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For nearly 15 years, the Montezuma Audubon Center has worked with Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS) to teach about and conserve habitat across the Montezuma Wetlands Complex. This year, they...

The following statement was delivered during Town Hall with the UNFCCC Executive Secretary and observers on June 16 2026 on behalf of the ENGO-DCJ constituency during the 64th meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB64) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC):

My name is Rachitaa, and I’m making this intervention on behalf of Demand Climate Justice. 

Thank you for the opportunity to engage in this discussion with you today. As the climate crisis intensifies outside these halls, the urgency and equity with which progress is made within these halls must match the scale of the crisis. 

Unfortunately, by no measure is this the case. The integrity of the UNFCCC remains at stake, but more importantly so do hundreds of millions of lives and livelihoods. 

We’ve continued to witness the impacts of the Global North’s failure to do its fair share of climate action and pay its climate debt. And the fingerprints of the world’s largest polluting corporations are still all over the texts and negotiations. How many more years must we fail? 

We welcomed the Open Dialogue on transparency and inclusiveness, and appreciate the work invested into the dialogue, while acknowledging what has been said all along- this is one small step of many. We note that much was raised about conflicts of interest. Most Parties agreed it needed to be discussed further, even if the topic is complex. We call on the Secretariat to advance leadership on this issue and take additional steps to advance transparency and accountability now. Beginning with expanding the disclosure requirements and affirmation of alignment to all badge types, which there was no objection to in the room. We also look to you to further conversation with Parties, including the formal consultations that were suggested by some Parties. 

Big Polluters continue to hold the pen of climate action, all while space for equitable inclusion of civil society continues to shrink and the voices of those most impacted continue to be censored and excluded.

We would also like to share our concerns related to UNFCCC’s continued reliance on big technology corporations for its digital platform, given the role that such corporations have played in contributing to the climate crisis the world faces. 

On just transition, the priority now is operationalising the Just Transition Mechanism in a way that supports real transformation. The BAM must be people-powered. It must enable just and equitable finance, technology transfer, and capacity building. We insist The BAM must go beyond the energy transition and must be fully operational by 2027.

Finally, we understand that the COP30 presidency wrote to the secretariat advising that Article 9.1 should be on the agenda moving forward, and we strongly support this. The reality is that there is no climate action without climate finance, and no climate justice if the Global North is not paying their climate debt.

The post SB64 Intervention- June 16 Town Hall with the UNFCCC Executive Secretary appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Each year, students and educators involved in Audubon’s conservation programs wake up as early as 4:00 am to travel to the State Capital in Albany for our annual Youth Advocacy Day. There, students...

Peak cofounder and CEO Landon Mossburg told Utility Dive the technology is “purpose-built” for AI data centers and grid-scale applications.

Independence Day is a cause for remembrance and celebration. Unfortunately, celebratory fireworks can literally frighten birds to death. Although beachside fireworks shows are entertaining to...

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Does solar energy need subsidies to compete with fossil fuels?

Unsubsidized utility-scale solar is now generally cheaper than building fossil fuel power plants.

Costs are often compared using “levelized cost of energy,” the average lifetime cost to build and run a power plant divided by the electricity it produces. A 2025 analysis estimates the mean LCOE of utility-scale solar at about $58 per megawatt-hour without subsidies, compared to $79 for new natural gas plants and $128 for new coal. The International Energy Agency reports solar energy is the cheapest source of new electricity generation in most parts of the world.

Solar costs have fallen sharply over the past decade as panel prices have dropped and the industry has grown. Subsidies can further lower costs, but solar is not dependent on them to compete with fossil fuels.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.

Sources

International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2020

Lazard Lazard Releases 2025 Levelized Cost of Energy+ Report

Reuters Around 90% of renewables cheaper than fossil fuels worldwide, IRENA says

Scientific American Wind and Solar Energy Are Cheaper Than Electricity from Fossil-Fuel Plants

Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles

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About fact briefs published on Gigafact

Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.

