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Gold bounced back above the $5,000-an-ounce level on Wednesday as investors looking to “buy the dip” snapped up more of the metal following its historic crash last week.

Spot gold traded as high as $5,091.89 per ounce during the early hours of trading, before erasing its gains. Silver also rose by as much as 9% to $92 an ounce but has since pulled back.

Live Gold Price Chart and Real-Time Updates

Bullion has now recovered nearly half of its losses from Friday’s sudden collapse, which saw prices plunge by as much as 12% for its worst decline since 1980. Before that, the metal had been soaring to all-time highs on nearly a daily basis, a scorching rally underpinned by speculative momentum.

Market watchers had been warning that gold’s advances were too large and too swift. Prices were up by about a quarter on the year before Friday’s crash, which continued into the early parts of this week.

“As prices fell, dealer hedging flipped from buying into strength to selling into weakness, investor stop‑outs were triggered, and losses cascaded through the system,” analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote earlier this week.

Chinese speculators set the stage for gold and silver crash Fundamentals intact

Still, the major banks remain mostly bullish on gold, as they believe the underlying fundamentals that have driven its rally remain intact. Earlier this week, JPMorgan set a year-end price target of $6,300 per ounce, while Deutsche Bank reiterated its forecast to $6,000 an ounce.

While inflated prices and market turmoil may affect position sizing, it won’t dampen overall investor interest, Niklas Westermark, head of EMEA commodities trading at Bank of America, also said, though he warned that volatility in precious metals will remain elevated.

Analysts ramp up gold price forecasts as global uncertainties mount

“Forced sales have likely run their course in precious metals,” Daniel Ghali, a senior commodity strategist at TD Securities, said in a note to Bloomberg. “The intense volatility over the last week could certainly keep retail participants on the sidelines, removing an increasingly important cohort of buyers.”

Meanwhile, gold has drawn increased safe-haven demand amid rising geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran, following the US Navy’s downing of an Iranian drone.

(With files from Bloomberg)

The climate crisis doesn’t always arrive as a sudden headline-grabbing disaster. Sometimes, it creeps up quietly: in shrinking rivers, failing wells, and communities being forced to “use less” of what they barely have. But make no mistake: what looks like scarcity is actually theft. Theft of a stable climate. Theft of reliable rainfall. Theft of the water systems that have sustained life for millennia.

A new report from the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) “Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era”  warns that the world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy.” It means we are using and damaging freshwater systems faster than nature can replenish them and in many places, the damage is irreversible.

This is what the climate crisis looks like when it hits the systems that sustain life. And it’s being driven by the same forces destroying our climate: fossil fuel extraction, industrial agriculture, and an economic system that treats nature as an infinite resource to exploit for profit.

From “Crisis” to “Bankruptcy”. What’s the difference?

For decades, policymakers and researchers have described global water challenges as a “water crisis” or “water scarcity.” But scholars have long warned that this crisis framing fails to capture the reality of long-term, structural decline. The word “crisis” sounds temporary. Bankruptcy means something more permanent and more concerning. It describes a system that’s been used up so badly that it can no longer simply bounce back.

The UNU report documents a scale of loss that makes this distinction unavoidable:

• Roughly 70% of the world’s major aquifers (underground layers of rock and soil that store water) are in long-term decline. 
• Rivers that once flowed to the sea now run dry for months each year. 
• Over half of the world’s large lakes have lost water since the early 1990s. 
• The world has lost an estimated 410 million hectares of natural wetlands over the past five decades, nearly the size of the entire European Union. These were ecosystems that once stored water, buffered droughts, and regulated local climates.

Perhaps most alarming, the world has lost more than 30% of its glacier mass since 1970. These “frozen water towers” once released meltwater during dry seasons, sustaining billions of people. Their disappearance is the liquidation of nature’s water savings account — with no mechanism for repayment.

Almost all the world’s glaciers are shrinking and fast. Credit: Copyright 2011 Michael C Smith

Bankruptcy essentially means you can’t restore what’s been permanently lost. Compacted (squeezed out) aquifers can never store water again. Extinct species don’t return. Glaciers that took millennia to form won’t regrow in our lifetimes.

Fossil Fuels > The Climate Crisis > Water Collapse

Water bankruptcy is being locked in by climate breakdown, which in turn is driven overwhelmingly by the burning of fossil fuels i.e. coal, oil, and gas. Here’s how climate change is destroying our water systems:

• Rising temperatures intensify the water bankruptcy spiral: Every fraction of a degree of global warming increases evaporation from soils, rivers, and reservoirs. Hotter air sucks moisture from the land, turning what would have been manageable dry spells into devastating droughts. The report documents how drought is increasingly “anthropogenic”, meaning it’s not just about lack of rainfall, but about human-caused warming, land degradation, and over-extraction combining to create permanent water deficits.

An Indian man takes bath under the tap of a water tanker on a hot day in Ahmadabad, India. Heat wave conditions prevailed as temperature rises in many parts of India. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

• Extreme rainfall creates the cruel paradox – floods without recharge: At the same time, climate change is intensifying rainfall. Storms arrive in violent bursts that flood cities and wash water away before it can infiltrate soils. More than half of global agricultural land is now moderately or severely degraded, meaning it cannot absorb and store water. Communities experience the cruel paradox of flooding and water shortage in the same year or sometimes in the same month.

• Melting glaciers: short-term surge, long-term catastrophe: Glacier melt illustrates the danger of mistaking short-term increases for security. As glaciers melt faster, rivers may briefly swell. But once glaciers shrink past critical thresholds, dry-season flows collapse permanently. For the 1.5 to 2 billion people who depend on glacier-fed river systems such as the Indus, Ganges-Brahmaputra, and Andean rivers, this means water supplies that sustained entire civilizations are disappearing.

• Industrial agriculture and extractive industries devour and pollute water: Around 70% of global freshwater withdrawals go to agriculture, much of it for water-intensive monocultures in regions that cannot sustain them. Meanwhile, mining, fossil fuel operations, and industrial pollution render vast volumes of remaining water unusable. Water may still exist on paper, but functionally it is gone, too contaminated for drinking, farming, or healthy ecosystems.

The Human Cost: Who’s Paying?

The scale of water bankruptcy is quite extensive and ever- growing: 

• Nearly 4 billion people experience severe water scarcity at least one month per year
• 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water
• 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation
• Over 1.8 billion people were living under drought conditions in 2022-2023
• Drought-related damages cost over $307 billion per year worldwide — more than the annual GDP of three-quarters of UN member states.

But statistics only tell part of the story. Water bankruptcy shows up in daily realities no one should have to face. Farmers watch wells fail after generations of reliability and go into debt drilling deeper into aquifers that will soon collapse. Girls walk farther for water instead of attending school. Informal settlement residents pay more for less reliable water from tanker trucks while wealthy neighbourhoods maintain green lawns. Entire communities are forced to move as water sources disappear. Rising food prices as irrigation fails and harvests decline, pushing the poorest households into deeper poverty and hunger. 

Young women and girls carry water in Nigeria. Credit: Flickr

And here’s the brutal irony: the communities facing water bankruptcy today are often those who’ve contributed least to the climate crisis but are protecting the water systems everyone depends on like Indigenous water guardians stewarding watersheds, small-scale farmers practicing sustainable agriculture and communities resisting extractive industries and defending rivers from pollution.

Their knowledge and their resistance are being ignored while their water is being stolen by the same systems driving climate chaos.

The Fossil Fuel Era Has to End Now

Every year governments delay ending coal, oil, and gas, ordinary people pay the price, not in abstract climate targets, but in higher food prices, worsening health, lost livelihoods, and growing insecurity. Water bankruptcy is another consequence that makes those costs impossible to ignore.

The solution is not complicated. End fossil fuel expansion. Phase out coal, oil, and gas. Invest in clean energy and resilient, public, community-led water systems. Set binding limits on industrial water extraction. Align climate policy with the reality that there is no livable future without functioning water systems.

What happens next depends on whether leaders continue protecting polluters or finally choose people, justice, and a livable planet.

Sources

• Global Water Bankruptcy Report – UNU-INWEH (2026)
• Fossil Fuels Did This: How the Industry Drives Drought – 350.org
• The Planetary Boundaries Framework – Stockholm Resilience Centre
• Water Conflict Chronology – Pacific Institute
• UN 2023 Water Conference Outcomes

The post Water bankruptcy: how fossil fuels are destroying the world’s water supply appeared first on 350.

As the world heats up, sport is becoming more dangerous. Many amateur athletes risk their lives running in more extreme temperatures and, even at the elite level, some have collapsed, asking officials what happens if they die in the heat of the Summer Olympics. But how are the Winter Games impacted?

For snow sports – which will be showcased when the Winter Olympics start in the Italian Alps this week – climate change may not be as life-threatening but it is a major risk to their viability. 

Many ski slopes already have to produce expensive artificial snow for much of the winter. A 2024 study found that the list of cities which are reliably cold enough to host a Winter Olympics will fall from 87 to 52 by the 2050s. For the Paralympics, which are typically held in warmer March, the threat is even worse.

But like any big event, the Winter Olympics contribute to climate change too. A report by Scientists for Global Responsibility estimates that the carbon footprint of the 2026 Games will be similar to the annual emissions of Somalia.

On top of that, the organisers of the Milano Cortina Games have drawn criticism from green groups for partnering with Eni, an Italian energy multinational whose oil and gas production has led it to be ranked as the world’s 34th highest greenhouse gas-emitting company.

For more than 16 years, Julie Duffus has worked on Olympic sustainability – first, with the organisers of London 2012, then Rio 2016 and currently as the head of sustainability at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which picks Olympic host cities and works with them to put on the Games.

Climate Home News asked Duffus how the Winter Olympics are coping with the climate crisis and what organisers are doing to reduce their role in heating up the planet.

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Q: Is climate change threatening the Winter Olympics?

A: We’re certainly not sitting here in denial that climate change is impacting – not just the Games actually – but all of us around the world. For years, we’ve been doing research on the impact of climate change on the Games and the future host territories. There are some scenarios where the snow is retreating and we need to address that seriously. So this is definitely something that is on our radar and that we are taking very seriously.

Q: Are there plans to produce artificial snow for these Winter Olympics? And, if so, how green is that? What energy has been used to produce that?

