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This story is from Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. Sign up for Floodlight’s newsletter here.”

From her home in Donaldsonville in the southern US state of Louisiana, less than three miles from the world’s largest ammonia plant, Ashley Gaignard says the air itself carries a chemical edge. 

The odour, she said, is sharp and lingering. Years ago, when her son attended a school about a mile from the massive CF Industries ammonia production facility, he would begin wheezing during breaks from class, she recalled. His breathing problems eased only after he transferred to a school several miles farther away.

“I’m not against progress,” Gaignard said. “We are against development that poisons and displaces and disregards human life.”

Now, along Louisiana’s Mississippi River corridor, fertiliser giant CF Industries and other companies are placing multibillion-dollar bets on “blue ammonia” — a product made from fossil fuels but with extra technology to capture planet-warming gases and pipe them underground for storage. 

Ashley Gaignard points toward smoke stacks that are part of the CF Industries plant in Donaldsonville, La. That plant emits more air pollutants than all but one other facility nationwide, EPA data show. (Sean Gardner for Floodlight)

To date, no commercial-scale blue ammonia plants are operating — but more than 20 have been proposed nationwide, according to Oil and Gas Watch. Four of the largest such plants are slated for Louisiana, in communities already saturated with petrochemical pollution. 

An extensive review by Floodlight found no evidence that existing carbon capture projects anywhere in the world have achieved anything close to the emissions cuts companies like CF Industries are promising. Permit documents, meanwhile, show that the proposed plants combined could be allowed to discharge more than 2,800 tons each year of air pollutants (not greenhouse gases), including more than 400 tons of ammonia. 

Classified as a highly hazardous chemical, ammonia can damage the lungs and hurt the skin, eyes and throat. In the air, it can form fine particles that are linked to increased risks of heart disease and stroke, and can be deadly — particularly for children, older adults and people with heart or lung disease. 

The Louisiana plants would also be allowed to release carcinogens, including benzene and formaldehyde.

The companies proposing those plants — CF Industries, Air Products, Clean Hydrogen Works and St. Charles Clean Fuels — have said their operations will provide an abundant source of clean fertiliser and clean energy to global markets, including countries whose climate and trade policies favor low-carbon fuels. They’ve also said they’ll create nearly 840 permanent jobs and millions in new tax revenue for local communities while prioritising public health and safety.

The CF Industries complex in Donaldsonville is the world’s largest ammonia and nitrogen plant. (Ted Auch / FracTracker Alliance, 2024; with aerial support by SouthWings)

“We are designing the facility with advanced emissions controls, robust monitoring systems, and strong operational practices to minimise impacts,” said Chandra Stacie, the director of community relations for St. Charles Clean Fuels. “Our goal is to operate responsibly and be a constructive, long-term partner.”

Environmental advocates, scientists and community members, however, say the new ammonia plants would delay the phase-out of fossil fuels — and bring substantial air pollution and safety risks to places that have long borne the health costs of America’s industrial economy. 

Why Louisiana became ground zero

While the historic streets of Donaldsonville recently served as the backdrop to the 2025 blockbuster Sinners, the town’s real-life drama is far less cinematic.

Donaldsonville lies at the center of Cancer Alley, a chemical corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans known for its elevated health risks and dense concentration of petrochemical plants and refineries.

Now this stretch of Louisiana is also ground zero for a new buildout: four proposed blue ammonia plants, with several more planned for Texas.

So, why the Gulf Coast?

South Louisiana has abundant natural gas for ammonia production and ports that connect to international shipping routes. 

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The state offers an existing pipeline network, a seasoned chemical-industry workforce and political leaders who have consistently favored industrial development. The companies proposing ammonia plants can also tap generous state and federal incentives, including more than $2 billion in federal tax credits for carbon capture projects.

The Inflation Reduction Act, former President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, allows companies to collect up to $85 for each ton of carbon captured and permanently stored. 

And the state of Louisiana is offering developers millions more in grants and tax breaks designed to spur economic development. 

Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University who has studied carbon capture systems for years, said there’s little to be gained — and much to lose — from making ammonia this way.

