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The “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling its decline and putting the global economy at risk, according to a major new report.

An assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) outlines more than 100 actions for measuring and reducing impacts on nature across business, government, financial institutions and civil society. 

A co-chair of the assessment says that nature loss is one of the most “serious threats” to businesses, but the “twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it”. 

The “business and biodiversity” report says that global “finance flows” of more than $7tn (£5.1tn) had “direct negative impacts on nature” in 2023. 

The new findings were put together by 79 experts from around the world over the course of three years, in what IPBES described as a “fast-track” assessment. 

IPBES is an independent body that gives scientific advice to policymakers about biodiversity and ecosystems. 

This is the “first report of its kind” to provide guidance on how businesses can contribute to 2030 nature goals, says IPBES executive secretary Dr Luthando Dziba in a statement. 

Below, Carbon Brief explains four key findings from the “summary for policymakers” (SPM), which outlines the main messages of the report.

The full report is due to be released in the coming months after final edits are made. 

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1. Businesses both depend on, and harm, nature
2. Current practices ‘do not support’ efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss
3. Businesses can act now to address their impacts on nature
4. Government policies can drive a ‘just and sustainable future’ for nature and people

1. Businesses both depend on, and harm, nature

Businesses of all sizes rely on nature in one way or another, says the report. 

The SPM outlines that biodiversity provides many of the goods and services businesses need, such as raw materials from the environment or controlled water flows to reduce flooding during wet seasons and provide water in dry seasons. 

Biodiversity also “underpins genetic diversity” that informs the development of products in many industries, including pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

Individual businesses often do not address their impacts and dependencies on nature, “in part due to their lack of awareness”, the SPM says. 

They also often do not have the data or knowledge to “quantify their impacts on dependencies on biodiversity and much of the relevant scientific literature is not written for a business audience”, the report claims. It adds: 

“Lack of transparency across value chains, including of the risks and opportunities related to the sustainability of resource extraction, use, reuse and waste management, is a further barrier to action.” 

The report says it is well established that businesses depend on biodiversity, but also that the actions of businesses “continue to drive declines in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people”. 

(IPBES says it uses terms such as well established to express “how assured experts are about the findings”. Well established findings, the highest level of confidence, have significant evidence and high agreement behind them. The three other terms used in IPBES reports are: unresolved (a lot of evidence but low agreement), established but incomplete (limited evidence but good agreement) and inconclusive (limited or no evidence and little agreement).)

The report notes that the size of a business “does not always reflect the magnitude of its impacts”, with companies in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fishing, electricity, energy and mining having “relatively high” direct impacts on nature.

A “failure” to account for nature as the economy has expanded over the past two centuries has “led to its degradation and unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss”, the SPM says. It adds:  

“The decline in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people has become a critical systemic risk threatening the economy, financial stability and human wellbeing with implications for human rights.”

It is well established that nature loss as a result of “unsustainable use” threatens the “ability of businesses, local economies and whole sectors to function”, the report details. 

These risks and others – such as extreme weather events and critical changes to Earth systems – are “among the highest-ranked global risks over the next 10 years”, it adds. 

The SPM notes further that it is well established that risks around climate change and biodiversity loss “may interact to amplify social and economic impacts”. 

These risks have “disproportionate impacts on developing countries whose economies are more reliant on biodiversity and have more limited technical and financial capacity to absorb shocks”, the report adds. 

2. Current practices ‘do not support’ efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss

The SPM says that it is well established that current political and economic practices “perpetuate business as usual and do not support the transformative change required to halt and reverse biodiversity loss”.

These practices have “commonly ignored or undervalued biodiversity, creating tension between business actions and the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity”, the report continues.

For example, the report says there is established but incomplete evidence that “time pressures on decision-making and timescales for investment returns and reporting by businesses – with an emphasis on quarterly earnings or annual reporting – are shorter than many ecological cycles”.

This prevents businesses from “adequately” considering nature loss in decision-making, says the SPM.

There is well established evidence that businesses fail to assign adequate value to “biodiversity and many of nature’s contributions to people, such as filtration of pollutants, climate regulation and pollination”, it continues.

As a result, “businesses bear little or no financial cost for negative impacts and may not generate revenue from positive impacts on biodiversity”, leading to “insufficient incentives for businesses to act to conserve, restore or sustainably use biodiversity”.

Prof Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the assessment and a professor of ecological and environmental economics at the University of Minnesota, said in a statement:

“The loss of biodiversity is among the most serious threats to business. Yet the twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it. Business as usual may once have seemed profitable in the short term, but impacts across multiple businesses can have cumulative effects, aggregating to global impacts, which can cross ecological tipping points.”

It is well established that policies from governments can “further accelerate biodiversity decline”, the SPM says.

It notes that, in 2023, global public and private financial spending with direct negative impacts on nature was estimated at $7.3tn.

This figure includes public subsidies that are harmful to nature (around $2.4tn) and private investment in high-impact sectors ($4.9tn), says the report.

Industries harmful to nature include fossil-fuel extraction, mining, deforestation and large-scale meat farming and fishing.

In contrast, just $220bn in public and private finance was directed to activities that contribute to protecting and sustainably using nature in 2023, adds the report.

(In recognition of the need to address public spending on activities that are destructive to nature, countries agreed to reduce biodiversity-harming subsidies by at least $500bn by 2030 as part of a global pact made in 2022.)

There are additional “barriers to action” facing businesses, ranging from challenging social norms to a lack of capacity, data or technology. These are summarised in the table below. 

Barriers preventing businesses from taking action on biodiversity loss. Credit: SPM.4, IPBES (2026)

“These barriers do not affect all actors equally and may disproportionately affect small and medium-sized businesses and financial institutions in developing countries,” adds the report.

3. Businesses can act now to address their impacts on nature  

The SPM says it is well established that the “transformative change” required to halt and reverse biodiversity loss requires action from “all businesses”. 

However, the report continues that it is also well established that the current level of business action is “insufficient” to deliver this “transformative change”. This is, in part, because the “enabling environment is missing”, it says.

IPBES says all businesses have a responsibility to act, even if this responsibility is not shared “evenly”.

“Priority actions” that businesses should take differ depending on the size of the firm, the sector in which it operates in, as well as the company structure and its “relationship with biodiversity”, the report notes. 

The exact actions businesses should pursue also depends on companies’ “degree of control and influence over stakeholders”, it says.

According to the report, firms can act across four “decision-making levels” – corporate, operations, value chain and portfolio – to measure and address impacts on biodiversity. 

(“Corporate” refers to decisions focused on overarching strategy, governance and direction of the business; “operations” to day-to-day activities; “value chain” to the system and resources required to move a product or service from supplier to customer; and “portfolio” to investments and business assets).

The SPM sets out a series of examples for how businesses can act across all four levels. These are summarised in the table below.

Actions that businesses can take now to address their impacts and dependencies. Credit: SPM.2, IPBES (2026).

At a corporate level, the report notes that firms can establish ambitious governance and frameworks that can then have a ripple effect across the other levels, according to the report. This includes the integration of biodiversity commitments and targets into corporate strategy.

The SPM says that corporate biodiversity targets are “most effective” when they are aligned with “national and global biodiversity objectives” and “take into consideration a business’s impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people”. 

At an operations level, businesses should focus on ensuring that their operations are located and managed in a way that benefits biodiversity, IPBES says. Environmental and social impact assessments and management plans that are supported by “credible monitoring of both actions and biodiversity outcomes” can underpin this effort, the SPM notes. 

It says it is well established that using the “mitigation hierarchy” framework can help businesses deliver “lasting outcomes on the ground”. (The framework guides users towards limiting as far as possible the negative impacts on biodiversity from development projects by first avoiding, then minimising, restoring and offsetting impacts.)

Next, the report notes there are actions businesses can take to drive change within its broader spheres of influence, including suppliers, retailers, consumers and peers within industry. This is important, the SPM notes, as significant impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and nature “accrue” across the lifecycle of products or services, especially those that rely on raw materials. 

The report notes there is established but incomplete evidence that efforts to “map” company value chains and improve traceability by linking products and materials to suppliers, locations and impacts can help “identify risks and prioritise actions”. 

While noting that “mapping” beyond direct suppliers “often remains challenging” for businesses, the report adds:

“Examples at the corporate and value chain levels exist, such as companies in the chocolate industry that have made advances in recording biodiversity dependencies to improve business decisions through full traceability of materials and improved supplier control mechanisms.”

Elsewhere, the SPM notes that there is also established but incomplete evidence that consumer-focused measures – such as product labelling, education and incentives – can “shape behaviour and improve transparency”. However, it cautions that the effectiveness of these strategies is “constrained by consumer scepticism, certification costs and business models reliant on unsustainable consumption”.

The SPM also highlights that, at a “portfolio” level, financial institutions can shift finance away from harmful activities – for instance, companies whose products drive deforestation – and towards business activities with positive impacts for biodiversity and nature.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Matt Jones, co-chair of the report, explains the rationale behind including options for how businesses can address biodiversity impacts in the document:

“Businesses and governments in different countries are coming at this from a very different perspective. So we can’t present a set of really prescriptive ‘how tos’…but we can present a huge number of options for action that businesses, governments, financial institutions and civil society and other actors can all take.”

Elsewhere, the report says it is well established that “robust, transparent and credible reporting of actions and outcomes” is required to “inspire others”.

4. Government policies can drive a ‘just and sustainable future’ for nature and people

Both governments and financial institutions can set policies and create incentives to protect biodiversity and stem its decline, says the SPM.

According to the report, the types of policies that governments can put in place that have an influence over business include:

• Fiscal policies, such as subsidies and taxes.
• Land use or marine spatial planning and zoning, such as designating new national parks or areas protected for nature.
• Permitting for business activities that affect nature – for example, by requiring environmental impact assessments.
• Public procurement policy (rules for how governments purchase goods and services).
• Controls on advertising and the creation of standards to prevent “greenwashing”.

Governments can also promote action through paying for ecosystem services, creating environmental markets and through “multilateral benefit-sharing mechanisms”, which set out rules for ensuring profits from nature are shared equally, says the SPM.

It says this includes the Cali Fund, a fund that businesses can voluntarily pay into after reaping benefits from genetic resources found in biodiverse countries.

(The fund was agreed in 2024 with expectations that it could generate up to billions of dollars for conservation, but it has so far only attracted $1,000.)

Governments could also promote action by phasing out or reforming subsidies that are harmful for nature, as well as fostering positive incentives, according to the report.