Technical snow, as it’s called, has been produced now for decades and it’s not just something that’s produced for an Olympic Games. If you go skiing pretty much anywhere in the world now, a lot of them will rely on technical snow.

But Milano Cortina 2026 is significantly reducing that amount of technical snow compared to previous Games. And a lot of innovation has gone into the development of the snow machines. They’re working on HVO biofuels for the first time – so this is a very nice legacy that we will leave behind for these communities that rely on winter sports.

The snow machines also have sensors so that they can track the depth of the snow that’s fallen versus the technical snow, so they can reduce quite significantly the amount of technical snow that needs to be made. And that’s a first and this is what we love about the Games because it’s pushing innovation for the future of these communities.

Q: What are the organisers doing to reduce the greenhouse gas impact from the construction of venues?

A: The most effective way to cut construction emissions is to avoid unnecessary construction in the first place – and that’s exactly what Milano Cortina is doing.

For this Games, around 85% of the competition venues are already existing. That includes some iconic world-class venues, with a few even used back at the Olympic Games in Cortina in 1956. By relying heavily on what already exists, organisers reduce construction and related emissions that would come from any large-scale development.

This is in line with IOC’s strategy to reduce the climate impact of the Games by building less. The strategy is to adapt the Games to the host, not the other way around, and to encourage organisers to use what’s already there, adding new infrastructure only when it’s genuinely needed in the long-term and for the benefit of its communities.

Q: And how about the greenhouse gas impact from people travelling to the Games?

A: Bringing people together to celebrate sport and unity requires travel, and travel is a source of emissions for any Games. Spectator travel is also included in the IOC’s carbon methodology, so these emissions will be measured and reported transparently after the Games. The IOC delegation are travelling by train from Switzerland, and teams will move between Milan and Cortina using public transport.

At the same time, both the hosts are working to use the Games as a catalyst for public transport improvements – through upgrades to existing train and metro lines, making transport more accessible, and, as we’ve seen in many past Games editions, extending public transport services in ways that benefit host communities well beyond the event.

Q: Scientists for Global Responsibility have called for spectators who travel by train, coach or car to get cheaper tickets than those fly. Would you consider that?

A: We are currently researching many options to reduce our transport impacts. Both the IOC and the Organising Committee’s carbon management plans have transport as an important element, with spectators covered by the Organising Committee’s plan.

Q: Over 20,000 people have signed a petition against the Games being sponsored by Italian oil and gas company Eni. Do you think this partnership will accelerate climate change by promoting a fossil fuel company?

A: We’re currently at a stage in the world, not just the Games, of a transition. Eni is a domestic partner of the Milano Cortina 2026 Organising Committee, who are working with them on that transition, focusing on renewable energy and HVO biofuels.

We have to face the reality that the world needs to transition and the support that we can do to promote greener renewables sources of energy is what’s needed.

The legacy after the Games is that these communities are now connected to green energy and the renewable energy grid. So we need to be open to the fact that we do need to transition away from fossil fuels – but transition to green, stable renewable energy.

The post Q&A: How are the Winter Olympics cutting emissions and adapting to climate change? appeared first on Climate Home News.

30×30 — the global commitment to conserve at least 30% of the planet by 2030 through protected areas and other effective conservation measures — is arguably the most successful conservation slogan in history. Measured by global policy adoption, financial mobilization, and brand portability, the target has achieved unprecedented traction: It was formally codified by nearly 200 nations in 2022, has helped unlock some of the largest private philanthropic investments in conservation, and has translated a complex ecological threshold into a universal political “North Star.”

But has it done enough — especially for the ocean?

As an ocean conservationist, I’ve spent nearly four decades working alongside local communities, NGOs, and governments — from locally managed marine areas to seascape-scale conservation, and from species-specific safeguards to ecosystem-level planning — trying to turn conservation from an idea into something that holds up in the real world. I’ve helped advise, plan, and implement the unglamorous but essential machinery that makes protected areas durable: listening, building social license, strengthening governance that people will actually comply with, funding enforcement and monitoring, and ensuring conservation delivers tangible benefits to the communities asked to live with it.

So what follows isn’t a drive-by critique: It’s a practitioner’s look at what 30×30 was meant to deliver, why it’s falling short in the ocean, and how we move beyond 2030 without sacrificing credibility.

We have a great opportunity right now: January’s enactment of the High Seas Treaty (formally known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement). The treaty doesn’t magically solve 30×30, but it does remove one of the oldest excuses in ocean conservation: that the high seas are simply too complex to protect. If we’re serious about meeting the ocean side of 30×30 without resorting to accounting tricks, this treaty may be our clearest chance to implement protections more concertedly, at the scale the ocean actually demands.

The Promise Beneath the Slogan

The 30×30 premise sounds self-evident (“surely we should protect a big chunk of the planet”), and in its best form it has always meant more than drawing lines on a map. It implies networks that are ecologically representative, connected, and managed well — in plain terms: enough land and ocean, protected strongly enough, in the right places, for long enough to matter. But the slogan is a mash-up of science, negotiation, and politics. That matters, because slogans don’t protect ecosystems. Outcomes do.

But we also need to start saying the quiet part out loud: At the pace we’re moving, we’re likely to miss 30×30, especially for the ocean. Not because the ocean isn’t worth protecting — but because “30% protected” has become a deceptively simple headline standing in for hard questions about what counts, what works, and what endures.

If 2030 arrives with the dashboards still flashing red, the task won’t be to declare failure or pad the numbers. It’ll be to get strategic about what comes next: what the “30” was meant to achieve, why spatial targets keep underdelivering, and how we build an after-2030 playbook that prioritizes real protection over paper coverage.

And in a strange way, the High Seas Treaty only sharpened that urgency — it gives us occasion to look hard at 30×30 and sit with the uncomfortable truth that, on current trajectories, the world may be celebrating the tools of protection faster than we’re actually delivering protection itself.

It also offers something 30×30 has always lacked: a way to move the needle on ocean coverage without gaming the numbers — because for the first time, meaningful protection on the high seas can be legally built, not just rhetorically wished for.

How We Got to ‘30%’ and Why That Number Stuck

The immediate predecessor to 30×30 was the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Target 11, which set a goal of 10% ocean protection (and 17% of terrestrial areas) by 2020. In practice, it wasn’t met in a way that delivered consistent outcomes, and it fell far short of what science increasingly suggested was necessary to slow extinction and preserve ecosystem function.

The “30” gained momentum because multiple lines of evidence kept converging on a roughly one-third threshold for meaningful biodiversity persistence and spillover benefits — provided that protection is strong (not just nominal) and well-placed (not just convenient).

Following the IUCN’s 2016 push and the influence of papers like the Global Deal for Nature, the target was ultimately locked in at COP15 (2022) within the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It is not a magic ecological constant. It is a “big enough to matter” milestone that became politically portable and, at least on paper, measurable.

The Integrity Gap: Which Dashboard Are You Reading?

This is where things get spicy, because “percent protected” is currently a math problem with two different answers. If you count any area reported as an Marine Protected Area — including weakly regulated multiple-use areas — global tracking lands around 9.6%. If you ask how much of the ocean is fully or highly protected — the level required to reliably deliver biodiversity outcomes — the number drops to roughly 3.2%.

That isn’t a methodological quibble. It’s an integrity gap. One version tracks lines on a map; the other tracks durable reductions in extractive pressure.

There’s another constraint baked into the geometry: National waters only cover 39% of the ocean. The remaining 61% is the high seas, where creating MPAs has historically been legally difficult.

That’s why the High Seas Treaty matters so much.  It doesn’t guarantee we’ll hit 30×30, but it finally makes large-scale protection beyond national waters achievable without diluting definitions or padding the accounting. If 30×30 is ever going to be ecologically meaningful (rather than a coastal accounting exercise), the high seas cannot remain governance-lite.

Why Spatial Targets Produce ‘Paper Parks’

Spatial targets are a vital forcing function. They give governments a concrete benchmark, mobilize finance, and make inaction harder to justify.

But they also predictably invite shortcut behavior. The incentive is to designate what is large, remote, and politically cheap — especially if the protection can be labeled “multi-use” while still counting toward the target.

That’s how we end up protecting space rather than safeguarding function. Connectivity gets traded away for convenience. Equity becomes an afterthought, with top-down designations that ignore Indigenous governance or repackage dispossession as environmental progress. And the substitution myth takes hold: the idea that an MPA can stand in for the hard work of climate mitigation, pollution control, and fisheries reform.

Most of all, capacity lags behind ambition. Area is easy to announce. Management budgets, monitoring, surveillance, and enforcement are hard to build — and even harder to sustain.

The Post-2030 Roadmap: How to Fix the Target Without Faking the Math

If 2030 arrives and we’re short of the target, the worst move is to declare the idea dead. The better move is to treat 30×30 as the floor, not the ceiling, and shift the center of gravity from coverage to integrity.

This is the part where audience matters. For the general public, the ask is simple: Don’t settle for “protected” on paper. Demand protection that actually works in the water.

For practitioners and decision-makers, the challenge is equally clear: Build systems that can withstand politics, budgets, and time.

Here’s what “honest protection” can look like after 2030:

A) Track what matters: “How much is protected” and “how well it’s protected”

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are the ocean equivalent of parks and preserves: places where rules limit damaging activity to safeguard wildlife and habitats. The problem is that not all MPAs are created equal. Future reporting should lead with two numbers: Total MPA coverage (the political umbrella) and Highly Protected coverage (the ecological reality). This ends the incentive for “paper parks.”

B) Protect the right places, not just the easiest ones

Instead of asking “what percent of the ocean is inside polygons,” we should be asking whether we’re protecting the places that keep the ocean alive: nurseries, migration corridors, climate-safe havens, and biodiversity hotspots. This turns treaty poetry into operational science.

C) Make protection hard to undo

If a protection can be undone in one election cycle, it isn’t conservation — it’s a temporary zoning experiment. Post-2030 success should be measured by durability: legal stability, long-term funding, monitoring, and enforcement that can survive leadership changes.

