation) and £25 million (£57 million) since the party’s launch in 2019. 

Harborne is also responsible for a controversial £5 million undeclared personal gift to Farage prior to the 2024 general election, which is the subject of an investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner.

Delo, co-founder and former executive of the crypto trading platform BitMEX, is behind a further £8 million, while venture capitalist David Grainger has given £1.4 million.

Major donations have also been received from Reform treasurer Nick Candy, and telecoms and fintech magnate Bassim Haidar, who have collectively donated a further £1.7 million since the last general election.

Billionaire venture capitalist Sasan Ghandehari has also pledged to donate millions to the party. Though these sums have yet to materialise, he has already given over £50,000 to Farage personally.

The Crypto Barons

If the new Delo and Harborne donations are deemed to be legal, Reform will have received 90 percent of its funding since the last general election from those with ties to the crypto industry. 

Harborne is a shareholder in Tether, the world’s largest ‘stablecoin’ provider, which is based in El Salvador. Tether is currently seeking an injection of private capital that would increase its value up to $500 billion – making Harborne one of the richest men in the world. 

The company has ties to Donald Trump’s U.S. administration and has reportedly benefitted from the crypto-friendly policies of his regime. 

Delo, meanwhile, is one of the co-founders of the crypto trading platform BitMEX. He was one of those who pled guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations for failing to establish and maintain an anti-money laundering scheme at the company. Delo was fined $10 million and served 30 months’ probation in Hong Kong, before later being pardoned by Trump. BitMEX was ultimately fined £100 million.

Reform UK donor and crypto billionaire Ben Delo.

Credit:
Jkhildreth / Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

But they aren’t the only Reform donors with an interest in the crypto industry. Farage’s backers also include Maria Rost, behind some £130,000 across nine donations to the party, who is understood to be the wife of U.S. crypto investor John Rost, as well as Oscar Townsley, founder of Bitcoin derivatives trading platform A1X, and London-based investor Simon William Smith. 

Farage has repeatedly lobbied for the industry, promising to bring about a “crypto revolution” if he becomes prime minister. He announced flagship proposals for unleashing the sector at the Bitcoin conference in May 2025 in Las Vegas, including tax breaks and government support, although the document has now vanished from the party’s website. 

Farage also lobbied the Bank of England to drop plans for a state-backed stablecoin, a move that would suit Harborne – his most generous patron – by blocking a rival to Tether.

Reform was until recently the only major political party in the UK to accept donations via cryptocurrencies, having been accused of using a third party to turn crypto into cash and obscuring the original funding source.

Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer introduced a temporary moratorium on crypto donations earlier this year, which campaigners say should become a permanent ban. 

Offshore Interests

As previously reported by DeSmog, a large part of Reform’s funding comes from those with offshore business interests.

Since the last general election, 57 percent of its income has been donated by individuals and companies featured in the Offshore Leaks database, which details information about more than 810,000 offshore companies, foundations, and trusts.

A large number of the party’s donors are also international investors – people or companies with significant financial interests abroad. In the second quarter of 2026, prior to the £72 million windfall, Reform received £5 million from 17 different international investors – including a Monaco-based former Lehman Brothers executive, an investment firm in business with the UAE, and a New York-based asset management firm linked to the owners of Chelsea Football Club.

The party has been embroiled in controversy after an undercover investigation by Verbatim Investigations, broadcast by Channel 4 in September, appeared to show the party conspiring to accept donations from foreign sources.

Two of Reform’s most senior figures have now resigned following the documentary, though both deny wrongdoing – as does the party. The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into whether any laws were broken.

Farage has previously said that he wants to win back high net worth individuals to the UK through a £250,000 “Britannia Card” that would allow wealthy foreigners to buy a 10-year residency permit and enter a special tax regime. Labour has called the policy a “billionaires bonanza” and tax experts have estimated it would cost the UK £35 billion over five years in lost revenue. 

Fossil Fuel Interests

As reported by DeSmog in April, Reform has received two-thirds of its funding to date, not including the £72 million, from fossil fuel interests. A further £2.4 million has been donated by individuals who have publicly disputed basic scientific facts about climate change. 

Harborne owns AML Global, which supplies aviation and maritime fuel to a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies”, according to its website.

The price of jet fuel has spiralled since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which would benefit Harborne’s business interests.

Although Harborne doesn’t deny climate science, and recently called the issue an “existential threat”, Reform’s senior figures frequently dispute the contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming and support the mass expansion of fossil fuel production in the UK. 

Fellow Reform donor Jeremy Hosking had $440.8 million (around £326.5 million) invested in oil and gas companies via his hedge fund Hosking Partners as of March – an increase of more than 50 percent from the previous three months. 

Meanwhile, Reform-controlled councils have been axing net zero commitments and stating their intention to withdraw from climate emergency declarations. Farage has claimed it’s “bonkers” for carbon dioxide to be considered a pollutant. 

Property Developers and Financiers

More than half (55 percent) of Reform’s corporate donors are connected to the construction, property, and development industries, which would stand to benefit substantially from the party’s policies. Of the 40 companies recorded as having donated to the party before June this year, 22 were involved in this sector. 

Reform’s 2024 manifesto promised to “unleash” housebuilding across the country and “restore landlords’ rights” by reducing their taxes. Reform’s housing spokesperson and deputy leader Richard Tice is a property industry millionaire, having run the Sunley Group, a company founded by his grandfather.

Reform treasurer Nick Candy is also a property magnate, having made his money selling luxury homes to the super rich. Candy recently sold his Chelsea mansion for £265 million – the most expensive residential property in UK history.

The party has also received extensive funding from financiers. Reform’s donors include hedge fund manager Johan Christofferson, who has given £200,000 to the party, the “vulture fund” Greybull Capital, and the disgraced City of London titan Crispin Odey. 

Although Farage has threatened to impose higher taxes on banks, he has also promised to deregulate the sector – including by removing regulation introduced after the 2008 financial crash.

Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy.

Credit: FII Institute / YouTube The Rich List

As recently reported by DeSmog, Reform’s donors include aristocratic families, the owners of exclusive London clubs, peers, and members of the landed gentry.

The annual Sunday Times Rich List acts as “the definitive guide to the wealth of the UK’s richest people”, cataloguing the country’s 350 most affluent individuals and families. The entries in the 2026 edition share a combined wealth of £784 billion. Nearly a third of them no longer live on the British mainland.

Four of Reform’s donors appear in this year’s list, two of whom appear in the top 10. 

Harborne ranks at number six, while the Reuben family – another Reform donor – sits at number two. The Reubens have donated to Reform through a private investment firm – Investors in Private Capital Limited – which is ultimately controlled by Omaha Business Holdings Corp, owned by the family and based in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven. 

Reform’s donor list also includes a number of old money backers. Among them is Fiona Cottrell – the daughter of Rupert Watson, 3rd Baron Manton. Under her maiden name, Fiona Watson, she was a former glamour model and one-time girlfriend of King Charles III when he was the Prince of Wales. 

Cottrell has given £500,000 to Reform via Britain Means Business, a company owned by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, and £750,000 directly to the party. The Metropolitan Police is currently investigating the majority of these donations. Cottrell has repeatedly declined to comment when approached by media outlets. 

Fiona’s son George Cottrell – nicknamed “Posh George” – is part of Farage’s inner cadre, having been UKIP’s head of fundraising and later Farage’s chief of staff. George, who was previously convicted of wire fraud after being arrested by undercover U.S. agents while attending the 2016 National Republican Convention with Farage, has also provided direct financial support to the Reform premier.

Cottrell helped to fund Farage’s anti-immigration campaign videos in 2023 and 2024, supplied him with security, and allowed the Reform leader to use an office in his five-storey London townhouse, which overlooks Buckingham Palace. Farage didn’t declare these gifts, and falsely claimed that he hasn’t received any support from George since being elected to Parliament.

Reform and policy advisers associated with the party have proposed reducing taxes for the wealthiest, paid for by dramatic reductions in state benefits for lower-paid workers and the disabled. 

Impermissible Donors

Another feature of Reform’s fundraising record is the vast number of impermissible donors who have attempted to give money to the party over its relatively short existence. 

Reform has been forced to return donations worth more than £295,000, on 83 occasions, since its founding in 2019. Farage’s party had to reject more unlawful donations in 2025 than any other party, including donations from Monaco, Jersey, and Germany. The party ultimately had to give back £200,000, and their benefactors made up 18 of the 23 donors turned away by UK politicians or parties during the year.

Labour’s Response

Labour is in the process of introducing a new law that would set a £100,000 annual limit on the amount that foreign donors can give to political parties. 

It’s unclear if Delo and Harborne’s latest donations will fall foul of the new rules, which are currently being debated by Parliament – given they have, at least until recently, been living in Hong Kong and Thailand respectively. 

However, in the meantime, campaigners and MPs are urging Burnham’s administration to strengthen the legislation by introducing a £100,000-a-year cap on all donations – including from those based in the UK.  

The government has been facing pressure from the trade union movement not to introduce a blanket cap, which would limit its extensive financial contributions to the Labour Party. 

After donating his latest £36 million, Delo said that he wants to create “a level playing field” between Reform and other major political parties. However, the data shows that his and Harborne’s donations would tip the scales heavily in Reform’s favour. 