By: Restore the Delta

The explosion of Artificial Intelligent (AI) across the country isn’t happening in a vacuum but instead goes hand-in-hand with impacts to water resources and utility bills.  Despite the enormous strain on both our electrical grid and finite water resources, California has established little to no regulatory oversight. In fact, last year, Governor Newsom rejected legislation that would have provided some oversight, stating that the legislation would potentially curtail “the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good”. As Asm. Papan’s AI Bill package on AI water use – AB 2619 and AB 2469 – moves through the legislature, the question remains whether Governor Newsom will again reject efforts to establish oversight and transparency. 

These protective measures are more necessary than ever. According to a recent Fortune article,  49,000 Lake Tahoe residents are scrambling to find a new power source because their utility company is redirecting electricity capacity to data centers powering the AI boom. Technology over people is happening in real time, with little to slow the onslaught of impacts. 

The Delta, at the heart of California’s water system, is another prime target for the development of AI. To assess the impacts to our ecosystems and communities, Restore the Delta released our new white paper, The Environmental Justice Implications of Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.

Even before the release of our White Paper, AI was making waves in the Delta. When we began this work, possible data center locations in Oakley were being discussed. In March 2026, the Bridgehead Industrial Project, a 164-acre site near the San Joaquin River, originally included data center use before the developer pulled it after significant public pushback. The following month, Oakley became the first Bay Area city to impose a temporary moratorium on new data centers, buying time to study the industry’s energy and water demands.

Just to the north, California Forever’s proposed Suisun City annexation plan has raised alarms that its zoning would allow data centers across nearly all land designations without meaningful public review, despite being marketed primarily as a housing and jobs project.

The Delta is already under extraordinary pressure. The watershed is severely overallocated, numerous native fish populations are in steep decline, and South Stockton and Kings Beach carry some of the highest pollution burdens in the state. AI is yet another existential threat, endangering the long-term viability of the Delta.

A typical 100 megawatt data center consumes approximately 2 million liters of water per day, the equivalent use of about 6,500 households. Unlike residential water use, roughly 80% of that water is lost to evaporation rather than returned to local water systems. Data centers also require uninterrupted 24/7 power, making them unable to reduce usage during peak demand, the exact moments when our grid is most stressed.

The situation in Lake Tahoe illustrates what happens when planning lags behind development. The energy supplier for that region told the local utility it has less than a year to find another power source. The Delta faces a version of that same complexity, multiplied by competing demands from the Delta Conveyance tunnel, carbon storage projects, and new urban development. California is still in the early stages of creating policies specifically designed to address AI infrastructure’s water consumption, constant energy demand, and cumulative community health impacts. 

The window to shape these decisions is right now, before large scale AI development becomes entrenched in the region. We want policymakers, Tribal Nations, environmental justice advocates, and Delta communities to understand the implications of widescale AI development in order to ask the important questions before permits are approved. Oversight and transparency must catch up to development if we are to adequately protect ecosystems and communities. 

Read the full white paper at restorethedelta.org.

As wildfire risk grows, there are increasing calls to “bury the lines.” Undergrounding has its place, but it's not the only answer, writes Cameron Brooks, executive director of Think Microgrid.

More power, cooling and IT equipment is moving outside data halls in a shift that could help “future-proof” computing facilities, a company executive told Facilities Dive.

Health care workers have been experiencing a surge in workplace violence rates nationally since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, building on already rising rates in previous years. A nationwide survey conducted by National Nurses United found that the majority of nurses have experienced workplace violence and nearly one-third have seen a rise in rates in the past year.

The lawyer who successfully led a landmark challenge on onshore oil and gas at the Supreme Court was appointed an OBE in the King’s birthday honours.

Estelle Dehon KC (third from left) with campaigner Sarah Finch (third from right) and the Weald Action Group legal team outside the Supreme Court after the landmark judgement on climate emissions, 20 June 2024. Photo: DrillOrDrop

Estelle Dehon KC received the honour for services to environmental law.

She is one of the UK’s leading environmental and climate law barristers.

She was named planning and environment silk of the year in the Chambers UK Bar Awards 2024. She has been on every ENDS Report power list of environmental professionals since 2022 and received a climate law and governance global leadership award at the COP27 climate conference. She was also named environmental/sustainability bar champion of the year at the Legal 500 UK ESG Awards 2024, and barrister of the year at The Lawyer Awards 2025.