Overall, governments can work with other actors to create an “enabling environment” to “incentivise actions that are beneficial for businesses, biodiversity and society for a just and sustainable future”, says the SPM. It adds:

“Creation of an enabling environment that provides incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people could align what is profitable with what is good for biodiversity and society.

“Creating this enabling environment would result in businesses and financial institutions being positive agents of change in transforming to a just and sustainable economic system, by addressing their impacts on biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution, which are all interconnected.”

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The post IPBES: Four key takeaways on how nature loss threatens the global economy appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Propping up expensive, dirty power plants threatens consumers with higher prices while punting systemic solutions further into the future, write colleagues from Energy Innovation.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities asked for information from utilities on distributed energy resource hosting constraints and how new interconnections can be accelerated.

Countries responsible for climate change could be required to pay “full and prompt reparation” for the damage they have caused, under a new United Nations resolution being pursued by the Pacific island state of Vanuatu, an initial draft shows.

The resolution seeks to turn into action last year’s landmark advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found that states have a legal obligation to prevent climate harm and that breaches of this duty could expose them to compensation claims from affected countries.

Under the “zero draft” of the resolution seen by Climate Home News, the UN’s General Assembly, its main policy-making body, would also demand that countries stop any “wrongful acts” contributing to rising emissions, which may include the production and licensing of planet-heating fossil fuels.

Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities

‘Demand’ is the strongest verb calling for an obligation to comply in UN language, but it is rarely used in a resolution.

Countries would also be called upon to respect their legal obligations by enacting national climate plans consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5C and by adopting appropriate policies, including measures to “ensure a rapid, just and quantified phase-out of fossil fuel production and use”, the document shows.

End of March vote targeted

The draft, meant as a starting point for negotiations, was circulated last week by the government of Vanuatu following discussions with a dozen nations, including the Netherlands, Colombia and Kenya.

Countries are expected to take part in informal consultations between February 13-17 aimed at agreeing on wording that would secure broad support among UN member states, according to a statement from Vanuatu, which also led the diplomatic drive for the ICJ’s advisory opinion. A vote on the follow-up resolution could take place by the end of March, it added.

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Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s climate minister, said respecting the court’s decision is “essential for the credibility of the international system and for effective collective action”.

“At a time when respect for international law is under pressure globally, this initiative affirms the central role of the International Court of Justice and the importance of multilateral cooperation,” he added in written comments.

New damage register and reparation mechanism

If adopted in its current form, the draft resolution would also create an “International Register of Damage”, which is described as a comprehensive and transparent record of evidence on loss and damage linked to climate change.

It would also ask the UN secretary-general to put forward proposals for a climate reparation mechanism that could coordinate and facilitate the resolution of compensation claims and promote financial models to help cover climate-related damage.

The fledgling Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) – set up under the UN climate change regime – is set to hand out money to the first set of initiatives aimed at addressing climate-driven destruction later this year. However, the just-over $590 million currently in the fund’s coffers is dwarfed by the scale of need in developing countries, with loss and damage costs estimated to reach up to $400 billion a year by 2030.

Like other small island nations, Vanuatu is among the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, while having contributed the least to global warming. Last year’s ICJ decision stemmed from a March 2023 resolution led by the Pacific nation asking the world’s top court to define countries’ legal obligations in relation to climate change.

Regenvanu said in September 2025 that it was important to follow up the ICJ ruling with a new UNGA resolution because it could be approved by a majority vote, while progress can be blocked in other fora like the UN climate negotiations that require consensus for decisions.

The post Vanuatu pushes new UN resolution demanding full climate compensation appeared first on Climate Home News.

The murder of Alex Pretti—the day after workers shut down Minneapolis in protest of ICE’s invasion of their city–has raised the stakes for those resisting the war on immigrants. Masked government agents violently attacked Pretti moments after he helped a fellow protester who had been pushed down by ICE thugs. He was maced, beaten, and shot in the back.

All of this was captured on video from multiple angles by eyewitnesses, and the world watched in horror. Kristi Noem’s outlandish claims that the victim was a “domestic terrorist,” who “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement” stood in stark contrast to the video evidence watched by millions who learned that Pretti was an intensive care nurse for military veterans.

Coming just sixteen hours after a massive march in subzero temperatures—the culmination of a day of mass civil disobedience, work stoppages, school closures, and business closings—Pretti’s murder left many wondering if it was in revenge for the Minneapolis resistance, and what it would take to defeat this kind of occupying force. As the movement confronts an entrenched and dangerous enemy, it is increasingly clear that protests and demonstrations are essential, but the only thing that will stop Trump is the kind of action that seriously impacts the economy: mass strikes.

No work, no school, no shopping

The mass actions of January 23 put tens of thousands in the streets in response to a call for “no work, no school, no shopping.” Almost one thousand businesses closed their doors, even if only for a few hours, in solidarity. Workers called in sick or took a “mental health day.” Some workplaces were forced to close by the collective will of employees. Even while labor unions stopped short of officially declaring a strike, many endorsed the day of action.

The outpouring of protest and support for immigrants is a multiracial fightback based in the working class with anti-racist politics at its heart. It is a powerful antidote to Trump’s use of anti-immigrant scapegoating . . .

The protest was spurred by the murder of Minneapolis ICE resister Renee Good on January 7. The general strike, as it was widely referred to, was organized by a coalition of trade unions, faith organizations, and neighborhood rapid response networks. Some of these formations came together in 2011 around common bargaining demands. They also built on the long history of anti-racist mobilization in the wake of the George Floyd uprising. This organizational cross pollination combined with popular sentiment against ICE raids to produce a significant showing. One survey found that one in four voters in the state participated or had a loved one who did. This is all new territory for the movement.

When the administration sent 3,000 federal officials into Minneapolis—which, to put things in perspective, employs about 600 police officers—they declared war on the immigrant population. The Border Patrol officers who murdered Pretti were in pursuit of a delivery worker who was sheltering in a local business behind locked doors.

Immigrant unions and entire neighborhoods sprang into action to defend their community. Masked officers escalated their violent attacks, entering schools and confronting students and educators. The image of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, arrested on his way home from preschool in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights on January 20, became a symbol of the cruelty of ICE. This only added to the indignation many already felt and drove more to take action on the 23rd.

The people vs. the billionaires

Thirty-five people have died while in federal custody since President Donald Trump began this campaign in July 2025, and eight have been murdered in the field by ICE officials.

Almost all of the people killed and injured by these agents so far have been immigrants and people of color. These individuals include Keith Porter, an African American father of two in Los Angeles, and Silverio Villegas González, also a father of two elementary school children in Franklin Park, Illinois—a Chicago suburb. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were outliers in that they were both white.

The “domestic surge” has deployed thousands of heavily armed, armored and masked agents mostly to cities in blue states, regardless of the actual concentration of immigrants. ICE has been met with popular community resistance, from Los Angeles to Chicago to the Twin Cities. In each case the opposition has learned new lessons, which have been shared with protesters elsewhere. Minnesota is the latest link in the chain of learning how to resist.

Communities across the Twin Cities and beyond have stood up to these racist attacks on people who are just trying to live their lives and raise families. Their actions are inspiring as they show the depth of opposition to MAGA and the potential for an alternative.

The outpouring of protest and support for immigrants is a multiracial fightback based in the working class with anti-racist politics at its heart. It is a powerful antidote to Trump’s use of anti-immigrant scapegoating to divert attention from the billionaire class while it cuts SNAP benefits, health care, and funding for education.

National Nurses United, a health care union representing 225,000 workers, organized vigils across the country for Alex Pretti. At an event outside a Veteran Affairs hospital in Chicago, one speaker called on us to recognize the “state sanctioned violence” of unaffordable health care as well as targeted murder by government agents.

The administration attacks immigrants in the name of fighting crime. But the true criminals are the richest one percent and their hired help in Congress. They spend billions of our tax dollars terrorizing immigrants and billions more on regime change in Venezuela and Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine. They fund their imperial projects by cutting domestic services at home.

In order to get away with this blatant theft, the billionaire class suppresses individuals and organizations that defend our rights. They have decimated public unions, criminalized outspoken organizers like Mahmoud Khalil, and murdered people in the streets in an attempt to scare people away from protest.

The U.S. workforce does not currently have the organizational capacity to launch a mass strike. . . . But . . . we can plan and build campaigns in the here and now that will help build this organizational capacity and the infrastructure to nurture and sustain it.

They have not succeeded in stemming mass protest by students, neighborhood organizations and workers, but they are forcing us all to confront the daunting question of how we can stop these attacks.

The power of the mass strike

More people than ever are asking how we can stop the war on immigrants and also address the raft of economic problems known as the “affordability crisis.” The pledge by Democrats to reform ICE and Border Patrol to refocus on their mission only reveals their complicity. Some Democrats sense the political winds are shifting. One candidate for Senator from Illinois, Raja Krishnamoorthi, voted as a member of the House to express “gratitude” to ICE in June 2025, when they were arresting union leaders in Los Angeles. He is now calling for ICE to be abolished.

ICE should be abolished, and the priorities of our society should be thoroughly recalibrated. But as we argued in our January editorial, we cannot expect these changes to come from above. Our collective ability to redirect funding away from war and occupation (domestically and internationally), towards health, housing, and education should look instead to the lessons from Minneapolis.

Our greatest power is in our potential ability to organize mass strikes.

Recent years have seen political strikes globally, such as in South Korea when martial law was declared in December 2024, or in France in January 2023 when the retirement age was raised. While the U.S has seen strikes over contractual or safety issues, such as the tens of thousands of health care workers on strike in New York and against Kaiser Permanente, strikes over political issues are not common here.

When a call for a general strike on January 30 went out via social media following the murder of Alex Pretti, the Google search for the word “strike” increased dramatically, as people across the country attempted to educate themselves. In multiple cities, students demonstrated, small businesses shut down, and people gathered to rally and march in solidarity with the resisters in Minnesota. This shows tremendous potential, but until labor is far better organized, most workers cannot simply walk out without risking their jobs. Most unions are far from ready to launch the kind of coordinated, disciplined strike action that could really make a difference, and most workers lack a union, given that unionization rates are below 10 percent.

So the pressing question is how we can harness the collective strength on display in Minnesota, and everywhere that people are standing up against ICE, in order to make a significant economic impact.

What do we do next?

The U.S. workforce does not currently have the organizational capacity to launch a mass strike on the scale of those in South Korea. But with the vision of this goal, we can plan and build campaigns in the here and now that will help us build this organizational capacity and the infrastructure to nurture and sustain it. These campaigns will vary depending on the particular location and context, but there are many available options for both union and non-union workers.