Last year’s accounts for political parties, published by the Electoral Commission, revealed that Labour received £44.6 million, the Conservatives £30.9 million, and Reform £31.9 million. If Reform is able to receive the full £72 million, its 2026 income would likely be far ahead of the other parties. 

Delo also cited Labour’s income from trade unions as a reason for his philanthropy. However, since 2020, Labour has received almost £43 million from the unions – whereas, in roughly the same period, Delo and Harborne will have given over £100 million to Reform. 

What’s more, trade unions raise money from individual workers’ membership fees. The Trade Union Congress, a federation of trade unions across the UK, represents roughly 6.6 million people.

Speaking at the annual TUC conference in Brighton in September, its leader Paul Nowak said: “The evidence is clear: Reform UK is a party for sale. Nigel Farage is a politician for sale. And given half the chance, they’d sell our country down the river.

“Make no mistake, this is a crisis for our democracy. We cannot allow our political system to be captured by corporate interests.”

He said there was no similarity “between care workers chipping in a few quid a year through their union and a party bought and paid for by billionaires” – adding: “We need a proper conversation about how we clean up our politics that doesn’t push workers to the margins – but does stop the super-rich corrupting our politics.”

The post Who Funds Reform UK? The Business Interests of Nigel Farage’s Major Donors appeared first on DeSmog.

Compare spectrum, carrier and satellite options before choosing a connectivity model.

Regulators are raising the bar on what an inspection has to prove.

Piers Forster is Professor of Physical Climate Change and Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds. He has previously served as a lead author on several IPCC assessment reports.

Evidence of a rapidly changing climate and our improved scientific understanding is compelling nations to act, but not always in a good way. The science itself is facing well-organised obstruction.

The consequences of politicising the evidence are now more apparent than ever, especially in the run-up to a crucial intergovernmental climate meeting taking place in Addis Ababa this week.

On the agenda is a proposal that would prevent all governments from being able to use the most up-to-date analysis of options for combatting climate change at a critical stage in UN negotiations.  

The meeting is the 65th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body charged with providing gold-standard scientific and economic evidence on climate change to the world.

• Oct 8, 2026 News Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal After visiting Tuvalu’s shrinking land, COP31 President Murat Kurum said that the global 1.5C warming limit is “a matter of survival” for the Pacific Read more
• Oct 7, 2026 News New Zealand accused of breaching EU trade deal over climate rollbacks The EU’s climate trade rules face their first major test after a green group alleged New Zealand violated binding environmental provisions under its trade deal with the bloc Read more

Often characterised as a scientific organisation, the IPCC is actually a forum of governments that commissions assessments from scientists from across the globe. This unique effort is doubly important as it represents the world’s only climate science reports that are approved by consensus among the 195 countries that make up its membership.

But this consensus also means that governments can regulate the IPCC’s reports and timescales. Countries can make it difficult for their scientists to participate or even withhold the organisation’s budget.

By doing so, they can place a straitjacket on the production of analysis that these self-same governments are obliged to consider when they assemble under a different umbrella – the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which relies on the findings from the IPCC to guide negotiations.

When it works well, this intergovernmental approach means that countries agree on, and have a firm, authoritative scientific basis for acting on the evidence in a cooperative way. 

Until now, the system has largely functioned as it should, despite a certain amount of posturing and politicking. This month, however, could be the time when that delicately balanced state of affairs comes to an end.

Enemies of science?

The vast majority of governments – in Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and most importantly the small island developing states which sit on the frontlines of climate impacts – want the three main parts of the IPCC’s current assessment report (AR7) finished by the end of 2028. That would mean its conclusions can inform the next Global Stocktake – the five-yearly process set up under the Paris Agreement where governments review progress on climate action and ideally commit to stronger efforts.

Against this view stands a handful of major emitters who are determined that the IPCC’s upcoming report on mitigation – reducing climate-heating emissions – will not emerge until after that crucial political decision-making point.

The figureheads for this group are Saudi Arabia and India, with a few others such as Russia lurking in the background. Finding the Saudis here is absolutely expected, but India’s presence is more surprising given President Narendra Modi’s commendable commitment to building a clean energy economy, most notably his leadership of the International Solar Initiative.

As science comes under attack at UN talks, climate movement splits over how to respond

Underneath pretexts of giving the authors more time, or making it fairer in terms of who can contribute, they have a hidden motive: if the report on mitigation is delayed beyond the second Global Stocktake, the same governments that delayed it will then argue that the stocktake cannot meaningfully discuss vital mitigation action without the latest report, effectively delaying more ambitious agreements on cutting emissions by another five years.

It is the duty of every government that professes to care about climate change to oppose such a retrograde step. There are worrying signs, however, that some governments which are highly influential within the IPCC system may be about to cave.

No time to appease

What seems to be happening is that in the face of signals that the Saudis, for example, are prepared to block the IPCC’s budget if they don’t get their way, some governments are leaning towards appeasement, i.e. publishing the mitigation report only after the Stocktake been has completed, just to keep the whole process moving – better a bad agreement than no agreement.

This would be a major error of judgement, for two reasons.

One is that appeasement will not stop the naysayers’ moves to derail climate action – quite the opposite. Giving ground on this will only embolden them to propose other roadblocks, such as further delays and arguments over report content, or further minimising and excluding UN and non-UN science in other fora, such as the UNFCCC science negotiation tracks.

The second is that giving way would be a betrayal of communities in countries impacted by climate change around the world. In India itself, 90% of the workforce toils outdoors in informal settings and temperatures are rising well above 40C – so constraining global warming as soon as possible is clearly desirable for both human health and economic productivity.

Funding gap threatens next round of IPCC climate science reports, chair warns

For the UK, this is a time to remain rock-solid in support of an outcome that so manifestly serves the interests of people at home and around the world. Britain has a distinguished record in international climate science, being the only country to have supplied two chairs to the IPCC, including the incumbent, Jim Skea.

The climate impacts seen around the world this year – from lethal heatwaves in Europe to Nepal’s devastating flood – prove there is no time to wait. Climate action needs to be accelerated. Getting the right decision this week, so that the latest evidence can be acted on at the right time, is essential.

The world will be watching and counting on governments to stand strong and defend the need to deliver relevant and timely climate science for us all.

The post Governments that support climate science must stand firm against naysayers appeared first on Climate Home News.

Alexandria Shaner spoke with Paul Loeb about hope, organizing, and building power in dark times.

Humanity is outsourcing its executive control of nearly every key sector—finance, warfare, medicine, agriculture—to algorithms with no moral capacity. If you are wondering what could go wrong, the answer is plenty.

Inspired by author Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, I compare modernity to a prison whose bars few inmates can even detect. Academia is its own sort of prison.

On Transitions, Resistance, and Alternatives to Lithium Mining in Catamarca, Argentina Article by Asociación BePe Explore BePe's campaigns here

We often hear that the “energy transition” is absolutely necessary to replace fossil fuels with other energy sources that will reduce carbon emissions—in other words, to decarbonize the global economy. However, this “energy transition” does not reflect the voices of a large portion of the world’s population; rather, it is a proposal from the Global North, which bears primary responsibility for the unprecedented multidimensional crisis the planet is currently facing. Furthermore, this proposal has too many limitations to be considered a true transition, as it involves the cumulative use of energy sources. So-called “renewable energies” are added to traditional sources, as evidenced by the increase in global oil consumption (1). Hence, we speak of an accumulation of energy sources rather than a transition toward “renewable and clean” ones. These are, therefore, false solutions to the climate crisis, which entail an intensification of raw material extraction in the Global South and, consequently, of the colonialism that has shaped the still-prevalent international division of labor. There is no proposal to break with the capitalist logic of accumulation or the imperial way of life; thus, it is nothing more than capitalism dressed in green.

The so-called energy transition also requires enormous quantities of critical minerals, not only for “renewable” energy but also for the manufacture of electric vehicles, batteries, mobile and digital devices, and the defense industry. These minerals—notably lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and rare earth elements—are considered critical or strategic because they are deemed essential for economic security and defense, and because their supply chains are vulnerable to disruptions. An important fact regarding these minerals is China’s dominance in both the supply chain and the processing and manufacturing of batteries, electric vehicles, and wind and solar power plants, which led countries in the Global North—primarily the European Union and the United States—to deploy various strategies to secure and diversify their supply, seeking to break their dependence on “sole suppliers,” namely the Asian giant.

If we focus on Argentina, the most significant strategic mineral is lithium. The country’s inclusion in the so-called “lithium triangle”—along with Bolivia and Chile—positions it as one of the leading producers of this mineral, which political leaders view as a key source of foreign exchange to bolster the national treasury’s meager reserves. This view, of course, overlooks the irreversible impacts that lithium mining has on highly fragile ecosystems and on ancestral ways of life.

The push for the extraction of this mineral led Argentina to establish the National Lithium Roundtable in 2021, involving three northern provinces—Catamarca, Salta, and Jujuy—which were joined by the national government, with the aim of working together on its extraction and processing. Thus, from a hegemonic perspective, critical minerals such as lithium—and also copper—have become key pillars for the country’s “development.” However, the people know that what mining offers is not development, but rather the destruction of the conditions necessary for life to continue.

The far-right government’s commitment to expanding extractive projects in the country is evident in the approval of the RIGI (Incentive Regime for Large Investments), which grants significant benefits to corporations—primarily extractive ones—such as tax breaks and fiscal stability for 30 years.

