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Key risks remain, however, including “first-of-a-kind execution,” interconnection bottlenecks, capital intensity and competing technology paths, according to a research note from financial services company William Blair.

Across the U.S., tech companies have courted backlash for using polluting gas generators to power massive new data centers. But energy industry data shows that in addition to building out natural gas, firms are adding huge amounts of battery storage.

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On August 26, 2026, a catastrophic flash flood swept down from the Bhote Koshi River near the Nepal-Tibet border, tearing through Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading districts in Nepal and destroying entire villages within minutes, leaving thousands missing and hundreds dead. This account is by Dikshya Subedi, a local in Kathmandu who has spent the past seven years working in climate advocacy across the Himalayan region. She is the country lead at SHE Changes Climate and founder of the youth-led organization Youth Action For Sustainable and Eco Nepal (YASEN), and writes here as someone whose own family was directly affected by the disaster.

That Wednesday morning started like any other. At around 9:30 AM, I saw the first news of a massive flood in Rasuwa, the beautiful mountainous district on the Tibet border. Lined with brightly coloured houses and where the Bhote Koshi River enters Nepal, Rasuwa is located a few hours from Kathmandu. Feeling confused and unsettled, I scrolled on, the way we sometimes do when something feels too big to look at directly. A few minutes later, my eyes landed on Facebook again, and this time the news was impossible to scroll past. The flash flood had hit  Devighat, Nuwakot, a quiet riverside town further downstream where my husband was born and grew up in, the place that held his entire childhood.

I called my aunt, who lives in Nuwakot. Her voice on the phone was shaking, terrified. “Nothing is left,” she told me. “Everything is destroyed.” Somehow, my uncle, aunt, and brother Manzil Rimal managed to evacuate from that flooded area just before the massive flood.  But that phone call broke something in me. The place where we used to visit my husband’s hometown for festivals, where we gathered as a family, where his memories live, turned into mud in ten minutes.

An aerial view shows houses covered in mud after flash floods at Devighat, Nepal’s Nuwakot district. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

I’ve worked in climate advocacy for several years. I’ve explained flood risks to government officials, helped authorities understand the danger maps for glacial lakes, and used the phrase “climate crisis” more times than I can count. But watching the impacts of the climate crisis arrive at your own doorstep, was beyond anything I could have imagined. I have spent years telling other people this could happen to them. I never imagined I would be the one making the phone call, listening to my aunt’s voice break on the other end.

There is a saying in Nepal: disaster won’t come by making noise. On that Wednesday, the people of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading learned exactly how true that is. And so did I, not as an advocate this time, but as a daughter-in-law of that soil.

What happened

A sudden, catastrophic flash flood surged in from the Bhote Koshi River near the Nepal-China border on the morning of August 26. It tore downstream through Timure, Syaphrubeshi, and Betrawati in Rasuwa district, sweeping away entire villages within an hour. The floodwaters continued down the Trishuli River corridor, devastating communities further downstream in the districts of Nuwakot and Dhading. Devighat, my husband’s village, was severely affected.

Floodwaters caused severe devastation in Devighat. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

While the exact cause is still being investigated, scientists have traced the flood back to an over 2,000-foot-wide (approx. 600 meters) chunk of glacier that sheared off high in the Himalayas and plunged 7,000 feet (over 2 kms) into the Lhende Khola a tributary of the Bhote Koshi River, sending a flood wave downstream at speeds of up to 193 km/h. This is exactly the kind of event climate change triggers. Warming shrinks glaciers and makes them more likely to break apart. 

The death toll from the devastating Bhote Koshi flood in Rasuwa has reached 939, while 3,925 people remain out of contact, according to the latest update from National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA). The highest number of bodies, 279, was recovered in Chitwan, followed by 216 in Nawalparasi Purba, 169 in Nawalparasi Paschim, 95 in Nuwakot, 65 in Gorkha, 55 in Dhading, 38 in Tanahun, and 23 in Rasuwa. Search and rescue teams, along with relief and medical response units, are still working around the clock. The government has set up dedicated teams for rescue, relief, health, communications, and infrastructure restoration, but the scale of destruction will take a long time to fully understand, let alone recover from.

The floodwaters along with mud and debris completely destroy homes, reaching levels above the rooftops. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

This is personal

For me, this is not something I am following from a distance through headlines. My husband’s home is in Devighat, Nuwakot, one of the places hit hardest. My uncle, aunt, and brother were there and saw the destruction with their own eyes: houses swept away, communities losing almost everything in a matter of minutes. Thankfully, my close relatives are safe. We have not lost anyone in our own family. But we have lost our house and factory, which is the main source of income that my parents and Uncle Aunt took many years to built on is swept away in  seconds. The place where we held countless family gatherings, where all of my husband’s childhood memories live, no longer exists.

Caption: Dikshya’s husband’s family home, buried under mud and debris from the flood. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

The reports coming out of Devighat now are hard to read. A village once known for its bustling market and Jalpa Devi temple one of the very popular temple is buried under mud so complete that only the upper floors of houses still break the surface – uprooted trees flung onto rooftops, electric pylons snapped like twigs. Search teams there are still pulling bodies from collapsed homes, working through mud so thick that sometimes all that’s visible of a victim is a foot. Survivors who’ve come back describe standing in the wreckage of houses they spent their whole lives building, with nothing left to salvage but the clothes on their backs, unsure whether the land is even safe to rebuild on. Watching what has happened to our neighbors, to the village that shaped my husband’s childhood, is heartbreaking in a way I don’t fully have words for.

The destruction left in Devighat in the aftermath of the flood. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

This is the part that people rarely talk about when they discuss climate advocacy: the work is never as abstract as it looks from the outside. I have spent years building the language – resilience, adaptation, loss and damage – that is supposed to help policymakers understand disasters like this one. Advocacy taught me the facts. This flood taught me what the facts actually cost.

Houses in Devighat left destroyed as mud and debris reach rooftops. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

It’s not climate change anymore; it’s a climate emergency

This disaster is a brutal reminder that climate change is not something we can keep filing away as a threat for later. We are already living its consequences here in the Himalayas. 

Global heating is melting the permafrost, the “glue” that holds our mountains together, and that’s raising the risk of glacier collapse more and more likely. A survey published within a day of this flood has now mapped over 3,600 glacial lakes across our river basins, 47 of them classified as potentially dangerous, and this one wasn’t even on the list, because the lake that burst didn’t exist the morning before. That’s how fast this hazard is moving.

Climate change makes flashfloods like the one above in Nuwakot more likely due to glacier collapse triggered by global heating. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

What makes this especially unjust is the imbalanced cruelty of who pays: Nepal is responsible for roughly 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it ranks among the 10 countries most affected by climate change on the Global Climate Risk Index. Nepal’s finance minister, Swarnim Wagle, has put the initial rebuilding cost at US$4–5 billion, nearly a tenth of the country’s entire economy. But that estimate assumes this is a one-time cost. It isn’t. With the region’s glaciers and permafrost continuing to destabilize, a disaster like this one is not a low-probability outlier, it is the shape of what is coming again.

There is still room for hope

In the middle of all this grief, something has genuinely moved me: the response of young people.Within a day, young volunteers across Nepal had organized themselves into the Rasuwa Relief Group, tracking who was missing, making sure support reached those who needed it, even volunteering for risky ground operations. 

Locals and volunteers provide support and rescue in Devighat after the flood. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

I’ve sat in plenty of meetings where “youth engagement” was just a line on someone’s agenda, a box to check before the real decisions happened elsewhere. Watching this unfold in real time, I don’t need convincing anymore. No one assigned these young people this responsibility: they simply took it on, faster than any ministry could move, because these were their families too.

It doesn’t erase my grief. But it has given me hope.It’s proof that the years I spent showing up to advocate for the climate as it affects young people,did build something – a generation that doesn’t wait to be asked.

Things need to change now

The flood that took my husband’s hometown moved at 193 kilometers an hour. We need to move faster. And for that, we need three things:

1. Disaster preparedness and management: Climate response and preparedness cannot be the thing we get to eventually. It has to come first, before the next village disappears. We need early-warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, and locally led preparedness for the mountain communities already living with this risk.
2. Locally led adaptation: Youth and affected communities must be given real, resourced roles in local adaptation and early-warning planning, not token invitations after the mourning has begun. 
3. Real climate finance: Wealthy nations, most responsible for the climate crisis, need to stop treating funding as a favor delivered on their own timeline. Nepal needs that money now, not at the next summit. It needs to come as genuine compensation, not charity, and paid out as grants rather than loans that burden our country. It must reach impacted families directly and fast.