Ms Dehon, of Cornerstone Barristers, said yesterday:

“I am absolutely bursting with pride and happiness to receive an OBE. And for services to environmental law! I never even dreamed that such a thing could happen. I am both thrilled and profoundly moved that it has and am also deeply grateful to those who nominated me, who clearly dream bigger than I do.”

Ms Dehon secured what became known as the Finch Ruling at the Supreme Court almost two years ago. The result required decision-makers to take into account carbon emissions from burning onshore oil and gas production.

The decision immediately quashed planning permission at the Horse Hill oil site in Surrey. It led to withdrawal of consent for oil production at Biscathorpe in the Lincolnshire Wolds and expansion of the Wressle oil site in North Lincolnshire.

The ruling also influenced decisions on the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea, permission for a new UK deep coalmine, infrastructure developments and industrial-scale agriculture.

Ms Dehon said:

“With greenhouse gas emissions still rising; adaptation still so slow and the degradation of nature continuing apace while being normalised in political speech, it is easy to be demotivated.

“But the legal community has so much ability to effect positive change. Our voices are heard in places of power across society. Now is the time we must use them.”

Last year, Ms Dehon argued in a legal opinion that proposals by Europa Oil & Gas at Burniston qualified as fracking under North Yorkshire’s planning policy. In 2016, she represented Friends of the Earth at the planning inquiry on Cuadrilla’s fracking plans at Preston New Road and Roseacre Wood in Lancashire.

Ms Dehon has been a trustee of the UK Environmental Law Association since 2019 and for three years was a trustee of the Women’s Environmental Network.

Since 2022, she has been co-chair of the Bar Council’s climate crisis working group. In 2023, Ms Dehon founded Cornerstone Climate, a cross-disciplinary centre for climate litigation and advice. She recently led production of The Cornerstone Climate Guide: Key Concepts and Definitions. The guide aimed to promote greater understanding of climate-conscious language and remove barriers to understanding key concepts, legislation and policy.

The federal government is preparing to spend billions training 100,000 skilled workers under its Team Canada Strong agenda, without a clear plan for the economy those workers are meant to serve.Instead, Canada should align workforce planning, funding...

The project is expected to come online in 2029 and store enough energy to power around 4,275 homes for 10 hours, Salt River Project said.

Registered nurses at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington will hold a press conference and protest on Thursday, June 18, 2026, to highlight critical community and patient safety concerns about management's planned cuts to postpartum services at their hospital.

A barbed wire fence surrounds the forced labor camp in Pahokee, FL, where two workers escaped hidden in the trunk of a car, their escape ultimately leading to the recent forced labor prosecution, US v Moreno. After escaping, the workers reported their experience to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The CIW took the case to federal authorities and assisted in the investigation of the successful prosecution. Kroger was found to be linked to the forced labor ring as a buyer of watermelons harvested by workers entrapped by the criminal conspiracy. US Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida: “The victims in this case were deceived by conspirators and subjected to deplorable conditions while being exploited for greed and profit.” Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office: “Villatoro Moreno and his co-conspirators lured victims from Mexico with false promises of fair wages and good working conditions. It was all a lie… In addition to harsh and extreme working conditions, the workers were subjected to poor living conditions, charged excessive expenses, and endured humiliating treatment and threats.” US Department of Justice Press Release: “The Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes the FBI, HSI, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. The Task Force received assistance from the Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, (and) the Coalition of Immokalee Workers…”

Since its inception in 2010, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program has brought life-saving human rights guarantees to hundreds of thousands of farmworkers and helped transform the practice of farm labor management on farms from Florida to California. Indeed, the FFP has ushered in nothing short of a human rights revolution in the fields for nearly two decades now, eliminating longstanding abuses in our country’s trillion-dollar food industry ranging from systemic wage theft and deadly working conditions to sexual assault modern-day slavery. 