If we take a closer look at the province of Catamarca, we’ll see that it has a long history of “mining.” The Alumbrera project—the country’s first open-pit mine for copper, gold, and molybdenum, located in Belén—and the lithium mining operation at the Salar del Hombre Muerto in Antofagasta de la Sierra date back to 1997. The results of nearly 30 years of mining reveal profoundly negative impacts: in the northern part of the province, lithium mining dried up a river vital to the communities living there; and, in turn, the province never achieved the long-awaited development through mining; quite the contrary, after decades it remains one of the poorest provinces in the country. Nor has the “social license” sought by companies and desired by governments been achieved. The resistance to the MARA (Minera Alumbrera Agua Rica) project, led by the El Algarrobo Assembly of Andalgalá, is clear evidence that mining lacks a social license. For decades, the response of the government and the companies to this resistance has been the persecution, prosecution, and repression of these dissenting voices.

Over the past decade, amid the boom in lithium mining—which is “necessary for the transition”—the Catamarca government has sought to reinforce the province’s identity as a “mining” region. Among the many projects to extract this mineral is Tres Quebradas, owned by the Chinese company Zijin Mining and its subsidiary Liex S.A., which operates in the salt flat of the same name and owns the processing plant located at the entrance to the municipality of Fiambalá, in the Tinogasta department. This project, which began production in 2025, is located in the region of high-Andean and Puna lagoons in Catamarca, recognized under the Ramsar Convention. These are highly fragile ecosystems that are already suffering the impacts of brine extraction from the lagoons, including water imbalances, the drying up of wetlands, a drop in lagoon water levels, disruption of wildlife habitats, and threats to grazing and agriculture for the communities living there.

From the perspective of social impacts, drawing on experience with Zijin Mining, we highlight the different ways in which Chinese companies establish themselves in a given territory, compared to corporations from other countries. Their penetration into the community is very strong and results in political and social interference and cultural invasion, through the organization of sociocultural events, tournaments, sports competitions, and celebrations; through partnerships with educational institutions; by taking over many of the state’s social functions; by participating in political power structures — such as the opening of provincial legislative sessions; and by imposing an overwhelming presence of Chinese cultural elements.

 

Photos by BePe: Greenwashing signs by Zijin Mining in Fianbalá, Argentina

As the company’s presence became more pervasive, the idea took hold among the population that they could turn to the company to meet certain needs — for example, to obtain construction materials, T-shirts for clubs, educational supplies for schools, and supplies for hospitals.

Although the expectations generated by the company’s presence in the region were very high from the moment it set up operations in 2016, various conflicts and a shift in the company’s own stance began to undermine those expectations among a segment of the population. The hope for “progress” was replaced by frustrations rooted in the realization that “development” would not come from that source. Notable among these conflicts were strikes and roadblocks organized by workers denouncing labor abuses and demanding improved working conditions and higher wages; allegations of sexual violence and abuse committed by a company employee against a female coworker; and claims regarding unpaid debts to local suppliers (2). The social unrest generated by these conflicts and allegations, combined with the company’s shift in policy — which, once it was established, significantly curtailed support for community projects under the banner of corporate social responsibility — led to a gradual collapse of expectations for improvements in the living conditions of the local population.

However, not everyone in Fiambalá was convinced from the moment the company set up operations that it would bring the long-awaited development. Since 2016, the “Fiambalá Despierta” Assembly has been denouncing that mining, in any form, is synonymous with the destruction of ways of life and territories. The members of the assembly—mostly women—and the rural communities living in the towns near Fiambalá know that “development” means something else: defending agroecological production, preserving and exchanging native and heirloom seeds, and not being fooled by the new “smoke and mirrors” that accompany the Global North’s proposals for energy transition. We know all too well what the plundering and destruction of the commons mean. History is our greatest witness.

Photo by BePe: Seed fair in Catamarca, promoting the already living alternatives to mining, seeds that sustain life

References:

1. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics

2. Some of the protests by neighbors and environmentalists against the company, as well as reports of poor working conditions and the violence suffered by the women who work there, are documented in the following posts:         

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2169052680572092                                                                     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGFyE79HUE&t=86s

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The post On Transitions, Resistance, and Alternatives to Lithium Mining in Catamarca, Argentina appeared first on Yes to Life No to Mining.

Trees, borders and environmentalist coalitions Channel News brendan 12th October 2026 Teaser Media

Women are central to the Great Law of Peace and Governance within the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations; Iroquois) whose federalist structure valuing peace, justice, and collective wellbeing was an inspiration for democracy in the United States. This session features revered contemporary leaders, author-activists, elders, and clan mothers who speak to the themes of governance rooted in peace, matrilineal values, women’s leadership, and wisdom from their own life’s work and activism.

Moderated by Beverly Cook (Akwesasne Mohawk – Wolf Clan), with contributing authors Katsi Cook (Akwesasne Mohawk – Wolf Clan); Michelle Schenandoah (Oneida); Louise Herne (Kaniekehaka, Mohawk); and editor Jose Barreiro (Taíno) – introduction by Baratunde Thurston.

The post Women at the Center: A Call to Interdependence appeared first on Bioneers.

• In cities across the country, “friendly neighborhood vigilantes” who are tired of civic inaction are painting their own crosswalks and installing their own benches at bus stops. Some cities fight this guerrilla urbanism, while others embrace it. (Vox)
• Recent court filings include new evidence that ExxonMobile knew that fossil fuels cause climate change and concealed that information from the public. (Inside Climate News)
• How to design a deep underground subway station that doesn’t feel claustrophobic. (Arups)
• A New York transit official accused formerly beloved “Train Daddy” Andy Byford, who’s now heading the Trump administration’s effort to redesign Penn Station, of going “full MAGA.” (Gothamist)
• Indianapolis is overhauling a notoriously dangerous Massachusetts Avenue intersection. (WTHR)
• Amtrak has selected firms to design two replacement bridges in Maryland that will allow trains to go faster. (Trains)
• Seattle’s Sound Transit released a virtual tour of the future 3 Line. (Westside Seattle)
• The Austin Transit Partnership is disputing claims that light rail construction could force a popular supermarket to close. (KVUE)
• A Milwaukee suburb has banned e-bikes and e-scooters from sidewalks and parks. (TMJ4)
• Iowa City is installing its first protected bike lanes. (KCRG)
• Boston transit officials are looking into using trained falcons to keep stations free from pigeon droppings. (The Guardian)
• An alligator was blocking traffic in Florida, but police let the scaly suspect off with a warning. (Tampa Free Press)

Concept Note and Programme 

Ahead of CFS 54 Plenary Session, the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM) for relations with the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is pleased to invite you to the closing of the  CSIPM Forum 2026. 

• Time and date: 18 October, 2026 at 16.00 CEST 
• Where: Università Roma Tre. Aula Magna, Dipartimento di Architettura. (Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4, 00155, Roma)
• Modality: In-person 
• RSVP at cso4cfs@gmail.com

Why it is relevant 

Wars, occupations, violence, exploitation, the concentration of corporate power and climate disasters are tearing food systems apart. This is when multilateral institutions are needed most: they should be where governments cooperate, where rules are upheld and where power is held accountable guided by the principles of the United Nations, human rights and the 2030 Agenda.

Multilateralism rests on a principle: States are the duty-bearers for human rights, and their obligations apply to all. Today those obligations are being bypassed. Rules are applied selectively and double standards go unchallenged, while corporate power, including that of big tech, gains influence over public decisions.

What to expect

The session will bring governments, UN institutions and CSIPM organisations into dialogue on these questions. The first panel looks at the state of multilateral food governance, and the second at what the CFS should take up next. The session closes with the CSIPM’s key messages to the CFS 54 Plenary.

Consult the programme 

The post Human Rights, Not Rule of Might: Centring Grassroots Voices in Food Governance – CSIPM Forum 2026 Public Session appeared first on CSIPM.

 

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 11 OCTOBER 2026 SLF-2007-084 The Sakhalin Papers LXXIV: The Field Washington Targeted — Shell, Gazprom and the Sanctions That Threatened Their LNG Expansion On 18 June 2015, Ben van Beurden and Alexey Miller signed agreements intended to transform Shell’s relationship with Gazprom into a much broader strategic partnership. Central to their ambitions was a third LNG production train at Sakhalin II, supplied with additional gas from the Russian-controlled Sakhalin III project. Seven weeks later, on 7 August, the United States imposed export restrictions specifically targeting the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field — one of the most important potential sources of that additional gas. The timing exposed an extraordinary contradiction: while Shell and Gazprom were seeking to deepen their commercial relationship, Washington was restricting access to the technology needed to develop resources central to their expansion plans.

Archive reference: SLF-2007-084

Collection: The Sakhalin Papers

Principal authenticated records: Gazprom corporate announcements of 18 June 2015 concerning strategic cooperation, Sakhalin II expansion and European gas transmission infrastructure; US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, final rule published 7 August 2015, Federal Register document 2015-19274, 80 FR 47402; Royal Dutch Shell plc Annual Report and Form 20-F 2014, filed with the SEC on 12 March 2015.

Contemporaneous reporting: Reuters, 18–19 June and 7–10 August 2015; Bloomberg, 7 August 2015; New Europe, 7 August 2015; contemporaneous reports preserved in the Donovan Shell archive.