D) Make the high seas count — because now it can

The High Seas Treaty has entered into force — but that’s the starting gun, not the finish line. The real constraint now is implementation: rapidly identifying and designating high-seas MPAs, funding monitoring and enforcement, and closing the participation gap of major ocean powers that still haven’t ratified (including the United States). Without that follow-through, 30×30 remains stranded in national waters by inertia, not math.

E) Stop treating protected areas as a substitute for everything else

Post-2030 success will come from the bundle: fisheries reform, ending destructive gear, shipping noise controls, and — nonnegotiably — climate mitigation. The MPA is one tool in a larger risk-reduction portfolio.

F) Confront the drivers — and rebuild trust

We can’t fence our way out of this. If we don’t deal with what’s driving the damage — climate change, relentless extraction, and policy that swings wildly every election — then even the best protected places won’t hold. In the U.S., that means owning the time we’ve lost, rebuilding trust with the rest of the world, and making sure climate and conservation work can’t be undone every four years. Protecting nature and cutting emissions aren’t either/or choices anymore. They’re both essential, and they need to happen together.

G) Treat equity as non-negotiable

“Equitably governed” must move from a buzzword to a pass/fail metric. If local communities and Indigenous peoples do not have a seat at the table and a share of the benefits, the protection will eventually fail.

The Post-2030 Workhorse

And there’s one more reality we need to admit: A lot of effective ocean conservation already exists outside the boundaries of formal MPAs. If we want post-2030 progress without creative accounting, we have to recognize and strengthen the protections that are already working in the real ocean.

MPAs aren’t the only way to protect the ocean. If 30×30 gets shaky after 2030, we need to lean harder on OECMs — “Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures.” In plain terms: places where rules already protect nature, even if they aren’t officially labeled a marine protected area.

The risk is that OECMs become the next loophole — an easy way to pad the numbers. But done right, they’re one of the most practical ways to lock in real protection in busy, contested waters where a formal MPA may be politically difficult. Good OECMs are simple to recognize: they reduce harm, they last, and they’re enforced. They also help us escape the false binary of “MPA or nothing.” Some places need full no-take protection. Others can still deliver real conservation outcomes through targeted rules that work.

Take Canada’s “marine refuges,” like the Eastern Canyons. They aren’t formal parks; they are fisheries closures designed to keep heavy bottom-trawls off fragile, cold-water corals. By protecting the seafloor for the sake of the fishery, they effectively safeguard the entire ecosystem.

That’s the OECM idea in real life: practical rules that stick and concretely reduce harm.

In practice OECMs can include seasonal closures that protect spawning, permanent bans on destructive gear in sensitive habitats, anchoring exclusions over seagrass and reefs, shipping measures that reduce strikes and noise, or Indigenous- and community-governed waters where stewardship is already strong.

These aren’t consolation prizes. They’re functional protection — often in precisely the places where it’s hardest, and most urgent, to get it right.

A Note for 2031: The Maturity of a Movement

We still have four years left in this decade. There’s time to surprise ourselves — and I genuinely hope I’m wrong about the current trajectory of protection. I hope enforcement tightens, quality accelerates, and the high seas finally starts counting in a way that matters.

And while this essay has focused on the ocean, the broader lesson isn’t uniquely marine. 30×30 was always a global commitment — land and sea — and the same integrity questions apply everywhere: what counts, what works, what lasts, and who benefits. If we get the post-2030 course correction right in the ocean, the framework can serve terrestrial practitioners too — not as a new set of loopholes, but as a shared standard for honest protection.

So what do we say out loud in 2031 if the dashboard isn’t green?

Something like this: “30×30 was the minimum milestone that got the world moving. We didn’t hit the deadline, but we finally stopped pretending that ‘protected’ means ‘safe.’ From here on, our benchmark is no longer the size of the map, but the health of the life within it.”

Missing a conservation deadline is a gut punch, especially with everything at stake right now. But hollowing out the definition of protection is a catastrophe. By refusing to settle for accounting tricks, we ensure that 30×30 isn’t just a failed slogan. It becomes the beginning of a more honest, more mature, and more durable relationship with the living planet.

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

We’re Protecting the Ocean Wrong

The post How to Transform 30×30 From a Political Slogan Into an Ecological Reality appeared first on The Revelator.

It’s retail therapy this quarter for the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U.U for USD; U.UN for CAD) which this week bought 250,000 lb. of uranium oxide (U3O8) as part of its strongest start to the fund since it was formed in 2021, though the spot uranium price fell from a two-year high.

The buy – part of Sprott’s second-highest quarterly transaction in four years – raises its first quarter uranium purchases to 3.65 million lb. and its total inventory to 78.4 million lb. after it bought 500,000 lb. last week. Sprott’s energy metal holdings now have a total value of $7.28 billion.

However, the purchase comes as the spot price fell almost 10% near the end of last week from $101.55, its highest price in two years, to $91.80 per lb. on Wednesday. The world’s top producing company, Kazatomprom (LSE: KAP), forecast a 9% output increase this year which is higher than expected, BMO Capital Markets analyst Helen Amos said in a note on Wednesday.

Kazatomprom forecast

The Kazakhstan state uranium miner expects production of 71.5 to 75.4 million lb. this year compared to last year, mostly from ramp up at the Budenovskoye joint venture in southern Kazakhstan which Kazatomprom holds with Russia.

As the spot price reached its recent high on Jan. 29, SaskPower and the government of Saskatchewan – where most of Canada’s uranium exploration and mining takes place – had just said they would evaluate building large reactors in the province.

Though Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin is Canada’s top uranium producing region, the province has no nuclear power generation or processing. The evaluation would happen alongside SaskPower’s planned small modular reactor project.   

Sprott shares were flat at C$29.79 apiece on Wednesday morning in Toronto, valuing the company at C$9.2 billion ($6.7 billion).

In a warming Arctic, noise from growing shipping traffic is interfering with the ability of narwhals to hunt and communicate.

Read more on E360 →

‘Forever chemicals’ in drinking water: How exposure can impact infant health Anthony Lacey February 4, 2026

Exposure through drinking water to the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS can harm infant health before birth, a recent study finds. The risks of exposure can include premature birth, low birth weight and even infant mortality. 

University of Arizona researchers found that babies born to people living downstream from a PFAS-contaminated site were far more likely to give birth before 28 weeks and give birth to infants weighing under 2 pounds, compared to people whose drinking water sources were upstream of the site.

The research examined data on PFAS in drinking water and birth outcomes from over 11,000 births from 2010 to 2019 in New Hampshire.

Premature birth and low birth weight are key factors linked to infant mortality in the first year. The study also found that living downstream from the site was tied to an increase in infant mortality of 191%. 

A science review by EWG found that PFAS are routinely detected in umbilical cord blood, crossing the placenta and reaching the developing fetus during pregnancy. 

The New Hampshire study results add to the large body of evidence that exposure to PFAS can harm infants' health before birth. 

Exposure to PFAS is also linked to increased risks of certain cancers – most notably kidney and testicular cancer – as well as adverse effects on the immune system, thyroid function, liver and kidneys. 

Get Your FREE Copy of EWG's Guide To Avoiding PFAS Chemicals Lasting harm

Pregnancy is a critical window of health vulnerability, especially when it comes to exposure to chemicals like PFAS, which can affect infants and children in the long term. 

The New Hampshire study is unique for having a strong methodology designed to examine the impact of exposure to PFAS from drinking water. All the participants lived within about 3 miles of a PFAS-contaminated site. The only difference between the control and study groups was whether the drinking water source was upstream or downstream of the contaminated site. 

The pregnant people with the highest exposures and worst health harms were from more socioeconomically advantaged groups. Because premature birth is usually linked to economic hardship and limited access to health care, this finding strengthens the case that the PFAS exposure, rather than economic or social factors, played a major role in the poor birth outcomes.   

The health effects in young children come at a steep cost. If extended to the larger U.S., the medical costs associated with PFAS-related harms total $8 billion annually. That’s more than double the Environmental Protection Agency’s estimated annual costs of about $3.8 billion to treat PFAS in drinking water under its new regulations. The rules set the first limits on the forever chemicals PFOA and PFOS and other PFAS.

Despite these important benefits of tackling PFAS contamination, the EPA is trying to scale back the historic drinking water regulations. 

Even considering reproductive health benefits alone, the public health gains from cleaning up PFAS-contaminated drinking water could justify the costs of treatment. These gains strengthen the case that the EPA’s drinking water standards for PFAS would benefit  public health, even before accounting for benefits beyond children’s health.

EWG research shows that PFAS contamination often occurs alongside multiple other chemicals, not in isolation – and properly designed filtration can reduce many of these contaminants at the same time.

Harms even at low levels of PFAS

Another study from 2025 further supports the case for regulations. It showed that not only are many people exposed to low levels of PFAS but that a detection of PFAS in a public drinking water supply is likely linked to increased levels in blood. 

EWG has been mapping PFAS contamination of drinking water since 2015. The new study emphasizes the importance of eliminating that contamination from drinking water.

As part of a study of data collected between 2018 and 2020,  California state scientists analyzed  the ways in which PFAS in drinking water affected the levels in Southern Californians’ blood. At least one type of PFAS was detected in the water of more than half the study participants.  

Participants had 30% higher blood levels for the PFAS perfluorohexane sulfonic acid, or PFHxS, when they had at least one detection of PFHxS in their untreated source water. Examining detections in final treated drinking water, blood levels were higher for PFHxS by 80%, PFOA by 30%, PFOS by 31% and total PFAS by 42% when there were detections in the water. This demonstrated stronger associations with finished water at the tap.

Necessary protective step

PFAS blood levels in study participants were lower than national averages, and much lower, one-thousand fold, than people in highly contaminated communities. Nonetheless, 86% had levels linked to potential health harms, according to 2022 PFAS clinical follow-up guidance from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

If drinking water containing PFAS, even at low levels, changes the levels of these chemicals in our blood, and those levels potentially harm infant health, the cost of remediating public water systems is no longer just an infrastructure expense. It’s a necessary public health protection running into the billions of dollars.

Even in communities that are not highly contaminated, drinking water can contribute significantly to PFAS in blood. But the level of contamination could be lowered.

Neither the Southern California nor the New Hampshire study examined other known routes of exposure to PFAS, diet and indoor dust,  

Ultimately, the Southern California data serves as a model for a national challenge: PFAS are not just an industrial zone problem where the pollution occurs but an everywhere problem. It’s urgent that we address contamination at the source as well as treating drinking water.