Along the way, many of the world’s largest retail food brands have joined the Fair Food Program — including household names like McDonald’s, Walmart, and Whole Foods — recognizing the program’s unique power not just to remedy abuses after they have happened, but actually to prevent human rights violations altogether, and so to prevent the full-blown public relations crises that can occur when egregious abuses are connected to popular consumer brands through their supply chains. Here at the FFP, we call that invaluable risk mitigation capacity of the program the “Power of Prevention”, and we are proud not only of the FFP’s immense impact on farmworkers’ lives over the past 16 years, but of its impact on our participating buyers’ and participating growers’ business practices and supply chain management, as well. 

It’s really quite simple: Sometimes the best headline is the headline that never happens, especially when that headline is a US Department of Justice press release connecting yet another brutal forced labor prosecution to your company’s supply chain. And yet…

All too many retail food brands — among them many well-known companies like Publix, Kroger, and Wendy’s — still refuse to join the FFP. Instead, they continue to cling to the long-discredited “Corporate Social Responsibility” playbook, claiming — against ample and painful evidence — that their supplier codes of conduct and occasional social audits are effective and sufficient to address any labor abuses in their suppliers’ operations. As a result, there are still far, far more farmworkers who toil beyond the reach of the Fair Food Program’s powerful protections than there are who harvest our food in the FFP’s environment of dignity and respect.

And that’s why the CIW continues to uncover and help prosecute modern-day slavery cases on non-FFP farms, including the recent case US v. Moreno, which came to light after two workers hid in the trunk of a car driven by a Good Samaritan who helped the workers escape the control of their crewleader and call the CIW to report the rampant abuse and threats they had experienced at the camp. That slavery case cast a national spotlight on the growing issue of forced labor in agriculture, and inspired the CIW’s 5-day, 50-mile march from Pahokee, FL to Palm Beach — home of Wendy’s former board chairman Nelson Peltz. When announcing that the defendant in the case had been sentenced to nearly a decade in prison, the US Department of Labor also disclosed that Kroger, a long-time Fair Food Program holdout, had been buying watermelons from the forced labor operation. 

Today, we want to share an update on that case and, in that context, take a moment to reflect on the FFP’s unique “Power of Prevention”. 

Here below is the latest update from the US Department of Justice on US v. Moreno — including the announcement that Alexander Villatoro Moreno, who was a critical player in the forced labor ring, was extradited from Mexico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and just received a 70-month prison sentence:

Mexican National Pleads Guilty to Racketeering Conspiracy Involving the Forced Labor of Mexican Workers

Alexander Villatoro Moreno, age 53, also known as Quichi, pleaded guilty in federal court in Tampa, Florida, to conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Florida had previously returned a six-count indictment against multiple defendants for their roles in the conspiracy, which victimized Mexican H-2A workers who, between 2015 and 2017, had worked in the United States harvesting fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products.

According to court documents, Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants operated and managed Los Villatoros Harvesting (LVH), a farm labor contracting company, that functioned as a criminal enterprise compelling victims to work in Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and North Carolina. Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants fraudulently recruited Mexican nationals to come into the United States on short-term, H-2A, agricultural visas and misled the United States to secure visas for the victims. Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants charged workers exorbitant recruitment fees to work for LVH and lied to the victims about how much they would be paid, the hours they would work, the working conditions and the reimbursement they would receive for paying recruitment fees and other expenses. The workers were then compelled to provide long hours of physically demanding agricultural labor, six to seven days a week, for far less pay than they were entitled to under the law.

In addition to the work conditions, Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants used various coercive means to compel the victims’ labor, including imposing debts on workers; confiscating the workers’ passports; subjecting workers to crowded, unsanitary and degrading living conditions; verbally abusing and humiliating the workers; threatening workers with arrest, jail time and deportation; isolating workers by preventing them from interacting with anyone other than LVH employees; and threatening to physically harm the workers’ family members back in Mexico if the workers failed to comply with their demands.

When officials began investigating, Villatoro Moreno obstructed the federal investigation by helping to prepare false payroll information to conceal underpayments to the workers and distributing fake reimbursement receipts to the victims to make it appear that LVH was complying with the law by reimbursing the workers for their travel-related expenses.