We can hold strike schools that help unionized and non-unionized workers to become strike ready. We can build emergency response networks to move into action against ICE and CBP. We can form workplace-based emergency response networks, especially in schools, which are powerful sites at the intersection between the community and workplace and therefore of great strategic importance for a mass strike. We can agitate to make every workplace a Fourth Amendment zone which refuses access to ICE and CBP. We can push to force towns and cities to pledge non-compliance with ICE and CBP, even if that means defying federal law (even Minnesota, a so-called sanctuary state, does not have such measures).

In the upcoming months we should join local organizing efforts for the March 28th No Kings protest, with the explicit plan of projecting mass actions for May Day—which is on Friday, a work day—including strikes and sickouts against the Trump regime.

Finally, we should join May Day Strong. 3,500 people participated in a virtual call on February 1, entitled “How We Build a General Strike,” where union leaders, organizers, and even the mayor of Chicago Brandon Johnson addressed this question. The focus of that meeting was building towards coordinated actions across the country on May 1, 2026.

We can draw inspiration from the anti-ICE movement and commit to building the kind of sustained, ongoing organizing in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods that will increase our capacity and power. A better world is waiting to be born, and it will take all of us to help make that happen.

 

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: Laurie Schaull; modified by Tempest.

The post Lessons from Minneapolis appeared first on Tempest.

Headline News:

• “Baltic Sea Wind Lifts 50Hertz Output” • Offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea fed about 5400 GWh of electricity into the East German extra-high-voltage grid via 50Hertz’s connection systems in 2025. 50Hertz said this represents growth of around 10% year on year and is enough to cover the electricity demand of Leipzig and its surrounding area. [reNews]

Technician atop a wind turbine (50Hertz image)

• “TotalEnergies Inks 1-GW Google Solar Deal” • TotalEnergies has signed two long-term power purchase agreements to deliver 1 GW of solar capacity to supply Google’s data centres in Texas. The power will come from its 805-MW Wichita and 195-MW Mustang Creek sites in Texas, the company said. Construction is to begin in the second quarter of 2026. [reNews]
• “EU Courts Gulf Countries For Free Trade Deal As Brussels Seeks To Counter Tariffs” • European officials have called for the negotiation of a free-trade agreement between the EU and the Gulf nations to be fast-tracked, as the bloc looks to diversify trade ties worldwide to counter the impact of US tariffs and an inundation of Chinese exports. [Euronews]
• “Why China’s Aluminum Industry May Have Reached Peak CO₂” • China’s aluminum manufacturing CO₂ emissions likely peaked in 2024. This is not because production collapsed or due to a single policy that suddenly bit, but because the structure of where aluminum is made and how it is made changed in ways that compound over time. [CleanTechnica]
• “Maine Again Looks North For Onshore Wind, But Full Grid Integration Will Have To Wait” • The Maine Public Utilities Commission released a final Request for Proposals for up to 1,200 MW of new onshore wind or other renewable generation plus a new transmission line to carry that power to southern Maine and New England. [Maine Morning Star]

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

Over the past decade, public utility commissions (PUCs) have increasingly used performance incentive mechanisms (PIMs) to address emerging priorities like affordability, cost control, equity, decarbonization, electrification, interconnection, demand flexibility, and resilience. PIMs are regulatory tools that tie a portion of utility earnings to specific measurable targets. As their use grows, it is important to understand trends, compare performance across jurisdictions, and evaluate whether these mechanisms are working as intended.

RMI’s PIMs Database now contains data on more than 200 PIMs, enough data to extract insights and trends on the application of PIMs for emergent topics across the United States.

PIMs Database Snapshot

Here, we highlight five “PIMsights” we’ve gleaned from analyzing the growing body of data in the PIMs Database.

1: Carrots dominate — and utilities are successfully avoiding sticks

PIMs in the database fall into one of three designs: upside-only (the utility can earn a reward), downside-only (the utility can incur a penalty), or symmetrical (the utility can earn either a reward or incur a penalty). This table shows active PIMs with available performance data each year.

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In the database, downside-only PIMs are rare; of the 221 PIMs collated, there are only two, both of which relate to reliability. Symmetrical PIMs are slightly more common. There are no examples in the database of a utility incurring a PIM penalty between 2020 and 2023.

Upside-only PIMs are the lion’s share. Utilities earned a reward for roughly half of the upside-only PIMs each year from 2021 to 2023. Utilities earned rewards against symmetrical PIMs at a much lower rate — only one per year from 2021 to 2023 and none in 2020.

Takeaway: This suggests that regulators prefer to reserve penalty-only mechanisms for core regulatory objectives like reliability, if at all, and upside-only incentives for emergent priorities. (The skew also reflects the PIMs Database’s focus on emergent objectives.) However, even when penalties are possible, utilities are generally successful at avoiding them, suggesting that downside-only designs may be an underutilized, potentially powerful tool to motivate improved performance. Further, downside-only PIMs can motivate performance improvements without adding reward payouts that can put upward pressure on bills.

2: Return on equity (ROE) and shared savings incentive structures lead in popularity and dollars awarded

In the PIMs Database, we categorize PIMs as having one of four incentive designs, as shown in the graphic below:

The tables below summarize how frequently each structure shows up in the database and how rewards were achieved from 2020 to 2023.

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ROE basis points and shared savings incentive structures produce the highest average rewards. In 2023, utilities earned $92 million in PIM rewards, of which $58M (63 percent) was the result of 12 ROE-based PIMs and $27.6M (30 percent) was earned based on seven shared net benefits PIMs. Six fixed amount PIMs and five percentage adder PIMs accounted for the remainder.

Takeaway: ROE basis point PIMs are often associated with the largest awards because they scale with the rate base. That scale can send a strong signal, but it also raises a practical question: Are such large rewards necessary to motivate better performance? For commissions using ROE-based incentives, cost-benefit analysis can help confirm that ratepayer benefits exceed the cost of rewards and that incentive levels are right-sized. In contrast, shared net benefits PIMs provide a “built-in” way to ensure ratepayers benefit more than they pay for the level of achieved performance improvement.

3: Percentage adders are rare, but often achieved

Though ROE basis points and shared net benefits are the most common incentive structures and yield higher rewards for utilities,  percentage adders have the most consistent achievement rates.

In 2023, less than half of utilities with ROE-based PIMs were successful in earning a reward, while shared net benefits PIMs were just above 50 percent. Utilities under fixed amount-based PIMs had the lowest achievement rate (27 percent). In contrast, 100 percent of PIMs with percentage adder incentive structures were achieved in 2023.

Why might utilities achieve performance targets under adder-based PIMs more consistently? Used for climate-forward efficiency, demand flex, and electrification, many percentage adder-based PIMs are tied to program delivery targets (e.g., demand response enrollment and peak reduction) rather than broad system outcomes. Utilities are accustomed to managing, measuring, and reporting these metrics through established processes. Another possibility is that the program performance target may tend to be set closer to expected (or planned) delivery levels rather than “exemplary” performance. If so, higher achievement rates could reflect target calibration as much as the incentive structure itself.

Takeaway: It’s not clear why utilities are more successful at achieving targets under percentage adder-based PIMs. While this approach may be appealing for its close tie to observable program delivery, there may be an opportunity to increase target ambition to motivate better performance.

4: Equity-focused PIMs are growing in frequency, and utilities are generally achieving their targets

Equity is the fifth most common emergent topic for PIMs in the database, and also one of the fastest-growing emergent topics in the database (21 equity-focused PIMs have been created since 2021). Other fast-growing topics include demand flexibility and climate-forward efficiency. Equity PIMs are also frequently co-labeled with the topics of reliability (3 PIMs) and affordability (12 PIMs).

Six jurisdictions (CO, NY, NJ, MA, IL, and DC) account for all the equity-focused PIMs we are aware of. These PIMs look different in each jurisdiction, using different metrics. Of these PIMs for which there is performance data, 100 percent were achieved or consistently achieved to date.

Takeaway: Equity is a significant and growing area of regulatory focus. This growth likely reflects a broader policy shift in these states toward explicitly requiring commissions and utilities to consider equity in planning and program design — often alongside affordability and goals to reduce low-income customer energy burden. Given the early trends in utility success rate with achieving equity-focused PIM targets, there may be an opportunity for regulators to either (a) consider strengthening the targets of equity-focused PIMs before renewing them, or (b) consider where the application of symmetrical or downside incentives is warranted.

5: Short-term PIMs dominate, with no-end-date options for fuel cost-sharing PIMs.

The majority of PIMs (84 percent) within the database are designed to sunset after two to three years. Only 4 percent of PIMs have planned implementation lives of five years or more, and even fewer (3 percent) are established for a single year. The breakdown is shown in the chart below.

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This pattern suggests commissions often treat emergent PIMs as time-bound experiments rather than permanent features. This allows for testing a metric and observing utilities’ performance before deciding whether to continue, redesign, or retire the PIM. That is a healthy approach for newer policy priorities where measurement, baselines, and understanding of the utility’s ability to influence outcomes are still evolving.

However, not all PIMs are short-term experiments. Some have no end dates. Of those in the database, two-thirds are fuel cost risk sharing mechanisms. These mechanisms are more likely to be open-ended because consistency creates regulatory certainty and supports longer-term planning (e.g., informing procurement and hedging practices), which in turn shapes near-term fuel cost outcomes. The remaining no-end-date PIMs are associated with non-wires alternatives and distributed energy resource-related priorities — areas where commissions may similarly value long-lasting incentives and regulatory certainty. Given their open-ended nature, regulators should evaluate these PIMs on a recurring basis and make the findings transparent, so designs remain fit-for-purpose and performance expectations stay appropriately calibrated over time.

Takeaway: PIM duration should be topic specific. Short terms can support learning and redesign for emergent outcomes, and are best paired with a clear ex post evaluation. That said, shorter-duration PIMs may not provide sufficient time for the fruits of utility actions or process changes to be measured.

What these insights say about the landscape of emergent PIMs in the United States

In recent years, utilities have consistently met PIM targets, earned incentives, and avoided penalties when they are at stake. This can be due to two reasons: targets may be set at readily achievable levels, and/or emergent PIMs may be motivating real performance improvements. Both can be true at the same time, and it is hard to determine which factor is at play in the aggregate.

However, these two explanations can be easier to disentangle at the individual PIM level. Regulators can conduct recurring, transparent, and comprehensive evaluations of a PIM to uncover whether it was effective and why. Such reviews can provide the basis for testing more ambitious targets, adjusting incentive design, and ensuring that rewards are not overused where penalty-based incentives could provide sufficient motivation without increasing costs to ratepayers.