“These plants increase air pollution, they increase global warming … they increase not only energy costs, but total social costs, and so there’s zero benefit — except to the people who are taking the subsidies to implement these projects,” he said.

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The scale of subsidies for the proposed Louisiana ammonia plants is “off-the-charts outrageous” — and amounts to a bad deal for taxpayers, said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that tracks and analyzes economic development projects. The plants are unlikely to deliver anything close to $2 billion a year in public benefits, he said. 

“It can only be accurately called a massive transfer of wealth from U.S. taxpayers to corporate shareholders,” he said.

Ambitious pitches, tougher reality

Ammonia has long been a workhorse of the global economy, quietly underpinning modern agriculture. It’s the key ingredient in nitrogen fertiliser, and demand is expected to grow as global food production strains to keep pace with population growth. 

Now, producers say it could play a far larger role — not just as fertiliser, but as a climate-friendly fuel for ships and power plants. 

Researchers at Sandia Labs explore using solar power-generated heat to produce ammonia. Using renewable energy to create ammonia instead of fossil fuels can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, researchers say. (Craig Fritz / Sandia Labs Flickr)

When it’s burned as a fuel, ammonia doesn’t emit carbon dioxide (though it can produce nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas roughly 270 times more potent than carbon dioxide).

It can also be burned with other fuels in power plants or potentially used to store hydrogen for shipping and later conversion for use in fuel cells. 

But the process commonly used to make ammonia carries a heavy climate cost.

Most production relies on hydrogen derived from natural gas, a process that releases carbon dioxide. Enormous amounts of energy — typically from fossil fuels — are then used to force hydrogen and nitrogen to combine under extreme heat and pressure.

Nitrogen fertilizer plants in the U.S. released more than 46 million tons of heat-trapping gases in 2021 — roughly the emissions of nine million cars running for a year — according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project. Globally, almost 2% of carbon dioxide emissions come from making ammonia — or as much as the energy system emissions of South Africa, according to the International Energy Agency. 

That’s where carbon capture comes in. The companies planning blue ammonia plants say they will isolate most of the carbon dioxide released, piping it deep underground for permanent storage.

Texas-based Clean Hydrogen Works says its Ascension Clean Energy project, slated for Donaldsonville, will produce up to 7.2 million tons of ammonia annually and will capture “up to 98 percent” of the carbon dioxide produced.

Nearby, CF Industries and the Pennsylvania-based Air Products plan to build two plants they say will have capture rates of 95% or more.

About an hour to the east, the St. Charles Clean Fuels project would capture more than 99% of carbon dioxide generated, its developer says.

Those claims are unlikely to hold up, said Cornell University professor Robert Howarth, an expert on greenhouse gas emissions and ammonia pollution. 

“Is the industry correct in saying that they can produce a really, really low emissions fuel using natural gas as their original feedstock?” he asked. “The answer is no. It’s just never been done, and I don’t think it can be done.”

CF Industries has been in Louisiana for over 50 years. Its Donaldsonville Complex occupies 1,400 acres. (Sean Gardner for Floodlight)

The majority of existing carbon capture facilities trap less than 60% of carbon dioxide, according to a 2023 review by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “No existing project has consistently captured more than 80% of carbon,” the institute found.

Blue hydrogen — a prerequisite for blue ammonia — “is neither clean nor low-carbon,” and pursuing it would divert time and money from more effective climate solutions, the institute concluded. 

In an email to Floodlight, Air Products spokesperson Christina Stephens said the company is “very confident in our proprietary technology that allows us to capture 95 percent of the CO2 emissions.” She did not elaborate.

Stacie, the St. Charles Clean Fuels representative, said its facility’s design will be “conducive to high capture rates.”

Experts also note that carbon capture itself is typically powered by natural gas, adding emissions and undercutting its climate benefits.

Compounding the problem are emissions of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Methane is frequently emitted during drilling, processing and transport of natural gas. More escapes in the process used to extract hydrogen for ammonia production.

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Total methane emissions from the fertilizer industry could be more than 140 times higher than official estimates, one 2019 study found.

