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The Labour government wants to cut UK greenhouse gas emissions to 87% below 1990 levels by 2040, which it says will deliver £865bn in economic benefits.

The target has been set out in draft legislation for the seventh “carbon budget”, a legally binding limit on emissions during the five-year period from 2038-2042.

The government says this would protect billpayers from “fossil-fuel shocks”, boost energy security, improve quality of life and help tackle climate change, by getting the country on track for net-zero by 2050.

The UK would need to invest around £880bn over 25 years to meet the budget, but doing so would yield benefits worth £1,620bn, according to a government impact assessment.

Pointedly, the government presents these benefits and costs relative to a policy of “no net-zero”, as the opposition Conservatives and hard-right Reform UK have both pledged to abandon the 2050 goal.

The 137-page impact assessment mentions energy security more than 30 times and says the seventh carbon budget would help save £445bn up to 2050 from ever decreasing fossil-fuel imports.

Moreover, the assessment is based on fossil-fuel price projections published in 2024, before the cost of oil and gas surged earlier this year after the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz.

The document says that the UK’s climate goals would be even more beneficial – worth £1,035bn, relative to “no net-zero” – if the country is exposed to “persistently high fossil-fuel prices”.

The seventh carbon budget must be approved by parliament before the end of June and the government must then publish a plan to meet it “as soon as reasonably practicable”.

• What is the UK’s seventh ‘carbon budget’?
• What target is the government aiming for?
• How could the UK meet the seventh carbon budget?
• What are the benefits and costs of reaching this target?
• What happens next?

What is the UK’s seventh ‘carbon budget’?

The UK’s efforts to tackle and respond to global warming are governed by the Climate Change Act, which was passed with near-unanimous cross-party support in 2008, by 463 votes to five.

In 2019, the then-Conservative government amended the Act to set a long-term goal for cutting emissions to 100% below 1990 levels by 2050, known as the net-zero target.

(The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has affirmed that reaching net-zero is the only way to stop global warming from getting worse – and that emissions would need to reach net-zero by 2050 globally to have a chance of limiting the rise in temperatures to 1.5C.)

To stay on track for the 2050 target, the act requires the government to set a series of “carbon budgets”. These are binding limits on the UK’s emissions covering successive five-year periods.

The UK met its first three carbon budgets, covering 2008-2022. It is currently just over half way through the fourth “carbon budget”, covering 2023-2027.

Under the act, the government is required to set the level of the seventh carbon budget, covering 2038-2042, by the end of June this year.

Before setting the budget, the government must take advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC). In turn, this advice must take into account a range of factors, including the latest scientific evidence, technological trends, the state of the economy and public finances.

No government has ever gone against the advice of the CCC when setting carbon budgets. However, the government could have chosen not to do so, if it had explained why.

What target is the government aiming for?

The CCC recommended last year that the UK should aim to cut its emissions to 87% below 1990 levels under the seventh carbon budget for 2038-2042 – equivalent to a three-quarters reduction on current levels.

The government has followed this advice, setting a draft seventh carbon budget of 535m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), some 107MtCO2e per year.

The proposed 2040 target is shown in the figure below, alongside previously legislated budgets and the UK’s international climate pledges for 2030 and 2035 under the Paris Agreement.

UK greenhouse gas emissions including international aviation and shipping (IAS), MtCO2e. Lines show historical emissions (black) and the pathway to reaching net-zero. Legislated carbon budgets levels are shown as grey steps. The first five budgets did not include IAS, but left “headroom” to allow for these emissions (darker wedges). Source: CCC progress reports, Carbon Brief analysis.

In a written statement to parliament, energy secretary Ed Miliband said the target would reduce the UK’s exposure to “volatile international fossil-fuel markets and protect bill-payers”, as well as delivering benefits for jobs, growth, health and the natural environment. Miliband wrote:

“Against the backdrop of heightened geopolitical instability, including the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and its implications for global energy markets, the case for setting a clear and credible long-term pathway for the UK on clean energy and climate action is stronger than ever.”