With more data available, regulators can now compare PIMs across jurisdictions and designs, continuing to improve PIMs in service of policy goals — everything the PIMs Database was built to support.

The post 5 Things We Learned from Analyzing More than 200 Utility Incentives appeared first on RMI.

Stay ahead of the curve and don't miss out on the leading 2026 events for power and electrical engineers and professionals.

Targeted deployment of composites, guided by a robust decision-tree framework, ultimately leads to both optimal system performance and return on investment.

While AI is accelerating energy demand, it also holds the potential to manage the grid more efficiently. Learn the 5 ways AI could make the grid more reliable, efficient, and flexible.

Michigan researchers have gone back in time to get a picture of how ice cover on the Great Lakes has evolved since the late 19th century.

Using historical temperature records from weather stations around the region, researchers improved their understanding of where ice might have formed and for how long it lasted — spanning the last 120 years.

Their findings were published in the journal Scientific Data last month. Researchers said this new data record would deepen understanding of how climate change has impacted the region over time and clarify what life under ice looks like for declining iconic species such as lake whitefish. The new data could also help improve ice cover forecasting in winter, making it safer for recreation and for people who go out on the ice. 

“Lake ice is really part of the system, part of our life. It matters [for] our culture, regional weather, safety, everything,” said Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome, one of the study’s co-authors and associate director for the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research at the University of Michigan.

There’s a “pretty good satellite record” of Great Lakes ice cover from the last 45 years, she said. But research into the region’s historical climate requires a longer timescale, and there isn’t good data specific to ice.

According to researchers, there’s a general gap in scientific knowledge about winter on the Great Lakes — data buoys get pulled out because of harsh conditions. There are good historic weather observations, though. And air temperature is a good proxy for ice cover on the lakes because ice typically forms when there have been several cold days in a row.

Read Next How thick is the ice on the Great Lakes? Scientists want your help. Vivian La

To peer into the past, researchers looked at temperature records from weather stations all around the Great Lakes, limiting their study to stations with the most consistent data since 1897.

They calculated ice cover using this information, and the end result was a dataset that can be compared to present-day conditions. Researchers said it can inform future research on how animals behave during the winter, for example.

“A lot of the biological conditions under ice are really poorly understood,” said Katelyn King, a fisheries research biologist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the study’s lead author. King is using the dataset to study the historic decline of whitefish in the Great Lakes, a regional species that’s important culturally and economically.

King said this dataset is a helpful baseline as the region continues to shift under climate change. Research shows that average temperatures in the region have increased in the last two decades, frost seasons are shortening, and heavy snow and rainstorms are becoming more frequent.

Still, year-to-year variability is the new normal. Ice cover on the Great Lakes was relatively close to average last winter, but followed historic lows the season prior.

So far this winter, cold temperatures in recent weeks have contributed to some of the highest ice cover on the Great Lakes in years, according to data tracked by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“These really extreme years where we have really cold weather or really warm weather is just a sign that long-term climate is changing,” King said. “It really affects all of us in our day-to-day.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What over a century of ice data can tell us about the Great Lakes’ future on Feb 9, 2026.

hambachforest.org – The world of online gaming has exploded in popularity, and among the various options available to players, Slot Pulsa stands out as a thrilling choice. Combining convenience with excitement, Slot Pulsa allows bettors to dive into vibrant slot games using their mobile devices. But like any form of gambling, it comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Are you ready to explore what makes Slot Pulsa unique? From its ease of access to potential pitfalls that every bettor should be aware of, this post will guide you through the ins and outs. Whether you’re a seasoned player or new to the scene, understanding these aspects is crucial for making informed decisions while enjoying your favorite slots. Let’s delve deeper!

Responsible Gambling Tips For Slot Pulsa Bettors

Engaging with Slot Pulsa can be thrilling, but it’s essential to gamble responsibly. Set a budget before you begin playing. Decide on the amount you’re willing to spend and stick to it.

Take regular breaks during your gaming sessions. This helps maintain clarity and prevents impulsive decisions fueled by excitement or frustration.

Avoid chasing losses. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment, but trying to win back lost money often leads to deeper losses.

Be mindful of time spent gambling. Use alarms or timers as reminders for when it’s time to step away from the screen.

Keep track of your wins and losses. Understanding your overall performance can help you make better choices moving forward while enjoying the thrill of Slot Pulsa gaming stress-free.

Comparison With Traditional Casino Gambling Slot Pulsa

Slot Pulsa offers a fresh twist on traditional casino gambling. Unlike physical casinos, players can engage from the comfort of their homes or on the go. This convenience is a significant draw for many.

Traditional casinos require travel and time commitment. Slot Pulsa eliminates that, allowing instant access to games at any moment. The ease of use appeals particularly to younger audiences.

Another difference lies in payment methods. Traditional casinos often rely on cash transactions or chips, while Slot Pulsa caters to digital payments through mobile credit systems. This approach simplifies deposits and withdrawals significantly.

Additionally, Slot Pulsa frequently features various promotions and bonuses tailored for online users. These incentives may not always be available in brick-and-mortar establishments, enhancing the overall player experience.

Despite these advantages, some might argue that traditional venues offer social interaction lacking in virtual platforms. The atmosphere of live gaming is unmatched by screens alone; it’s an aspect that remains vital for numerous enthusiasts.

Responsible Gambling Tips For Betting On Slot Pulsa

Betting on slot pulsa can be an exciting experience. However, it’s essential to approach this form of entertainment responsibly. Here are some practical tips for you.

Set a budget before you start playing. Decide how much money you’re willing to spend and stick to that limit. This way, you can enjoy the thrill of betting without risking your financial stability.

Time management is equally important. Set a specific amount of time for your gaming sessions. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re having fun, but setting limits helps maintain balance in other areas of your life.

Avoid chasing losses at all costs. If luck isn’t on your side, accept it gracefully rather than trying to win back what you’ve lost in one go. This often leads to more significant losses and disappointment.

Use bonuses wisely if they’re available through platforms offering Slot Pulsa games. These promotions can enhance your gaming experience but should not tempt you into overspending or changing your betting strategy drastically.

Always keep gambling as a form of entertainment rather than an income source. Approach each game with a playful mindset; remember that winning is never guaranteed.

By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your journey with Slot Pulsa remains enjoyable while minimizing potential risks associated with gambling activities.

The post Advantages And Disadvantages Of Betting On Slot Pulsa appeared first on HAMBACHFOREST.

Even the busiest streets of Shanghai have become noticeably quieter as sales of electric vehicles (EVs) skyrocketed in China, with charging points mushrooming in residential compounds, car parks and service stations across the megacity. 

Many Chinese drivers have upgraded their conventional vehicles to electric ones – or already replaced old EVs with newer models – incentivised by the government’s generous trade-in policies, or tempted by the latest hi-tech features such as controls powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

“Different from conventional cars, EVs are more like fast-moving consumer goods, like smartphones,” explained Mo Ke, founder and chief analyst of Tianjin-based battery-research firm, RealLi Research. Their digital systems can become outdated quickly, so Chinese people typically change their EVs after five or six years while a conventional car can be driven much longer, he told Climate Home News.

EV sales surpassed 16 million in China last year. Roughly 10% of all vehicles on the road were electric, and half of all new vehicles sold carried a green EV number plate, with an average of 45,000 EVs rolling off the production lines each day.

But while fast-growing EV uptake is good news for Chinese EV and battery manufacturers, it is creating a huge volume of spent batteries.

Tsunami of spent batteries

Last year, China generated nearly 400,000 tonnes of old or damaged power batteries, largely consisting of vehicle batteries, according to government data. That is projected to rise to one million tonnes per year in 2030, officials forecast.

The growing waste problem has spurred the government to launch a series of new policies aimed at regulating the country’s battery recycling industry, which though well-established is marked by a high degree of informality – especially in the lucrative repurposing sector where discarded EV batteries are given a new lease of life in less energy-intensive uses, such as power storage.

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China is determined to build a “standardised, safe and efficient” recycling system for batteries, Wang Peng, a director at China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told a press conference as the government launched a recycling industry push in mid-January.

A policy paper published by the government last month detailed Beijing’s plans to mandate end-of-life recycling for EVs together with their batteries to prevent them from entering the grey, informal market, and establish a digital system to track the lifecycle of every battery manufactured in the country. Under the plans, EV and battery makers will be held responsible for recycling the batteries they produce and sell. 

“The volume of the Chinese market is too big, so it has to take actions ahead of other countries,” Mo said, adding that he expected the government to release more details about implementation of the plans in the near future.

Critical minerals choke point

China’s strategy for the battery recycling sector could also prove a boon for the world’s largest battery producer by bolstering its supply of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese.

Along with the looming large-scale battery retirement, policymakers’ focus on battery recycling also reflects concern about critical minerals supplies, said Li Yifei, assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University Shanghai. “The government also felt the increasing pressure of securing resources,” he told Climate Home News.

“When you set up an efficient battery-recycling system, you essentially secure a new source for critical minerals, and that can help you enhance economic security. That’s why the industry is so important,” Lin Xiao, chief executive of Botree Recycling Technologies, a Chinese company offering battery-recycling solutions, told Climate Home News.

Cobalt and nickel-free electric car batteries boom in “good news” for rainforests

China dominates global refining of several minerals critical for producing EV batteries, but it still relies on imports of the raw materials – a choke point Beijing is acutely aware of, industry experts say.

China imports more than 90% of its cobalt, nickel and manganese, which are important ingredients for EV batteries, Hu Song, a senior researcher with the state-run China Automotive Technology and Research Centre, told China’s CCTV state broadcaster in June 2025. For lithium, the figure was around 60% in 2024, according to a separate report.

“If [those] resources cannot be recycled, then we will keep facing strangleholds in the future,” Hu said.

Big players gain ground

Spent EV batteries can be reused in settings that have lower energy requirements, such as in two-wheelers or energy-storage systems. When they become too depleted for repurposing, they can be scrapped and shredded into “black mass”, a powdery mixture containing valuable metals that can be recovered.

Reflecting the size of China’s EV market, the country already dominates global battery recycling capacity. It is home to 78% of the world’s battery pre-treatment capacity, which is for scrapping and shredding, and 89% of the capacity for refining black mass, according to 2025 forecasts by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a UK firm tracking battery supply chains.

A number of large corporate players have emerged in the sector in recent years. 

Huayou Cobalt, a major producer of battery minerals, has built a business model for recycling, repurposing and shredding old batteries, as well as refining black mass and making new batteries using recovered materials.