Reducing exposure to PFAS 

The EPA finalized its groundbreaking regulations for PFAS in drinking water in 2024, but the agency has moved to scale back those regulations and delay compliance deadlines to 2031. Eleven states have set their own legal standards for drinking water, but a national standard is needed to protect all communities. 

The cost of an individual filtration system that can reduce or remove PFAS from tap water at home may not suit every budget. But in any event, the cost of cleaning up our drinking water should be paid by those who created the contamination.

In the meantime, there are ways you can help reduce your exposure PFAS:

• Find out what’s in your tap water using EWG’s Tap Water database to look up your water system by postal code or EWG’s interactive map of PFAS in drinking water.
• Use a reverse osmosis or carbon filter to reduce PFAS in your water.
• Tell your elected officials drinking water is important to you and your family’s health and that PFAS regulations are important.

PFAS are everywhere, not just in our drinking water. If you're looking for other ways to reduce exposure in your home and daily life, consider these tips: 

• Use cast iron, stainless steel and glass cookware.
• Avoid purchasing clothing or textiles marketed as “stain resistant” or “wrinkle resistant.”
• Reduce household dust with frequent vacuuming and dusting.
• Use EWG’s Skin Deep® database to avoid cosmetics with PFAS. 

Areas of Focus Water Family Health Women's Health Children’s Health Toxic Chemicals PFAS Chemicals Authors Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D. February 4, 2026

Installations of solar power in Africa jumped 54% in 2025, new data shows, marking the fastest annual growth on record, driven by governments and development agencies deploying utility-scale projects and households and businesses putting in rooftop and commercial systems. 

A new report published by the Global Solar Council (GSC), a nonprofit trade body, shows that Africa installed around 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of new solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity last year, topping the previous record set in 2023 and outperforming initial predictions.

Utility-scale projects accounted for around 56% of reported installations in Africa in 2025, while distributed solar made up an estimated 44%. However, the report notes that rooftop, commercial and distributed capacity – which refers to small-scale solar generation usually situated near where the electricity is used – is significantly under-reported because of limited data.

The GSC said recent soaring solar equipment imports and deployment trends point to a broader, more diversified market serving two types of energy transition at the same time: government-led solar power projects and privately financed business and residential installations.

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For instance, the continent imported 18.2 GW of solar panels in 2025, yet under a medium installation scenario, countries are projected to build just 14.3 GW of mainly utility-scale capacity in 2026 and 2027.

Over the past four years, only about 15% of solar equipment imports have been used in large utility-scale installations, pointing to rapid growth in rooftop, commercial and captive systems that are not fully reflected in official figures, the report said.

It also highlighted the need for greater and faster investment in battery storage, grids and power system flexibility, to improve reliability of supply and support rising industrial and commercial energy demand.

“Solar + storage is the hope of Africa,” said Sonia Dunlop, GSC’s chief executive officer, in a statement on the report. “This is the technology that can bring energy access, sustainable development, green growth and resilience to natural disasters and extreme weather,” she added.

Medium-sized markets expand

Large, established markets for solar power continue to lead the pack in Africa, with the top 10 solar markets accounting for around 90% of new capacity additions in 2025, led by South Africa with 1.6 GW, followed by Nigeria at 803 megawatts (MW), Egypt at 500 MW and Algeria at 400 MW.

However, solar deployment is spreading across a wider group of African countries, the report noted, with a clear shift away from reliance on a handful of early adopters. Several mid-sized and emerging markets made significant gains last year, including Morocco, Zambia, Tunisia, Botswana, Ghana and Chad. 

The report found that eight African countries each installed more than 100 MW of solar capacity in 2025, double the number recorded in 2024, underscoring the pace at which new markets are expanding.

“Africa’s solar boom is remarkable, showing just how quickly we can deploy clean energy when technology, demand and ambition come together,” said Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of Octopus Energy Generation. “Solar is becoming more accessible, more efficient, and – most importantly – cheaper every year. It’s encouraging to see this potential being realised across Africa faster than ever before.”

A woman looks at a solar panel, at a factory called Ener-G-Africa, where high-quality solar panels made by an all-women team are produced, in Cape Town, South Africa, February 9, 2023. (Photo: REUTERS/Esa Alexander) A woman looks at a solar panel, at a factory called Ener-G-Africa, where high-quality solar panels made by an all-women team are produced, in Cape Town, South Africa, February 9, 2023. (Photo: REUTERS/Esa Alexander) Finance for off-grid falling behind

Despite the rapid growth of distributed solar, financing models have not kept pace. While rooftop solar and microgrids are scaling rapidly, around four-fifths of clean energy finance on the continent still comes from public and development sources geared towards large, government-led projects, the GSC report said.

Private investment in clean energy increased from about $17 billion in 2019 to nearly $40 billion in 2024, but most of this funding is not aimed at supporting smaller solar systems used by homes and businesses. 

These smaller projects need modest loans, shorter repayment periods and financing in local currency, but with current offerings not structured this way, many households and companies struggle to access affordable funding for solar, despite strong demand and falling technology costs.

Southern Africa floods intensified by warming highlight climate injustice, scientists say

Last week, leaders from major solar mini-grid players – including the largest operator Husk Power Systems – said up to $46 billion will be needed by 2030 to meet the electrification targets of 29 African countries under the World Bank-backed Mission 300 initiative. According to Bloomberg, the total would comprise $28 billion in debt, $14 billion in equity and $4.6 billion in grants and subsidies. 

Investment needed to unleash growth

The GSC’s medium-term outlook suggests Africa could install over 33 GW of solar capacity by 2029  – more than six times the amount added in 2025 – as markets expand across more countries. 

However, the group warned that the misalignment between funding and market needs risks slowing deployment, raising system costs and limiting the economic value of solar. 

If, on the other hand, reforms align finance, planning and regulation with market realities, solar and storage can deliver not only clean power, but reliability, economic productivity and long-term energy security, the GSC said.

West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal 

Solar paired with battery storage is critical to delivering affordable, reliable power at the scale required to meet energy demand in Africa, which is expected to grow eight-fold by 2050, said Damilola Ogunbiyi, special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All.

However, she added, “more must be done to attract clean energy investment, with mechanisms to spur public, private and philanthropic financing.”

The post Africa records fastest-ever solar growth, as installations jump in 2025 appeared first on Climate Home News.

NSW hails biggest and best result yet for long duration storage, with six massive batteries declared winners of latest tender, and at lower prices than previous auctions.

The post NSW awards contracts to six huge 8-hour battery projects, including the biggest in Australia appeared first on Renew Economy.

President Donald Trump implemented his National Security Strategy’s Donroe Doctrine by carrying out a coup in Venezuela. His aim is to carve out an exclusive sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere, impose imperial rule over its countries, and push out rivals, especially China. In the first move of this strategy, Trump concocted false allegations of drug trafficking against Nicolás Maduro’s regime, used those to justify a wave of state terrorist attacks on boats off Venezuela’s coast, then sent his special forces in to kidnap Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and imprisoned them in New York to stand trial. In their press briefing about the coup, Trump and his cabinet members openly declared their real imperial aims—seizing control of Venezuela’s oil.

But, instead of installing the right wing opposition led by María Corina Machado in office, the administration left Maduro’s regime intact. It is now led by Delcy Rodríguez. Despite her anti-imperialist rhetoric, she is collaborating with the Trump administration. Now Trump has his sights set on further interventions and regime changes from Colombia to Nicaragua, Cuba, and Greenland to bring the Western Hemisphere under Washington’s thumb.

In this interview, Tempest’s Ashley Smith speaks with Federico Fuentes about the coup, Maduro’s regime, and the urgency of building anti-imperialist resistance against Trump’s vicious new imperialism. Fuentes is a longtime Venezuela solidarity activist who lived in Caracas for several years during the Hugo Chávez government as a correspondent for Green Left and investigator at the Centro Internacional Miranda. He is editor of LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

 

Ashley Smith:Trump’s coup in Venezuela shocked the world. It is clearly the first shot of his New Monroe Doctrine to declare the Western Hemisphere as Washington’s exclusive sphere of influence, something that puts a target on all governments opposed to the U.S. or resisting its dictates. But it’s also surprising. Before the coup Maduro was offering the U.S. all sorts of concessions and deals, but Trump opted to kidnap him anyway. Why?

Federico Fuentes: Negotiations between the Donald Trump and Nicolás Maduro governments trace back to the start of Trump’s second term, when he sent his special envoy, Richard Grenell, to meet with Maduro in Caracas. It seems that, at least for a period of time, Trump was open to the idea of reframing relations with Maduro’s Venezuela.

This was based on an acknowledgement that while Washington’s traditional allies in the right-wing opposition were too weak to dislodge Maduro from power or provide stable governance, the Maduro government could meet Trump’s needs, particularly with regards to deportations and access to oil. And Trump was proven right: the Maduro government accepted deportation flights, released several U.S. citizens in its custody, and publicly offered the U.S. access to its oil. The only thing it was not willing to offer up was one of its own.

Trump warned several times that if Maduro did not step down and leave the country, some kind of military action would be taken. Maduro thought he could call Trump’s bluff. In the end, we got the dramatic military assault on Venezuelan territory, that not only led to the kidnapping of Maduro and former National Assembly president Cilia Flores, but the deaths of a still untold number of Venezuelan citizens and 32 Cubans. An imperialist intervention that must be denounced.

Some … have argued that as the government is still largely intact, nothing has fundamentally changed. But … the balance of forces on which this government rests has fundamentally changed.

The reason for this is that Trump realized it was untenable to simultaneously launch his new “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine—which, as his National Security Strategy states, seeks “to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”—while allowing Maduro to stay in power and negotiate with his government. So, we got an operation that removed Maduro but kept his government. The dramatic military assault acted as the official start of the enacting of the “Trump corollary”.

Having achieved this, Trump’s government is now dealing with the new government, headed by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, on a fundamentally different footing: one in which all the cards are in Trump’s hands. He plans to use this to humiliate the government and essentially convert Venezuela into a twenty-first century protectorate.

AS:Trump’s coup was not a regime change. He left the regime in place, minus Maduro and his wife. Why? Why did he not install Machado and the right wing opposition?