Echoing a 2023 review commissioned by the then-Conservative government, Miliband also wrote that “clean energy and climate action is the economic opportunity of the 21st century”.

(On the day of the draft budget, the Guardian reported findings that the UK’s “net-zero economy” was worth “more than £100bn a year”, according to consultancy CBI Economics.)

The impact assessment sets out the climate-change “case for action”. It says the “science is clear” that the UK is becoming wetter and warmer, with increasing floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires. This is “unequivocally” due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. It continues:

“Without action, climate change will continue to endanger the UK’s food and water security, exacerbate global population displacement and pose national security risks.”

The document adds that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) found the “costs of climate damage are getting higher, while the cost of the net-zero transition is getting lower”.

In its impact assessment, the government also outlines a less ambitious goal to cut emissions to 83% below 1990 levels by 2040 and a tighter target for 89%.

In what may be an attempt to pre-empt future legal challenges (see: What happens next?), the government outlines why it is not choosing to pursue either greater or lesser ambition for 2040.

It says the low end of ambition “increases the risk of underinvestment”, while the highest target could face “deliverability risks [that] may undermine [the UK’s] credibility”.

Note that the sixth and seventh budgets were set in line with the net-zero target, whereas previous budgets were set on a pathway to 80% by 2050 – hence, the step change in the figure above.

The sixth and later carbon budgets include the UK’s share of emissions from international aviation and shipping. These emissions relate to journeys that start or finish at UK ports and airports. Draft legislation to make this change was laid in parliament earlier this year.

The UK’s legally binding climate goals do not include the “imported” emissions associated with the production of goods and services in other countries. Among other reasons, this is because the UK does not have legal jurisdiction over activities taking place outside its borders.

The UK’s imported emissions were growing until around 2008, but have remained relatively flat since then. This means that the UK’s overall “carbon footprint”, including imported emissions, has been falling by a similar amount as the territorial emissions within its own borders.

How could the UK meet the seventh carbon budget?

To date, UK emissions cuts have largely come from the power sector, as the country has stopped burning coal to generate electricity and shifted from gas towards clean power.

In order to meet the seventh carbon budget, the UK will need to cut emissions across the economy. According to the CCC’s advice, the biggest contributions would come from electrifying transport, heat and industry, driven by a massively expanded supply of clean electricity.

It said at the time of its advice:

“In many key areas, the best way forward is now clear. Electrification and low-carbon electricity supply make up the largest share of emissions reductions in our pathway.”

This would mean shifting to electric vehicles (EVs), electric heat pumps and electrified industrial processes on a massive scale, reducing the need for fossil fuels.

Since electrified technologies are far more efficient than those based on fossil-fuel combustion, this shift would also dramatically cut the need for oil and gas imports, the CCC said.

In broad terms, the government backs a similar path to cutting UK emissions through mass electrification. In its release on the seventh carbon budget, it says:

“Half of the UK’s recessions since 1970 have been caused by fossil-fuel shocks. The government is investing in renewable and nuclear energy to get the UK off the rollercoaster of fossil-fuel prices…By 2050, the UK could cut its reliance on fossil fuels from around three quarters of our energy today to around 15%, while avoiding around £445bn in fossil-fuel spending over the next 25 years.”

In its “delivery plan” for the sixth carbon budget, covering 2033-2037, it said roughly a third of UK homes should have heat pumps by 2035 and around half of cars on the road should be EVs.

There is one key difference between the CCC’s suggested approach to meeting the UK’s carbon budgets and that of the government. Specifically, the CCC suggested there would be an important role for behaviour change in relation to diets and efforts to limit the rise in the number of flights.

In contrast, the government has placed much less emphasis on these areas. This means that it relies to a greater extent on expensive technologies that can remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Despite this context, some right-leaning newspapers have misleadingly focused their coverage on the perceived need to alter diets to meet the seventh carbon budget.

What are the benefits and costs of reaching this target?