It recently signed a deal with Encory, a joint venture between BMW and Berlin-based environmental service provider Interzero, to develop cutting-edge battery-recycling technologies, with their first joint factory set to open in China this year.

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Suzhou-based Botree Recycling Technologies has developed various solutions to turn retired power batteries into new ones. Meanwhile, Brunp Recycling, the recycling arm of Chinese battery giant CATL, has built large factories to recycle lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, a type of lithium battery that does not use nickel or cobalt, as well as nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries, which are more popular outside of China.

But Mo, of RealLi Research, said much remains to be done to regulate and formalise the battery recycling industry.

Underground workshops 

Across China, small underground workshops plague the repurposing sector, rebundling depleted batteries for sale without following industry standards or complying with health and safety requirements.

Because these operators have lower operational costs, they are able to offer higher prices to EV owners to buy their old batteries, undercutting formal recycling companies.

“This creates distortions in the market where legitimate players, who invest in proper detection, hazardous waste treatment and compliance, struggle to compete purely on price,” a spokesperson at CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, told Climate Home News.

Despite such challenges, CATL’s Brunp subsidiary produced 17,100 tonnes of lithium in 2024 from the 128,700 tonnes of depleted batteries it recycled that year, according to CATL’s annual report. 

Recycling expertise in demand

Since it was founded in 2019, Botree has formed partnerships with several major clients, which together recycle about half of China’s power batteries, the company’s CEO Lin said.

As other countries grapple with rising volumes of spent batteries, Chinese recyclers are also finding new foreign markets for their know-how.

Botree has joined forces with Spanish consulting firm ILUNION and renewable energy company EFT-Systems to build a factory to recycle LFP batteries in Valladolid. 

The plant, scheduled to start operation in 2027, will be able to recycle 6,000 tonnes of LFPs annually when it opens, accounting for roughly 15% of demand in the Spanish market.

“(The companies) tell us what batteries they recycle and what battery materials they want to regenerate,” Lin said. “We can design a complete process for them.”

The post China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies appeared first on Climate Home News.

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I strongly believe that Royal Dutch Shell should be held accountable for its outrageous antisemitic actions against its own employees, which cost some of them their lives. The same applies to Shell’s huge financial support for Nazi Germany that contributed to the deaths of some 50 million victims in WW2, including those poor souls who perished in the Holocaust. Shell’s leader, Sir Henri Deterding, was an ardent Nazi feted by Adolf Hitler. Shell has never apologised or expressed any remorse.

The achievements of the Dutch founder of the mighty Royal Dutch Shell Group, Sir Henri Deterding described in a biography as “The Most Powerful Man In The World” deserved that accolade. He was rewarded with a knighthood after helping the British in WW1.

For many decades Shell has not flinched about getting into bed with a succession of toxic regimes, such as the apartheid regime in South Africa, the corrupt Abacha regime in Nigeria, and currently, the corrupt and violent Putin regime in Russia.

The greed driving Shell’s willingness to deal directly with murderous regimes goes back even further, to Nazi Germany.

Shell has had advance sight of this information and of my new website ShellNaziHistory.com, a follow-up to my February 2016 Amazon ebook,  Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History of Royal Dutch Shell. The website provides a vast amount of irrefutable historical evidence assembled from Shell’s own archives and from many independent, verifiable sources, including Reuters news reports.

Some of the information comes from a weighty four-volume set, “A History of Royal Dutch Shell,” written by eminent historians hired by Shell. I obtained via a SAR legal request, “privileged and confidential” Shell internal correspondence dated four months before publication of the four-volume set. The emails expressed raising concern about me seeing the content. The last internal Shell email sent under the subject heading: “Online Issue Management – Group Strategy,” anticipated “another broadside from Donovan when our History book comes out…”

I had no idea whatsoever (until I read the four-volume set), about the vast financial support given to Nazis Germany by Shell’s Dutch leadership. It became obvious what all of the pre-publication jitters were about. If Shell had asked the hired historians to remove any mention of the Nazi connection, that might have sparked an outcry.

Senior people at Shell were plainly deeply concerned about my reaction. I later learned from other Shell contemporaneous internal emails, that I had been made a target of Shell corporate espionage, involving global electronic surveillance.

The fact that you are reading this now means that Shell decided against following up on the threats later issued to me in writing by a top lawyer and company official at Royal Dutch Shell Plc in an effort to prevent publication of my findings about these matters. Shell has had ample opportunity to take legal action but has not done so. The last thing Shell wants to do is draw attention to these toxic matters.

The evidence confirms the following facts:

• Dutch directors of Royal Dutch Shell engaged in anti-Semitic policies against Shell employees.
• Shell employees were guilty of collaboration and appeasement.
• Dutch employees of the Group were instructed to complete a form that, for some, amounted to a self-declared death warrant. Many did not survive the war.
• Jewish directors at a Shell subsidiary company, Rhenania-Ossag, were forced to resign.
• Several hundred Shell employees were fanatical Nazis. There is photographic evidence of them in Nazi regalia.
• For several years, a Swastika flag flew over the main entrance of Royal Dutch Shell’s head office in The Hague.
• Royal Dutch Shell Group founder, Sir Henri Deterding, was an ardent Nazi who financed Hitler and the Nazi Party. He gave a Heil Hitler salute at a filmed Shell sporting event, had a four-day meeting with Hitler and was later feted by him as being a great friend of Nazi Germany.
• Sir Henri married a German lady sharing his fascist views, moved to a mansion near Berlin and was buried in Germany in a spectacular Nazi funeral attended by numerous senior Nazi officers and Royal Dutch Shell directors. Hitler sent a wreath expressing condolences on behalf of Nazi Germany.
• Before the outbreak of WW2 directors of the Royal Dutch Shell Group collaborated in the annexation and occupation of sovereign countries by the Nazis – Austria and Czechoslovakia.

My website is focused on Shell’s close partnership with the Nazis and the German Chemical giant IG Farben, which supplied the Zyklon-B gas used in the Holocaust to murder millions of people.

I am also drawing the new website to the attention of various Jewish organisations in the UK and in Israel. This approach proved helpful in drumming up support for my successful petition to change the name of the world’s biggest ship, hired by Shell for a major project, even though named after a senior Waffen-SS officer, Peiter Schelte Heerema.

To learn much more about Shell’s past and current activities, please visit ShellNaziHistory.com or its sister sites, royaldutchshellplc.com and royaldutchshellgroup.com, both of which domain names Shell failed to seize in legal proceedings.

Question put to Grok 7 February 2026: From your extensive search of many sources of information about Shell’s connection with Hitler and the Nazis, which single source has the most information on the subject? Reply by Grok: The single source with the most information on Royal Dutch Shell’s connections to Hitler and the Nazis—drawing from historical archives, media reports, official company histories, and other evidence—is the ebook Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History of Royal Dutch Shell by John Donovan (published 2016, available on Amazon). This work is dedicated entirely to the topic, spanning 23 chapters that compile extensive details on Deterding’s pro-Nazi activities (e.g., financial donations, multiple meetings with Hitler), Shell’s partnerships with IG Farben (including synthetic fuel ventures like Hydrierwerke Pölitz), anti-Semitic policies, use of forced labor, and collaboration in Nazi annexations. It critiques and expands on other sources (e.g., Shell’s 2007 official history, U.S. Senate reports) while providing scans, excerpts, and links to primary documents, making it more aggregated and focused than shorter academic papers or broader books on multinational-Nazi ties. Summarize Donovan’s ebook chapters John Donovan’s ebook Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History of Royal Dutch Shell (published 2016) is a detailed, activist-oriented compilation of historical evidence, newspaper clippings, company documents, and critiques of Shell’s official narratives. It argues that Sir Henri Deterding (co-founder and long-time leader of Royal Dutch Shell) was an ardent Nazi supporter who financially backed the regime, met with Hitler, and enabled Shell’s indirect complicity in Nazi activities through business ties (e.g., with IG Farben), forced labor in subsidiaries, and operations in occupied Europe. The book draws heavily from Shell’s own authorized histories (e.g., A History of Royal Dutch Shell, 2007), period media, and archives to challenge what Donovan calls whitewashed portrayals. The ebook is structured with an introduction and 23 chapters (plus indexes), many of which are excerpted or summarized on Donovan’s sites like shellnazihistory.com and royaldutchshellplc.com. Full chapters include screenshots of sources for transparency. Below is a summary of the chapters based on published listings and descriptions:

• Introduction: Overviews the core thesis—Deterding’s Nazi sympathies, financial support to the Third Reich, meetings with Hitler (including a 1934 Berchtesgaden summit), Shell’s covert oil imports to Nazi Germany via IG Farben partnerships, use of forced labor, and indirect responsibility for WWII deaths (over 50 million). It critiques Shell historians for downplaying ties.
• Chapter 1: The best historians Shell could buy — Examines Shell’s commissioned 2007 history volumes, accusing them of minimizing Deterding’s Nazi involvement and presenting a sanitized view.
• Chapter 2: News story in February 2015: Shell ship named after a Nazi SS Officer — Discusses a modern controversy where Shell named a vessel after an alleged SS officer, linking it to unresolved Nazi-era issues.
• Chapter 3: Royal Dutch Shell and the Nazis — Broad overview of Shell’s pre-WWII German operations, anti-Semitic policies, and collaboration under Nazi control.
• Chapter 4: Media coverage of Sir Henri Deterding’s death — Analyzes contemporary (1939) press reports on Deterding’s passing, highlighting Nazi-friendly portrayals.
• Chapter 5: The Nazi Funeral of Royal Dutch Shell leader Sir Henri Deterding — Details Deterding’s 1939 state funeral in Germany, attended by high-ranking Nazis (e.g., Hermann Göring) and Shell representatives, with Nazi honors.
• Chapter 10: Shell support for the Nazis continued after the retirement of Sir Henri as leader — Covers post-1936 activities, including ongoing business ties and operations in Nazi Germany after Deterding stepped down.
• Chapter 14: Control of Royal Dutch Shell companies in Nazi-occupied Europe — Explores how Shell subsidiaries operated under Nazi occupation in countries like the Netherlands, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, including alleged collaboration and anti-Semitic measures.
• Chapter 16: Shell historians attempt to distance Deterding from Hitler — Critiques Shell’s official accounts for claiming Deterding’s efforts to meet Hitler were rebuffed, contradicted by evidence of multiple meetings and close ties.
• Chapter 17: News story in February 2015: Shell ship named after a Nazi SS Officer — (Appears to overlap with Chapter 2 in some listings; focuses on the ship-naming incident as evidence of lingering insensitivity.)
• Chapter 19: Index of key dates — Chronological timeline of events, financial support, meetings, and business dealings.
• Additional chapters (e.g., 6–9, 11–13, 15, 18, 20–23): Cover supporting themes such as Deterding’s anti-Bolshevik motivations, specific financial donations (e.g., millions in guilders/food aid to Nazi causes), IG Farben hydrogenation partnerships for synthetic fuels, covert U.S. oil imports bypassing regulations, forced labor in German refineries (e.g., Rhenania-Ossag), anti-Semitic actions (e.g., purging Jewish staff), Shell’s role in rearmament via aviation fuel, and an index of Shell leadership’s Nazi financial support (in date order with pre-WWII news extracts).
• Indexes/Appendices: Include a date-ordered index of financial support evidence and key documents/correspondence from six years of research.