In the course of the investigation, one worker told prosecutors: “All this time, I could not return to Mexico for fear that something would happen to me. That the Villatoros had paid someone to kill me.”   In the press release announcing Villatoro Moreno’s sentencing, representatives from the Department of Justice had this to say:  “The victims in this case were deceived by conspirators and subjected to deplorable conditions while being exploited for greed and profit,” said US Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida. “Today’s judgment sends a clear message that we will leverage the resources of our law enforcement partners to uphold our nation’s immigration laws and vigorously prosecute those who engage in human trafficking.”   “Villatoro Moreno and his co-conspirators lured victims from Mexico with false promises of fair wages and good working conditions. It was all a lie,” said Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office. “In addition to harsh and extreme working conditions, the workers were subjected to poor living conditions, charged excessive expenses, and endured humiliating treatment and threats. Not only is this wrong, but it is also against the law. Investigating this case was a team effort. I commend the Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, the Department of Labor, the Diplomatic Security Service, and numerous workers’ rights groups for their close cooperation.”   “Today’s sentence sends a clear message that those who exploit vulnerable workers and engage in forced labor will face serious consequences,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Jose R. Figueroa of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami Field Office. “We are committed to protecting workers, safeguarding the integrity of the H‑2A program, and relentlessly pursuing those who manipulate the immigration system. HSI will continue to leverage partnerships across the government, with private industry, and around the world to combat forced labor and disrupt crimes of victimization…”  Read more of the DOJ press release here    The Power of Prevention

While successful slavery prosecutions of individual farm bosses provide a measure of justice for victims, they are a limited and ultimately insufficient tool if the goal is to end forced labor altogether.

First, prosecutions are inherently backward-looking. By the time a case reaches court, workers have already endured the abuses typical of forced labor operations — physical violence, psychological trauma, sexual abuse, and dangerous or even deadly working conditions. Even when justice is served, it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully repair the harm inflicted on those victims.

A Fair Food Standards Council auditor (left) interviews a worker on an FFP farm

Moreover, the legal framework used in forced labor prosecutions generally targets the employers closest to the workers: crewleaders and farm bosses directly involved in the abuse. Those higher up the supply chain — from farm owners to the retail brands purchasing the produce harvested by exploited workers — almost always emerge unscathed. Though they may have known, or should have known, about the abuse, and though they often benefit indirectly through lower labor costs and lower prices, they rarely face consequences when a crewleader is convicted of forced labor.

Early on in the CIW’s three-decade fight against human trafficking, it became clear that prosecutions alone would never end forced labor. If the movement’s broader goals — ending modern-day slavery in the fields and creating a world without victims — were ever to be achieved, something more was needed. The solution lay in addressing the underlying economics that had made slavery and other widespread farm labor abuses possible for generations.

The incentives were clear. For decades, major food retailers used their enormous purchasing power to push prices lower and lower throughout their supply chains. As farm-gate prices fell, growers struggled to survive on increasingly thin margins, often by suppressing wages and minimizing labor costs. Combined with weak and infrequent enforcement of labor laws, this created a system in which those who violated workers’ rights were effectively rewarded — whether through wage theft, sexual harassment, or forced labor — and rarely punished for their crimes.

As Warren Buffett’s longtime investor partner Charlie Munger famously said, “Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcomes.” That principle applies as much to farm labor management systems as it does to financial markets. When economic pressures encourage abuse and legal protections are weakly enforced, exploitation flourishes. But the reverse is also true. When protecting workers is rewarded, and violations carry meaningful consequences, outcomes change. Abuses decline, accountability increases, and the possibility of a world without victims comes into view.

That is not merely a theory.

Since the launch of the Fair Food Program in 2010, incentives on participating farms have been fundamentally transformed. By leveraging the purchasing power of participating buyers, the FFP rewards growers who comply with its labor standards through continued business and preferential purchasing, while growers who violate workers’ rights risk losing access to major markets.