This isn’t a wish list; it’s the difference between a village saved in time and one that isn’t. My husband’s hometown is already gone. What we do next decides how many more we can save.

Dikshya in Devighat. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

 

“Yesterday, this was a climate and disaster story in the news; today, it is a story happening at my family’s doorstep. But the people of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading are still here, still fighting, still helping each other. Let’s unite to rebuild together. 

The post Climate change suddenly became real when the flood buried my husband’s village in minutes appeared first on 350.

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This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Dryland farming is a practice used to cultivate crops in regions where water supply is limited, seasonal, or unpredictable. Dryland systems use no irrigation and depend entirely on rain. They work by capturing and storing as much rainfall as possible and ensuring that crop water demand does not exceed what’s available.

According to the Dry Farming Institute, success depends less on total rainfall and more on how much is captured in the soil. To prevent loss to runoff, dryland farmers apply techniques including contour farming, where crops are planted across slopes in terraces, and land shaping, which involves changing the topography of the land.

Captured rainfall can evaporate from the soil surface before it reaches crop roots, particularly in hot, dry, and windy regions. To keep water in the root zone, dryland systems prioritize practices that reduce evaporation and increase soil water-holding capacity.

Often, part of dryland farms will lie fallow in alternate seasons or years, to accumulate water for subsequent crop cycles. Increasing soil organic matter can also improve water retention. Practices such as crop rotation, cover cropping, and mulching build and maintain organic matter while reducing erosion and evaporation.

To ensure crop water demand does not exceed supply, dryland farmers align planting and harvesting dates with local rainfall patterns, rather than a fixed calendar date. And they select crops based on seasonal conditions and characteristics such as drought tolerance, adaptability, and the timing of a crop’s water needs.

Common dryland crops include pigeonpea, which both tolerates drought and improves soil fertility, and tepary beans, which are protein-rich and can withstand varying levels of water stress.

Sorghum—which the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) calls an underutilized crop that has significant potential for nutrition, climate resilience, and economic stability—can conserve water during dry periods by temporarily suspending growth.

“Wild desert plants have a remarkable number of adaptations to cope with heat, drought, unpredictable rainfall, and poor soils,” Erin Riordan of the University of Arizona tells Food Tank.

Drylands are a vital but overlooked resource with untapped economic potential and environmental value, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

They make up 46 percent of the planet’s land area and support 44 percent of global food systems, including half of the world’s livestock. They are home to more than 2 billion people and support the livelihood of 1 billion people in 100 countries.

Drylands are “strategic landscapes rich with the potential to drive resilience, economic vitality, and sustainable prosperity for millions,” Éliane Ubalijoro, CEO of the Landscape Alliance and Director General of World Agroforestry (ICRAF), tells Food Tank.

But these regions, which already face some of the world’s harshest conditions, are under threat. Increasing water scarcity, land-use change, and extreme weather events are transforming drylands into barren landscapes, according to Ismahane Elouafi, Executive Managing Director of CGIAR. Research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution estimates that up to 20 percent of drylands are already degraded or at risk.

And, according to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification and research published in Communications Earth & Environment, these pressures will intensify in the coming decades.

Heat, drought, and unpredictable rainfall are all stressful growing conditions likely to become more common, Riordan tells Food Tank. The U.N. Environment Programme estimates that land degradation in drylands could cut global food production by 12 percent over the next 25 years.

Impacts fall disproportionately on the 2 billion people who live in drylands, which include some of the world’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable communities, according to CGIAR.

ML Jat, the Director of Resilient Farm and Food Systems at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), tells Food Tank these communities are often “the first to face hunger, thirst, and the devastating effects” of declining soil and environmental conditions.

Despite these pressures, researchers and organizations highlight the potential of restoration. Investments in drylands can return as much as US$30 for every dollar spent, Ubalijoro tells Food Tank, describing drylands as “places of deep opportunity.”

But drylands need greater recognition in policy. FAO Assistant Director-General Abdulhakim Elwaer calls for integrating dryland agriculture into national development plans, climate action strategies, and food security policies. Researchers in Nature Ecology & Evolution call for stronger safeguards, finding that only 12 percent of drylands are protected.

Other recommendations focus on how solutions are developed and scaled. CGIAR’s Global Strategy for Resilient Drylands emphasizes partnerships among researchers, governments, businesses, and local communities to adapt agricultural innovations to dryland conditions. FAO recommends combining traditional knowledge with modern technologies.

Ubalijoro argues that these efforts can help redefine what drylands represent. “This is an opportunity for all of us,” she says, “to make these thrivelands not only a source of prosperity but also a source of peace.”

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Photo courtesy of Brett Meliti

The post Food Tank Explains: Dryland Farming appeared first on Food Tank.

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The post Amazon inks its first ever standalone battery tolling agreement – with a project in East Gippsland appeared first on Renew Economy.

Could a new mechanism to help countries transition to a cleaner, safer and fairer world be one of the main deliverables from the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye this November? Civil society groups – which played a key role in winning last year’s agreement in Brazil to set up a mechanism – want to see it come to life in Antalya and take shape in 2027.

The concept of a “just transition” has gained momentum and widespread support in recent years. It recognises that countries have varying levels of responsibility for planet-heating emissions and unequal resources to adapt to the impacts of global warming and move away from fossil fuels.

In July, UN Secretary General António Guterres told the High-Level Political Forum in New York: “We need to support the countries, communities and workers that depend on fossil fuels throughout the transition.” While few would dispute that need, governments at the UN climate talks are still working out how to respond to it with concrete action.

With discussions set to produce a decision making the mechanism a reality at COP31, observers want to ensure the new mechanism is more than just a talking shop. 

Here’s what’s at stake in the just transition negotiations before and at COP31:

What has been agreed on the mechanism so far?

At the mid-year climate negotiations in Bonn, just transition was one of the few key issues on which governments reached a consensus, including on how to review the progress of the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) – a process that led to agreement on a mechanism last year at COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

Set up in 2022 and launched a year later, the aim of the JTWP is to discuss how to achieve a green economic and social shift that is fair, from the global down to the local level. Its accompanying mechanism will be tasked with strengthening international cooperation, technical support, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing to enable societies to become low-carbon and climate-resilient in a way that does not harm people and shares the benefits.

To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”

Anabella Rosemberg, senior advisor on just transition with Climate Action Network (CAN) International, told Climate Home News that the most important outcome in Bonn was an informal document laying out various options for establishing the new mechanism. 

However, this leaves a lot still to be worked out and the preliminary discussions at Bonn were not enough on their own to ensure the operationalisation of the mechanism at COP31, as planned. 

“In the months ahead of COP31, this issue should be a priority for the COP31 presidencies – both Türkiye and Australia,” said Camila Mercure, climate policy coordinator at the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), an Argentinian NGO, adding this would help secure more space for debate in the lead-up to and during the annual summit.

So far, an informal workshop for governments and NGOs to exchange views on the JTWP and the mechanism, and to push things forward has been organised from September 30 to October 2 in Sydney. 

How will the review of the Just Transition Work Programme affect the mechanism?  

One task for COP31 is to review the efficiency and effectiveness of the JTWP so far and to decide whether and how it will continue. 

For Laura Restrepo Alameda, advocacy officer at Climate Action Network Latin America (CANLA), the main positive aspect is that it will include a mapping of instruments, initiatives and processes relevant to just transitions under the UN climate convention, the Paris Agreement and among other UN entities. “It’s a resource that will enable us to assess the complementarity and coherence of the various tools available to support the implementation of a [just transition] mechanism,” she told Climate Home News. 

Not everyone wants the JTWP review and the work to launch a mechanism to feed into one another. Russia, Arab nations and a group of large emerging nations pushed for them to be separate – which they believe would make it easier to limit the scope of the mechanism – while the African Group defended joint work between the two processes.

According to Anthony Dane of Southern Transitions, a South Africa-based “think and do-tank”, governments also have varying concerns around the mapping exercise, which is being carried out by the UN climate change secretariat.