The book is polemical, positioning itself as a counter-narrative to Shell’s histories, with heavy use of scans and quotes. Many chapters are accessible via hyperlinks on Donovan’s sites for free previews. The ebook is available on Amazon for purchase. No major updates or new editions noted as of February 2026.

Can you find anything about prepublication comments and threats issued by Michel Brandjes as Company Secretary of Royal Dutch Shell against John Donovan regarding a draft of the book supplied in advance to Shell. The book was published without any changes and Shell took no action. Information about the relevant emails were published at the time. Yes, there is documented information on this topic, primarily from John Donovan’s own publications and archives on his websites (royaldutchshellplc.com and shellnazihistory.com), where he has shared details and copies of relevant correspondence. The context revolves around Donovan’s 2016 ebook Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History of Royal Dutch Shell, which compiles allegations of Shell’s historical ties to the Nazis. Donovan provided Shell with advance access to a draft manuscript and related materials, leading to threats from Michiel Brandjes (Shell’s then-Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate), but no subsequent legal action was taken, and the book was published unchanged. Key Details on Prepublication Interactions

• Advance Draft Provided to Shell: Donovan supplied Shell with an earlier comprehensive draft manuscript of the book for review. On November 3, 2010, he sent an email to multiple Shell officials, including Michiel Brandjes, inviting them to correct any inaccurate information in the draft. Shell did not respond to this invitation.
• Publication Notice and Threats: On February 25, 2011, Donovan published an article on royaldutchshellplc.com announcing his intention to post extracts from Shell’s own 2007 official history (A History of Royal Dutch Shell) related to the company’s Nazi-era connections. This was positioned as part of his broader work on the book. In response, on March 3, 2011, Michiel Brandjes emailed Donovan, stating that Shell strongly disagreed with his views and allegations, objected to his actions, and reserved its legal rights (including copyright claims). Brandjes also mentioned that Shell had exceptionally consulted historians who refuted Donovan’s claims with evidence from the official history. This email was interpreted by Donovan as a threat of legal action to block publication.
• Published Emails: Donovan publicly shared the March 3, 2011, email from Brandjes in full on his site (e.g., in the article “Will Shell block Internet publication of its Nazi past?” and referenced in Chapter 22 of his ebook). Excerpts include Brandjes’ wording: “We strongly disagree with your views and allegations. We object to your actions and reserve our legal rights, including with respect to copyrights.” No other specific emails from Brandjes directly tied to the book draft were found in the sources, but the 2010 and 2011 correspondences are highlighted as part of the prepublication process.
• Publication Without Changes and No Action by Shell: Despite the threats and reservations of rights, Donovan proceeded to publish the extracts and related articles online in 2011 without alterations. Shell took no legal action to prevent this or challenge the content. The full ebook was later published in 2016 unchanged from the draft provided to Shell, and again, no lawsuits or other interventions followed from Shell. Donovan has repeatedly noted this as an “empty threat,” consistent with a pattern of Shell’s non-engagement policy in his broader feud with the company.

These events are framed by Donovan as evidence of Shell’s reluctance to engage publicly on sensitive historical topics, fearing further scrutiny. No independent third-party sources (e.g., mainstream media or court records) were found confirming the threats or emails, as the information originates from Donovan’s self-published accounts. For primary evidence, see the linked article with the full 2011 email: royaldutchshellplc.com/2011/03/05/will-shell-block-internet-publication-of-its-nazi-past. If you have access to the ebook, Chapter 22 provides additional context on Donovan’s “unique connection with Shell,” including these interactions.

Extract full 2011 Brandjes email

The full text of the March 3, 2011, email from Michiel Brandjes (then Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate of Royal Dutch Shell plc) to John Donovan, as published by Donovan on his website royaldutchshellplc.com in the article “Will Shell block Internet publication of its Nazi past?” (dated March 5, 2011), is as follows: From: michiel.brandjes@shell.com Date: 3 March 2011 09:02:21 GMT
To: john@shellnews.net
Subject: RE: A HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL Dear Mr Donovan, Thank you for your message. Except for this message the company does not wish to respond to you other than to convey that it strongly disagrees with your views and allegations, objects to your actions and reserves its legal rights, including with respect to copyrights. On an exceptional basis we tested your views about history with the relevant historians. They convincingly refute with evidence what you claim in contradiction with A History of Royal Dutch Shell. Best Regards,
Michiel Brandjes
Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate
Royal Dutch Shell plc This email was Shell’s response to Donovan’s prior message (dated March 2, 2011) where he invited corrections to his planned publication of extracts from Shell’s official 2007 history book regarding Nazi-era connections. Donovan published the full correspondence (including his own emails) on the site for transparency, framing Brandjes’ reply as a veiled threat of legal action (e.g., copyright claims) to deter posting content on Shell’s alleged Nazi links. Shell took no further action, and Donovan proceeded with publications unchanged. The same email text appears referenced across Donovan’s related sites (e.g., shellnazihistory.com in Chapter 22 discussions) and in later recaps, with no variations noted. For the original context and full thread (including Donovan’s preceding emails), see: https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2011/03/05/will-shell-block-internet-publication-of-its-nazi-past/. As of February 7, 2026, this remains the primary public source, with no mainstream media corroboration or independent reproductions of the email found. Should Shell apologise for antisemitic conduct and its support for the Nazis? was first posted on February 8, 2026 at 11:39 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

 

Climate emergency briefing: Impacts, risks and key actions 
for Australia in the age of authoritarianism 
is published today by the Breakthrough 
National Centre for Climate Restoration. 

by David Spratt, first published at Pearls&Irritations

The global rise of authoritarianism is weakening climate governance just as warming accelerates and tipping points draw near. This failure now poses a direct threat to our future.

Authoritarianism is stalking nations and global institutions, often allied with climate scepticism and denial. This has weakened climate governance, most notably in the United States. In Russia and the Middle East oil and gas producers, climate denial-and-delay and authoritarianism co-mingle.  And climate barely rated a mention at Davos this year.

China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, is a complex contradiction. China produces over 80 per cent of the world’s solar panels, 60-70 per cent of wind turbines, and three-quarters of energy storage batteries, and accounted for approximately 60 per cent of all new global renewable energy capacity installed globally in 2024.

Last year, China added more new capacity across all energy technologies than India’s total capacity as of the end of 2024, and the generation capacity China has added since the end of 2021 is larger than the entire US energy system. Renewables lead the growth in energy supply in China, but 78 gigawatts of new coal was also added in 2025. Oil production is projected to be flat to 2050, but gas will increase more than 60 per cent from 2020 to 2050, while coal use will remain high till 2030 then decline sharply to about 30-40 per cent of current levels by 2050.

Thirty-two fossil fuel companies were responsible for half of the global carbon dioxide emissions in 2024 and state-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters. All 17 are controlled by countries, in the main authoritarian, that oppose a proposed fossil-fuel phaseout.

All of this is very challenging and has direct implications for climate action. Yet the rise of authoritarianism means the globalisation cargo cult is on the wane. The World Trade Organization was no match for Trump’s tariff assault. These abrupt changes open up some possibilities.

The era of neo-liberalism and economic globalisation has eroded democratic politics. Now, the rise in nationalist politics has brought down the curtain on unfettered globalisation and the illusions that global institutions (such as the IMF, World Bank and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, for example) have delivered on their promises. There have been 30 global climate policy-making COP conferences since 1995 – where petrostates have veto power – and the rate of warming has just accelerated by half.

Many nations had abandoned the right to determine their economic future and handed huge power to global corporations, facilitated tax avoidance structures, failed to regulate the finance sector and enabled institutions such as the World Trade Organization.

Global governance organisations have been hypocritical and selective in wielding power. Neo-liberalism’s fetish with market efficiency, deregulation and lower taxes has weakened the role of governments, and produced an unprecedented redistribution of wealth to the elites at the expense of everyone else. This has been the major breeding ground for political resentment amongst the working poor, and for the rise of authoritarianism.

It is now clear that, as bankers and economists such as Ross Garnaut and Nicholas Stern and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney have recognised, the inability of markets to fully assess the risks of, and respond adequately to, the threat of climate collapse is the greatest market failure in history. Governments must take the lead in correcting this huge economic distortion. There is an opportunity for governments to assert the right, and necessity, of their role in defending our future by courageous leadership and incisive interventions, before it is too late.

By abandoning failed global mechanisms and coercive controls, there is a new chance for nations to forge bilateral and regional agreements on climate action and other issues that reflect much higher ambition, rather than lowest-common-denominator compromises. The Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney referred directly to this moment for middle powers in his Davos speech.

Like-minded countries can make real progress on climate mitigation by putting a climate focus on trade and security arrangements. Actions such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in Europe, and proposals for a climate-first foreign policy, as proposed by the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG), are examples. So, too, is the growing movement for a high-ambition fossil-fuel phase-out alliance amongst like-minded nations, which sprung from the failure of COP30.

The ASLCG has proposed a climate-first foreign policy grounded in an emergency response, with a “commitment to deep cooperation with nations that prioritise climate disruption risks, with climate-focused agreements on tax, trade, technology, finance, equity and the like” and “diplomatic leadership in high-ambition alliances, such as agreements to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and international financing, to phase out the fossil fuel economy, and for economic climate mobilisation."

Global heating is accelerating, with the past three years averaging above 1.5°C, driven by a reduction in sulfate aerosol emissions due to clean-air policies, and a related cloud feedback. The Earth’s climate could be more sensitive to greenhouse gases than the central estimates, and warming is currently tracking the highest-emissions scenario. This would bring 2°C well before 2050 and 3°C around 2070. On this path, 4°C by 2100 is feasible.

Many extreme events and their impacts have been underestimated in climate models. Risks include climate-driven inflation and big economic shocks, and mass displacement and death.