The government says that the proposed seventh carbon budget would “deliver the benefits of clean energy and climate action for jobs and growth, health and our natural environment”, as well as aligning with the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement to “avoid climate disaster”.

Overall, it says that the net-zero target for 2050 “continues to represent value for money, with strong net benefits relative to alternative pathways”.

The detailed impact assessment sets out the benefits and costs of meeting the proposed seventh carbon budget in monetary terms, in line with Treasury guidance under the “green book”.

The results are presented in terms of “net present value” (NPV). This takes into account the human preference for enjoying benefits today, rather than in the future. When measuring NPV, future costs and benefits are “discounted”, to reflect their lower value in the present moment.

Specifically, meeting the proposed seventh carbon budget would have net benefits worth £865bn to the UK, relative to a world where the net-zero target is abandoned and existing technology continues to be used. For example, in this “no net-zero” alternative, gas boilers and petrol cars would be replaced like-for-like when they reach the end of their life.

It says that a lower bill for fossil fuels is a “major component” of the net benefits, with savings reaching £445bn over 25 years if the seventh carbon budget is met, relative to “no net-zero”.

The “vast majority” of these savings result from electrification – in other words, swapping those boilers and petrol cars for heat pumps and EVs.

However, the largest benefit of the proposed budget comes from avoided climate-change damages, which amount to £1,495bn over 25 years, according to the document. This benefit relates to lower UK emissions limiting climate impacts, such as extreme heat and flooding.

The government also acknowledges that significant investments would be required to meet the seventh carbon budget. It puts the cost of these investments at £880bn over 25 years, including financing, relative to the alternative of “no net-zero”.

These benefits and costs of the proposed budget are shown in the figure below. In aggregate, these add up to the headline net benefits of £865bn over 25 years.

Net benefits and costs of meeting the UK’s seventh carbon budget, measured over the period 2025-2050 in present-value terms, £bn. Source: Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.

In addition to the “no net-zero” baseline, the impact assessment compares the proposed budget with a continuation of current policies. The results are directionally similar to, but slightly lower than, the net benefits relative to “no net-zero”.

The document also considers a range of “sensitivities” to explore the impact of higher or lower technology costs and fossil-fuel prices, as well as to consider alternative pathways that use less carbon capture and storage (CCS), fewer EVs or a reduced number of heat pumps.

Finally, the impact assessment also considers the ongoing benefits and costs of meeting the seventh carbon budget when looking out to 2060.

This roughly doubles the net benefits of meeting the target from £865bn by 2050 to £1,520bn by 2060, because the upfront investments yield ongoing savings, such as lower fossil-fuel bills.

Notably, the impact assessment is based on fossil-fuel price projections published in 2024, when the average cost of wholesale gas was around 80p per therm.

These projections envisaged gas prices of 75p/therm in 2025, falling to 70p by 2030. A “high” case, explored in the impact assessment, had prices of up to around 110p/therm.

In reality, prices climbed to around 85p/therm in 2025 and gas is currently trading at 115p, having reached as high as 150p/therm in the immediate aftermath of the US-Israel attack on Iran in February. This was still well below the 640p peak seen during the global energy crisis in 2022.

In the “high” case for fossil-fuel prices – in which prices are below current levels – the net benefit of the seventh carbon budget climbs to £1,035bn over 25 years.

The impact assessment does not consider the potential for “feedback and system loops, which have potential to decrease costs faster than estimated”.

Setting aside the benefits of meeting the UK’s climate goals, the government analysis says that the net investment costs of the transition would be equivalent to around 1.2% of GDP per year, with a range of 0.8-1.6% reflecting uncertainty in fossil-fuel prices and technology costs.

It says that investing 1.2% of GDP in meeting the seventh carbon budget would not mean the UK’s GDP being 1.2% lower. On the contrary, it says the impact on GDP could be positive. It says:

“The investment in home-grown clean energy and electrification and the reduced reliance on fossil fuels has the potential to generate positive impacts on GDP over time.”