Stephens, the Air Products spokesperson, said the company believes previous research related to methane leakage has flaws that led to inaccurate conclusions.

Stacie, meanwhile, said St. Charles Clean Fuels will monitor and verify methane emissions through “operations control and third-party verification consistent with emerging best practices.”

The local cost of a global fuel

Even if blue ammonia plants deliver the climate benefits their backers promise — benefits that experts dispute — their local impacts could still be substantial.

In 2024, the CF Industries Donaldsonville plant — near Gaignard’s house — released more toxic air pollutants than all but one other industrial site nationally, according to EPA data. The 7.1 million pounds of ammonia the plant released that year would more than fill the New Orleans Superdome, according to Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist for the Environmental Integrity Project.

Emissions from the planned blue ammonia plants could worsen respiratory health, Terrell said, with impacts extending far beyond the plant sites. 

“I would be concerned about increasing asthma rates long term,” she said.

Ascension Parish, where three of the proposed blue ammonia plants would be built, hosts more than two dozen industrial facilities and already has the second highest amount of air emissions in the country, according to EPA data.

So the prospect of new ammonia plants in Ascension Parish worries Twila Collins. 

She has lived her entire 55-year life in Modeste, a historic, predominantly Black community along the Mississippi River. If CF Industries gets its way, a massive ammonia plant would rise roughly a mile from her home. 

Twila Collins poses for a photo inside her home in Modeste, a small Louisiana community next to the Mississippi River. She’s concerned about the potential health and safety dangers of a proposed CF Industries blue ammonia plant. (Sean Gardner for Floodlight)

Her message for the company is blunt: “Leave us alone and find somewhere else to go where there’s nobody living, so you won’t disrupt a community.”

Industrial pollution already drifts into her neighborhood, bringing smells “like a landfill,” she said, and a new ammonia plant would add another layer of pollution — and another set of health risks.

In a 2024 report, CF Industries said its employees “regularly maintain, replace, and update equipment” to reduce emissions. 

But under its draft permit for the Blue Point plant, the company would be allowed to release more than 1,100 tons of air pollutants each year — equivalent to the weight of more than 27 fully loaded tractor trailers. That includes more than 140 tons of ammonia and more than 580 tons of carbon monoxide.

Collins said she can name more than 30 people in Modeste who suffer from cancer or respiratory problems. The issue is deeply personal. She herself has struggled with cancer. And in 2002, her 9-year-old son died of an asthma attack. He had struggled with asthma all his life, but Collins still wonders whether the industrial pollution surrounding Modeste helped trigger the attack that killed him.

She also worries about what could go wrong if something fails — an accident, a leak or worse — because ammonia production and carbon dioxide transport involve well-documented industrial risks.

CF Industries’ Donaldsonville plant has a history of deadly accidents: a 2000 explosion and fire killed three workers and injured at least eight others, and a 2013 blast killed one worker and injured eight more. 

This past November, an explosion at another CF Industries plant in Yazoo City, Miss., led to an ammonia leak and prompted the evacuation of nearby residents.

Residents push back

While supporters emphasise the economic boost and high-paying jobs the projects could bring, many local residents have turned out at public hearings to oppose them.

So many people packed a hearing room on the St. Charles project in 2024 that it had to be canceled and rescheduled in a larger venue.

Some of the public fears have centered on the carbon dioxide pipelines that would be needed to make the projects work.

Air Products, for instance, has proposed piping millions of tons of carbon dioxide 38 miles to be stored a mile underneath Lake Maurepas. The project would be “the world’s largest permanent carbon dioxide sequestration endeavor to date,” according to the Louisiana Department of Economic Development. 

At a November 2025 public hearing, many Louisiana residents raised health and safety concerns about Air Products’ plan to build a large blue ammonia plant in Ascension Parish. (US Army Corps of Engineers via Wikimedia Commons)

At a November public hearing on the project, Air Products vice president Andrew Connolly said the company has an “unsurpassed safety record.” 

“All pipelines will be monitored 24-7 and we will meet or exceed all pipeline regulations,” he said. 