We are in the danger zone where multiple climate tipping points are being triggered, some of which accelerate warming and worsen impacts. Thus there is a point of no return, after which it may be impossible to stabilise the climate close to conditions in which human society can be maintained. This risk is now, and requires immediate action to avoid it.

The nature and the proximity of catastrophic impacts, tipping points and abrupt and cascading changes constitute the climate emergency. This requires governments to make actions to prevent climate breakdown the first priority of economics and politics.

There is a new opportunity for middle powers to step up, and for governments to lead, in the face of climate threats of a scale that now makes civilisational collapse a realistic scenario.

When societies face existential threats, they can act fast – as we see in wartime mobilisation, disaster recovery, pandemics and economic reconstruction. In democratic nations, these responses often harness public institutions, cross-party mandates, and mass civic participation not only to speed action, but to preserve legitimacy and fairness under pressure.

In these moments, governments have suspended normal timelines, restructured economies, and coordinated resources at massive scale to achieve national objectives.

Emergency mobilisation is not about panic but about priority and activating all available capacities toward a common goal, removing bottlenecks and bypassing market failure. Emergency mode is a shift in governance, mindset, and tempo. It replaces fragmented reform with coordinated transformation.

The tools exist. The capacity exists.

What has been missing is the decision to act.

Climate emergency briefing: Impacts, risks and key actions for Australia in the age of authoritarianism is published today by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration. 

 

DENVER—The Trump administration has hijacked the official, bipartisan organization set up to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary and created a financial black box that has received at least $10 million in taxpayer funds while also soliciting millions more from donors whose identities may never be released.

Reporting from The New York Times reveals that Freedom 250, President Donald Trump’s hand-picked replacement for the official America250 celebration, is selling direct access to President Trump, including photo opportunities with the president, for $1 million and up. Freedom 250 is also partnering with right-wing political and Christian nationalist groups, including PragerU and Hillsdale College, to create content for six “Freedom Trucks” that are traveling the country at taxpayer expense.

E&E News previously reported that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum instructed the Interior department to switch all semiquincentennial branding to Freedom 250, sidelining the bipartisan America250 organization that Congress created in 2016.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Deputy Director Aaron Weiss:

“It’s completely inappropriate for Secretary Burgum to force Interior department employees to take part in the blatant influence-peddling at Freedom 250. Offering governments and businesses direct access to the president for millions of dollars is un-American, and Doug Burgum needs to explain his involvement in this scheme.

“It’s even more concerning that the Interior department is requiring employees to endorse the explicitly political and religious mission of Freedom 250. The National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management should be telling America’s full story, not taking part in a Christian nationalist effort to censor history by erasing Indigenous Americans, the horrors of slavery, and the contributions of immigrants. The Freedom 250 logo, and all of the corruption that it represents, should not be in government email signatures or plastered across the visitor centers that are supposed to serve all Americans, regardless of their faith or politics.”

In today’s New York Times story, a spokesperson for Freedom 250 claimed that “Freedom 250 is not accepting foreign donations.” This is contradicted by Freedom 250 CEO Keith Krach, who spent the World Economic Forum at the Freedom 250-branded “USA House” in Davos, Switzerland, publicly soliciting foreign partners for Freedom 250.

At Davos, Krach said that Freedom 250 was “engaging our allies, partners, and institutions around the world…. not just as spectators but as participants.” Krach continued:

“So for the international leaders here at Davos and in this room: the question is not how you observe our nation’s 250th. The question is how will you shape a moment that will influence American leadership for the next generation?”

U.S. Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers asked Krach, “People here at Davos who want to get involved, who want to celebrate our birthday with us, what can they do? What kinds of things should they be thinking about and who should they reach out to?”

Krach replied, “Your imagination is your only limitation. And we would love to work with you. We’ve got toolkits for countries, states, companies, all of that. It’s all about partnership, and what could be funner than marketing America, or really, marketing freedom. So… let us know.”

The House Natural Resources Committee is holding a hearing on Tuesday to discuss public-private partnerships in the semiquincentennial celebration. Witnesses at the hearing are expected to include representatives from the four congressionally-chartered foundations that partner with the Interior department. The National Park Foundation, which has been commandeered by Trump loyalists, is acting as the pass-through for money going to and from Freedom 250.

Featured image: The names of the 9 enslaved people who George Washington held in bondage at the President’s House in Philadelphia, National Park Service

The post STATEMENT: Interior department becomes conduit for influence peddling and history erasure appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 1, 2026 thru Sat, February 7, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Policy and Politics (11 articles)

• Flawed economic models mean climate crisis could crash global economy, experts warn "States and financial bodies using modelling that ignores shocks from extreme weather and climate tipping points" The Guardian, Damian Carrington, Feb 4, 2025.
• ‘That ends now’: German court ruling raises pressure to fix stalled climate plans "The ruling ends a nearly two-year long legal battle and requires the German government to act." euronews, Craig Saueurs, Jan 30, 2026.
• A Secret Panel to Question Climate Science Was Unlawful, Judge Rules "The researchers produced a report that was central in a Trump administration effort to stop regulating climate pollution." The New York Times, Lisa Friedman, Jan 30, 2026.
• The future of NCAR remains highly uncertain "Members of the American Meteorological Society were briefed Wednesday (Jan 28) about ongoing developments on the future of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which the White House has said it will break up." Yale Climate Connections, Bob Henson, Jan 30, 2026.
• Fossil fuel firms may have to pay for climate damage under proposed UN tax "Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation could also force ultra-rich to pay global wealth tax" The Guardian, Fiona Harvey & Heather Stewart, Feb 1, 2026.
• Trump’s climate policy rollback plan relies on EPA rescinding its 2009 endangerment finding – but will courts allow it? The Conversation US, Gary W. Yohe, Feb 2, 2026.
• Trump claims blue states have less-reliable, more expensive electricity. Here’s the reality CNN, Ella Nilsen, Feb 2, 2026.
• DOE scientists blasted climate report ordered up by boss "Secretary Chris Wright handpicked five climate contrarians to write about global warming. Department experts pushed back on the findings." E&E News by Politico, Scott Waldman, Feb 2, 2026.
• More Coal Won't Solve US Energy Woes World Resources Institute (WRI), Lori Bird, David Widawsky & Alex Smith , Feb 2, 2026.
• ‘It’s sick’: Trump administration uses mascot called ‘Coalie’ to push dirtiest fossil fuel "Cartoon lump of coal with giant eyes was spotlighted by US interior secretary in X post saying: ‘Mine, Baby, Mine!’ " The Guardian, Oliver Milman, Feb 3, 2026.
• Michigan accuses big oil of being ‘cartel’ that fuels climate crisis and high energy costs "In first-of-its-kind complaint, state accused four fossil fuel majors and US oil lobbying group of climate disinformation" The Guardian, Dharna Noor, Feb 5, 2026.

Climate Change Impacts (5 articles)

• Something Dark Is Growing on Greenland’s Ice. And Melting It Faster. "New studies show how algae grows on ice and snow, creating “dark zones” that exacerbate melting in the consequential region." The New York Times, Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, Jan 3, 2026.
• Why do we still get major snowstorms in a warming world? "A huge US winter storm has reignited confusion about the polar vortex, the jet stream and what climate change really means for winter weather" BBC Science Focus, Tom Howarth, Jan 29, 2026.
• Extreme heat, cold and rainfall make January a month of extremes. "The importance of accurate and timely forecasts and investment in early warning systems has once again been highlighted by extreme weather which wreaked a heavy economic, environmental and human toll throughout January 2026." World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Staff, Jan 30, 2026.
• Why this US cold snap feels bone-shattering when it’s not record-shattering Seth Borenstein & AP News, Seth Borenstein & E.K. Wildeman, Feb 3, 2026.
• Climate ‘fingerprints’ mark human activity from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean The Conversation (Europe), Ed Hawkins and Ric Williams, Feb 3, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (5 articles)

• AI Is Making The Climate Crisis Worse. It Could Also Help Fix It. "The data-center boom is driving new emissions while straining energy and water resources. But scientists say AI can also be a massive asset in facing the climate emergency head-on." Atmos, Jake Hall, Jan 26, 2026.
• The accidental climate scientist who uncovered an unexpected force of global warming CNN, Katie Hunt, Jan 29, 2026.
• Unexpected Climate Feedback Links Antarctic Ice Sheet With Reduced Carbon Uptake "New study reveals surprising link between West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) retreat and algae growth over the past 500,000 years." Columbia Climate School, Staff, Feb 2, 2026.
• A new and better way to keep tabs on El Niño and La Niña "Developed in response to a warming world, NOAA’s revised scale more precisely identifies which episodes are likely to have the biggest impacts." Yale Climate Connections, Bob Henson, Feb 5, 2026.
• MethaneSAT Releases First Global Assessment of Oil and Gas Climate Pollution "Nearly a year after the Environmental Defense Fund lost contact with an $88 million satellite, data from the spacecraft reveal higher-than-expected methane emissions from the oil and gas industry." Inside Climate News, Martha Pskowski, & Phil McKenna, Feb 6, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (2 articles)

• ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is melting faster than we thought. Can a 150-metre wall stop it flooding Earth? "The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ already contributes four per cent of annual sea level rise, but can the consequences of climate change be barricaded off?" euronews, Liam Gilliver, Feb 4, 2026.
• Analysis: Clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025 "Solar power, electric vehicles (EVs) and other clean-energy technologies drove more than a third of the growth in China’s economy in 2025 – and more than 90% of the rise in investment."Analysis: Clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025 Carbon Brief, Lauri Myllyvirta & Belinda Schaepe, Feb 5, 2026.

International Climate Conferences and Agreements (2 articles)

• Amazon deforestation may rise 30% as major traders exit historic soy pact Mongabay, Fernanda Wenzel, Feb 2, 2026.
• Exclusive: EU rethinks climate diplomacy after bruising COP30 summit, document shows Reuters, Kate Abnett, Feb 4, 2026.

Miscellaneous (2 articles)

• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #05 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 25, 2026 thru Sat, January 31, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, John Hartz and Doug Bostrom, Feb 01, 2026.
• This Week in Climate News (February 2026, Week 1) Earth.org, Staff, Feb 6, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)

• ‘Emotional traps’ and fake experts: How to spot climate disinformation in 2026 "As the threat of climate change accelerates, the EU has strengthened its commitment to fight disinformation." euronews, Liam Gilliver, Jan 30, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (1 article)

• Fact brief - Can solar projects improve biodiversity? Yes - Solar projects do not inherently reduce biodiversity, and when designed with best practices, they can sustain or even increase local wildlife and plant diversity. Skeptical Science, Sue Bin Park, Feb 03, 2026.