It goes on to compare this figure with the cost of the 2022 global energy crisis, which it says hit the economy by around 2-3% of GDP, including taxpayer-funded bill support of £42bn.

Citing recent analysis by the CCC and its own modelling, it says the seventh carbon budget would leave the economy around £90bn better off, if a fossil-fuel price shock were to hit again in 2040.

In addition, the assessment notes figures from the OBR, suggesting that climate damages resulting from global warming of 3C could wipe around 8% off UK GDP.

Notably, the government assessment of net abatement costs is significantly higher than the equivalent figure published by the CCC, of just 0.2% of GDP. It says this reflects two main factors.

First, the government’s reduced emphasis on behaviour change, which as noted above results in a greater need for expensive CO2 removal technologies. Second, it says the CCC “expects a more rapid decline in the costs of technology” than the government assumes.

For example, whereas recent government analysis has assumed that EVs will never be cheaper to buy than petrol cars, the CCC assumes that “price parity” will be reached within a few years. In fact, the latest data indicates that EVs are already cheaper to buy than petrol cars, on average.

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Under the Climate Change Act, there is a deadline of 30 June 2026 to legislate for the seventh carbon budget, subject to parliamentary approval.

In setting out the draft target, the UK government has already taken into account the views of the devolved administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The impact assessment notes that none of them had made “representations” on the level of the seventh carbon budget.

The draft carbon budget legislation is subject to the “affirmative procedure”, which means it must be debated and voted through by both houses of parliament.

For the sixth carbon budget, which was legislated under the then-Conservative government in 2021, this vote took place during the “committee stage”.

The government statement says that its delivery plan for the sixth carbon budget, published in October 2025, will “drive substantial abatement into the carbon budget seven period”. It adds:

“These policies will continue to deliver the bulk of emissions savings needed for carbon budget seven. This provides a strong and credible starting point…reducing delivery risk and giving confidence that the transition can be delivered in an affordable and manageable way.”

Specifically, the impact assessment says that the existing CB6 delivery plan “would get the UK to 84% emissions reduction” by 2040, only just shy of the proposed 87% target.

The government commits to publishing a new delivery plan for the seventh carbon budget “as soon as reasonably practical”, in line with the wording with the Climate Change Act. It says:

“This statutory sequencing recognises the time needed to develop and agree an ambitious and robust package of policies to deliver the target.”

The impact assessment notes that the delivery plan will determine how the UK meets the seventh carbon budget, as well as the implications for different regions and sectors of the UK economy.

Two earlier delivery plans, published by previous Conservative governments, were subject to successful legal challenge in the High Court. These cases, brought by groups including Friends of the Earth and ClientEarth, resulted in the latest delivery plan, published last October.

A separate group, calling itself “Carbon Reckoning”, is attempting to crowdfund a fresh legal challenge to the government’s plans for the seventh carbon budget. In late May 2026, it wrote to Miliband arguing that the 87% by 2040 target “fails to comply with international obligations”.

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The post Q&A: How UK’s seventh carbon budget will deliver ‘£865bn’ in economic benefits appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Oil shocks, currency crises, refugee flows and rising geopolitical disorder: analyst and columnist Mihir Sharma explains why the consequences of war with Iran will be felt far beyond the Middle East.

Why do people with access to the same facts arrive at radically different conclusions about the future? Physicist Tom Murphy reflects on an impasse with Dave Murphy over modernity, ecological limits and humanity's place in the living world.

Is hypocrisy the one thing that can grow infinitely on our finite planet? When you learn that humanity’s fossil fuel burning, including your own, is contributing to climate chaos, what can you do?

Russian-Speaking Leftists, a group based in Germany, on 19 May published this interview with a socialist activist living in Russia who, they write, “stands for revolutionary defeatism”.[1] I translated it and added the footnotes. SP. Download this article as a PDF Q: Please tell us a little about yourself. A: I am a communist. I […]

The Northern Territory government has granted approval for gas giant Santos to drill 12 fracking wells in the Beetaloo Basin, despite concerns that the project would mainly serve the export market while putting water and environment at risk. 