FF: For the two reasons. First, the understanding that Machado and the right-wing opposition could not stably govern the country, primarily because it has no influence in the military and security forces. Moreover, while those who support the government are a minority, they represent an important section of society and would have mobilized against the imposition of such a government. The most likely scenarios would have been street mobilization and maybe even civil war.

Second, the Trump government assessed that any new government sans Maduro would maintain Maduro’s policy of seeking accommodation with the United States. It recognized that the Maduro government had already been dramatically weakened by the loss of support and legitimacy inflicted in the 2024 presidential elections—where the government refused to publish verifiable results, strongly indicating fraud was committed.

Any new government would therefore be highly dependent on the U.S. for maintaining power. Given the Maduro government’s control over the military, and the role it had played in dismantling the radical process of change led by Chávez—commonly referred to as the Bolivarian revolution—Trump officials assessed a new dependent “Madurismo without Maduro” government would best provide stability while securing its interests.

There are two other points worth making. First, my belief had always been that successive U.S. administrations preferred to replace the Chávez and then Maduro governments with an undemocratic transitional authority. For a long time, this was  essentially a necessity, as the opposition was unable to win popular support at elections.

More importantly, such an authority would be best placed to completely wind back the remaining gains of the Bolivarian revolution. An unelected authority would not be encumbered with concerns about popularity or electorate mandate and would therefore be less beholden to pressure from below. Instead, it could swiftly implement what the U.S. sought (and apply the repression required), so that by the time any elections came about, all the main decisions had been made.

Today, the government’s main base of support is the U.S. government.

What I failed to foresee was that such an authority could ultimately be best run by figures that maintained the rhetoric of the Bolivarian revolution (even if they had presided over its destruction), and not the opposition. Ironically, the Rodríguez government has an advantage over a Machado government in that the latter would almost certainly be subject to more popular pressure, given the large vote that her preferred candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, seemingly obtained in the last presidential election, as indicated by voting tally sheets collected by the opposition.

The other point is that we should focus on content and not form. Some on the Right (and Left) have argued that as the government is still largely intact, nothing has fundamentally changed. But that misses a crucial element: the balance of forces on which this government rests has fundamentally changed.

When Chávez was elected in 1998, he came to power on a progressive platform but found it difficult to implement many of his proposed reforms. The old capitalist class, spearheaded by the main big business chamber of commerce, Fedecamaras, still had the upper hand in terms of the balance of forces, particularly through its control of the military and the state oil company, PDVSA.

These crucial levers of power were used to try and overthrow Chávez in 2002-03. However, the defeat of the April 2002 military coup attempt and December 2002-January 2003 oil bosses’ lockout—both through the mass mobilization of the poor majority, the working class (particularly oil workers) and patriotic sectors of the military—fundamentally altered the balance of power. In form, the Chávez government was the same before and after these events, but in content it was fundamentally different.

The same is true now, though somewhat in reverse. The balance of forces has not shifted away from the working class and poor, whom the Maduro government pushed aside and repressed. Instead, it has shifted away from the new base it relied on to government; namely the military and security forces, the new capitalist class it nurtured through access to state funds, and, in more recent years, the old capitalist class (with even Fedecamaras making its peace with the government).

Today, the government’s main base of support is the U.S. government. The dramatic loss of popular support exposed in the 2024 presidential elections revealed the regime’s fragility. The January 3 U.S. military assault completely pulled the rug from under the government.

The result is a transitional authority with no popular mandate and whose hold on power ultimately depends on Washington: a tremendously dangerous situation for the Venezuelan people and their sovereignty.

AS:Many have pointed out the obvious collaboration between the regime under Rodríguez and the U.S. after the coup. Some have argued that she made a deal with Trump to give up Maduro and offer oil concessions to preserve the regime. Is this true? How does Rodríguez’s deal-making square with her anti-imperialist posturing? What will she try to do now?

FF: While a deal cannot be ruled out, no definitive evidence has been provided, Moreover, there are two strong arguments against such a deal being made.

First, it is more likely that those in the government thought they could call Trump’s bluff, believing he would not go so far or ultimately accept a deal that kept Maduro in power. This helps explain why the Venezuelan armed forces were so ill-prepared for the January 3 assault, despite months of warnings.

More importantly, a key factor in the Maduro (and now Rodríguez) government’s hold on power has been the ability to keep the quite diverse factions within it united. A deal to hand over one leader would have caused great concerns among all factions, worried about who might be next, potentially fracturing this unity that was so vital for them until now—and will be moving forward.

That said, whether a deal was or was not made, it does not change much in terms of the Rodríguez government’s policies or discourse.

For starters, the Maduro government, for a while now but particularly since Trump’s re-election, had been downplaying its anti-imperialist discourse. He might have used anti-imperialist rhetoric when addressing foreign leftists at forums hosted by the government in Caracas, or rallies of his support base for whom such rhetoric is an important glue that binds them together. But even as the U.S. ramped up its military deployment in the Caribbean, Maduro went to great lengths to play down the situation and avoid directly speaking out against Trump and his actions.

First he claimed the videos of boats being bombed in the Caribbean were simply AI. Then he sought to blame Secretary of State Marco Rubio for leading Trump astray. Then he sent Trump a private letter explaining how he had “publicly acknowledged the significant efforts [Trump is] making to bring an end to the war [sic] [he] inherited in other regions” and hoped that “together we can defeat the falsehoods that have sullied our relationship”. And just days before his kidnapping, Maduro once again publicly offered to grant U.S. access to Venezuela’s oil.

The lack of response to … [U.S.] intervention is a direct result of the Maduro government’s anti-worker and anti-democratic policies, which have alienated the precise base required to resist imperialism.

This discourse has essentially continued under Rodríguez who, less than two weeks after Maduro’s kidnapping, met with the CIA director and posted on her social media about “a long and courteous” phone call with Trump regarding “a bilateral work agenda for the benefit of our peoples.” She has justified the reestablishment of diplomatic ties and the reopening of embassies in both countries as the means by which the government will pursue Maduro and Flores’ freedom.

Regarding the last part of your question, it is not so much an issue of what Rodríguez wants to do as what she will be allowed to do. Again, Washington is now calling all the shots.

Take the oil industry: Trump has seized large stores of Venezuelan oil, sold it via foreign intermediaries, placed the proceeds in Qatari bank accounts and told Venezuela how its share must be used, namely as funds to private banks to sell as foreign currency.

In response, the Rodríguez government has sought to portray this as some kind of victory, rather than an act of international piracy and extreme violation of sovereignty. At the same time, the National Assembly has just held its first vote to partially reform Chávez’s hydrocarbon law, which will legalize Trump’s plans for the sector, including essentially handing over control of oil extraction, production and sales to foreign companies.

Ultimately, Rodríguez has little choice in the matter, though a case can be made that she (and Maduro) would have been happy to proceed in this manner—though clearly not under these conditions of extreme duress.

AS: How have Venezuela’s various classes, social groups, and political forces both within the country and in the diaspora responded to the coup?

The main response across the board has been one of shock, mourning and a mix of uncertainty and expectation.

Right-wing leaders, such as Machado, spoke out in support of the military assault and kidnapping, and among the diaspora there were rallies celebrating the January 3 intervention. But these rallies should be put in context: Millions of Venezuelans have been forced, in one way or another, to leave the country—in contrast, the rallies were quite small.

These rallies largely reflect the more right-wing elements of the diaspora, removed from the daily realities of their country (particularly the bombings). Much like their leadership, they had placed all their hopes in some kind of U.S. intervention to remove the government, believing this would allow them to return. But those protests were short-lived, particularly after they realized the same government was still in place and their preferred leader, Machado, was being sidelined by Trump.

Within the country, the government has made sure that no similar mobilizations could occur. Moderate right-wing politicians have spoken out against the attack. But there have also not been signs of spontaneous mobilizations against it.

It took several days for the government to recover from the shock and start organizing protests. Participation at these rallies have been largely limited to the governing party’s support base and been relatively small—in the thousands or, at most, several tens of thousands.

There are hundreds of trade unionists in jail for protesting, new trade unions cannot be registered, strikes are illegal, and collective bargaining is essentially banned.

This is because, for many years now, most Venezuelans have withdrawn from politics and turned their back on the entire political class, both the section in government and the opposition. Many may have voted for the opposition in 2024, but primarily with the determination to vote out the government rather than to support the opposition, much less its political program.

One thing worth pointing out is how this is a clear example of the fallacy of the argument, put forward by some leftists, that we should politically support any government in conflict with imperialism. Of course, we need to continue to oppose imperialist interventions that seek to undermine foreign governments.

But we cannot turn a blind eye to the actions of those governments, which fundamentally weaken anti-imperialist sentiment in their own country. The lack of response to the January 3 imperialist intervention is a direct result of the Maduro government’s anti-worker and anti-democratic policies, which have alienated the precise base required to resist imperialism.

Today, most Venezuelans believe things cannot continue as they were. That explains both the lack of mobilization and a sense of anxious hope among a significant section of the population that things might get better, as they seemingly could not get worse—even though imperialist intervention will only ultimately make matters worse.

AS: The lack of response by the people of Venezuela is in stark contrast to the previous attempted coup against Chávez. Then the people rose up and restored him to office. Why the different response this time?

FF: The difference reflects how the working class and poor viewed the Chávez government in 2002, compared with the Maduro government in 2026. When Chávez was overthrown, there was a real sense that it was their government and their rights that were being taken away, sparking widespread organized and spontaneous mobilizations.

Fast forward to 2026, the majority views the Maduro government, rightly or wrongly, as the main problem. This does not mean they all supported the military attack; many felt a deep opposition or profound sense of complete demoralization in the face of this imperialist attack. Yet they did not mobilize against it. Instead, they largely preferred to sit on the sidelines—as they have for most of the past decade—and see what happens next, hoping something good might come out of this tragedy.

AS: Clearly the regime has transformed from the days of Chávez, when it seemed to offer a great deal of hope for not only Venezuelans but also Latin America and more broadly the international Left. What has changed and why? How much of this is the result of the collapse in oil prices? How much is the result of U.S. sanctions? And how much is the result of the regime itself?