He noted in a recent webinar that some want to use it as a basis to argue that a lot is already being done on just transition and so the new mechanism does not need to offer much more, while others are preparing to argue the opposite, highlighting a lack of international cooperation and support. 

How Belém launched the Just Transition mechanism

For Dane, the mapping exercise also raises the bigger question of how to define the scope of “just transition” within the UN climate talks. 

So far, richer countries have favoured a narrower view that focuses on phasing out fossil fuels, while developing countries have pushed for a broader “whole of economy, whole of society” approach that encompasses issues like green industrialisation and sustainable development.

Russia and some other high-emitting nations do not want the JTWP or its mechanism to become a tool for imposing new green trade restrictions, while the European Union has rejected attempts to use it as a forum to dispute its new carbon levy on imports. These debates are set to rumble on.

What will the mechanism do and when will it start?

In Bonn, countries discussed the design features of the mechanism – that is, the elements, governance arrangements, structures and functions it should have. The outcome was an informal preliminary note compiling a range of views and possible options. 

While most country negotiating groups welcomed the document as a basis for further talks, Arab countries said it did not reflect their priorities, with Saudi Arabia insisting it had no formal status. 

“The mechanism must contribute to international cooperation between countries, serve as a guide, support countries so that they can develop just transition strategies, and act as a channel for accessing funding to implement projects within their territories,” said Mercure of FARN. 

But exactly what the mechanism should cover, and what it should not, remain a contentious subject for governments.

A just agricultural transition takes root in Brazil

For example, the Like-Minded Developing Countries – a bloc of more than 20 low- and middle-income nations including China and India – and the Arab Group appear keen to avoid any targets, requirements or conditionalities being imposed on them with regard to transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF). 

That contrasts with some Latin American and small island states that would like to see the mechanism used as a way of furthering global commitments already made in 2023 on TAFF and tripling renewable energy by 2030.   

Developed countries, for their part, do not want the mechanism to put too much responsibility on them to provide finance and other forms of cooperation. 

Some experts Climate Home News spoke to, meanwhile, called for the mechanism to lay out actions for different sectors – not just energy but also others like agriculture and heavy industries.

Sandeep Pai, senior lead for international energy transitions at Duke University, said the mechanism should focus on at least eight to ten high-emitting sectors, addressing how to support workers through the transition to cleaner ways of operating. But, he noted “talking about sectors was always an issue at the negotiations”.

Another issue important to civil society groups is that justice should be embedded in the process to operationalise what they have informally dubbed the BAM (short for the Belém Action Mechanism or, more recently, the Belém Antalya Mechanism). 

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

“The key milestone between now and COP31 must be to define a structure for the BAM with clear governance, coordination and the inclusion of civil society,” said CANLA’s Restrepo Alameda. The network, which represents hundreds of NGOs, is calling for groups that are likely to be hit hard by the transition, such as workers and Indigenous peoples, to have a seat at the table.

Given the short time-frame until a decision to operationalise the mechanism is due to be agreed and adopted at COP31, experts say all these thorny issues are unlikely to be ironed out by then and further discussions may be needed to refine the form and functions of the new body.

CAN’s Rosemberg told Climate Home News that “an ambitious outcome” at COP31 would be to establish the mechanism with its key functions and modalities in Antalya, while setting up a transitional committee to speed up technical work and ensure the BAM is fully operational by COP32 in Ethiopia in 2027.

What is needed on the ground for a just transition?

The top-down nature of decisions taken at COPs generally do not reflect the specific situations of individual countries and communities on the ground – and this is particularly so when it comes to just transition.

Pai of Duke University contrasted India – where much of the transition will be about moving away from coal mining and coal-fired power stations – with countries that use relatively few fossil fuels like Costa Rica and will need to implement a very different set of changes.

He added that each country must define what a “just transition” means to them, according to their contexts and needs: is it about using less oil and gas, promoting green steel-making and lower-emitting buildings, or transforming some other high-carbon activity? The next step is to establish government bodies and policies to plan and drive the transition. 

COP30: Spain’s unions say just transition means renewing communities beyond jobs

“Global and broad declarations on a [just transition] mechanism are a good signal,” said Pai. “But we would be fooling ourselves if we think that just because something is getting declared, it will be implemented.”

When it comes to tackling dependence on coal, for example, Pai noted the difficulty of shutting down coal mines and replacing their role in local economies that tend to be heavily reliant on the industry for both jobs and revenues. According to the International Energy Agency, 3.1 million of the 7.8 million people working in coal-related activities in 2022 were employed in coal mining.

Workers load coal on a truck near an open-cast mine, on the outskirts of Dhanbad. (Amarjeet Kumar Singh / SOPA Image via Reuters Connect) Workers load coal on a truck near an open-cast mine, on the outskirts of Dhanbad. (Amarjeet Kumar Singh / SOPA Image via Reuters Connect) Why is finance the elephant in the room?

Finance – and finding more of it for climate action – has always been a bone of contention between developed and developing countries in the UN climate process, cropping up time and time again across negotiating streams, whether it’s the new goal for tripling resources for adaptation or filling the loss and damage fund.

In the corridors at Bonn, observers told Climate Home News that, for just transition, the discussions on the topic did not centre on setting up a new dedicated fund, but rather touched on how the mechanism could better connect available financial resources with just transition initiatives in countries.

The informal note on the new mechanism includes mobilising and facilitating “grant-based and non-debt-inducing finance” and channelling finance through North-South and other multilateral partnerships. It is unclear whether finance will be included in the final COP31 decision on the BAM. CAN’s Rosemberg has suggested a resource mobilisation taskforce could be set up to start identifying sources of funding.

An analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that, during the first year after mass layoffs, workers losing their jobs in energy-intensive industries – such as power supply, heavy manufacturing and transport – lose an average of 58% of their income, compared with 52% experienced in other sectors.

Pai flagged two challenges when it comes to funding just transitions: many large financial institutions don’t want to invest in low and middle-income countries because of their high-risk profile; and developing countries often lack a well-prepared pipeline of investable projects.

The Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) launched earlier this decade were an effort to overcome these barriers. The donor-backed initiatives, outside the UN climate process, mobilised billions of dollars from the public and private sectors to help several emerging economies, including South Africa and Indonesia, finance the transition to clean energy in an economically and socially fair manner. 

But the JETPs have run up against some difficulties, such as Jakarta abandoning its plan to shut down a major coal plant early, which was a key part of the original deal. 

Indonesia’s failing Just Energy Transition Partnership is a cautionary tale

With UN climate negotiations on finance seeing positions harden between developed and developing nations as donor governments struggle to meet existing targets, some observers believe talks on funding for just transition are unlikely to produce quick results in the form of hard dollars any time soon.

“Many of those who are asking for money don’t know what they’re asking for, and those who have the money don’t want to give. You can write a paragraph about finance [in the negotiations] but this fundamental reality will not change,” said Pai.

The post From Belém to Antalya – gains, gaps and challenges for a new Just Transition Mechanism  appeared first on Climate Home News.

The power of birdsong to lift the human spirit has long been appreciated.

In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, a suffering person is revived when “Haply I think on thee, and then my state,/Like to the lark at break of day arising/From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate ….”

Today, the effect is evident in apps designed to soothe people with birdsong, and in a growing body of research showing that when people hear recordings of birds singing they cope better with stress and feel more restored.

But what happens when we hear those birds amid the clamor of urban life? After all, most of us can’t easily get away to a peaceful forest far from the nearest road.

Even relatively quiet traffic sounds well below thresholds recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) take a toll, leaching away the bird-born calm, according to a new paper in the journal People and Nature.

Although we are creatures of the Anthropocene, apparently a part of our ancient brains that reacts to sounds didn’t get the memo.

“Traffic noise undoubtedly affects the psychological benefits of natural soundscapes. With urban planning now including more green spaces, it is important that steps are taken so that people enjoy such areas to their fullest,” said Eleanor Ratcliffe, a University of Surrey researcher who studies interactions between psychology and the environment.

Ratcliffe and colleagues at several United Kingdom universities conducted experiments to understand how urban noise affected the benefits of hearing birds singing. First, they conducted on online experiment in which more than 1,500 people listened to a series of 9 audio recordings. Each contained songs from three different species totaling five birds, many of them mixed with sounds of a city, such as traffic noise. The recordings varied by the loudness of the human sounds and the complexity and loudness of the bird recordings.