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• Cities should densify their inner-ring suburbs to reduce car trips and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Another study of 15-minute cities found that, for every 10 percent increase in residents living in walkable neighborhoods, transportation-related carbon dioxide emissions fell by 5 percent. (Cities)
• Air pollution slows the lung growth of children, and even young adults up to age 24. (The Guardian)
• Financially, people who drive a lot and own an aging gas-powered car are better off buying an electric vehicle, which is also better for the climate. (NPR)
• From schedules to accessibility, transit agencies are not doing a good job of adjusting to an aging population of riders, according to a Chinese study of Asian and European cities. (The City Fix)
• The key to winning the PR battle over traffic enforcement cameras is to convince the public they’re not just a money grab by local governments. (CT Mirror)
• An Illinois law reforming Chicago transit governance and pumping $1.5 billion into the system took effect Monday. (Tribune)
• The transit agency in Montana’s capital city, Helena, is facing a $200,000 deficit and considering cutting service, primarily affecting the elderly and disabled. (Free Press)
• The Kansas City Streetcar is studying the feasibility of a third extension. (KCTV)
• Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson joined an annual mass bike ride through downtown to celebrate Wisconsin Bike Week. (WTMJ)
• What should Charlotte call its new transit-oriented, walkable arts and entertainment district? (Ledger)
• Riding e-scooters and other personal mobility vehicles has become a popular after-work activity in Canada. (CBC)
• Car Free America explains how Copenhagen built its famously excellent bike infrastructure.

On April 20, the Federal Highway Administration launched its “Freedom to Drive” initiative, asking governors to nominate their worst traffic bottlenecks for federal capacity expansion. On May 17, House transportation leaders released the draft BUILD America 250 Act — a $580 billion, five-year surface transportation reauthorization, which the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee marked up on May 21.

Taken together, the two announcements amount to the largest federal sprawl subsidy in a generation, proposed at exactly the moment American households can least afford it.

There is a real freedom in being able to drive. But the “freedom” the initiative actually delivers isn’t “freedom” at all, because it leaves households with no alternatives.

For roughly 30 percent of Americans — children, older adults, people with disabilities, and households without a vehicle — driving is not an option. For nearly everyone else, the built environment makes it the only practical way to reach a job or a grocery store. We have grown so used to automobile dependence that we no longer notice the shackles. The “freedom” on offer is pure car-dealer Americana — red, white, blue, and one more promise that the next round of expansion will finally clear the traffic.

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Start with the household ledger. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that American households spent an average of $78,535 in 2024 — 33.4 percent on housing and 17.0 percent on transportation, more than half of household spending. The Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index sets the combined affordability ceiling at 45 percent of household income, and most U.S. communities routinely exceed it.

But the H+T Index measures only direct household costs. It does not capture the federal subsidy that engineered the sprawl pattern, which households absorb, and it does not show how that subsidy gets returned in degraded form. 

Federal, state, and local governments spent $626 billion on transportation and water infrastructure in 2023, with highways as the largest category. Federal capacity expansion is increasingly deficit-financed, and households pay it back through inflated prices, eroded wages, and higher mortgage rates.

The road bill never goes away. It just gets routed through the dollar.

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Beth Osborne at Smart Growth America has argued for years that the federal performance-measurement framework is structurally biased toward expansion: we count vehicle throughput, not access, and the incentives push state DOTs to build new capacity rather than maintain what they already own. Her organization’s Repair Priorities reports have tracked this misallocation for over a decade. 

Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns arrives at the same diagnosis from a different tradition. He argues that the postwar suburban development pattern is financially insolvent because its maintenance liabilities exceed the tax base it produces, which he calls the “growth Ponzi scheme.”

Different schools, same conclusion: we are buying liabilities and calling them assets.