More than 300 people turned out for that public hearing, according to Dustin Renaud, a spokesperson for the environmental law group Earthjustice. Among the more than 50 people who spoke, all but three opposed the project.

Opponents have warned of what could happen if a carbon dioxide pipeline ruptures, as happened in 2020 in Satartia, Mississippi. That disaster sent 45 people to the hospital and left some residents unconscious in their homes and cars. Starved of oxygen, cars stalled or couldn’t start, making evacuation difficult.

A carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured on Feb. 22, 2020, in Satartia, Miss., leaving this crater and prompting an evacuation. (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency)

The Air Products pipeline would run within half a mile of Sorrento Primary School, an elementary school in Ascension Parish with more than 600 students. An expert hired by Earthjustice concluded that a pipeline rupture could endanger the schoolchildren, along with residents of a nearby subdivision.

Stephens, the Air Products spokesperson, said the company will run the pipeline deeper than is required by code in the school’s vicinity. The pipeline will also have more shutoff valves than required, she said.

“We have a long safe history of operating the largest hydrogen pipeline network in the world right here in Louisiana,” she wrote.

Stacie, the St. Charles Clean Fuels representative, said the company will incorporate “detection systems, automated shutdowns, mechanical integrity programs and emergency response planning” — consistent with federal rules and “lessons learned from prior incidents.”

Still, some residents worry. 

“We don’t have a good evacuation route,” said St. James Parish resident Gail LeBoeuf, who co-founded the environmental justice group Inclusive Louisiana. “If something would happen, we would just be stuck like Chuck.”

The companies behind the blue ammonia projects have said they will bring jobs and millions of dollars into the state economy — a message that has found a receptive audience in the state capital and some city halls.

CF Industries did not respond to Floodlight’s questions about its proposed plant, while Clean Hydrogen Works declined to answer questions.

Amid public opposition, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry in October announced a moratorium on new carbon capture projects. The order halted the state’s review of new permits for projects that would inject carbon dioxide underground, while allowing existing applications to continue — including the blue ammonia projects already underway.

A lower-carbon alternative

There are cleaner ways to make ammonia.

Instead of extracting hydrogen from natural gas and then trying to capture the CO₂, producers can use renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. That “green hydrogen” can then be combined with nitrogen to make what’s known as “green ammonia.”

At least one large-scale green ammonia plant is already operating. In Chifeng, China, a facility powered by wind turbines and solar panels began industrial-scale production in 2025. By 2028, the plant is expected to produce 1.5 million tons of green ammonia annually.

In the U.S., developers have proposed green ammonia plants in Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington. 

“Instead of making this big labyrinth of pipes and equipment and sending CO2 everywhere and using more energy, you can simply produce that hydrogen with electricity from solar and wind,” said Jacobson, the Stanford professor. 

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In the debate over blue ammonia, the stakes are high.

For ammonia producers, the projects promise billions in federal tax credits and a foothold in emerging energy markets. They also offer oil and gas companies a way to delay the phase-out of fossil fuels, critics say.

“It’s a great way to lock in oil and gas infrastructure. … Something that we should be getting away from, as opposed to locking in for years and years to come,” said Alexandra Shaykevich, a research manager at the Environmental Integrity Project who tracks oil and gas projects. 

For residents along Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, the stakes are more immediate. They’re being asked to live with new plants, new pipelines and new risks in places that have already absorbed decades of pollution. 

But Gaignard plans to keep fighting for her community.

“I don’t look at this as red and blue and the left and the right,” she said. “We need to start looking at humanity.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

The post As Louisiana bets big on ‘blue ammonia’, communities brace for air pollution appeared first on Climate Home News.

CALGARY — The Pembina Institute is releasing a list of four specific outcomes that need to emerge from the ongoing talks between Alberta and the federal government that began with the signing of a memorandum of understanding in November.“This list is...

Nurses at USC Keck Hospital and Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles, Calif. will begin a seven-day strike on Thursday, Feb. 19 over USC’s proposal to restructure employee health care plans, potentially overloading an already strained network, leading to longer wait times and delayed care for both employees and existing patients.