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

The world is poised to overshoot the goal of limiting average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as for the first time, a three-year period, ending in 2025, has breached the threshold. And climate scientists are predicting devastating consequences, just as the world’s governments appear to have lost their appetite for tackling the emissions that are causing the warming. 

The 1.5-degree target was set at the Paris climate conference a decade ago, at the insistence of more vulnerable nations, to forestall severe weather impacts and potential runaway warming that could lead to exceeding irreversible planetary tipping points. But climate scientists say that 10 years of weak action since mean that nothing can now stop the target being breached. “Climate policy has failed. The 2015 landmark Paris agreement is dead,” says atmospheric chemist Robert Watson, a former chair of the U.N.’s arbiters of climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.

Meanwhile, a picture of what lies ahead is becoming clearer. In particular, there is a growing fear that climate change in the future won’t, as it has until now, happen gradually. It will happen suddenly, as formerly stable planetary systems transgress tipping points — thresholds beyond which things cannot be put back together again. 

“We are rapidly approaching multiple Earth system tipping points that could transform our world with devastating consequences for people and nature,” says British global-systems researcher Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter. If he and other scientists are right, then hopes currently being expressed of a temperature reset by reducing emissions after overshoot may be fanciful. Before we know it, there may be no way back.

Average global temperature compared to the preindustrial average. Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service. Yale Environment 360 / Made with Flourish

The effects of imminent 1.5-degree overshoot are already apparent in a rising tide of weather catastrophes: soaring heatstroke deaths in India, Africa, and the Middle East; unprecedented wildfires in the United States; and escalating property damage and floods from tropical storms and extreme precipitation. 

Last year, Bailing Li of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center disclosed that her agency held un-peer reviewed data showing a dramatic increase in the intensity of the world’s weather in the past five years. Meanwhile, the International Chamber of Commerce reported that extreme weather linked to the changing climate had cost the global economy more than $2 trillion in the past decade and damaged the lives and livelihoods of a fifth of the world’s population.

But that is just the start. Climate change is gathering pace. The last three years have been the hottest on record, with both 2023 and 2025 nearly reaching 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels, and 2024 hitting 1.55 degrees. 

A three-year breach of 1.5 degrees does not mean we have broken the Paris limit, which is framed as a long-term average. Conventionally, scientists measure this over 20 years, to smooth out year-on-year aberrations caused by natural cycles such as the El Niño oscillation. Using this method, it will be several more years before researchers can say for certain if warming has reached 1.5 degrees. But according to two studies published last year, the world has likely already surpassed this critical threshold. 

Without an abrupt change of course, the warming will only accelerate. James Hansen, the Columbia University climatologist who first put climate change on the world’s front pages during testimony to Senate hearings in 1988, believes we could hit 2 degrees C as soon as 2045, a forecast based on several climate models under a high-emissions scenario. 

A stream of meltwater atop the Greenland ice sheet. Ian Joughin / University of Washington

The reason for the escalation is that the climate system is in a pincer grip. First, emissions of planet-warming gases remain stubbornly high, and second, natural carbon sinks are weakening. The result is an accelerating rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2. 2024 saw the biggest jump ever.

The faltering natural sink is perplexing scientists. For as long as we know, nature has been quietly mitigating our damage to the climate by soaking up around half of all the CO2 we put into the air. Trees have grown faster in a warmer climate, capturing carbon in the process; oceans have been absorbing excess atmospheric CO2, burying it in the depths. 

But now oceans are becoming more stratified, reducing their ability to remove CO2. And trees are succumbing to heat and drought.  

A string of recent research papers has reported an “unprecedented” weakening of natural land-based carbon sinks in 2023 and 2024, triggered in part by an epidemic of extreme wildfires, which have doubled globally in the past two decades. African rainforests, previously responsible for around a fifth of the terrestrial take-up of CO2, recently turned from a long-term carbon sink to a source.

Looking forward, the predicted death of the Amazon rainforest would load billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. And the melting of Arctic permafrost, which is already underway, will unlock huge volumes of frozen methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Researchers last year concluded that this methane will have a “critical role … in amplifying climate change under overshoot scenarios,” making a comeback from that overshoot significantly harder.

Estimated temperature increases at which the planet crosses key tipping points. Source: Armstrong McKay et al., 2022. Yale Environment 360 / Made with Flourish

“We are seeing cracks in the resilience of the Earth’s systems,” concluded Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Nature has so far balanced our abuse. This is coming to an end.”

These escalating impacts could soon lead to irreversible damage to the climate and ecosystems, scientists warn. In the past three years, unprecedented warming of the oceans has led to an epidemic of marine heat waves. The waters of northwest Europe last spring were up to 4 degrees C (7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal. In the tropics, ocean heating is triggering a rising rate of cyclones, and ever more loss of coral.

Researchers say tropical coral reefs may have already crossed a tipping point, portending mass dieback. Studies suggest they may all be dead by mid-century, with massive repercussions for wider marine ecosystems and fish stocks, which are heavily dependent on reefs as nurseries and feeding grounds.

Near the poles, some ice sheets may already have been irreversibly destabilized. Greenland is losing 30 million tons of ice every hour. The “current best assessment,” Watson says, is that this melting could become unstoppable at around 1.5 degrees. The giant Arctic island’s estimated 2,800 trillion tons of ice would take centuries to melt into the ocean. But that would eventually raise sea levels globally by around 23 feet. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet faces a similar fate. 

Read Next Good news! These ‘positive tipping points’ will help save the world. Matt Simon

Likewise, ocean circulation systems could be approaching breakdown. These currents move vast amounts of heat around the globe, dictating much of the weather over adjacent land. Most at risk, modelers suggest, is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, which currently warms Europe and the eastern coast of North America with the Gulf Stream.

Hansen has argued that “shutdown of the AMOC is likely within the next 20-30 years, unless actions are taken to reduce global warming.” Other studies suggest it is unlikely this century, or that we may soon pass a tipping point beyond which it is inevitable. A 2025 Global Tipping Points Report, led by Lenton, said AMOC’s failure would “plunge northwest Europe into prolonged severe winters.”

A modeling study of a range of potential tipping points by researchers at the Potsdam Institute found that if the world did not get back to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century, there was a one in four chance at least one major global threshold — it listed the collapse of AMOC, the Amazon rainforest ecosystem, or the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheet — would be crossed. “If we were to also surpass 2 degrees C of global warming, tipping risks would escalate even more rapidly,” says coauthor Annika Ernest Högner.   

There are also fears of a domino effect, in which crossing one tipping point triggers the exceeding of another. One scenario sees the melting of Greenland ice turning off the AMOC, which in turn is the final straw for the Amazon rainforest. But much remains unclear — including whether the risks of exceeding tipping points are less if the overshoot is short term.

Because tipping points are hard to model with any precision, and harder still to predict, they are often left out of climate projections — and hence are still largely ignored by climate negotiators.  “Current policy thinking doesn’t usually take tipping points into account,” says Manjana Milkoreit of the University of Oslo, a lead author of the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report.

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The science is shaping up to suggest that the damage done by an imminent overshoot of the 1.5-degree threshold may not be easily undone. Still, that looks like the world we are entering. So, how could we draw carbon out of the atmosphere by achieving the “negative emissions” that might bring temperatures back down and, in the best-case scenario, stabilize the climate system?  

The most obvious action is to bolster and increase carbon sinks by planting trees or encouraging natural forest regrowth. In the past decade, the world has developed a modest carbon market, using forestry and other projects that soak up CO2 to earn carbon credits that can be sold to offset carbon emissions by industry and nations. 

The market has been widely discredited by failed, poorly monitored, and fraudulent forest schemes. But, if better managed and audited, it could be repurposed as part of an effort to generate negative emissions.

One proposal favored by many climate scientists would have the trees harvested and burned in power stations, so new carbon-grabbing trees could be planted on the vacated land. If the power-plant CO2 emissions were then captured and kept out of the atmosphere, the result could be an energy system that drew CO2 out of the air. 

But the scientific consensus is that there isn’t room on a crowded planet for enough forests. Currently, work to protect and restore forests is soaking up an estimated 2 billion tons of CO2 annually. But lowering global temperatures by an average of even 0.1 degrees C would require a total of a hundred times more, according to the IPCC. And recent studies suggest 400 billion tons might be required to get back to 1.5 C by 2100. 

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Another idea is to industrialize carbon capture through the mass deployment of chemical plants that use solvents to extract CO2 from the air and convert it to inert material. This remains, at least for now, prohibitively expensive, costing hundreds of dollars for every ton removed.

Many scientists regard such carbon-capturing solutions as fanciful. And, given that we may need them in a hurry after some major planetary emergency such as warding off a tipping point, they could not be deployed fast enough. If a quick fix were needed — even a temporary one to “peak shave” temperatures while negative emissions were fast-tracked — we would need some form of outright geoengineering. 

Most likely, these scientists say, this would involve shading the Earth from solar radiation by injecting into the stratosphere sulphur aerosols similar to those sometimes released in volcanic eruptions. Spraying from fleets of aircraft would have to continue for as long as the cooling was required. But it might work, and it might do so quickly and cheaply enough to be a realistic proposition.  Researchers are enthusiastic. The British government last year invested $80 million to explore the potential of solar modification, including small-scale real-world experiments.   

But others are horrified. They warn that leaving atmospheric greenhouse gas levels high will also leave the world’s weather systems fundamentally altered. Even if the shading can get us back to 1.5 C of warming, the weather will not revert. 

“Having temperature targets makes solar engineering seem like a sensible approach because it may lower temperatures,” says Watson.  “But it does this not by reducing but increasing our interference in the climate system.” The world’s weather would still be broken. He likens it to “turning on the air conditioning in response to a house fire.” 

IPCC scientists have consistently argued that achieving the Paris target will ultimately require some form of negative emissions. But it took until the 2025 climate conference in Belem, Brazil, for U.N. negotiators to acknowledge the need to address how to handle an overshoot, declaring in its final statement that “both the extent and duration of an overshoot need to be limited,” though without going into further detail. So far, only Denmark has a national negative emissions target — promising reductions of 110 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.

Negative emissions are “not a political project yet,” says Oliver Geden of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. And even the suggestion seems optimistic right now, when even modest international efforts to achieve “net zero” emissions by mid-century are falling far short, and the world’s second largest emitter, the U.S., has exited the entire project. 

But the warnings are stark. Without action to draw down atmospheric carbon, the climate system will likely move into an era of accelerated warming that may be impossible to halt. Overshoot will be permanent.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Overshoot: The world is hitting point of no return on climate on Feb 8, 2026.