Afterwards, people answered questions about their responses, such as, “The variety of sounds in this recording make me feel ….”

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Can you hear it? That’s the sound of a successful rainforest recovery program.

 

For a deeper dive in more controlled conditions, the researchers conducted similar experiments with 62 university students in a lab. There they also hooked the subjects up to a device that measured the variability in their heart rate from beat to beat. A more variable rate is associated with lower stress.

The results showed that traffic noises consistently eroded the benefits of the birds. Louder traffic, not surprisingly, had a bigger effect. But even traffic perceived at 43 decibels – roughly equivalent to a refrigerator’s hum or a quiet office – diminished the benefits. The rankings by the study participants were mirrored in their heart rate variability. When traffic mixed with the birds, the variability was lower.

There’s evidence that at least part of what’s going on is that the overall intensity of sounds can overload people. The negative effects of loud traffic were amplified when the nature sounds were also dialed up to greater intensity.

In some ways, it appears that humans prefer a sort of acoustic middle ground. When the natural sounds were at a mid-level of loudness and complexity, people generally reported feeling better than when natural sounds were high end or low end and mixed with city noise. Likewise, people perceived more bird diversity in that mid-range, even though the number and species of birds were the same in each recording.

The findings suggest that when organizations are designing urban refuges such as parks, they shouldn’t forget to shut their eyes and listen. Measures such as lower speed limits on nearby roads or thicker perimeter vegetation could help preserve the acoustic benefits of the sweet sounds of Shakespeare’s lark.

“It is important that people get to spend time in nature and are able to appreciate its benefits without being distracted by noise,” said Ratcliffe.

Uebel, et. al. “The influence of acoustic characteristics and anthropogenic noise on restorative perceptions of natural soundscapes.” People and Nature. Aug. 25, 2026.

Photo by Mateusz Walendzik/Pexels

Perubahan slot game kini terasa pada cara sebuah permainan memperkenalkan dirinya sejak layar pertama terbuka. Tema tidak lagi berdiri sendiri. Susunan reel, transisi visual, karakter, simbol khusus, tempo permainan, sampai penyajian bonus mulai dirangkai sebagai satu identitas. Pendekatan tersebut membawa pengalaman digital menuju fase lebih modern, termasuk saat nama Pragmatic Play POP masuk dalam percakapan seputar perkembangan format permainan.

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Slot Game Mulai Bergerak dari Format Konvensional

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Pragmatic Play POP Membawa Pembahasan ke Arah Visual Lebih Segar

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Fitur Tidak Harus Banyak untuk Terasa Modern

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Tabel Perubahan Karakter Slot Game Modern

Berikut gambaran mengenai perubahan elemen permainan dari pendekatan konvensional menuju format lebih dinamis.

ElemenFormat KonvensionalPendekatan ModernDampak pada PengalamanReelUkuran relatif tetapBisa dinamis atau berkembangTampilan lebih variatifPaylineGaris pembayaran tetapWays atau clusterCara membaca kombinasi berubahWildPengganti simbolSticky, expanding, multiplierFungsi semakin beragamBonusSatu tahapBisa memiliki beberapa faseAlur terasa berlapisAnimasiFokus pada putaranTerhubung dengan fiturTransisi lebih informatifAntarmukaTombol dasarNavigasi adaptifInformasi lebih mudah dipetakanAudioMusik latarResponsif terhadap fiturPerubahan fase lebih mudah dikenali

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Babak Baru Slot Game Berada pada Integrasi

Perkembangan slot game tidak harus diukur dari jumlah fitur atau seberapa besar animasinya. Perubahan paling menarik justru muncul ketika reel, simbol, audio, visual, navigasi, serta bonus bekerja sebagai satu sistem.

Tema Pragmatic Play POP dapat ditempatkan dalam arah tersebut: pengalaman lebih ekspresif tanpa meninggalkan struktur permainan agar tetap mudah dipahami.

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Earth is on track to exceed 1.5 degrees of warming within years, the United Nations has warned, exposing communities to more extreme weather.

The post “Bloody dangerous territory:” World on track to exceed 1.5°C warming appeared first on Renew Economy.

VANCOUVER — MEGAN GORDON, Manager of the Pembina Institute’s Sustainable Workforce program, made the following statement in response to the federal government’s launch of the Energy and Electricity Workforce Alliance.“We are pleased to see the...

Headline News:

• “The Moonrider Battery-Electric Tractor From GoSun Costing $19,995” • The Moonrider tractor makes it possible for farmers, homesteaders, and landscapers to work in a quieter environment without polluting emissions. It is priced at $19,995, thousands of dollars less than similar tractors powered by internal combustion engines burning gasoline or diesel oil. [CleanTechnica]

Moonrider electric tractor (GoSun image)

• “What It Will Take To Turn Renewables Boom Into A Real Drop In Emissions” • It’s no longer possible to keep global warming below 1.5°C, a UN Environment Programme report says. It projects a best-case 1.8°C of warming and says we will “overshoot, peak and decline.” But we are also challenged by demands for AI and data centers. [Euronews]
• “Air Conditioners Save Thousands Of Lives Every Year In The US” • Home air conditioning prevents over 5,000 heat-related deaths per year in the US, a study found. As rising temperatures take a toll on human health, household air conditioning is about more than comfort, a study in Nature Health found, because it also saves thousands of lives. [Euronews]
• “US Adds 20 GWh Of Energy Storage Capacity In Q2, Largest Quarter On Record” • The US energy storage industry installed a record 20.2 GWh of capacity in Q2, bringing total installations in the first half of 2026 to 30.8 GWh. This is according to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. [CleanTechnica]
• “AOC Proposes Data Center At Mar-A-Lago” • After President Trump said every community should want a data center, US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took a shot at his enthusiastic support for them. She suggested that he put one at Mar-a-Lago after he said the communities that oppose the facilities are “backwards and poor.” [AOL.com]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

At first blush, The Odyssey and Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s back-to-back smash hits, could not seem more different. The former stands on the cusp of history...

The post Christopher Nolan highlights the power and limits of Enlightenment first appeared on Spring.

The world is on track to cross the 1.5°C global warming threshold, likely within the next few years, according to a major new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report released today. Limiting Overshoot finds that even the most optimistic scenario now points to a peak temperature rise of 1.8°C, with most other projections higher still, but concludes that an "overshoot, peak and decline" pathway can still bring the world back below 1.5°C if governments act immediately on emissions, methane and the fossil fuel phase-out.

350.org says the report is both a warning and a call to action. Overshoot may now be unavoidable, but its depth and duration are not fixed – these will be decided by political choices being made right now.

Fenton Lutunatabua, 350.org Pacific

"We absolutely have to claw back every fraction of a degree possible. Just because overshoot is deemed inevitable, that doesn't mean we stop fighting to limit it to as short an overshoot as possible. It is still within our grasp to limit how high temperatures rise and how long they stay above 1.5°C. Every day above 1.5°C is another coastline swallowed, another plantation flooded, another coral reef lost.

"We have the stark science outlining our situation, and we have the solutions, what we need is the political will to see them through. As our leaders gather in Palau for the Forum Leaders meeting, all eyes are on one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters, Australia, and how they act on this urgent warning. The climate crisis is here and any delay in mitigation, in phasing out coal, oil and gas, will only make our adaptation pressures harder and more expensive to bear."

Savio Carvalho, 350.org Head of Campaigns and Networks, said the report's findings echo what frontline communities are already living through:

"This report confirms what communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis have been telling us for years: that delay is not a neutral act, it is a decision. We've just watched a glacier collapse bury Himalayan communities under mud and water, and we're watching Pacific nations lose land to the sea in real time. UNEP is right that overshoot doesn't have to mean surrender: the size and length of that overshoot is still being written by the decisions governments make this year, on fossil fuel phase-out, technology transfer and on finance for the countries least responsible and most exposed. There is no version of 'limiting overshoot' that doesn't start with ending new coal, oil and gas expansion today."

UNEP's report warns that above 1.5°C, climate risks and the likelihood of triggering irreversible tipping points, including destabilisation of major ice sheets, degradation of the Amazon rainforest, and disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, intensify with every additional fraction of a degree and every year spent above the threshold. It stresses that carbon dioxide removal can only credibly contribute to a return below 1.5°C if it comes in addition to, not instead of, sustained and immediate cuts to fossil fuel emissions, and that countries with the greatest historical responsibility for the crisis must act fastest and with the greatest ambition.