BUILD America 250 is the diagnosis in legislative form. It does real work—bridges need repair, freight matters, road workers deserve protection. But the architecture is backward. The bill cuts Safe Streets and Roads for All by $1.25 billion, eliminates the Carbon Reduction and PROTECT resilience programs, and repeals the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program — the only dedicated federal source for closing gaps in walking and biking networks, whose first grant round was oversubscribed forty to one.

It then channels new money into capacity expansion at the moment traffic deaths remain at 39,254 a year. In their recent update of the U.S. sprawl index, Shima Hamidi’s Johns Hopkins team ties those deaths directly to the development pattern federal road dollars keep subsidizing: more vehicle miles and higher speeds, which lead to elevated rates of fatal and pedestrian crashes.

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The fiscal logic gets worse. The federal gas tax sits at 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel — unchanged since 1993. Users should pay for the infrastructure they use; that has historically been the conservative position.

But even as Congress writes new revenue streams to shore up the Highway Trust Fund, Washington is floating a gas-tax holiday in response to another Middle East conflict. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates a five-month suspension would cost the trust fund roughly $17 billion — 46 percent of projected FY2026 fuel-tax revenue.

So the user fee that funds roads gets suspended because of an oil shock to which the road system itself made us all vulnerable — while Congress fills the gap by borrowing, and households pay back the borrowing through devalued wages.

That isn’t conservatism. It’s debt-financed dependency with a flag decal.

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A serious conservative transportation policy starts from three principles: maintenance before expansion, pricing before subsidy, and access before throughput.

Roads, freight, emergency access, and rural connectivity all matter. The argument isn’t road abolition. It’s fiscal sanity — and a refusal to keep mailing U.S. households the bill for a development pattern that bankrupts it.

America is not underinvesting in roads. It is overbuilding liabilities and underpricing their true cost. “Freedom to Drive” isn’t a new vision. It’s the same old invoice — stamped urgent, mailed to taxpayers, and wrapped in red, white, and blue.

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By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

Listen to the audio version >>

As we saw in the previous commentary, Donald Trump is conducting a full spectrum counter-revolution against the Greentech revolution that is transforming energy production and consumption worldwide. This commentary shows that he has managed to significantly impede the onward march of Greentech in the US, but that Greentech is marching on nonetheless.

Collage featuring a photo of Donald Trump (Trump’s second presidential portrait, taken in June 2025 by Daniel Torok, The White House, Public Domain) and an aerial view of broken solar panels on a rooftop (Envato, Bilanol)

In the aftermath of Trump’s assault, the Greentech revolution in America is churning – both stopped in its tracks and driving forward.

Climate journalist and musician Jael Holzman recently took a “cross-country rock n’ roll tour” with her band Ekko Astral. Shee observed:

“Driving across the country with my band, I saw solar and wind projects in Wisconsin, Kansas, Arizona, and Idaho. One drive from Austin, Texas to Rozwell, New Mexico, sent me through a dizzying maze of wind farms in a western portion of the Lone Star State that surrounded my vehicle on all sides with spinning blades and transmission lines — and fracking rigs, because it was Texas. It felt like some sort of twisted, magnificent energy wonk video game.”

But she also noted:

“I drove through open fields and farmland in the Midwest and the Great Plains, including places where building solar or wind is banned outright. I drove straight through the part of central Idaho where Lava Ridge, once the largest wind farm in the country, would have been built this year if not for Donald Trump.”

First, the bad news

President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBBA) into law on July 4, 2025. The law rolls back many parts of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act by ending tax credits for wind and solar energy, removing incentives for electric vehicles and home energy efficiency, and increasing support for fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and traditional agriculture. Photo credit: The White House, Public Domain

Trump’s Greentech counter-revolution has succeeded in making many corporations and governments cut back or abandon climate goals and policies. The consequences are catastrophic for the climate – and for the future of the American people.