Judicial context: Court of Justice of the European Union, PJSC Rosneft Oil Company v HM Treasury, Case C-72/15, judgment of 28 March 2017. The judgment concerns the validity and interpretation of EU sanctions measures, not Shell’s conduct or the separate US export-control designation examined here.

Evidence standard: Official corporate announcements establish what the companies signed and publicly proposed. The US Federal Register establishes the legal effect of the August restrictions. Reported proposals for asset exchanges are distinguished from completed transactions. Predictions concerning commercial consequences are attributed to contemporary analysts. No sanctions violation or unlawful activity by Shell is alleged or established.

Introduction: Seven weeks between ambition and obstruction

The previous instalment, The Shell Leaks Files — 10 October 2026, examined the extraordinary position in which Shell found itself during 2014.

Western sanctions had already forced the company to suspend certain Russian shale-exploration activities.

Yet Shell continued to discuss expanding Sakhalin II with Gazprom.

The existing LNG plant remained operational.

Shell retained its minority interest.

And the proposed third production train remained a potentially attractive investment.

By June 2015, Shell and Gazprom were prepared to formalise their ambitions.

The agreements signed at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum went considerably beyond maintaining an established LNG project.

They contemplated wider cooperation across the gas industry.

They raised the possibility of exchanging assets.

They advanced preparations for an additional Sakhalin LNG train.

And, through a separate memorandum signed the same day, Shell became involved in plans for substantial new Russian gas-export infrastructure to Europe.

The strategic significance was unmistakable.

Shell was positioning itself as an increasingly important international partner of Russia’s state-controlled gas company.

But the expansion depended upon resources that Shell did not control.

Those resources lay within Sakhalin III.

And in August 2015, Washington intervened.

The US government did not merely impose another general restriction on Russian companies.

It placed a specific offshore oil and gas field on its Entity List.

The field was Yuzhno-Kirinskoye, also known as South Kirinsky.

The decision had direct implications for the ambitions announced in June.

The primary documents allow us to reconstruct how this confrontation developed.

1. The central corporate record: 18 June 2015

On 18 June 2015, Gazprom issued an official announcement entitled:

“Gazprom and Shell sign several strategic documents.”

The announcement identifies Alexey Miller, chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee, and Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, as the signatories.

The first document was an Agreement of Strategic Cooperation.

According to Gazprom, it provided for developing the partnership across the gas industry, from exploration and production through processing and marketing.

It also contemplated a possible exchange of assets.

Gazprom described the agreement as creating opportunities to expand the companies’ joint project portfolio.

The second document concerned Sakhalin II.

Miller and van Beurden signed a memorandum addressing implementation of the proposed third LNG production train.

Gazprom presented this as an important advance towards the project’s investment phase.

But the announcement also made clear that preparations for a final investment decision remained necessary.

The memorandum established principles for the companies’ cooperation and addressed the design schedule and further project-development steps.

It did not announce that construction had already been irrevocably authorised.

This distinction matters because contemporary headlines sometimes described the companies as having agreed to build the third train.

The authenticated record is more precise.

They had advanced the project and expressed a commitment to pursuing it.

The final investment decision still lay ahead.

Primary source: Gazprom — Gazprom and Shell sign several strategic documents, 18 June 2015

2. A decisive provision: Gazprom would provide Sakhalin III gas

The June announcement contains a particularly important provision.

Gazprom stated that the additional gas needed to operate the third LNG train at full capacity would come from Sakhalin III.

This was not an incidental detail.

It linked two separate projects with different ownership and commercial arrangements.

Sakhalin II was operated by Sakhalin Energy Investment Company.

Its shareholders were:

• Gazprom: 50 per cent plus one share.
• Shell: 27.5 per cent minus one share.
• Mitsui: 12.5 per cent.
• Mitsubishi: 10 per cent.

Sakhalin III, by contrast, included offshore resources held under licences controlled by Gazprom.

Shell did not automatically possess an ownership interest in those resources merely because it was a shareholder in Sakhalin II.

Consequently, the proposed expansion depended upon arrangements between the two projects.

Gazprom would have to make additional gas available.

Commercial terms would have to be agreed.

Infrastructure and processing arrangements would have to accommodate the increased supply.

And the additional resources would have to be developed.

The June memorandum identified Sakhalin III as the intended source.

It did not, however, publicly demonstrate that every resource-allocation, financing or production-development question had been resolved.

That distinction would become particularly important two months later. Gazprom

3. Why South Kirinsky mattered

The Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field lay in the Sea of Okhotsk, offshore Sakhalin Island.

It formed part of Gazprom’s Sakhalin III development programme.

Gazprom’s wider Sakhalin III interests included the Kirinsky block, containing several gas and condensate fields.

The neighbouring Kirinskoye field had already demonstrated the technical complexity of offshore development in the region.

In October 2013, Gazprom announced the successful testing of Russia’s first subsea production facility at Kirinskoye.

The development involved offshore wells, subsea infrastructure and an onshore processing complex.

The equipment had to operate in difficult marine conditions, including periods of extensive sea ice.

Gazprom subsequently identified Yuzhno-Kirinskoye and other nearby fields as potential contributors to the wider production system.

These were not resources that could be brought into production simply by signing a memorandum.

They required significant investment and specialised technology.

Gazprom’s own project description confirms the importance of advanced subsea systems to the Sakhalin III programme. Gazprom

The scale of Yuzhno-Kirinskoye was substantial.

Contemporary Bloomberg reporting cited estimated gas resources of approximately 637 billion cubic metres, together with approximately 97 million tonnes of oil and condensate.

Reuters subsequently reported broadly comparable figures.

Those were reported estimates, not a guarantee that every identified resource could be produced economically or within the original development timetable.

Nevertheless, the potential was considerable.

Gas from Sakhalin III could support regional energy infrastructure and, potentially, expansion of LNG exports through Sakhalin II. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com

That made the field strategically important to Gazprom.

It also made the field relevant to Shell’s LNG ambitions.

4. Reuters identifies the larger strategic relationship

The day after the June signing ceremony, Reuters published an important interview with Alexey Miller.

Reported by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Denis Pinchuk on 19 June 2015, the interview presented the Shell relationship as something much more ambitious than a single LNG project.

Miller discussed the prospect of a global strategic alliance.

Possible asset exchanges featured prominently.

He also linked the relationship to Shell’s proposed acquisition of BG Group.

That transaction, announced earlier in April 2015, would substantially increase Shell’s global LNG portfolio if completed.

Miller regarded Shell’s expansion as creating additional opportunities for cooperation.

Reuters also reported that Gazprom expected the companies’ relationship to include Sakhalin LNG expansion and potentially wider international activities.

The report is valuable because it records Miller explaining the strategic purpose behind the official agreements.

Gazprom was seeking more than technical assistance at Sakhalin.

It wanted an international partner with substantial experience in production, LNG marketing and access to global markets.

Shell offered precisely those capabilities.

For Shell, the relationship offered access to Russian gas resources and the possibility of developing further projects.

The prospective exchange of assets was especially significant.

But the evidence must not be overstated.

The June agreement provided for possible asset exchanges. It did not establish that a particular exchange had been completed.

Reuters treated the wider alliance as a developing commercial strategy rather than a finished transaction. Business Standard

Contemporaneous source: Reuters — Gazprom building global alliance with expanded Shell, 19 June 2015

5. Another June agreement: the European dimension

Something else happened on 18 June 2015.

During the same St Petersburg forum, Gazprom, Shell, E.ON and OMV signed a separate Memorandum of Intent concerning additional gas-transmission infrastructure across the Baltic Sea.

The proposal envisaged two further offshore pipeline strings providing direct supplies of Russian gas to European consumers.

The planned additional capacity was approximately 55 billion cubic metres annually.

The project would subsequently become known as Nord Stream 2.

Gazprom’s official announcement identifies van Beurden as one of the signatories.

It also records Shell’s commercial justification for supporting new infrastructure.

Van Beurden argued that natural gas would remain important to Europe’s energy mix and that declining European production created a need for new supply arrangements. Gazprom

This is a significant part of the documentary chronology.

The Sakhalin partnership was no longer the only major initiative under discussion.

Shell and Gazprom were pursuing opportunities at opposite ends of Russia.

Sakhalin offered LNG exports towards Asian markets.

Additional Baltic pipelines offered the prospect of transporting more Russian gas directly to Western Europe.

These were separate projects.

They involved different infrastructure, commercial arrangements and regulatory questions.

But they formed part of the wider strategic relationship described by Miller.

The political context was unavoidable.

Russia had annexed Crimea in 2014.

Western sanctions were already in force.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine continued.

Yet major Western energy companies were still entering agreements for possible new Russian energy infrastructure.

The companies presented their decisions in commercial terms.

The Russian government had obvious reasons to welcome continued Western participation.

The June documents establish the corporate decisions.

They do not establish that Shell endorsed Russian government policy.

6. July 2015: Shell explores an interest in Sakhalin III

The strategic cooperation agreement raised an obvious question.

What assets might Shell and Gazprom exchange?

One possibility discussed in contemporary reporting involved Shell obtaining an interest in Sakhalin III.

This would potentially give Shell greater involvement in the resources intended to support Sakhalin II expansion.

That possibility was commercially logical.