Felix Wertli is the Swiss Ambassador for the Environment

At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, countries sent a long-awaited political signal by agreeing to “transition away from fossil fuels” in energy systems. For the first time, the direction of travel was acknowledged collectively. Yet, this signal remains abstract. What matters now is the implementation that supports development, energy access, and economic transformation.

The transition away from fossil fuels offers opportunities: it can create jobs, strengthen energy security and advance sustainable development, including universal access to affordable and reliable energy. At the same time, the implementation challenges are significant and unevenly distributed across geographies. It requires large-scale investment, careful management of shifting price structures, and safeguards to prevent economic disruption and social instability. This is why countries agreed in Dubai that the transition must be just, orderly and equitable.

Against this backdrop, Brazil’s proposal to develop a roadmap to operationalise the transition away from fossil fuels was both timely and necessary. Supported by more than 80 countries, it responded to a clear gap in the international process: the absence of guidance on how to move from political commitment to implementation. The proposal did not reach consensus, due to opposition from a number of highly fossil-fuel dependent countries. They were concerned that a roadmap could translate political commitments into tangible expectations and measures and could pressure them to transition faster than their economies can sustain.

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This outcome illustrates a broader challenge within the UNFCCC. The problem is no longer a lack of negotiated ambition. It is the growing disconnect between agreed objectives and the collective ability to implement them. 

Brazil’s decision to proceed by launching two roadmaps in its own capacity, one on transitioning away from fossil fuels and one on halting deforestation, therefore deserves strong support. This approach supports multilateralism. It recognises that complementary initiatives are sometimes necessary to advance implementation among a coalition of the willing, especially when formal processes stall and full consensus is not possible. 

Developing the roadmap outside the COP process allows countries willing to engage constructively to move faster, provide greater clarity and focus on practical solutions, without being bound by the consensus rule. Importantly, such an initiative should be understood as a complement to the UNFCCC, not a substitute, and as a mean to inform future multilateral decisions.

How roadmaps can succeed

For the roadmap to succeed, several conditions must be met.

First, ownership must be shared. Participating countries need to see their national circumstances, development priorities and constraints reflected in the process. This requires collective leadership. Brazil’s role should be that of a convener and facilitator, not a single agenda-setter. The upcoming meeting co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands on the Just Transition Away from Fossil fuels offers an important opportunity to shape the roadmap collaboratively from the outset.

Second, the roadmap should be global, but not necessarily universal. All countries should be invited to participate, with constructive engagement as the sole entry criterion. Universal participation is not required at the beginning. What matters is broad representation across regions and levels of development, including a critical mass of G20 members, to ensure political relevance and economic weight. Countries should also be able to join at later stages as confidence in the process grows.

Third, partnerships must extend beyond environment ministries. For many countries, the transition away from fossil fuels is inseparable from questions of industrial policy, fiscal stability and energy security. Energy, finance and economy ministries should therefore also be involved. Engagement with sub-national actors, the private sector, and international organisations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), OECD, existing coalitions like “Beyond Oil and Gas (BOGA) and think-tanks like the World Resources Institute (WRI) can further strengthen the roadmap’s impact.

Fourth, the roadmap must be a sustained process, not a one-off report. Experience shows that standalone reports rarely change outcomes. What is needed is an ongoing platform for dialogue, learning and cooperation, including among fossil fuel–producing countries.

Fifth, linkages to the UNFCCC process should be explicit. The second Global Stocktake in 2028 could serve as a natural milestone to reflect progress, extract lessons and feed relevant elements of the roadmap back into the multilateral process, helping to inform the next generation of nationally determined contributions.

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Finally, the roadmap must adopt a broad, economy-wide perspective. Even in the absence of binding targets, clear signals and concrete measures can shape markets and guide investment decisions. The roadmap should help clarify what the transition implies for public and private investment, trade, subsidies and public support. It should address critical issues such as new fossil fuel investments, inefficient subsidies or stranded assets. It must tackle significant barriers, e.g. the reduction of the costs of capital across the various geographic regions to increase investment flows. 