• A week before the 2024 election, Idaho’s largest electric utility struck a 35-year deal to buy power from the Jackalope Wind project that would span an area the size of Chicago, with hundreds of wind turbines generating clean electricity by 2027. But President Trump’s Interior Department quickly stalled Jackalope’s environmental review. In September, the Idaho utility finally canceled its contracts with Jackalope Wind, citing “uncertainties related to the federal permitting process.” Jackalope is only one of more than 60 large wind and solar farms that are being blocked on federal lands. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, 73,000 megawatts of solar projects on land are currently at risk from political interference due to the Trump administration’s “blockade.”
• After the tax credit for buying an EV was allowed to expire at the end of September, sales of EVs plummeted by about 46 percent. In 2025 as a whole, American businesses and households invested $91 billion in zero emission vehicles, a 5% decrease from the previous year. Ford took a $19.5 billion loss from abandoning a planned battery factory and canceled its F-150 EV. In the face of the global shift to EVs, Big Three’s share of the global auto market has fallen from nearly 30 percent in 2000 to about 12 percent today, while China’s share has risen from 2 percent to 42 percent.
• According to the Rhodium Group’s Clean Investment Monitor, the pipeline of new clean energy and transportation manufacturing investment—measured by new announcements in manufacturing projects—totaled $44 billion over the past two years, down by 70% compared to $149 billion during the previous two years. In the first quarter of 2026, clean energy and transportation investment in the United States totaled $61 billion, a 3% decline from Q4 2025.
• The impacts of Trump’s cuts can be felt in the smallest and most impoverished communities. Solar Holler, a solar developer and installation company with 105 employees across Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Virginia, had been growing 20 to 30% annually. Solar provided 70% of the company’s business. But residential solar tax incentives were cut off under Trump’s big, beautiful budget. The company’s growth forecast for 2026 is down from 30% to “roughly flat.” Appalachian Voices, a non-profit working with local communities, was awarded a half-million-dollar EPA grant to help five former coal communities in Virginia. The grant was summarily terminated by Elon Musk’s Doge.

While the impact of Trump’s policies is just beginning to be felt, they are already pushing back the forward march of the Greentech revolution. For example, late in 2025 the International Energy Agency (IEA) nearly halved its forecast of renewable energy growth in the United States, citing the end of tax incentives, new import restrictions, the suspension of new offshore wind leasing, and restricting the permitting of onshore wind and solar PV projects on federal land.

Tens of billions of dollars of manufacturing projects to build solar panels, batteries, charging stations and other clean technologies have already been canceled, with hundreds of billions of dollars of additional announced investments imperiled. According to the Princeton University-led REPEAT Project, the rollback of Biden-era climate regulations will cause an estimated 7.6 billion tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions to be released in the coming decade, as much as 150 million gas-powered cars would emit in that same time.

The Greentech Revolution: Bloodied but Unbowed

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, January 2026

Despite Trump’s efforts to gut fossil free energy, during his first year in office, solar generation rose by 83 TWh (+27%), meeting 61% of the 135 TWh rise in electricity demand. By mid-year, renewables generated more than half of US electricity for the first month on record. Even without subsidies, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new power generation.

In a report posted on January 16, the US Energy Information Agency said, “We expect the combined share of generation from solar power and wind power to rise from about 18% in 2025 to about 21% in 2027.” Utility-scale solar is the fastest-growing source of electricity generation in the United States, increasing from 290 BkWh in 2025 to 424 BkWh by 2027.” Almost 70 gigawatts (GW) of new solar generating capacity projects are scheduled to come online in 2026 and 2027, “a 49% increase in U.S. solar operating capacity compared with the end of 2025.” “The three main dispatchable sources of electricity generation (natural gas, coal, and nuclear) accounted for 75% of total generation in 2025, but we expect the share of generation from these sources will fall to about 72% in 2027.”