Shell already possessed LNG expertise and a stake in the existing liquefaction plant.

Gazprom controlled additional offshore gas resources.

An arrangement linking the two could offer advantages to both companies.

Bloomberg reported in early August that van Beurden had recently discussed possible Shell participation in Yuzhno-Kirinskoye through an asset exchange.

The report did not establish that Shell had already acquired an interest.

Indeed, the uncertainty surrounding the proposed exchange was central to the story.

The companies were still considering how the wider strategic agreement might be implemented. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com

A separate report published by New Europe on 7 August 2015, preserved in the Donovan archive, used more definite language about a proposed exchange involving Sakhalin III.

However, the formal corporate documents examined for this instalment do not establish that a completed transfer of ownership had occurred.

The safer documentary conclusion is that Shell and Gazprom were exploring possible asset arrangements, including Shell participation in Sakhalin III.

That distinction between negotiations and completed transactions must be preserved.

Contemporaneous archive source: New Europe reporting preserved on 7 August 2015

Then came the American decision.

7. Washington targets a specific offshore field

On 7 August 2015, the United States Department of Commerce published a final rule entitled:

“Russian Sanctions: Addition to the Entity List To Prevent Violations of Russian Industry Sector Sanctions.”

The issuing agency was the Bureau of Industry and Security, commonly known as BIS.

The official reference is:

Federal Register document 2015-19274.

80 FR 47402.

Effective date: 7 August 2015.

The rule added one specified Russian oil and gas field to the Entity List:

Yuzhno-Kirinskoye Field, in the Sea of Okhotsk.

This is the principal authenticated government document for the present instalment.

It establishes precisely what Washington did.

The US government concluded that exports, re-exports or transfers to the field of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations presented an unacceptable risk of supporting activities covered by Russian energy-sector restrictions.

The government therefore imposed a specific licensing requirement.

The decision was not simply an announcement of political disapproval.

It was a legally operative export-control measure.

Primary legal record: US Federal Register — Yuzhno-Kirinskoye Entity List designation, 7 August 2015

8. The unusual feature: a field rather than a company

The Entity List normally brings to mind named companies, organisations, individuals or other identifiable parties.

The August 2015 decision was unusual because the designated entry identified a particular oil and gas field.

The location was the subject of the control.

This mattered because the restrictions were directed at activities associated with developing that resource.

It was not necessary for Washington to prohibit all transactions involving Gazprom.

Nor was it necessary to shut down Sakhalin II.

The US authorities could instead restrict access to items subject to American export controls destined for a particular field.

The approach was targeted.

The government identified a location presenting a risk of supporting restricted Russian energy-development activities.

By imposing the licensing requirement at field level, it sought to prevent such items being supplied to that location without permission.

Contemporary legal analysis described the measure as unusually far-reaching.

International law firms explained that the designation would significantly complicate access to relevant technology.

The restriction applied not merely to equipment manufactured in the United States but to all items subject to the EAR, a category that can include certain foreign-made items and technology falling within US export-control jurisdiction.

The exact application depended upon the item and transaction.

It was not a worldwide prohibition on every product, person or commercial activity associated with Sakhalin III. Dechert

That distinction is important.

9. What the American rule actually prohibited

The Federal Register text is unusually explicit.

Exports, re-exports and in-country transfers of items subject to the EAR to the designated field required a BIS licence.

The rule established a presumption of denial for licence applications.

It also stated that no licence exceptions were available for the field.

This created a formidable obstacle for companies seeking to supply relevant controlled items.

However, the requirement was not legally identical to an absolute prohibition without any possibility of authorisation.

Licence applications could be made.

The government had specified that such applications would normally be denied.

That difference should be retained in any accurate account.

Nor did the rule directly prohibit all sales of LNG produced at the existing Sakhalin II plant.

It did not confiscate Shell’s shareholding in Sakhalin Energy.

It did not establish that Shell had committed an offence.

And it did not automatically terminate the June strategic cooperation agreement.

It restricted specified exports, re-exports and transfers connected with the designated field.

The potential consequences were nevertheless substantial.

Offshore gas development depends upon complex equipment and technology.

If essential equipment could not lawfully be supplied, development schedules and investment assumptions could be affected.

The US government had therefore created a legal obstacle at precisely the point where Gazprom and Shell were exploring ways to develop additional resources for their LNG ambitions. Federal Register

10. Why Washington cited oil reserves

One of the most revealing aspects of the August designation is the justification.

Yuzhno-Kirinskoye was widely discussed in commercial reporting as a gas and condensate field.

The proposed Sakhalin II expansion concerned LNG.

Yet the US government specifically referred to the field’s reported substantial oil reserves.

The distinction was legally important.

The relevant Russian energy-sector restrictions were particularly concerned with specified oil-related activities, including deepwater projects with the potential to produce oil.

The Federal Register explained that the field was being designated because of the reported oil reserves.

The government considered that providing items subject to the EAR could support restricted deepwater exploration or production activities.

The text referred to Russian deepwater locations exceeding 500 feet.

That is approximately 152 metres.

Yuzhno-Kirinskoye was an offshore development in which water depths and advanced subsea technology were relevant.

The government therefore treated the potential for oil production as sufficient to justify the broader licensing requirement at that location.

This is a significant point.

The commercial ambition concerned gas supplies for LNG.

The US export-control decision relied upon the field’s potential to support restricted oil-development activity.

The result affected access to items needed for development of a field that Gazprom regarded as important for gas production.

A gas-centred commercial project had encountered an export-control restriction justified partly by the presence of oil. Federal Register

That was the sanctions paradox.

11. Reuters: the Shell–Gazprom alliance could be in jeopardy

On 10 August 2015, Reuters published an important report by Denis Pinchuk and Katya Golubkova.

Its central conclusion was that the new US restrictions could threaten Shell’s developing strategic alliance with Gazprom.

The report examined the connection between Yuzhno-Kirinskoye and Sakhalin II expansion.

It also discussed Shell’s possible interest in acquiring an interest in Sakhalin III through an asset exchange.

Reuters quoted Alexander Kornilov, an energy analyst at Alfa Bank in Moscow.

Kornilov regarded the restrictions as potentially serious for Gazprom’s offshore development and LNG plans.

He argued that developing the field without international partners and technology would be extremely difficult.

This was an analyst’s assessment.

It was not an official finding that the project had become permanently impossible.

Nor did it establish that Shell had decided to withdraw.

Nevertheless, the assessment identified the practical commercial problem.

The June agreements contemplated further cooperation involving resources and technology.

The August restrictions made access to some of that technology substantially more difficult.

A development project could remain technically and commercially desirable while becoming harder to implement legally.

Reuters’ report is preserved in the Donovan archive.

Contemporaneous source: Reuters — US sanctions put Gazprom–Shell alliance plans in jeopardy, 10 August 2015

12. Shell responds: sanctions compliance, but no retreat

The contemporary record also preserves Shell’s response.

Bloomberg reported on 7 August 2015 that Shell had issued an emailed statement concerning the new restrictions.

Shell said it was engaging with the relevant authorities and taking steps to comply with applicable sanctions.

The company also reaffirmed its commitment to operating in Russia and maintaining its relationships with Russian partners.

Reuters subsequently reported the same general position.

This is important evidence.

Shell was not publicly rejecting the American restrictions.

It was not declaring that it would supply prohibited technology regardless of the law.

It acknowledged the need to comply.

But neither was it announcing an abandonment of Russia.

The company’s position remained consistent with its approach during 2014.

Maintain established lawful operations.

Assess the implications of new restrictions.

Preserve commercial relationships where possible.

Continue exploring permissible opportunities.

Shell’s statements therefore support a narrower conclusion than either of two competing interpretations.

They do not demonstrate defiance of sanctions.

They also do not demonstrate a decision to sever relations with Gazprom.

They demonstrate an intention to preserve the partnership while responding to the restrictions. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com

Contemporaneous archive source: Bloomberg — US puts Russian gas field off limits as sanctions tighten, 7 August 2015

13. The Russian government objects

Reuters also reported the reaction from Moscow.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticised the American decision.

He argued that additional sanctions damaged relations between Russia and the United States.

Gazprom declined to comment on the designation.

The diplomatic response was predictable.

Russia regarded Western sanctions as politically motivated restrictions on its economic development.

The United States presented its measures as part of its response to Russian actions in Ukraine.

The two governments disagreed fundamentally about the justification for the restrictions.

But the legal consequences did not depend upon resolving that political dispute.

Companies dealing with items subject to US export controls had to comply with the applicable US rules.

The commercial implications extended well beyond American companies.

International energy projects involve equipment, software, services and technology from multiple jurisdictions.

A European company could encounter US export-control requirements where the relevant items or transactions fell within American jurisdiction.

The designation therefore had potential consequences for companies operating far beyond the United States. Yahoo

That included any prospective partner seeking to support development at Yuzhno-Kirinskoye using covered items.

14. The distinction between Sakhalin II and Sakhalin III

This is where the documentary record requires particular precision.

Sakhalin II and Sakhalin III were not interchangeable.

Sakhalin II was an established producing operation with a functioning LNG plant.

Its controlling shareholder was Gazprom.

Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi retained minority interests.

Sakhalin III was a separate development programme involving Gazprom-controlled offshore resources.

The third Sakhalin II LNG train was intended to receive additional gas from Sakhalin III.