FF: Regarding the last part of the question, it is a result of all these, to which I would add an important fourth factor: the undemocratic and violent actions of the right-wing opposition, above all figures such as Machado, which contributed to the political crisis and profound depoliticization. How much weight should be given to each factor, and the order in which they began to affect the situation, are a big part of the debate among the left inside (and outside) Venezuela in terms of drawing up a balance sheet of the Maduro government. But any assessment that ignores any of these factors inevitably leads to faulty conclusions.

Importantly, these factors explain the most important change: that of the character of the Maduro government. As I mentioned before, sometime during the Maduro government, between 2015-17, it became clear that the section of society for whom it governed was shifting. A combination of circumstances and choices led it to break with the poor majority and working class base that had supported the Chávez government and formed the backbone of the Bolivarian revolution. Instead, it consolidated a new base among the military, security forces and the new capitalist class, and started a process of counter-revolution.

That is why I argue that although the sanctions may not have succeeded in terms of regime change—if we understand this as a change in the personnel running the state—they did succeed in helping to change the class basis and political project of the existing regime.

AS: What was the nature of Maduro’s regime before he was abducted? What class interests did it represent? How repressive and dictatorial had it become?

FF: Unlike the Chávez government, the Maduro government was undeniably a pro-capitalist government. It represented both the interests of the new capitalist class, which had enriched itself through its connections to the “Bolivarian” state (the so-called Bolivarian bourgeoisie that Chávez denounced), but also the traditional capitalist class. The Maduro government ultimately won over the support of Fedecamaras, while the head of the Caracas Stock Exchange said after the 2024 presidential elections that the government, not the opposition, best represented economic stability.

The Maduro government was also decidedly anti-worker. Often sections of the Left excuse the government, saying its policy decisions were due to the sanctions. But this ignores that government policies led to a dramatic upward redistribution of wealth even before the sanctions, Moreover, even under the sanctions, it is not the case that the Maduro government had no other options. From 2018 onwards, it deliberately chose to shift the burden of the crisis onto the working class.

The pro-Maduro Left counters this with claims that the government has not privatized public services, provides subsidies, and supports the building of communes, therefore meaning it is still progressive. This ignores the privatizations (full and partial) that have occurred in various sectors, most importantly agriculture, but even in the strategic oil industry, where privatization-by-stealth has been enacted under the guise of the Anti-Blockade Law.

At the same time, while  state companies have been established under Maduro, particularly in the minerals sector, these were set up as vehicles for incorporating the military into circuits of capital accumulation, and have been responsible for environmental destruction and dispossession of indigenous lands, not wealth redistribution. History is replete with examples of state companies benefitting capitalists—starting with PDVSA, which was state-owned right through the neoliberal period that preceded Chavez.

The same is true for policies such as food, transport and fuel subsidies, which even reactionary governments such as those in Egypt and Indonesia maintain. More often than not they serve as clientilistic means for maintaining some level of social support (as the Maduro government has done with its food packages distributed by local governing party officials). In other cases, they are too difficult to roll back without facing substantive resistance. Overall, the impact of these subsidies have been far outweighed by the deliberate policy of pulverising workers’ wages as a means for dealing with hyperinflation.

As for the promotion of communal councils and communes as evidence of the Maduro government’s progressive nature, these leftists ignore the government’s own data, which show that far from having promoted “thousands of communes” as vehicles for self-government, the government presided over their cooptation and decline. The Minister of Communes’ figures shows a sharp, consistent decline over the past four years in the number of communal councils re-electing their authorities (down from about 19,000 in 2022 to just over 2000 last year). Meanwhile, of the almost 4000 communes that have been registered over the past more than a decade, less than 20 percent have been able to maintain at least one functioning body, such as a communal government or communal bank. A big factor for this has been government attempts to subordinate them by placing them under the control of local party officials.

Unlike the Chávez government, the Maduro government was undeniably a pro-capitalist government.

The reality is that the policies the pro-Maduro Left point to are largely legacies of the Chavez era, which have since been transformed into channels for corruption, clientelism, and capital accumulation; been completely nullified by the depression of workers’ wages; or remain in place because the political cost of reversing would be too high—though, as the proposed oil industry reform indicates, even measures considered taboos yesterday may no longer be considered sacred tomorrow.

Of course, such a turn in economic policy had to be accompanied by a ramping up of repression. Outside Venezuela, we hear about repression against the right-wing opposition—though never about their anti-democratic, violent and illegal actions. But the Left and working class forces in Venezuela have arguably faced greater repression.

In terms of workers’ rights, there are hundreds of trade unionists in jail for protesting, new trade unions cannot be registered, strikes are illegal, and collective bargaining is essentially banned. As for the left, every single left-wing party in the country has either been stripped of its electoral registration or denied the right to register for elections. The last presidential election was the first since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1958 in which the left was completely barred from standing a candidate.

When we add to this that the Venezuelan people were denied their right to have their votes counted and verified (arguably one of the most basic democratic right, but which some on the Left seem to want to deny to the Venezuelan people, claiming nothing untoward happened in those elections), we get a sense of just how far democracy had been wound back. Not just in terms of the Chávez era (when the left rightly pointed to Venezuela as a world leader in transparent elections) but even in terms of minimum bourgeois democratic rights.

There is a further component that needs to be considered; namely the use of security forces to terrorize working class and poor communities. As discontent with the government rose among traditional Chávez-voting sectors, the Maduro government stepped up its policing of these neighborhoods through its “Operation Liberate the People” and creation of the elite death squad, FAES (Special Action Forces).

The result was a dramatic rise in police killings of predominately young Black men in those neighborhoods: from about 1500-2500 a year in 2014-15 to 5000-5500 a year between 2016-18, making Venezuela’s security forces the deadliest in the region on a per capita basis. Though not strictly a political operation, this repressive policing had the effect of terrorizing communities which had begun to step out of line.

Given all this, it is hardly surprising that even strong Chávez voting areas eventually turned against Maduro and did not rush onto the streets to defend him after his kidnapping.

AS: Trump clearly is not done imposing the New Monroe Doctrine on the region. What will he try and do in Colombia, Cuba, and especially Greenland? How will targeted countries respond? How will China, which has massive investments and trade relations throughout the Western Hemisphere respond? How will Russia respond? Europe? Does this augur new inter-imperial rivalries over division of global capitalism, despite its deep integration, into new spheres of influence?

FF: It is difficult to give a comprehensive answer to such a big question. But, in simple terms, the impact will likely be two-fold.

On one hand, a clear message has been sent to smaller countries that if you dare step out of line, you will be next. Therefore, the most likely response from countries such as Colombia and Mexico will be to seek to negotiate the best terms possible from the U.S. in order to avoid a worse fate. The likelihood of U.S. imperialist interventions against small countries has dramatically increased.

On the other hand, Trump’s actions in Venezuela have sent a message to great powers, such as China and Russia, that this is how the world will operate from now on. This will only encourage them to act accordingly in their own spheres of influence. Of course, Russia was already doing this, particularly in Ukraine. But China may look to do the same with Taiwan.

AS: Last question is about the international Left. Far too much of the Left has put on, to put it generously, rose-tinted glasses about Maduro and his regime. They defend it as ant-imperialist and even socialist, despite its repressive anti-working class nature. Such a position, if adopted as a point of unity, for an anti-war movement will alienate not only regular working class people in various countries but also Venezuelan workers and refugees who are victims of the regime. So, what position should the international Left take on Maduro and Rodríguez’s regime? And what position should we advocate as the central rallying cry for the anti-war movement?

FF: There are two dangers here. The first is to lose sight of the bigger picture and simply believe that because Maduro was bad and many Venezuelans were happy to see him go, that we should hold a neutral position towards his (and Flores) kidnapping.

Anti-imperialists need to recognize that Trump’s actions have made the world a much more dangerous place, and pose a serious threat to human rights, international law, democracy, and sovereignty everywhere. Furthermore, these actions have done nothing to restore democratic rights in Venezuela (Trump has said any elections will be postponed until the “third” phase of his recolonization project, at some undefined time in the future).

Therefore, we must continue to condemn the January 3 military assault and demand Maduro and Flores’ immediate release. If they have committed a crime (such as stealing the last elections), then it should be the Venezuelan people who judge them.

A movement solely focused on this demand, however, is unlikely to mobilize the kind of broad movement we need to push Trump back. Few working class people (inside and outside Venezuela) see a simple return to the status quo as a great step forward. So, there are some other important elements we can campaign on.

We must continue to condemn the … military assault and demand Maduro and Flores’ immediate release. If they have committed a crime … then it should be the Venezuelan people who judge them.

For example, it is self-evident that Venezuela is rapidly losing sovereignty over its natural resources. We need to speak out against this violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty and open theft of its natural resources.

Campaigning against the ongoing U.S. sanctions and naval blockade is part of that, as these tools are being used to further coerce the Rodríguez government into complete submission. We should also demand an end to the U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean, which has been used to pressure various other governments, not just the Venezuelan one.

The Left as a whole should be able to unite behind such demands, irrespective of their position on the Maduro and Rodríguez governments. But the movement does need to separate out this defense of Venezuela’s national sovereignty from political support for the Rodríguez government. Failing to do so is the second danger the Left can fall into.

When it comes to basic democratic rights in Venezuela, we cannot be neutral, ignore that they have been greatly undermined, or pretend the government’s actions are solely the fault of U.S. actions. This is obviously untrue and workers in our country will rightly not believe it—making it all the harder for us to win them over to an anti-imperialist position.

Just as importantly, as I explained before, the government’s anti-worker and anti-democratic policies have undermined anti-imperialism in Venezuela. Defending such rights in Venezuela not only helps us build the broadest possible response at home; it also helps create space for genuine anti-imperialist working class mobilization in Venezuela.

Finally, an important part of our solidarity has to be linking up with Venezuelan workers and the Left and seeing how we can coordinate our joint struggles. Far too often, discussions center exclusively on the government and the right-wing opposition. Squeezed out are Left and working class voices—or the voices of the majority, for that matter, who support neither Maduro/Rodríguez nor Machado. While some leftists prefer to deny their existence or denounce them, we should instead help their voices be heard, so that workers in our countries can know about their struggles and act in solidarity with them.