In 2025, $278 billion was invested across the U.S. in the manufacture and deployment of clean energy, clean vehicles, building electrification, and carbon management technology – up 5% from 2024. This despite an 11% decrease in the fourth quarter relative to the same period in 2024. Investment to decarbonize energy and industrial production over 2024-5 was up 35% compared to the prior two years. Investment in emerging climate technologies in 2024-25 —clean hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels, carbon management and new approaches to decarbonizing the production of cement, iron and steel, and pulp and paper— was 53% higher than in the previous two years. In the past two years, companies have announced a total of $347 billion in new investments in clean energy production and industrial decarbonization projects, a 16% increase compared to the previous two-year period.

Worldwide, the blocking of the Straits of Hormuz and the subsequent crisis in the cost and availability of fossil fuel energy has radically accelerated the Greentech revolution, with countries around the world scrambling to expand their fossil free energy production. Ironically, Trump’s petro-war on Iran is radically accelerating the very Greentech revolution he is attempting to destroy.

The Greentech Revolution is proceeding over, under, around, and through Trump’s counterrevolution. Greentech is an irresistible force; it may not immediately overcome the immovable object of Trump’s obstruction, but it is already circumventing and eroding it.
Subsequent commentaries in this series will show how.

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The post Irresistible Greentech Revolution Meets Immovable Trump Counter-Revolution first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

In the absence of human interference, the soil beneath the world’s forests normally exhales carbon steadily and consistently. 

Resolutions to undo the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument’s Management Plan using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) have been introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT-02). Once either chamber of Congress takes up the legislation, we’ll post live updates as they consider this legislation, with the most current information at the top of this webpage (as well as a link to watch the proceedings live). If you haven’t already, review our actions you can take to defend the monument. A timeline and additional information can be found below.

(All times are MT. These updates come from SUWA staff and our best interpretations of proceedings)

Live Updates Timeline:

• March 4, 2026 –  Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT-02) – introduced joint resolutions to undo the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Management Plan using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). If both chambers of Congress pass the measure by simple majority votes, the plan – which sets expectations for how these remarkable public lands will be managed for recreation, camping and outdoor access, collaboration with Tribal Nations, dark night skies, grazing, and other uses – will be undone and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will be barred from issuing another plan that is “substantially the same” in the future. 
  
  
• February 26, 2026 – Senator Mike Lee formally begun the process to fast-track the destruction of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument byadding the Government Accountability Office (GAO) opinion regarding the Monument’s Management Plan to the Congressional Record (see page 51). Conservation groups began sounding the the alarm regarding the GAO opinion, requested by Rep. Maloy, on January 22, 2026. 
  
  
• January 7, 2025 – Following two and a half years of work, anew Monument Management Plan was finalized for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. As a part of that work, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) engaged in extensive outreach to Tribal Nations, the State of Utah, local governments, stakeholders (including outfitters and guides, ranchers, local utilities), and the public. During the planning process, BLM received overwhelming support from throughout Utah and the nation for a holistic, conservation-based management plan worthy of this remarkable place.

Additional information about the CRA:

In March 2026, the elected officials behind 2025’s failed public lands sell-off attempts – Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT-02) – introduced a joint resolution to undo the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Management Plan using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). 

If both chambers of Congress pass the measure by simple majority votes, the plan – which sets expectations for how these remarkable public lands will be managed for recreation, camping and outdoor access, collaboration with Tribal Nations, dark night skies, grazing, and other uses – will be undone and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will be barred from issuing another plan that is “substantially the same” in the future. This would be a devastating blow to the monument and could turn it into a wildly different place. We cannot let this happen. 

Actions you can take to defend the monument.

The post Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument CRA Vote – Live Updates appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

The new study mapped and assessed more than 140,000 solar PV installations worldwide using satellite data.

From sizzling bacon in the kitchen to wildfire smoke in the sky, cooking and pollution release microscopic particles that affect humans' health, the air they breathe, and even weather and climate.

The plumbing systems of volcanos are vast and complex. But they aren’t consistent, even in the same volcano.

Cornell researchers have developed a new type of computing device that stores information electrically but reads it through tiny mechanical motion, an unusual approach that could open a path toward more energy-efficient hardware for artificial intelligence and scientific computing.