The August 2015 designation targeted Yuzhno-Kirinskoye, a field within Sakhalin III.

It did not designate the entire Sakhalin II LNG complex.

It did not automatically prohibit existing Sakhalin II LNG exports.

Nor did it establish that every component of the proposed third train was subject to the same licensing requirements.

The significance lay in the potential dependency.

If additional LNG capacity required gas from Sakhalin III, and developing important Sakhalin III resources required technology now subject to restrictive licensing, the expansion could become more difficult.

That is the causal connection supported by the evidence.

It is a connection between proposed gas supplies, field development and export controls.

It should not be expanded into an unsupported claim that the United States had directly banned Sakhalin II’s third LNG train.

The available government record does not establish that.

15. The unresolved question of an asset swap

The June strategic agreement contemplated possible asset exchanges between Gazprom and Shell.

Reuters and other contemporary publications reported that an interest in Sakhalin III could form part of such arrangements.

That possibility had considerable commercial importance.

Shell could potentially obtain upstream exposure to additional gas resources.

Gazprom might acquire an interest in other Shell assets.

Such arrangements could strengthen the companies’ wider relationship.

But the August designation complicated the prospects.

Any transaction would have to be assessed against applicable sanctions and export-control rules.

The commercial value of an asset could also be affected if development required technology that was difficult to obtain.

It would therefore be reasonable to expect the designation to influence negotiations.

But the evidence does not establish the precise effect upon any confidential discussions.

Nor does it establish that Shell had already agreed a definitive asset exchange involving Yuzhno-Kirinskoye before the designation.

That is an important evidential limitation.

The public record supports the existence of discussions and proposals.

It does not permit us to reconstruct every negotiating position or commercial consequence.

16. The judicial context: sanctions were legally contested

The European sanctions framework was also the subject of litigation.

The most important subsequent judicial record is the Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgment of 28 March 2017 in:

PJSC Rosneft Oil Company v HM Treasury and Others, Case C-72/15.

The proceedings arose from a reference by the High Court of Justice in England and Wales.

The case concerned the validity and interpretation of EU restrictive measures introduced following Russia’s actions destabilising Ukraine.

The Court examined issues involving capital-market restrictions, financial assistance and specified oil-sector activities.

It upheld the contested EU measures against the relevant challenges.

The judgment illustrates the legal significance of precisely defining the scope of sanctions.

It also confirms that restrictions affecting Russian energy development were capable of detailed judicial examination. Publications Office of the EU

But the limits of the judgment are equally important.

Shell was not the defendant.

The proceedings did not concern the June 2015 Shell–Gazprom agreements.

The Court did not determine whether Shell’s proposed Sakhalin expansion was lawful.

And the judgment did not adjudicate the separate US Commerce Department designation of Yuzhno-Kirinskoye.

The Rosneft case is included as legal context.

It must not be presented as a judicial finding against Shell.

Judicial source: Court of Justice of the European Union — Rosneft v HM Treasury, Case C-72/15

17. The Donovan archive preserves the contemporary warnings

One of the benefits of the independent Shell archive is that it preserves the progression of reporting as events unfolded.

The relevant sequence includes:

18 June 2015: Reuters reported the Shell–Gazprom agreement concerning Sakhalin II expansion.

19 June 2015: Reuters reported Miller’s ambition to build a global strategic partnership with Shell.

7 August 2015: New Europe reported discussions about exchanging assets for an interest in Sakhalin III.

7 August 2015: The US Commerce Department imposed the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye export-control restrictions.

8 August 2015: The Donovan archive reproduced Bloomberg reporting on the restrictions and their potential consequences.

10 August 2015: The archive preserved Reuters’ examination of the danger to the Gazprom–Shell alliance.

These records are useful because they capture the issue as it was understood at the time.

They do not benefit from hindsight.

They show optimism, uncertainty and growing concern developing over a remarkably short period.

Within seven weeks of the June agreement, the strategic relationship was already encountering a serious new obstacle.

The chronology is independently supported by Gazprom’s official announcements and the US Federal Register.

The archive preserves how the development was reported and interpreted contemporaneously. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

Documentary Findings Established by authenticated corporate records

On 18 June 2015, Ben van Beurden and Alexey Miller signed an Agreement of Strategic Cooperation.

The agreement contemplated expanded cooperation across the gas industry, including possible asset exchanges.

The executives also signed a memorandum advancing the proposed third LNG production train at Sakhalin II.

Gazprom publicly identified Sakhalin III as the intended source of additional gas needed to operate the proposed train at full capacity.

The June memorandum addressed further development work and preparations for a final investment decision.

It did not establish that the final investment decision had already been taken.

On the same day, Shell and other European companies signed a separate memorandum concerning additional Russian gas-export infrastructure across the Baltic Sea.

These matters are established by Gazprom’s official announcements. Gazprom

Established by the US government

On 7 August 2015, the Bureau of Industry and Security added Yuzhno-Kirinskoye to the Entity List.

The measure required a licence for exports, re-exports and in-country transfers to the field of all items subject to the EAR.

Licence applications were subject to a presumption of denial.

No licence exceptions were available for the listed field.

The government cited reported substantial oil reserves and the risk of supporting restricted deepwater Russian oil and gas activities.

The rule did not constitute a comprehensive prohibition on all commercial activity involving Shell, Gazprom or Sakhalin II.

These conclusions are established by Federal Register document 2015-19274. Federal Register

Established by contemporaneous reporting

Reuters reported that the June agreements formed part of Gazprom’s ambition to create a wider strategic partnership with Shell.

Bloomberg reported Shell’s interest in possible participation in Yuzhno-Kirinskoye through an asset exchange.

Reuters reported that the August restrictions could jeopardise those plans.

Analysts warned that the restrictions could substantially complicate development of the field and expansion of Sakhalin II.

Shell publicly stated that it would comply with applicable sanctions while maintaining its commitment to working in Russia.

These reports establish what was publicly reported and stated at the time.

They do not establish the content of every private negotiation. Business Standard

Not established

The documents do not establish that Shell violated US export-control law.

They do not establish that Shell supplied prohibited technology to Yuzhno-Kirinskoye.

They do not establish that the June 2015 agreements were themselves unlawful.

They do not establish that Shell had completed an asset exchange involving Sakhalin III.

They do not establish that the proposed third LNG train had received final construction authorisation.

They do not establish that the US restrictions automatically prohibited the operation of Sakhalin II.

They do not establish that Gazprom could no longer develop Yuzhno-Kirinskoye under any circumstances.

They do not establish that Shell endorsed Russia’s annexation of Crimea or subsequent actions in Ukraine.

And they do not establish that the August restrictions brought the Shell–Gazprom strategic relationship to an end.

The surviving records support a more precise conclusion.

The restrictions created a substantial new legal and technological obstacle to the proposed development.

Commentary: Shell’s Russian Partnership Reaches Another Turning Point

The events of June to August 2015 reveal a recurring feature of Shell’s relationship with Russia.

Commercial ambition repeatedly encountered political reality.

The history stretches back considerably further than the 2014 sanctions crisis.

In 2006, Shell had been forced into difficult negotiations over the future of Sakhalin II.

The Russian authorities applied intense regulatory pressure during a period of controversy over the project’s environmental performance and rising costs.

Gazprom subsequently acquired majority control.

Shell was reduced to a minority shareholder.

That restructuring fundamentally altered the balance of power within the project.

Yet Shell remained.

The company continued supplying technical expertise.

Sakhalin II commenced LNG exports in 2009.

And by 2013–14, Shell was once again encouraging Gazprom to expand.

By June 2015, the relationship had developed into something more ambitious.

The two companies were contemplating broader cooperation, possible asset exchanges and further LNG investment.

Shell was also participating in discussions concerning additional Russian gas-export infrastructure to Europe.

For Gazprom, this was commercially attractive.

Shell possessed global LNG expertise, international market relationships and substantial technical capabilities.

For Shell, Gazprom controlled resources that could support expansion of an already valuable investment.

But this created an obvious vulnerability.

The more dependent Shell became upon developing Gazprom-controlled resources, the more exposed it became to political and legal restrictions affecting those resources.

The August 2015 designation demonstrated that vulnerability with unusual clarity.

Washington did not need to force Shell to sell its existing Sakhalin II interest.

It did not need to prohibit every LNG shipment.

Instead, the United States restricted access to covered items destined for a specific field that could supply the proposed expansion.

The distinction was legally narrow but commercially consequential.

An operating LNG plant and a future gas-development project were different things.

Shell could continue participating in one while encountering serious restrictions affecting the other.

This was the problem confronting the company.

Shell wanted more gas for Sakhalin II.

Gazprom controlled the prospective additional resources.

Developing those resources required sophisticated technology.

Washington was restricting access to that technology.

The resulting tension was not easily resolved by corporate diplomacy.

The June agreements could express commercial commitment.

They could establish project-development procedures.

They could identify possible future transactions.

But they could not remove the legal requirements imposed by the United States.

Nor could they eliminate the risks associated with investing in Russia during an expanding international confrontation.

The documentary evidence also reveals why simplistic interpretations of Shell’s conduct are inadequate.

The company was not necessarily ignoring sanctions merely because it continued negotiating with Gazprom.

Nor was it necessarily withdrawing from Russia merely because sanctions had forced it to suspend particular activities.