If we seriously believe that only Venezuelans can decide their fate, then that has to involve supporting Venezuelans in their struggles for the rights needed to make that a reality; namely, the same rights we fight for at home. That includes the right to choose their own government—free of foreign interference and fraud.

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: Prensa Presidencial de Venezuela; modified by Tempest.

The post Venezuela after the coup appeared first on Tempest.

Headline News:

• “As Solar And Wind Hit Record Levels, Why Are We Ignoring Geothermal Energy?” • A study from Stanford University found that enhanced geothermal systems can “significantly reduce” the amount of wind, solar, and battery infrastructure needed for a transition to clean, sustainable energy while keeping electricity prices competitive. [Euronews]

Geothermal plant in Iceland – that’s steam, not smoke (Gretar Ívarsson, public domain)

• “Spain opens talks on first offshore auction” • Spain has opened a consultation on its debut offshore wind auction. It also asks whether a single, large site should be put on the block or several smaller sites, as well as what capacity should be targeted. Spain has a goal of delivering up to 3 GW of offshore wind by the end of the decade. [reNews]
• “Sierra Club And Partners Rally To Make Polluters Pay For Climate Disasters ” • Last week, Sierra Club joined partners from across the country for a “Make Polluters Pay” Week of Action, a coordinated set of advocacy actions and events aimed at holding Big Oil and Gas companies accountable for their climate mess. It was a week of action. [CleanTechnica]
• “Zelestra Signs Meta PPA For Texas solar” • Zelestra and Meta signed a long-term power purchase agreement for the 176-MW Skull Creek Solar Plant in Texas. The project supports Meta’s goal of adding new capacity to match its operations with 100% clean energy. Zelestra and Meta now have PPAs for about 1.2-GW of US solar projects set to be online by 2028. [reNews]
• “Utility Offers Unique Solution For Residents Struggling To Go Solar” • Provo City Power started SharedSolar, a program for city residents to access solar energy even when they don’t have other means. The initiative uses a community-based solar model but with subscriptions to a portion of a larger solar installation under utility management. [The Cool Down]

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

Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) is in advanced talks with Congo’s state miner Gecamines and Swiss commodities trader Mercuria to route zinc-rich concentrate from its Kipushi mine to the United States under Washington’s newly launched strategic stockpiling scheme, Project Vault.

The discussions follow the White House launch of Project Vault, which Ivanhoe founder and co-executive chairman Robert Friedland attended. The $12 billion program aims to secure long-term supplies of strategic metals, backed by $1.67 billion in private capital and a $10 billion loan facility from the US Export-Import Bank.

Momentum behind the plan is building in Washington. Senators are set to introduce legislation on Wednesday to reauthorize funding for the Export-Import Bank for another decade, with the goal of injecting an additional $70 billion into the agency to support Trump’s critical minerals agenda, the Financial Times reported.

Republican senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, who is co-sponsoring the bill with Democrat Mark Warner, told the FT that Trump was “all in” on backing Ex-Im and “sees the value” of the institution. Cramer said he would push to raise the bank’s lending cap to $205 billion from $135 billion as part of the package.

Behind the talks

Under the proposed arrangement, Mercuria would assign its existing offtake for Kipushi concentrate to Gecamines’ trading arm and market additional volumes expected once the mine ramps up later this year, Ivanhoe said. Gecamines could ultimately handle up to 50% of Kipushi’s output, including shipments destined for the US.

Ivanhoe founder and co-executive chairman Robert Friedland (second from left) attends the launch of Project Vault. (Image: Screenshot Ivanhoe Mines video.)

Gecamines confirmed the partnership in a separate statement on Tuesday, citing a December 2025 deal with Mercuria that provides financing and logistics to activate its offtake rights. The miner said the agreement marks the first step in a plan to expand into processing zinc, copper, germanium and gallium, with the long-term aim of becoming Kipushi’s sole buyer.

US-Congo ties

The talks form part of a broader US-Congo push on minerals as Washington intensifies competition with China for access to Africa’s vast resource base.

Glencore (LON: GLEN) and the US-backed Orion Critical Mineral Consortium announced this week a similar deal to channel cobalt and copper from the DRC into the US supply chain under the same government-supported program, underscoring rising competition among Western buyers.

Kipushi, one of Congo’s largest polymetallic deposits, is forecast to produce 240,000 to 290,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate this year, including meaningful volumes of germanium and gallium, minerals the US classifies as critical for semiconductors, defence applications and clean-technology.

The mobilization was called by the EHNE Bizkaia and EMBA unions with the aim of urging the European Parliament and the European Commission to maintain their rejection of the EU-Mercosur agreement.

The post Food Is Not A Commodity: Mobilization In Bizkaia Against EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

A parliamentary inquiry will examine the scale of the waste challenge looming on the flip-side of Australia's rooftop solar boom – and how to seize the opportunity it presents.

The post Federal parliament launches inquiry into solar panel reuse and recycling appeared first on Renew Economy.

The Montezuma Wetlands drape across 1,800 acres of Solano County, California, where the Sacramento River empties into San Francisco Bay. Once drained and diked for farming and grazing, the marsh has been rehabilitated over the past two decades, and in 2020, tidal waters returned for the first time in a century. Today, the land teems with shorebirds, waterfowl, and other wildlife in a rare example of large-scale habitat restoration.

But just as the ecosystem is on the mend, another makeover may be coming. A company called Montezuma Carbon wants to send millions of tons of carbon dioxide from Bay Area polluters through a 40-mile pipeline and store it in saline aquifers 2 miles beneath the wetland. Approval could come in as little as 12 to 18 months once the county approves a test well, with what its backers call “limited disposal” coming one year after that. If the project proceeds, it could be the Golden State’s first large-scale, climate-driven carbon capture and storage site. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency approved Carbon TerraVault, a smaller project in Kern County, California, that would store carbon dioxide in depleted oil wells.

Proponents say the area’s geology and proximity to regional industries make it an ideal place to stash carbon, and the company notes its facilities will be “well away from the restored wetland areas and far from sensitive habitats.” Residents and environmental justice groups argue that the project is being steered toward a low-income, working-class county long burdened with industrial development, and they worry about safety, ecological disruption, and whether the technology is a distraction from more effective and affordable climate solutions. Their fight over risk, consent, and who must live with climate infrastructure will help define not just the future of this project, but how California decides who bears the costs of decarbonization.

Long before becoming a showpiece of ecological recovery, the wetland in question was treated as expendable. Beginning in the late 19th century, the Montezuma Wetlands were transformed into farmland and shielded from natural tidal flows. By the end of the 20th century, much of the area functioned less as a marsh and more as a repository for industrial waste.

That began to change in the early 2000s, when University of California, Berkeley professor and environmental scientist Jim Levine led a remediation effort that used sediment dredged from the Port of Oakland to restore the wetland. The project was praised by regulators and conservationists and reestablished tidal habitat, altering the trajectory of a landscape long defined by extraction.

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Levine’s involvement with the site evolved, eventually placing the Montezuma Wetlands at the center of a vastly different environmental experiment. Around 2010, scientists with Shell and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory identified the area’s shale composition as potentially suitable for storing large amounts of carbon dioxide. As California’s climate targets grew more ambitious, Levine began promoting the site as a place where those geological conditions could support a large-scale carbon capture and storage project.

In May 2023, Montezuma Carbon sought an EPA permit to inject CO2, sourced from refineries, hydrogen plants, and power plants, into the Montezuma Wetlands. The project, designed by scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley lab, Stanford University, and UC-Berkeley, stalled last spring as Levine’s health declined. After his death in September, its technical lead, seismologist and Berkeley professor Jamie Rector, wanted to “do right by Jim” and reignite the proposal, positioning it as both a climate solution and a research-driven test case — even as scrutiny and opposition have intensified.

“Solano County historically has long been treated as a waste dump for the region’s polluters,” said local pediatrician Bonnie Hamilton. “We have a beautiful area and don’t want to see it messed up for the sake of rich people wanting to get richer.” 

Opponents frame Montezuma Carbon’s proposal as a question of who controls their land and who absorbs the risks of decarbonization. The county is home to roughly half a million people, including the Bay Area’s largest per capita populations of veterans and residents with disabilities, and it is among the most racially diverse counties in the nation. Limited resources can make navigating regulatory and legal processes difficult, heightening concerns about meaningful consent. Those worries are compounded by a history of industrial violations, including an $82 million penalty levied last year against the Valero refinery in Benicia for years of unreported toxic emissions and other air quality failures.

Within the next three years, the project’s architects hope to be depositing up to 8 million tons of carbon annually, a significant stride toward the state’s goal of capturing 13 to 20 million tons by 2030. Rector believes the site could store at least 100 million tons over its 40-year lifespan. The site’s compacted mud, silt, and clay, he said, would provide a natural cap that could keep the pollutant locked underground indefinitely, while its location alongside Bay Area industries would reduce carbon transportation costs.

The Sleipner carbon dioxide gas processing and capture project, the world’s first commercial sequestration operation, has stored 20 million tons of the gas about 3,000 feet under the North Sea.
Daniel Sannum Lauten / AFP via Getty Images

The National Energy Technology Laboratory, which leads the Energy Department’s research on carbon capture and storage, points to key advantages of the site like minimal environmental sensitivity and low population density. The nearest community, Rio Vista, is 10 miles away. Rector added that advanced pipeline monitoring systems, such as acoustic, pressure, and temperature sensors, can quickly detect and contain leaks. Unlike enhanced oil recovery — where pressurized CO2 is injected to extract oil, with regulations aimed primarily at protecting groundwater — EPA rules for climate-driven sequestration require operators to demonstrate that injected carbon will remain buried. The project’s proponents also argue that decades of experience pumping carbon underground — including more than a billion tons injected in the U.S. for commercial use, such as for beverage carbonation, since the 1970s, and over 20 million tons that have been safely stored at Norway’s Sleipner project since 1996 — suggest that Montezuma is a low-risk site.

Pipeline safety has drawn heightened scrutiny since 2020, when a carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured in Satartia, Mississippi, casting a dense cloud of gas near the ground and hospitalizing dozens of residents. Although that pipeline was federally regulated, critics and regulators alike later acknowledged those rules were inadequate for managing the public safety risks of large-scale CO2 transport.