350.org is calling on governments, and major fossil fuel exporters gathering this week with Pacific leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau, to treat the report as a mandate for accelerated coal, oil and gas phase-out, not a reason to delay further.

Newly elected to La Via Campesina’s Coordination Committee, Goo Jeom Sook enthusiastically explains to us what Korean agriculture is like, her farm, her commitments and the recent mobilisations that have shaken the country.

The post In South Korea, Peasant Women Cultivate the Land and the Struggle appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation and was formerly France’s Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21 in Paris.

The UN has released a report this week confirming what many people have feared: the world is going to pass 1.5C of warming.

At current emissions, the remaining carbon budget will be exhausted within roughly three years. We are heading into “exceedance” of the 1.5C threshold: a sustained breach of the Paris Agreement’s primary temperature goal before any possible return below it.

1.5C is the line we should not have crossed – and, once we cross it, the line we must quickly get back below, on what the UN Environment Programme calls an “overshoot, peak and decline pathway”.

• Sep 2, 2026 News UN sets out narrow path back to 1.5C warming after inevitable overshoot Leading scientists say warming must peak at 1.8C to be able to reverse course this century, but current government climate policies are way off track Read more
• Aug 26, 2026 Oceans Battle over cleaning up shipping set to resume at London talks The US and Saudi Arabia want to scrap shipping’s Net-Zero Framework and have swung behind a far less ambitious alternative Read more

Of course, climate risk is a spectrum: 1.4C is not safe, and 1.5C is not a sudden cliff edge. But the further the world moves beyond that level, the harder it becomes for communities and economies to adapt, and the greater the risk of more abrupt or systemic changes.

The importance of 1.5C

Some will argue that exceeding 1.5C means the Paris Agreement has failed, and that it is no longer a useful threshold. I disagree.

Before Paris, the world was heading for roughly 3.5C to 4C of warming. The UN now estimates that warming will reach a lower level of around 2.6C by 2100, due to policies implemented since Paris. That is still far too dangerous, but it is not the same world we were facing in 2015.

When we negotiated the Paris Agreement, 1.5C was not an arbitrary number. It was fought for by small island states and other climate-vulnerable countries because it represented a red line for their survival. Since then, we have witnessed the stark impacts of global temperature rises even in countries that did not consider themselves vulnerable, as seen with the devastating heatwaves in Europe this summer.

WHO issues new guidance on heat-health action plans, as El Niño sets in

The International Court of Justice underlined this in an advisory opinion, endorsed overwhelmingly by the UN General Assembly earlier this year, recognising 1.5C as the primary temperature threshold under the Paris Agreement and affirming that states must align their commitments with it. Overshoot does not move the goalposts. 1.5C remains the benchmark we must work to return to.

Lasting consequences of overshoot

But even as we fight to get back below 1.5C as quickly as possible, we now have to reckon honestly with what overshoot means. We are entering a period for which our societies, economies and institutions are not prepared. Even if overshoot itself is temporary, many of its consequences will not be. The longer it lasts, and the higher temperatures rise, the greater the lasting damage. We therefore need to limit its duration and magnitude.

The longer warming remains above 1.5C, the greater the risk of crossing tipping points in major Earth systems such as ice sheets, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, permafrost and tropical forests. Crossing them can trigger self-reinforcing changes that may prove irreversible even if temperatures later fall. We need to understand and monitor these systems more than ever. That requires sustained investment in climate science – just as funding is being cut in many places.

An overshoot pathway will also strain human systems. When a flood destroys a home, the damage is not undone because global temperatures later fall. Crop failures, missed schooling, debt and displacement can have lasting effects. Farms, cities, healthcare systems and insurance markets will all have to cope with risks they were not designed for, and risk facing “tipping points” of their own, such as financial panic when markets suddenly reprice risks they had underestimated. Infrastructure built today will stand for decades, so we need to design and plan for the climate risks it will actually face.  

From firefighting to future-proofing: Preventing wildfires must be the priority

Our priority must be to transition away from fossil fuels and rapidly cut emissions, including short-lived climate pollutants like methane. It traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, and cutting it sharply can act as an emergency brake on near-term warming. Much of the methane from fossil fuel operations can be cut with existing technologies.

We will also need sustainable carbon dioxide removal, although its role will be limited: trying to use it as a substitute for emissions cuts would be prohibitively expensive at scale.

The radical options

The major risks of overshoot have led to proposals to explore active intervention in the climate system itself. Solar radiation modification (SRM) is the best-known example: reflecting a small share of sunlight back into space to reduce warming. Other proposals would target different parts of the climate and Earth systems, such as trying to stabilise glaciers.

These responses would bring us into further uncharted territory across Earth systems and nature, diplomacy and governance, technology and societies.

Such ideas are born of genuine concern about the major risks facing vulnerable countries and communities as temperatures rise. But even under the most favourable assumptions, these are tactics for managing some of the symptoms of overshoot, not a strategy for addressing its causes. Greenhouse gases would keep accumulating, oceans would keep acidifying, and many of the social and economic impacts of overshoot would remain.

EU warns on solar geoengineering but research debate grinds on

The more we learn about the complexity of the climate and Earth systems we are disrupting and how much uncertainty there already is, the clearer it becomes that full control is likely an illusion, and new interventions bring new complex risks. SRM, for example, could change regional climates, such as rainfall patterns or agricultural production, in ways that benefit some regions and harm others, with knock-on geopolitical risks.

Governance and research needed

None of this is an argument against research into these technologies. On the contrary, the risks they’re responding to are so extreme that we must explore all the options we might have. But we need to understand the potential effects and capabilities much better and from many more angles, including the political and social implications. Serious global governance is particularly urgent, alongside transparent research that is open to scrutiny.

But the fundamental elements of a strategy to navigate overshoot are already understood. The priority is still to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit peak warming, protect people against the warming already locked in, and ensure technological innovation aligns with the public interest.

Overshoot is not just an engineering challenge. We need a full-scale response across societies, economies and political systems to prepare to navigate a more uncertain climate.

The post Keeping to 1.5C of warming is no longer possible – but we must still limit the overshoot appeared first on Climate Home News.

Even if you’re not wearing polyester now, it’s probably sitting somewhere in your closet — after all, it is the most ubiquitous fabric for textiles on Earth. Is that bad? 

Judging by social media, the answer is solidly “yes.” Influencers want you to know it’s a form of plastic, fashioned from melted crude oil or PET bottles and extruded into threads. That disgust factor (“ugh, I’m wearing plastic?”) might help explain why “polyester” is now trending as an insult on TikTok.

“Polyester lifestyle,” says the top comment on a viral video in which an 18-year-old imagines his oddly specific dream life — wearing blue-light glasses in a coffee shop while a Claude agent does half his job during lunch break; getting a call that he has to pack for a sudden business trip to Europe while watching the sunset from the tennis court — as a 1987 composite sketch of the Unabomber gradually fades into view.

There’s just one problem with the story that “polyester” is, as Mashable put it last month, “Gen Z’s new way to call you fake”: The term has already been used this way for about half a century. The Oxford English Dictionary gives examples from 1979 (“A gleaming brazen polyester clown”) and 1987 (“Clifton wears polyester suits and a polyester smile”). 

“TikTokkers just seem to be leaning into the ‘inauthentic’ and ‘low-quality’ edge of that meaning,” said Kory Stamper, a lexicographer and author.

Read Next When plastic companies write the lesson plans Joseph Winters

While it may be hard to imagine now, polyester was once sold as “miracle” fabric. Wrinkle-free, quick-drying polyester promised housewives liberation from the drudgery of ironing. The 1950s and ’60s were the era of “plastic fantastic,” when chemical companies promoted plastic and synthetic materials as convenient and durable. As polyester became less expensive, chemical companies ramped up its production, outpacing cotton starting in the ’60s.

As cheap polyester flooded the market, the novelty wore off, and it turned from “treasure to trash,” as the anthropologist Jane Schneider once wrote. The environmental movement was born on Earth Day in 1970, and awareness of pollution spread alongside a suspicion of artificial fibers. As hippie culture took off, people longed for a more authentic, “back to nature” kind of life. (It’s not a coincidence that people started using “plastic” as an adjective meaning superficial or insincere, too.)