Just as importantly, the program protects workers who report violations. Retaliation itself is a serious violation that can jeopardize a grower’s relationships with some of the largest food buyers in the world. The result is a powerful system of worker-driven monitoring that ensures abuses are identified quickly and violators face real consequences. As a result, forced labor, sexual violence, and other severe human rights abuses have been effectively eliminated on participating farms for nearly two decades.

That is the “Power of Prevention” in action.

Central to the program’s success are the CIW’s legally binding agreements with participating buyers, who commit to preferentially purchasing from suppliers that comply with the FFP’s labor standards and suspending purchases from those who don’t. These market incentives helped transform Florida’s tomato industry from what federal prosecutors once called “ground zero for modern-day slavery” into what one human rights expert described on the front page of The New York Times as “the best workplace environment in U.S. agriculture.” No comparable system exists elsewhere in American agriculture.

Had the Fair Food Program been operating on the melon farms involved in the U.S. v. Moreno case, its protections and enforcement mechanisms would have dispelled the climate of fear among workers and detected even minor abuses before they escalated into forced labor. Yet buyers of those melons, including Kroger, continue to reject participation in the program. Instead, they rely on a failed model of voluntary standards and social audits that has repeatedly proven incapable of protecting workers or preventing abuse.

That is why nationwide expansion of the Fair Food Program is so urgently needed.

As Fair Food allies, you play an indispensable role in expanding the market power behind the program. By making your voices heard in executive offices and corporate boardrooms, you help pressure companies to take responsibility for labor conditions in their supply chains.  Farmworkers need your continued support to ensure that companies such as Kroger, Publix, and Wendy’s embrace genuine, worker-driven social responsibility and join the Fair Food Program.

Stay tuned for an upcoming digital action where you can help call on more corporate buyers — including Kroger, Publix, and Wendy’s — to join the Fair Food Program.

Researchers are increasingly digitizing plant and fungi specimens and using A.I. to analyze them, work that is transforming conservation science, according to a new report.

Read more on E360 →

The South Carolina Public Service Commission dismissed calls from the Sierra Club to impose a cost cap on the Canadys project or require the utilities to commit to retiring coal-fired units.

Urban planners can now pinpoint exactly where in a city increased housing density will make the biggest difference on shortening car commutes. That’s the promise of a new study in which researchers used urban big data and AI to hone densification strategies for six cities around the world.

It’s pretty well established that the best way to get city dwellers to drive less is to change characteristics of the built environment such as city shape, size, and density, rather than simply hectoring them to reduce their carbon emissions. But past studies have been unable to establish causal relationships between specific aspects of urban form and car travel. They also miss the smaller picture—neighborhood-level differences—and the bigger one—how these patterns differ across various regions of the world.

The new study puts all these pieces together for the first time, the researchers say.  They gathered 10 million data points on morning car commute distances from six metropolises worldwide: Berlin, Boston, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Rio de Janeiro, and Bogotá.

Using a machine learning algorithm, the researchers analyzed how different aspects of urban form —the distance to jobs and the city center, population density, income, and the pattern and interconnectedness of streets—influence the length of car commutes in different neighborhoods in each city.

Because all of the data points are from people traveling to work by car, the study can’t say anything about what makes people abandon their cars entirely and commute to work by bike, on foot, or via public transit. But it does provide hints about how to reduce the length of trips that are made by car.

 

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Across cities, the distance to jobs and the city center matters more than population density or street connectivity in determining the length of car commutes. But where and how strongly these effects occur varies from city to city, revealing new urban planning strategies. What’s more, metropolises themselves aren’t monoliths: some policies are helpful in particular parts of a city, but not city-wide.

“The importance of high access implies that new housing should be located as close to the center as possible, highlighting the relevance of compact development,” the researchers write. “While this strategy is relevant for all cities, it requires context-specific adaptation.”

In urban regions with a single, defined core such as Berlin and Boston, the best place to increase housing density is in a ring around the center where there’s room for infill development but the city center is still easily accessible. In the case of Boston, for example, this zone occurs about 10-21 kilometers from the city center.

Meanwhile, in cities with multiple centers like Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, the best strategy is to build more housing in areas with high concentration of jobs.

In each city, the researchers identified specific areas where lack of density is a bigger factor than distance to the center in increasing car commutes. Those are the places where strategic densification will make the biggest difference, the researchers argue.