Rector quipped that the project would leak “when pigs fly,” but identified pressure-induced seismicity as the principal peril, given the wetlands’ position between the Kirby Hills and Midland faults — though the National Energy Technology Laboratory has said a devastating event is unlikely. To reduce that risk, Rector has proposed drawing down water from a nearby reservoir to ease subsurface pressure and create more capacity for injected gas, with the water potentially redirected to farmers and industries facing chronic shortages.

Carbon capture and storage is widely seen by policymakers, industry leaders, and many scientists as a necessary — if imperfect — tool for meeting state climate goals, even as environmentalists argue it diverts attention from cheaper, cleaner solutions. California Governor Gavin Newsom has said “there is no path” to carbon neutrality without the technology, a point the California Air Resources Board echoed when it told Grist it “could not weigh in on specific projects, but carbon management is a critical piece of the state’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045.” This institutional support is reflected in legislation like SB 614, which stresses the technology is central to California’s effort to reach net-zero emissions.

Read Next How much carbon can we safely store underground? Much less than previously thought. Joseph Winters

Supporters argue that the value of carbon capture is most obvious in sectors where greenhouse gases are hardest to curb, such as cement production, which accounts for roughly 8 percent of global CO2 output. While lower-carbon materials and cleaner manufacturing techniques are emerging, they will be costly and slow to deploy at scale. Even with those changes, substantial emissions would remain, said Ben Grove, a deputy director at the Clean Air Task Force, leading him to consider carbon capture a necessary complement to other climate solutions.

For Montezuma Carbon, that high-level backing has yet to translate into financial certainty. Project leaders say technological advances that could lower costs, along with government incentives and private investment, are still essential. 

Still, the company faces significant hurdles, including regulatory approval and the loss of its founder. Cost is now the “albatross around our neck,” Rector said, as the project has no financing and is estimated to require roughly $2 billion. The Department of Energy denied a $340 million grant in 2023, and Rector acknowledged that without government subsidies or a promising return for investors, funding will be difficult.

In its EPA application, Montezuma Carbon contends the project would bring jobs, tax revenue, cleaner air, and a hub for climate innovation to “disadvantaged local communities.” Residents and local environmental justice advocates don’t buy it. They also argue the technology will only perpetuate the use of fossil fuels. The International Institute for Sustainable Development considers carbon capture and storage “expensive, energy intensive, unproven at scale, and has no impact on the 80 percent of oil and gas emissions that result from downstream use.” Similar carbon pipeline schemes have failed in the Midwest because of community opposition, and Montezuma Carbon is just one of a dozen such projects under consideration in California.

Dr. Bonnie Hamilton, a Solano County pediatrician, speaks at a Sept. 9, 2025 press conference launching Communities Against Carbon Transport and Injection, a local coalition formed to block the Montezuma Carbon project. Tom Kunhardt, Communities Against Carbon Transport and Injection

Local officials are reviewing California’s first geological carbon storage project, in Kern County, as they try to understand how similar proposals have been evaluated elsewhere. County Supervisor Cassanda James “does not have a comment at this time,” according to her chief of staff, and other county supervisors did not respond to requests for comment. Alma Hernandez, the mayor of Suisun City, which is about 20 miles from the proposed site, said her staff is “still learning more” about the project and “no position has been taken.”

For many residents, the unanswered questions go deeper than permitting or precedent. They ask whether industries labeled “essential” must continue emitting carbon dioxide at all, or whether cleaner alternatives could negate the need for technologies like underground storage. And they question who gets to decide which communities should host infrastructure designed to manage the consequences of pollution generated elsewhere. “All of us want to believe the climate crisis could be solved without changing how society functions,” Theo LeQuesne of the Center for Biological Diversity said.

The Montezuma Wetlands have endured centuries of human interference, first in its destruction and then its restoration. It now faces another possible refashioning to manage emissions from an economy that still rests solidly on fossil fuels.

At the heart of the debate is not only whether carbon capture is an effective way to meet California’s climate goals, but where such infrastructure should be built, and who gets to decide. The fate of the project hinges on the weight of statewide climate ambitions, scientific confidence in the technology, and the objections of the community being asked to host it.

toolTips('.classtoolTips0','A technology that catches carbon dioxide at the point of release, preventing it from escaping into Earth’s atmosphere. CSS systems typically are installed on industrial or energy facilities, like coal-burning power plants, where the greenhouse gas is captured, compressed, and then buried deep underground.
'); toolTips('.classtoolTips3','Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other gases that prevent heat from escaping Earth’s atmosphere. Together, they act as a blanket to keep the planet at a liveable temperature in what is known as the “greenhouse effect.” Too many of these gases, however, can cause excessive warming, disrupting fragile climates and ecosystems.'); toolTips('.classtoolTips4','The process of reducing the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that drive climate change, most often by deprioritizing the use of fossil fuels like oil and gas in favor of renewable sources of energy.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside the polarizing plan to stash carbon in a California wetland on Feb 4, 2026.

The conversation around energy use in the United States has become … electric. Everyone from President Donald Trump to the cohosts of Today show has been talking about the surging demand for, and rising costs of, electrons. Many people worry that utilities won’t be able to produce enough power. But a report released today argues that the better question is: Can we use what utilities already produce more efficiently in order to absorb the coming surge?

“A lot of folks have been looking at this from the perspective of, Do we need more supply-side resources and gas plants?” said Mike Specian, utilities manager with the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, or ACEEE, who wrote the report. “We found that there is a lack of discussion of demand-side measures.”

When Specian dug into the data, he discovered that implementing energy-efficiency measures and shifting electricity usage to lower-demand times are two of the fastest and cheapest ways of meeting growing thirst for electricity. These moves could help meet much, if not all, of the nation’s projected load growth. Moreover, they would cost only half — or less — what building out new infrastructure would, while avoiding the emissions those operations would bring. But Specian also found that governments could be doing more to incentivize utilities to take advantage of these demand-side gains. 

“Energy efficiency and flexibility are still a massive untapped resource in the U.S.,” he said. “As we get to higher levels of electrification, it’s going to become increasingly important.”

The report estimated that by 2040, utility-driven efficiency programs could cut usage by about 8 percent, or around 70 gigawatts, and that making those cuts currently costs around $20.70 per megawatt. The cheapest gas-fired power plants now start at about $45 per kilowatt generated. While the cost of load shifting is harder to pin down, the report estimates moving electricity use away from peak hours — often through time-of-use pricing, smart devices, or utility controls — to times when the grid is less strained and power is cheaper could save another 60 to 200 gigawatts of power by 2035. That alone would far outweigh even the most aggressive near-term projections for data center capacity growth. 

Read Next Rising energy bills are rewiring American politics Tik Root

Vijay Modi, director of the Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Laboratory at Columbia University, agrees that energy efficiency is critical but isn’t sure how many easy savings are left to be had. He also believes that governments at every level — rather than utilities — are best suited to incentivize that work. He sees greater potential in balancing loads to ease peak demand. 

“This is a big concern,” he said, explaining that when peak load goes up, it could require upgrading substations, transformers, power lines, and a host of other distribution equipment. That raises costs and rates. Utilities, he added, are well positioned to solve this because they have the data needed to effectively shift usage and are already taking steps in that direction by investing in load management software, installing battery storage and generating electricity closer to end users with things like small-scale renewable energy. 

“It defers some of the heavy investment,” said Modi. “In turn, the customer also benefits.” 

Specian says that one reason utilities tend to focus on the supply side of the equation is that they can often make more money that way. Building infrastructure is considered a capital investment, and utilities can pass that cost on to customers, plus an additional rate of return, or premium, which is typically around 10 percent. Energy-efficiency programs, however, are generally considered an operating expense, which aren’t eligible for a rate of return. This setup, he said, motivates utilities to build new infrastructure rather than conserve energy, even if the latter presents a more affordable option for ratepayers. 

“Our incentives aren’t properly lined up,” said Specian. State legislators and regulators can address this, he said, by implementing energy-efficiency resource standards or performance-based regulation. “Decoupling,” which separates a company’s revenue from the amount of electricity it sells, is another tactic that many states are adopting. 

Joe Daniel, who runs the carbon-free electricity team at the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, has also been watching a model known as “fuel cost sharing,” which allows utilities and ratepayers to share any savings or added costs rather than passing them on entirely to customers. “It’s a policy that seems to make logical sense,” he said. A handful of states across the political spectrum have adopted the approach, and of the people he’s spoken with or heard from, Daniel said “every consumer advocate, every state public commissioner, likes it.” 

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents all of the country’s investor-owned electric companies, told Grist that regardless of regulation, utilities are making progress in these areas. “EEI’s member companies operate robust energy-efficiency programs that save enough electricity each year to power nearly 30 million U.S. homes,” the organization said in a statement. “Electric companies continue to work closely with customers who are interested in demand response, energy efficiency, and other load-flexibility programs that can reduce their energy use and costs.”

Because infrastructure changes happen on long timelines, it’s critical to keep pushing on these levers now, said Ben Finkelor, executive director of the Energy and Efficiency Institute at the University of California, Davis. “The planning is 10 years out,” he said, adding that preparing today could save billions in the future. “Perhaps we can avoid building those baseload assets.” 

Specian hopes his report reaches legislatures, regulators, and consumers alike. Whoever reads it, he says the message should be clear. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The US doesn’t need to generate as much new electricity as you think on Feb 4, 2026.

Michelle Maloney and Mary Graham

As communities around the world work to protect their homes, traditional lands and ecosystems in the face of escalating climate change and biodiversity loss, many people in Western societies are looking for new modes of …

Easy and quick way to file complaints if you observe pollution problems  in Bayview Hunters Point

Click here to download this flyer

February 26, 2026, 9:30 am Bayview Hunters Point & San Francisco Action Alert!
Show up to support Greenaction’s federal lawsuit against the US Navy due  to the inadequate cleanup of contamination at the Hunters Point Naval  Shipyard Superfund Site in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco

 

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In its Letter to the Brazilian People, the Movement reaffirms its commitment to confronting capital, imperialism, racism, patriarchy, and all forms of oppression.

The post Brazil: MST reaffirms anti-imperialist struggle and calls on the Brazilian pueblo for Popular Agrarian Reform | ICARRD+20 Series appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.