As the ’70s came to an end, the shiny, synthetic men’s suits that once seemed modern now felt cheap and tasteless. In 1981, a John Waters film called Polyester played on the fabric’s tacky associations, starring a father in a polyester-clad suit who owns an adult movie theater. “Polyester and pornography — the fabric could hardly sink lower,” wrote Anneke Smelik, an emeritus professor of culture and history at Radboud University in the Netherlands, in a study detailing the cultural history of polyester.

That same anti-synthetic sentiment is back in force today. The vitriol isn’t exactly subtle: One TikTok influencer with a clothing brand said that polyester makes you “sweat like a dog and smell like f***ing shit.” (Those qualities were true of the polyester suits of the ’70s, but textile manufacturers worked to improve the sweat problem and polyester is widely used in athletic wear today, partly because it can be designed to wick sweat away from your skin.) Wellness influencers on both the right and the left warn about the microplastics shed by synthetic clothing; scientists are concerned about the health effects of exposure to PFAS and other toxic chemicals that are used to treat the fabric during production, in order to help it repel water and resist stains.

But the line between “synthetic” fabrics and “natural” ones like wool, silk, bamboo, and cotton is blurrier than you’d think, Smelik said. It’s not like rolls of cotton grow off the plant: The raw materials all undergo intense chemical processes in order to become the soft, huggable fabric we enjoy putting next to our skin.

There isn’t even an obvious winner from an environmental standpoint, she said. Growing natural fabrics requires resources like land and water: It can take more than 700 gallons of water to produce a single cotton shirt. The cotton industry was a major driver in drying up the Aral Sea in Central Asia, turning what was once the world’s fourth-largest lake into its largest dry lakebed. Polyester is less resource-intensive to make, but, as it’s fashioned from oil, it does generate more greenhouse gas emissions. A new report from the Apparel Impact Institute found that the global fashion industry’s emissions rose 7.5 percent in 2023 and 6.3 percent in 2024, in part because of the increased production of fiber, particularly polyester. The fabric’s durability also becomes a curse when you throw it away: Polyester breaks down very slowly, fragmenting into microplastics that persist in ecosystems for generations.

Read Next Michigan invests $7.5M to find out if it’s sitting on a clean energy gold mine Vivian La

There’s also consumer behavior to keep in mind: The perception that cotton is natural and better for the environment allows people to buy more clothes and not feel bad about it, because hey, at least I’m not buying polyester. The truth is that the most environmentally friendly solution is simply buying less and wearing the clothes you already have as long as you can. “Fast fashion remains fast fashion, and that is a huge problem,” Smelik said.

As good as the new generation of polyester insults are — including “Polyester Prince,” the new nickname for one prominent influencer who sells polyester clothes, and “polyester jester” to mock anyone wearing synthetic fast-fashion outfits — Smelik sees the current social media discussion around polyester as a regression to the 1970s. “It is so uninformed, and it leaves out all complexity,” she said. “You know, it becomes very polarized — like, ‘natural is good, and artificial is not.’”

toolTips('.classtoolTips12','An acronym for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS are a class of chemicals used in everyday items like nonstick cookware, cosmetics, and food packaging that have proven to be dangerous to human health. Also called “forever chemicals” for their inability to break down over time, PFAS can be found lingering nearly everywhere — in water, soil, air, and the blood of people and animals.
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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Gen Z is using ‘polyester’ as an insult. It’s actually a throwback. on Sep 2, 2026.

THE SHELL NIGERIA FILES: 2 SEPTEMBER 2026 Shell Operated It. Nigeria’s State Oil Company Held 55%: The Forgotten Public-Sector Stake in the Niger Delta Disaster The HEDA documents expose troubling decisions inside Shell and its former Nigerian subsidiary. But there is another institutional fact that should not disappear from the record: the pipelines, wells and facilities at the centre of the controversy belonged to an unincorporated joint venture in which Nigeria’s state oil company held a 55% interest. SPDC held 30% and operated the venture. For decades, therefore, the Nigerian state was simultaneously the majority economic participant in the enterprise and the sovereign responsible for regulating it and protecting its citizens. That does not diminish Shell’s accountability. It substantially widens the accountability question.  

Much of The Shell Nigeria Files has necessarily concentrated on Shell.

The documents published by HEDA Resource Centre are Shell records. They contain Shell emails, Shell audits, Shell technical assessments, Shell management discussions and decisions taken within or concerning the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria.

HEDA says the released material includes confidential audits and exchanges between senior executives and argues that it substantiates longstanding complaints about the condition and management of infrastructure operated by SPDC. Those assertions remain disputed by Shell and several matters will be tested at the Bille factual trial expected in 2027. (HEDA Resource Centre)

But concentrating exclusively on Shell risks obscuring an extraordinary feature of the system within which those decisions were being made.

Shell did not own 100% of the SPDC joint venture.

Nigeria’s state oil company held 55%.

Shell’s SPDC held 30% and was the operator.

Total held 10%.

Agip held 5%.

The July 2026 Nigeria: Lifting the Lid report records that structure, and Shell itself confirms precisely the same percentages.

That distinction — operator versus majority economic participant — deserves examination in its own right.

This was an unincorporated joint venture, not a company 55% owned by Nigeria

Precision matters here.

It would be inaccurate to say that the Nigerian government owned 55% of Shell or even that it owned 55% of SPDC itself.

The SPDC JV was an unincorporated joint venture.

During the period covered by the disclosed documents, SPDC — then a Shell subsidiary — held a 30% participating interest and acted as operator. Nigeria’s state oil company, historically the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, held the 55% interest. (Shell)

Operating responsibility was therefore principally SPDC’s.

The HEDA documents concerning pipeline integrity, leak detection, maintenance, safety exceptions, wells, security and internal management are not transformed into NNPC documents merely because NNPC had the larger economic interest.

But neither should the state-owned majority participation be treated as an irrelevant footnote.

Shell’s own 2024 Annual Report described the governance arrangement in striking terms. Discussing the proposed transfer of SPDC to Renaissance, Shell said the joint-venture partners would “together” continue to make decisions relating to work programmes for the SPDC JV’s assets and infrastructure. (Shell)

That wording raises a legitimate historical question.

If decisions about work programmes for JV assets and infrastructure were made collectively by the partners, what did Nigeria’s 55% participant know about the condition of those assets, the maintenance backlog, exceptional operating arrangements and expenditure required to put them right?

The public HEDA cache does not provide a complete answer.

The Nigerian state had an enormous financial interest

The scale of the relationship was not trivial.

Shell’s own 2013 Sustainability Report described SPDC as operator of the NNPC/SPDC joint venture and reported $44 billion in revenues from SPDC to the Nigerian government between 2009 and 2013.

Shell also said that, after costs, approximately 95% of the revenue from each barrel produced by SPDC went to the Nigerian government. Those are Shell’s figures and should be understood as Shell’s own account of its economic contribution, rather than independently verified calculations for this article. (Shell)

In June 2013, while many of the events documented in the HEDA files were unfolding, Shell announced approximately $3.9 billion of new investment by the SPDC JV in the Trans Niger Pipeline loop-line and Gbaran-Ubie Phase Two projects. Shell again expressly identified the ownership structure: NNPC 55%, SPDC 30%, Total 10%, NAOC 5%. (Shell)

The state therefore had two profoundly important interests operating simultaneously.

It wanted petroleum revenues and production.

It also had the sovereign duty to regulate the industry, protect the environment and safeguard the rights of the people living beside the oil infrastructure.

That combination does not establish corruption, regulatory capture or improper conduct.

But it creates an obvious structural tension — and African human-rights institutions were identifying the consequences of that tension decades before these Shell documents became public.

The African Commission confronted this problem in the Ogoni case

In its landmark decision in Social and Economic Rights Action Center and Center for Economic and Social Rights v Nigeria, Communication 155/96, decided in 2001, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights dealt directly with the Nigerian state’s dual position.

The Commission recognised that the government, through NNPC, was entitled to produce oil and use the resulting income for Nigeria’s economic and social development.

Then came the qualification:

the protective care required to safeguard the affected population “was not taken.”

The Commission said governments have obligations to prevent pollution and ecological degradation, monitor threatened environments, require and publish environmental and social impact studies, provide information to exposed communities and allow meaningful participation in decisions affecting them.

This was not simply an environmental-policy recommendation.