The corporate record shows an attempt to preserve existing value while pursuing additional opportunities where legally permissible.

That was a commercial strategy.

Whether it was sufficiently cautious, politically responsible or ultimately beneficial to shareholders is a separate matter.

The history of Sakhalin II provides reason to examine those questions closely.

Shell had already experienced one major confrontation in which Russian political and regulatory power reshaped its investment.

It was now confronting another situation in which government decisions, this time from Washington, threatened the commercial assumptions behind a proposed expansion.

The company remained determined to maintain its Russian relationships.

But the strategic environment was increasingly difficult.

And the consequences were beginning to extend beyond Sakhalin.

For while the United States was restricting access to technology at Yuzhno-Kirinskoye, Shell and Gazprom were advancing another major project much closer to Europe’s political and economic centre.

That project would ultimately become one of the most controversial energy-infrastructure developments in modern European history.

Its name was Nord Stream 2.

Principal Documentary Sources

1. Gazprom — 18 June 2015

Gazprom and Shell sign several strategic documents.

The central authenticated corporate record for the June strategic cooperation agreement, the Sakhalin II third-train memorandum and the stated intention to use additional Sakhalin III gas.

Read Gazprom’s official 18 June announcement

2. Gazprom — 18 June 2015

Gazprom, E.ON, Shell and OMV agree upon developing gas transmission capacities to deliver Russian gas to Europe.

Official record of the separate memorandum concerning additional Baltic Sea pipeline infrastructure.

Gazprom’s European gas-transmission announcement

3. US Department of Commerce — 7 August 2015

Russian Sanctions: Addition to the Entity List To Prevent Violations of Russian Industry Sector Sanctions.

Federal Register document 2015-19274, 80 FR 47402.

The definitive legal source for the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye designation, licensing requirements, presumption of denial and absence of licence exceptions.

Read the US Federal Register rule

4. Reuters — 18 June 2015

Gazprom, Shell agree to expand Sakhalin-2 project.

Contemporaneous account preserved in the Donovan archive.

Reuters report preserved on 18 June 2015

5. Reuters — 19 June 2015

Exclusive: Gazprom building global alliance with expanded Shell.

Interview with Alexey Miller examining the proposed strategic partnership, LNG expansion, asset exchanges and European gas infrastructure.

Reuters interview with Alexey Miller

6. New Europe — 7 August 2015

Contemporaneous reporting about a possible Shell–Gazprom asset exchange involving Sakhalin III, preserved in the Donovan archive.

Read the archived New Europe report

7. Bloomberg — 7 August 2015

US Puts Russian Gas Field Off Limits as Sanctions Tighten.

Contemporaneous reporting of the American decision, prospective implications for Shell and the company’s sanctions-compliance statement.

Bloomberg report preserved in the Shell archive

8. Reuters — 10 August 2015

US Sanctions Put Gazprom–Shell Alliance Plans in Jeopardy.

Detailed contemporary assessment of the effects upon Yuzhno-Kirinskoye, Sakhalin II expansion and proposed asset exchanges.

Reuters report preserved in the Donovan archive

9. Gazprom — Sakhalin III project record

Corporate information concerning the Kirinsky block, offshore production technology and the development of the wider Sakhalin gas production centre.

Gazprom: Sakhalin III

10. Royal Dutch Shell plc — Annual Report and Form 20-F 2014

Filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on 12 March 2015.

The authenticated Shell reporting record for its pre-existing Russian investments, operations and exposure to sanctions.

Shell’s 2014 Form 20-F filing record

11. Court of Justice of the European Union — 28 March 2017

PJSC Rosneft Oil Company v HM Treasury and Others, Case C-72/15.

Subsequent judicial examination of the EU sanctions framework. Included for legal context only.

Official EU publication of the Rosneft judgment

Archive disclaimer: This instalment distinguishes authenticated corporate announcements, US government regulations, subsequent judicial material, contemporaneous journalism and editorial interpretation.

Gazprom’s announcements establish what the company publicly reported and the scope of the documents signed. They do not disclose every private negotiation or establish that proposed transactions were completed.

The US Federal Register establishes the export-control restrictions applicable to Yuzhno-Kirinskoye from 7 August 2015. Those restrictions must not be confused with a comprehensive prohibition on all Shell operations in Russia.

No sanctions violation, unlawful technology transfer or other wrongdoing by Shell is alleged or established in the material examined.

Site-wide disclaimer also applies.

NEXT: The Baltic Agreement — Shell Joins Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 Project as Sanctions Tighten

On 4 September 2015, less than a month after the United States imposed the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye restrictions, Ben van Beurden joined Alexey Miller and executives of four other European energy companies at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

There they signed an agreement concerning construction of Nord Stream 2.

The project envisaged two additional offshore gas pipelines across the Baltic Sea, providing capacity for approximately 55 billion cubic metres of Russian gas annually.

The proposed ownership structure gave Gazprom 51 per cent of the project company.

Shell was expected to hold 10 per cent, alongside other European partners.

Gazprom’s official announcement identified van Beurden as a signatory and recorded Shell’s argument that Europe’s declining domestic gas production justified additional import infrastructure.

This was a major development.

While Washington was attempting to restrict future Russian energy-development capabilities, Shell and other Western companies were advancing plans for infrastructure designed to increase Russian gas supplies to Europe.

The September agreement was a proposal for investment and construction, not evidence that the pipelines had already been built or that the proposed shareholdings ultimately took effect. Gazprom

It nevertheless marked another important expansion of Shell’s relationship with Gazprom.

And the timing raises questions that deserve close examination.

Why were major European energy companies prepared to deepen their involvement in Russian gas infrastructure during an escalating sanctions crisis?

How did Shell justify the project commercially?

What were the implications for Ukraine’s role as a transit route for Russian gas?

And how did Gazprom’s growing relationships with Western energy companies fit into the wider geopolitical confrontation?

The next Shell Leaks File — SLF-2007-085 — will examine the 4 September 2015 Nord Stream 2 agreement, the participating companies, the commercial arguments advanced by Shell and Gazprom, and the strategic implications of constructing new Russian gas-export infrastructure while Western sanctions were intensifying.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 11 OCTOBER 2026 was first posted on October 11, 2026 at 8:32 pm.
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SeaShare is working to transform donations from the fishing industry into meaningful nourishment for food banks across the United States. They are the only nonprofit dedicated solely to putting fresh seafood on the tables of families in need.

Through a nationwide network of fishers, processors, and distribution partners, donated seafood is helping to close the protein gap at food banks across the country. Donations span salmon and halibut to Alaska pollock, Pacific white shrimp, rockfish, catfish, and tilapia.

In all stages of life, from pregnancy to childhood to adulthood, there is strong evidence for health benefits of consuming seafood, reports the World Health Organization. Fish and other seafood can be excellent sources of protein, vitamins, and micronutrients. Seafood consumption during pregnancy is linked to improved birth outcomes, and adults who eat seafood regularly face lower risks of cardiovascular and neurological diseases.

A study in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics finds that the nutritional quality of donated food parcels in food banks is inconsistent. Food available at points of access like food banks often falls short of national dietary recommendations across developed countries, including the U.S.

“Protein can be expensive, and seafood is one of the more expensive forms of protein,” SeaShare’s Executive Director Hannah Lindoff tells Food Tank. “In general, protein makes up only about 2 percent of donations to food banks and is in huge demand.”

Since its founding 31 years ago, SeaShare has delivered more than 270 million seafood servings to food banks and feeding centers across the country. The organization grew out of the pollock industry in Alaska, where fishers chose to donate bycatch—which refers to fish that cannot be legally sold—rather than let it go to waste.

Relationship building and tax incentives have since encouraged regular donations of first-run, marketable seafood from the fishing and processing industry. Today, bycatch makes up just 8 percent of SeaShare’s total donations.

The nonprofit also works to ensure culturally relevant foods reach the right communities. Lindoff points to northern Washington as an example. “We have some surimi flake coming in so we reached out to an agency that serves a Korean community services center,” she says, “so we know that this product is going to people who know how to work with it and have a real love for the item.”

Seafood is obviously is highly perishable, requiring either canning or refrigerated transportation. SeaShare acts as a connector between fishers, processors, and food banks, ensuring donations move efficiently from source to consumer. In the contiguous U.S., SeaShare operates along established shipping routes, leveraging its partner Feeding America’s network of food banks to find distribution near the site of donation.

Nicole Candon, Director of Brand & Social Impact at Oddisea SuperFrozen, understands that distribution complexity. Oddisea SuperFrozen is a U.S. importer and distributor of seafood and a SeaShare partner. In 2025, they donated approximately 38,000 seafood servings through the partnership. Some of the seafood the company imports, though safe for consumption and high quality, cannot be sold commercially, leaving the organization in need of a responsible distribution channel.

SeaShare identifies appropriate food bank partners for the business and arranges direct pickups from Oddisea’s warehouse. “From there, the product moves through the food bank’s distribution network and is delivered to local communities,” Candon tells Food Tank. “Because seafood is so rare, our product was usually fully distributed within days of pickup.”

In Alaska, one of SeaShare’s key service areas, those distribution logistics become considerably more challenging. At times, SeaShare donates to highly isolated communities accessible only by boat.