Using a similar methodology to analyze other modes of transport and trips throughout the day, not just during the morning commute, would build a fuller picture of opportunities to reduce carbon emissions from urban transport, the researchers say.

Source: Wagner F. et al. “Refining urban typologies: causal insights into urban form, car commuting, and related CO2 emissions.” Environmental Research Letters 2026.

Image: Getty Images for Unsplash+.

Three reports published Monday lay out recommendations for development of an offshore transmission system and highlight the potential for high voltage direct current technology.

Dark clouds are gathering over adaptation finance. The US has all but stopped providing it and European countries are slashing their aid budgets to spend more on their militaries. Much of what is flowing comes in the form of loans and doesn’t reach the most vulnerable, as we’ve reported.

Over the years, one bright spark has been the Adaptation Fund and its grants to developing countries for pioneering work in communities. It has allocated $1.6 billion to 226 projects, benefiting 90 million people, its website says. And, while rich nations are failing to give the fund all the money it needs to finance its growing pipeline, new revenues are supposed to come in from the Paris Agreement’s new carbon market, known as Article 6.4.

Back at COP26 in Glasgow, governments agreed that the Adaptation Fund should get 5% of the proceeds from all Article 6.4 carbon credits – other than those based in small islands and least developed countries.

How much money that will amount to is uncertain. It depends on how many projects there are and the price of their credits. 

The fund got over $200 million from a similar share of proceeds under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), although the price of those credits collapsed. 

While $200 million was a disappointment as ten times that was expected, the Adaptation Fund head Mikko Ollikainen told Climate Home News in Bonn that the sum was “not insignificant”. By comparison, the fund has been seeking $300 million per year from donor governments in recent years.

Hopes are that the CDM’s successor will yield bigger sums for adaptation. But for the fund to get its hands on the share of cash it is expecting from Article 6.4 projects , governments need to agree to transition the fund to “exclusively” serve the Paris Agreement. They are hoping to wrap up those talks in Bonn this week, so that they can rubber-stamp the decision early at COP31.

• Jun 15, 2026 News Bonn Bulletin: Finance dominates discussions in every room Lack of progress on finance issues – including putting a number on the new goal to triple adaptation funding – is causing blockages across negotiating tracks at UN climate talks Read more
• Jun 12, 2026 Sponsored Climate adaptation helps African nations tackle rising conflict over resources The growing overlap between insecurity and climate vulnerability is forcing governments and development agencies to rethink adaptation efforts Read more

It has not been plain-sailing. As small islands’ lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen told a press conference on Tuesday, this transition “is being blocked, frustrating efforts to replenish the fund and ensure that the crucial adaptation finance can flow to those that need it the most”.

This issue, along with other finance complaints, leads small islands “to question whether the implementation of the NCQG [the 2035 finance goal agreed at COP29] is dead on arrival”, she added.

The problem is related to who is considered a developed country at UN climate talks, with the responsibilities for providing climate finance that designation implies.

Traditional donor countries, which have been pushing for years for some wealthier developing countries like Saudi Arabia and China to contribute to climate finance as well, want the Adaptation Fund’s board seats to be split between “developed” and “developing” countries. 

They argue that these are the categories referred to in the Paris Agreement and so are appropriate for a fund that exclusively serves that accord.

Developing countries – which have long opposed any of their members being considered developed – argue that the board seats should continue to be split between “Annex 1” and “non-Annex 1” countries. 

These categories, based on lists of nations drawn up in 1992, are more rigid than “developed” and “developing”. While development status can change over time, you’re either on the Annex 1 list or you’re not.

Ollikainen said a delay in agreement beyond COP31 – a risk if the issue is not resolved here in Bonn – would harm people in the real world where adaptation needs are rising sharply while the money to protect them from worsening climate impacts is not.

“If we don’t address adaptation,” the fund’s head told Climate Home News, “that will lead to loss and damage and that’s going to be even more costlier than adaptation – and the cost will be borne by people who have done least to cause this problem who typically don’t have social safety networks to support them.”

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