The Commission was interpreting Nigeria’s obligations under the African Charter.

And it addressed the relationship between government and private industry directly, saying states must protect citizens against damaging acts by private parties through legislation and effective enforcement. It concluded that the Nigerian government had failed in that responsibility and had facilitated the destruction of Ogoniland, stating that private actors — “the oil companies in particular” — had been allowed to affect the well-being of the Ogoni people disastrously.

An important qualification about that 2001 decision

The procedural history must not be hidden.

The African Commission recorded that the Nigerian government had not provided a substantive written defence to the allegations in the usual way. Its written response included what the Commission regarded as an admission of the gravamen of the complaints.

The Commission therefore said it was compelled to determine the matter on the basis of the complainants’ uncontested allegations, which it accepted.

That is relevant when assessing individual factual allegations contained in the decision.

It does not alter the formal result.

The Commission found the Federal Republic of Nigeria in violation of Articles 2, 4, 14, 16, 18(1), 21 and 24 of the African Charter.

Its recommendations included investigation of officials of the security forces, NNPC and relevant agencies; compensation; comprehensive environmental cleanup; independent petroleum-industry oversight; environmental and social impact assessment; and provision of information about environmental and health risks to affected communities.

The party formally found in violation was Nigeria.

That is crucial to today’s story.

Eleven years later, the ECOWAS Court again found Nigeria wanting

The state-accountability issue did not end with the military era or the Ogoni decision.

On 14 December 2012, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice delivered judgment in SERAP v Federal Republic of Nigeria, ECW/CCJ/APP/08/09; ECW/CCJ/JUD/18/12.

The Court found Nigeria in violation of Articles 1 and 24 of the African Charter over continuing environmental degradation in the Niger Delta. (Ghal ii)

The Court identified enforcement and accountability as central failures. It ordered Nigeria to take effective measures to restore the Niger Delta environment, prevent further environmental damage and hold those responsible for environmental harm accountable. (International Commission of Jurists)

Again, the defendant was the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

This was not a judgment imposing Shell’s civil liability for every Niger Delta spill.

But it established an important principle that predates the present English litigation:

Nigeria could not discharge its international obligations merely by having environmental laws on the statute book. It had to enforce them.

By 2012 — precisely the period from which many of the newly released Shell documents originate — the Nigerian state had therefore already been told by two regional human-rights institutions that its own environmental governance was inadequate.

That context deserves considerably more attention.

Now return to the Shell documents

Consider what has emerged from the 27 publicly released records.

Previous instalments have examined internal material concerning inadequate pipeline maintenance, clamps and overdue replacements; deficient leak-detection capability; hundreds of wells requiring attention; exceptions from Shell’s own HSSE requirements; serious security-management weaknesses; the difficulties of correctly identifying spill causes; concerns about possible employee and contractor involvement in crude theft; and management deliberations over continuing production despite anticipated further environmental damage.

HEDA identifies the underlying documents individually, including Document 8, MPR-10 HB 1248-1262, the pipeline asset-management audit; Document 13, MPR-10 HB 805-827, the pipeline-integrity support visit; Document 16, MPR-10 HB 800-804, the HSSE exception request; Document 18, MPR-10 HB 750-767, concerning significant sabotage leaks; and Document 23, MPR-10 HB 856-891, the Project Madrid material. (HEDA Resource Centre)

The disclosed material largely tells us what people within Shell and SPDC were discussing.

It tells us much less about what the other joint-venture participants were being told.

That is now a conspicuous gap.

What did the 55% partner know?

There is no responsible basis in the currently public records for asserting that NNPC approved every Shell operational decision revealed in the documents.

Nor can we assume that NNPC knew about every internal audit finding, every technical warning or every exchange between Shell executives.

But Shell’s own description of the JV confirms joint participation in decisions concerning work programmes for assets and infrastructure. (Shell)

That makes several questions unavoidable.

Were pipeline-integrity audits supplied to NNPC or discussed within joint-venture governance structures?

Were the financial implications of replacing deteriorating pipelines brought before the partners?

Were NNPC representatives informed when SPDC sought exceptions from Shell Group HSSE requirements?

Did annual joint-venture budgets provide all the funds SPDC said it required for maintenance and integrity work?

Who approved expenditure priorities?

Were Project Madrid’s choices — including possible shutdowns, repair programmes and their financial consequences — discussed with the majority participant?

Was NNPC informed of Shell’s reported multibillion-dollar estimate for eventual decommissioning of the asset base?

What information reached the Nigerian regulators separately from information reaching the Nigerian state as commercial participant?

Those are questions generated by the structure and the documents.

They are not allegations disguised as questions.

The currently public archive is insufficient to answer them.

The distinction between NNPC and the regulators also matters

Another trap should be avoided.

NNPC was the state-owned commercial participant in the joint venture. It was not synonymous with every Nigerian ministry, environmental agency, petroleum regulator, security force or successive federal administration.

Different institutions had different functions.

The problem is therefore not adequately described by saying simply that “the Nigerian government owned 55%.”

The more exact proposition is that the Nigerian state simultaneously participated economically in petroleum production through its national oil company and exercised sovereign regulatory and human-rights responsibilities through other organs of government.

It is that coexistence of interests that demands scrutiny.

And the African Commission understood the point clearly in 2001 when it expressly contrasted Nigeria’s entitlement through NNPC to produce oil with the protective care the government was nevertheless obliged to provide.

None of this provides Shell with an escape route

The Nigerian state’s failures cannot be used to erase Shell’s responsibilities.

SPDC was the operator.

Shell’s own 2024 sale announcement said SPDC implemented the technical expertise, management systems and processes used on behalf of the JV companies. (Shell)

The documents examined in this series are significant precisely because they reveal what Shell and SPDC personnel knew, discussed and sometimes recommended about assets for which SPDC had operational responsibility.

The English Bille and Ogale claims are against Shell plc and Renaissance Africa Energy Company, formerly SPDC. Shell’s current account acknowledges that Renaissance is sued as the former operator of the facilities from which spills are alleged and Shell plc as the former parent. Shell vigorously disputes liability. (Shell)

A 55% state participation in the joint venture therefore does not mean Shell had only 30% of the operator’s responsibility.

Participating interest and operational duty are different concepts.

But the reverse proposition is equally important.

Shell’s position as operator does not make the Nigerian state invisible.

Shell itself invokes the government-owned partner in its defence

There is an intriguing feature of Shell’s current public response.

Shell does not pretend the Nigerian state was absent.

Quite the opposite.

Its Bille and Ogale page, last updated 16 July 2026, says the vast majority of Niger Delta pollution resulted from large-scale oil theft, sabotage and illegal refining by organised criminal gangs. Shell says its former subsidiary worked with “Nigerian authorities, its government-owned partner and local communities” in responding to those challenges and cleaned spills from JV facilities regardless of cause as Nigerian law required. (Shell)

Shell says SPDC invested heavily in pipeline monitoring, infrastructure replacement, spill-response capability, surveillance, repairs and shut-ins, and repeatedly escalated the growing criminality to Nigerian authorities and government security forces. (Shell)

Its response to the July 2026 report makes much the same point. Shell says the publishers have selectively presented historic documents without adequately reflecting the difficult operating environment and specifically cites cooperation with Nigerian authorities and the government-owned JV partner.

That is relevant evidence in Shell’s favour and must be reported.

But it also reinforces the case for examining the public-sector records.

If cooperation with government and the government-owned majority partner is an essential part of Shell’s explanation, the records of that cooperation become essential historical evidence.

The missing archive may not all be in Shell’s files

Yesterday’s instalment established that the 27 HEDA documents constitute only a small fraction of the Shell material disclosed in the English litigation.

Today’s issue points toward another potentially important documentary universe.

NNPC records.

Joint-venture committee papers.

Approved work programmes and budgets.

Government petroleum ministry files.

Regulatory inspection and enforcement records.

Communications between SPDC and NNPC.

Communications between the operator and regulators.

Records concerning funding approvals, shutdown requests, infrastructure replacement, security arrangements and decommissioning.

Some may already be before the parties in litigation. Some may no longer exist. Some may be confidential for legitimate reasons. Some may demonstrate that the Nigerian state pressed Shell to improve matters. Others may show that Shell sought resources or action it did not receive.

We should not predict what they contain.

But an evidence-led history of the Niger Delta cannot logically stop at one participant’s correspondence when the commercial venture was majority-held by the state.