“If we have a 30-pound box of salmon heading to an elder feeding program on an island with 65 residents, that donation is moving well outside of normal shipping lanes,” says Lindoff. “We rely on good partners at the Alaska seafood plants and within the air or barge freight companies who take the time to do the right thing and make sure our elders get this fish.”

Lindoff tells Food Tank she has been moved to tears as she speaks with food bank managers who report being “overcome” by the impact of SeaShare’s donations. She says she’s happy to be part of the solution.

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

Photo courtesy of SeaShare

The post SeaShare Is Closing the Protein Gap in America’s Food Banks appeared first on Food Tank.

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, October 4, 2026 thru Sat, October 10, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (5 items)

• Climate Fraud 101: Big Oil's Climate Deception Explained in 101 Documents, 1957-2026 The Center for Climate Integrity's 'Climate Fraud 101' documents seven decades of costly fossil fuel industry deception about human-caused climate change and climate change impacts. Center for Climate Integrity, Eva Carpenter, Davis Allen, Megan Matthews, Kert Davies, Sep 30, 2026.
• Trump Mocked Over 'Biggest Ice Cube' Claim During Texas Climate Rant The president did not specify which ice measurement he meant, while National Snow and Ice Data Center figures do not show a record-high Arctic extent. IBT, James RJ Florentino, Oct 02, 2026.
• Opinion: I used to believe climate change was a hoax 'My experience shows why local politicians need to push back against climate denialism.'' The Tyee, Erin Blondeau, Oct 05, 2026.
• New Documents Add to Evidence in Climate Deception Case Against ExxonMobil Court filings by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office include previously undisclosed documents, revealing new details about internal deliberations at the oil giant. Inside Climate News, By Nicholas Kusnetz, Oct 07, 2026.
• Inside the web of pro-oil and gas groups shaping Canada`s climate change narrative New research by Greenpeace Canada lays out a web of pro-oil-and-gas groups working together to influence public opinion on climate change The Narwhal , Carl Meyer, Oct 09, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (4 items)

• Chevron Gave $150K to Bay Area Group Accused of Using AI to Fight Heat Pump Rule The group claimed victory after regulators recommended delaying landmark rules that would eventually phase out gas water heaters in 2.8 million homes. DeSmog, Miranda Green, Oct 5, 2026.
• The American Livestock Industry`s Main Lobbying Group Treated Climate Change as a PR Problem New research has revealed more examples of the National Cattlemen’s Association’s efforts to downplay and deny the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. Inside Climate News, Georgina Gustin, Oct 07, 2026.
• Who`s telling you climate change is no big deal? A new report traces the financial connections behind conservative media’s latest attack on climate science. HEATED, Emily Atkin, Oct 08, 2026.
• To Block Solar Energy Projects, One Community Lumped Them in With Junkyards and Adult Bookstores Heated opposition to energy modernization via photovoltaic and wind generation systems is fanned by ample misinformation. Inside Climate News, By Dan Gearino, Oct 08, 2026.

Miscellaneous (4 items)

• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, September 27, 2026 thru Sat, October 3, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, Oct 04, 2026.
• Revealed: the methane mega-leaks from UN climate summit host Turkey Exclusive: Cop31 leader calling for global curbs on climate-heating gas has landfills producing some of world’s worst plumes The Guardian, Damian Carrington and Ruth Michaelson and Ayça Aldatmaz, Oct 05, 2026.
• Did the hot summer make more people worry about climate change? The Conversation, Lorraine Whitmarsh & Bella Zanin, Oct 06, 2026.
• An Influential Voice in the Climate Debate Has Died at 66 Joe Romm was a prolific writer who never hesitated to take on climate change deniers and the fossil-fuel industry — or even ostensible allies. New York Times, Clay Risen, Oct 06, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (4 items)

• Climate leaders push for more solar energy by 2030 Prominent climate leaders have called on governments, businesses, institutions and the public to make a push for solar power before the decade is out, repowering the world with cheap, clean energy. Is that possible? DW, Sarah Steffen, Oct 02, 2026.
• The world without solar and wind? Clean energy does not simply “add to” global energy use; it displaces fossil sources that would otherwise get built. The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather, Oct 05, 2026.
• Scientists who put faith in technology less likely to take climate action ‘Techno-optimism’ may lead to reliance on unproven solutions at expense of societal changes needed The Guardian, Matthew Taylor, Oct 07, 2026.
• Hoping for a `new normal` climate is pointless. We must learn to adapt Three researchers urge clear-eyed honesty in coming to grips with the aftermath of our climate blunder The Conversation, James Hopeward, Andrew Lowe, Melissa Nursey-Bray, Oct 08, 2026.

Climate Law and Justice (3 items)

• Supreme Court to Tackle Preemption Issues in Corporate Climate Accountability Litigation Background on Suncor with an overview of the preemption issues raised by the fossil fuel companies, potential outcomes of the Suncor hearing, and implications for other climate cases. Climate Law Blog, Margaret Barry, Oct 01, 2026.
• Supreme Court's new term kicks off with blockbuster climate change case A new Supreme Court term begins Monday with arguments in a blockbuster case about the reach of state power. NPR, Carrie Johnson, Oct 05, 2026.
• US supreme court hears big oil`s bid to block climate damage lawsuits How court will lean is unclear amid Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil’s attempt to stop lawsuits at state level The Guardian, Hilary Beaumont, Oct 05, 2026.

Climate Change Impacts (2 items)

• Global review reveals major blind spots in our understanding of climate change impacts on Mediterranean ecosystems A new global review of observed climate change impacts on plant communities reveals major gaps in where and how we monitor some of the world's most climate-vulnerable ecosystems. Phys.org, University of Cape Town, Oct 06, 2026.
• World`s largest penguin colony suffers `enormous population crash` Chinstrap penguins on Zavodovski Island in Antarctica down by two-thirds since 2011, probably due to climate crisis The Guardian, Jonathan Watts, Oct 07, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (2 items)

• As the planet warms, cities like Bangkok could be increasingly inundated by deadly floods In the long-term, extreme floods will undoubtedly strike Bangkok again due to a combination of climate, geography and urbanisation. The Conversation, Kimberley Reid, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Oct 06, 2026.
• Only about half of U.S. teens can correctly identify the causes of climate change Teens who reported hearing some or a lot about climate change from their teachers were more likely to answer the questions correctly than those who had not. Yale Climate Connections, YCC Team, Oct 09, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (2 items)

• The bipartisan energy bill tearing the climate movement apart A long-awaited permitting reform proposal would make renewables easier to build, but at a potential cost to communities and the environment. Grist, Austin Corona, Oct 08, 2026.
• Tories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet error Shadow prime minister Badenoch’s flagship conference policy document cites £957bn estimate, twice the total in climate advisers’ data. The Guardian, Peter Walker, Oct 09, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (2 items)

• After Outcry, Monitors the Trump Administration Tried to Scrap Return to Sea Under pressure from Congress, a network of ocean monitors that provides vital data to meteorologists, climate scientists, oceanographers and the fishing industry is being restored. NYT, Eric Niiler, Oct 03, 2026.
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #41 2026 A weekly survey of freshly published academic, government and NGO research dealing with matters of anthropogenic climate change and how we can best deal with it. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Oct 08, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!

NEU sets a Just Transition framework for workplace organising, campaigning and bargaining

The NEU has just done a massive service to the whole climate movement.

Its Model Just Transition Framework for Schools is not simply a statement of principles but an organising tool for union Reps and activists to use in their workplace.

Schools are a particular kind of workplace, but the approach could be used more widely by other unions if recast appropriately for each sector.

In setting out a checklist of actions that schools can take – under three headings, leadership, workplace, impact and opportunities –  it establishes a baseline for what is already being done, and a set of demands for further action where a school falls short.

It helps that the proposals in the checklists are often backed by the existing DFE “Net Zero Strategy”, introduced under pressure from the mass student strikes before COVID  very positive proposals like every school having a climate action plan, a sustainability lead and the option of joining up into the National Education Nature Park. However, all of this was left to schools discretion which, in the context of a climate emergency is a bit like setting off the fire alarm and saying that leaving the building is voluntary. 

This framework can be used by Reps, but most effectively done where school union members discuss and agree it in a union group, and where there is a drive by union Districts to coordinate use of the framework across a whole Local Authority area and through Multi Academy Trusts, with a Committee member responsible for driving it.

The emphasis on having “an inclusive, formally recognised, just transition group that gives voice to staff from all areas and roles” and “an active student eco club/group or nature club/group for

younger children and the opportunity for student voice to develop green policies” and schools using their “role as a community educator to drive change and climate awareness and action in its local community and with local businesses and stakeholders” makes this a tool for the wider social mobilisation we need.

A Just Transition will not be handed to us on a plate. We will have to fight for it. Where there is a national Jobs Transition Commission, as in Scotland or the North of Ireland, Just Transition work at the grassroots will add heft to their recommendations. Where there isn’t, as in England and Wales it will point up the need for them, as well as building the full scale social mobilisation we will need to make it a reality.

This is particularly the case because success in reducing a school’s carbon footprint, as with any other workplace, will depend on investment; for example to replace gas heating systems and Air Con with reversible heat pumps. So that can’t help but become a campaign for resourcing from central government, so each mobilisation at local level has to feed into a coordinated national campaign for that investment.

This framework is a terrific lever to that end.

Paul Atkin NEU Climate Change Network

 

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