There is a particular question about money

One of the recurring themes in the Shell files is cost.

Shutdowns had enormous financial consequences.

Pipeline replacement required capital.

Maintenance competed for resources.

Security measures cost money.

Decommissioning would eventually cost billions.

That makes joint-venture budgeting especially relevant.

Shell’s public documents demonstrate that JV partners collectively had economic interests in work programmes, while Shell has described their continuing role as jointly making decisions concerning work programmes for assets and infrastructure. (Shell)

If an asset-integrity proposal was delayed because adequate funds were unavailable, it matters whether that was an operator decision, a joint-venture funding problem, a government funding problem or some combination.

If SPDC received all the resources it requested and nevertheless failed to perform required work, that points one way.

If SPDC requested expenditure for critical integrity work and the majority participant would not fund its share, that could point another.

At present we should not claim either scenario.

The documents required to tell us which is true should be found and examined.

The state’s regulatory obligation was independent of its commercial interest

This is the central point.

Even if Nigeria earned enormous revenues from the venture, the state remained obliged to protect people from pollution.

Even if criminal gangs sabotaged infrastructure, the state remained obliged to enforce criminal and environmental law.

Even if Shell operated the facilities, Nigerian regulators remained obliged to regulate them effectively.

Even if Shell breached its duties, Nigeria did not thereby cease to have duties of its own.

The African Commission made that clear more than two decades ago. The ECOWAS Court made it clear again in 2012.

Corporate accountability and state accountability are therefore not competing explanations.

They can exist simultaneously.

The 2026 report itself recognises the Nigerian government’s responsibility

Nigeria: Lifting the Lid does not confine its recommendations to Shell.

It calls on both Shell and the Nigerian government to disclose the full divestment agreement and identify transferred assets and liabilities.

It separately calls on the Nigerian government to address the transfer of legacy liabilities in divestment approvals and to require Shell and its joint-venture partners to provide adequately for cleanup, remediation and decommissioning. These are recommendations from Amnesty International, HEDA and their partner organisations; they are not court orders or established findings of legal liability.

The report also states more generally that Nigeria’s failure over decades to enforce regulations effectively and monitor oil-company operations has been extensively documented.

That part of the report should not be overlooked merely because the newly disclosed documents happen to carry Shell letterheads.

The sale to Renaissance did not make the 55% state interest disappear

Shell completed the sale of SPDC to Renaissance on 13 March 2025.

Renaissance now controls the former Shell 30% interest. Shell confirms that the JV remains an unincorporated arrangement in which the government-owned national oil company has 55%, Total 10% and Agip 5%. Renaissance, through the renamed former SPDC, continues as operator. (Shell)

Shell has therefore exited the 30% onshore participation.

The Nigerian state’s majority JV interest did not leave with Shell.

That is important when considering future remediation, decommissioning, operation and accountability.

It also reinforces why historical allocation of responsibilities cannot be reduced to a single corporate name.

This is not a case for taking the spotlight off Shell

It is a case for switching on another light.

Shell’s own internal records require serious scrutiny.

The company’s role as operator requires serious scrutiny.

The allegations against Shell plc and its former subsidiary must be decided on evidence.

But Nigeria’s own institutions cannot be relegated to the scenery.

The Nigerian state was not an uninvolved host government watching a wholly foreign enterprise operate on its territory.

Through NNPC it held the largest economic interest in the SPDC joint venture.

Through its regulators and ministries it had responsibility for enforcing Nigerian law.

Through its security apparatus it had responsibility for addressing theft and sabotage without violating human rights.

Through its international obligations it had responsibility for protecting the environment, health and livelihoods of the population.

And regional human-rights bodies found, long before publication of the HEDA documents, that Nigeria had failed badly in important aspects of those responsibilities.

The question for Nigeria is therefore as serious as the question for Shell

When Shell executives received evidence that pipelines were deteriorating, who in the 55% state participant was told?

When major integrity expenditure was needed, who funded it?

When maintenance could not be completed, what did NNPC know?

When illegal connections multiplied, what did the government do?

When SPDC escalated security concerns, how did the authorities respond?

When environmental regulators received spill reports, did they independently test them?

When joint-venture work programmes were approved, what priority was given to preventing pollution compared with maintaining production and revenue?

When decommissioning liabilities grew into the billions, what provision did the state participant make for its share?

Those questions cannot legitimately be answered by speculation.

But neither should they remain permanently unanswered.

The documentary record now points beyond Shell

This is perhaps the most important conclusion from today’s examination.

The HEDA archive started as a window into Shell.

It now points toward the governance of an entire petroleum system.

Shell’s records show the operator.

The ownership structure shows the state.

The African Commission decision shows the state’s human-rights duties.

The ECOWAS judgment shows the consequences of failing to enforce them.

And Shell’s own current defence repeatedly points to Nigerian authorities and its government-owned partner as central actors in the struggle with theft, sabotage, security and cleanup.

Put those records together and the conclusion is unavoidable:

The definitive history of Niger Delta pollution cannot be written from Shell’s files alone.

Nigeria’s files matter too.

And if the aim is genuine accountability rather than simply assigning a convenient villain, they should be subjected to the same documentary scrutiny.

Documentary record

HEDA Resource Centre hosts the public cache under “Shell Documents Released in UK Legal Proceedings”, identifying the individual internal Shell emails, audits and presentations used throughout this series. HEDA says the documents were cited in the Bille and Ogale proceedings and released after public-interest applications by campaigning organisations. (HEDA Resource Centre)

The July 2026 Nigeria: Lifting the Lid report records the historical SPDC JV structure as NNPC 55%, SPDC/Shell 30%, Total 10% and Eni/Agip 5%, with SPDC as the Shell-owned operator during the period under examination.

Shell independently confirms the structure in its sale announcements and states that the SPDC JV is an unincorporated joint venture. Its annual reporting further states that the joint-venture partners together make decisions concerning work programmes for the JV’s assets and infrastructure. (Shell)

The principal historical human-rights source is the African Commission’s SERAC and CESR v Nigeria, Communication 155/96, decided in October 2001. The Commission formally found Nigeria in violation of seven provisions of the African Charter and called for environmental protection, cleanup, compensation, independent petroleum oversight and information for affected communities.

The subsequent regional judicial authority is SERAP v Federal Republic of Nigeria, ECW/CCJ/APP/08/09; ECW/CCJ/JUD/18/12, decided by the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice on 14 December 2012. The Court held that Nigeria violated Articles 1 and 24 of the African Charter and ordered measures to restore the Niger Delta environment, prevent further damage and hold perpetrators accountable. (Ghal ii)

For direct inspection: HEDA Resource Centre — Shell Documents Released in UK Legal Proceedings · Nigeria: Lifting the Lid — July 2026 report · African Commission — SERAC and CESR v Nigeria · Shell — completion of the SPDC sale and JV ownership structure · Shell — current position on Bille and Ogale, updated 16 July 2026

Editorial note

This article does not allege that NNPC directed the operational failures identified in Shell’s internal documents, approved any specific unsafe practice, suppressed audits, rejected particular maintenance expenditure or caused any particular spill.

The presently public records do not establish those propositions.

Nor does NNPC’s 55% participating interest mean that Nigeria owned 55% of SPDC itself or that the state oil company exercised SPDC’s day-to-day operating functions. The SPDC JV was an unincorporated joint venture and SPDC was its operator.

Conversely, SPDC’s status as operator does not remove Nigeria’s independent regulatory and human-rights responsibilities or make the state’s majority economic participation irrelevant.

The 2001 African Commission decision formally found violations by Nigeria, but the Commission expressly noted that it proceeded substantially on complainants’ allegations that were uncontested by the government. The 2012 ECOWAS Court judgment likewise imposed obligations on the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not civil liability upon Shell for every pollution event.

Shell disputes the interpretation placed on its internal documents by the publishers of Nigeria: Lifting the Lid. It says large-scale theft, sabotage and illegal refining caused the vast majority of relevant pollution and stresses that its former subsidiary worked with Nigerian authorities, its government-owned partner and communities while investing in prevention, response and cleanup. Those matters remain important and contested as the Bille factual trial approaches in 2027. (Shell)

THE SHELL NIGERIA FILES: 2 SEPTEMBER 2026 was first posted on September 2, 2026 at 9:28 am.
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