It should also define the roles of key actors, including multilateral development banks, in de-risking investments, crowding in private capital and supporting enabling policy environments. Just as importantly, the roadmap should serve as a platform for voluntary commitments and facilitate technical assistance and capacity-building.

If designed well, the roadmap can become an enabling instrument, which can support planning and investment and build on the momentum we see in the real economy. It can be one that helps countries to develop credible national transition pathways and send political signals. At a moment when trust in multilateral processes is fragile, it can also demonstrate that pragmatic, inclusive cooperation remains possible. It is not about additional obligations, but about gaining the clarity, support and policy space needed to deliver a just and sustainable transition.

The post What we need to see in the roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.

Microscopic particles of plastic have been found across the Earth, from the clouds over Mount Fuji to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Now, scientists have found microplastics in the bellies of Antarctic midges, the only insects found exclusively in Antarctica.

Read more on E360 →

As a Ship Security Officer (SSO), it is crucial to understand and implement security protocols in order to maintain the safety and security of the ship, its crew, and passengers. In this guide, we will discuss the various security protocols that SSOs should be familiar with.

For those ready to take it on, a ship security officer course provides the essential grounding. But the daily work rests on a handful of clear protocols that keep ships safe from harbor to horizon.

Control the gangway:a

Every person who steps aboard must earn that right. The gangway is the only door to the ship, and it must be treated like one. No unchecked bags. No unverified visitors. Every crew member must know that letting someone slip by without a pass is not kindness, it is a failure. A strict sign in system and a visible officer at the top of the ramp sends a clear message.

Lock what matters:

Engine rooms, steering gear compartments, and bridge wings hold the ship’s nerve centres. These spaces need solid locks and regular checks. An open door might save a few seconds during a work shift, but it invites trouble from anyone wandering where they do not belong. Keys must be controlled. Masters and spares must be accounted for. Small discipline here prevents large disasters.

Drill until it is habit:

Paper plans are useless if crew members freeze when an alarm sounds. Regular drills turn written procedures into muscle memory. Everyone should know their assembly station, their buddy, and the sound of the security alarm. Drills also reveal gaps. A missing torch here, a broken lock there. Fixing these in calm water means they are fixed for good.

Scan the horizon:

Eyes do not stop working when the ship leaves port. Suspicious boats approaching too close, small craft hovering without purpose, or unusual behavior from a following vessel all deserve attention. The officer of the watch must know what looks wrong and when to call the captain. Vigilance is free. The cost of missing a threat is not.

Guard the cargo:

Piracy gets headlines, but cargo theft drains millions in silence. Secure hatches, sealed containers, and accurate counts are the first line of defense. Random spot checks and surprise inspections keep everyone honest. When cargo is handled in multiple ports, the chain of custody must stay tight from the first lift to the final drop.

A business trip abroad. A family holiday. A remote work retreat. Every journey carries hidden variables. The best plans account for flights, hotels, and meetings, but what about the unexpected? A stolen laptop. A sudden protest near the hotel. A medical emergency in an unfamiliar city.

These moments test the traveler. The difference between panic and composure often comes down to one thing: awareness. When people understand what to look for, they become active partners in their own safety. This is what travel risk management provides you with.

Spotting trouble before it starts:

Awareness begins with observation. Travelers trained to notice small details see the man loitering in the lobby without luggage. They sense when a crowd is forming for no clear reason. This early warning gives them time to move away or alert security. It turns ordinary people into the first line of defense.

Protecting devices in public spaces:

Airports, cafes, and co working spaces are hotspots for digital theft. A aware traveler never leaves a laptop unattended, even for a moment. They use privacy screens on planes and keep devices locked with strong passwords. Public charging stations are avoided in favor of personal power banks. These small habits stop data loss before it happens.

Choosing safer routes and transport:

Ride sharing apps and taxis are convenient but not always safe. Security aware travelers verify license plates before getting in. They share their trip location with a trusted contact and sit in the back seat behind the driver. At night, they choose well lit, busy streets over shortcuts through empty areas.

Controlling what is shared online:

Posting a beach photo from the airport announces an empty home to the world. Aware travelers wait until they return to share holiday pictures. They disable location tagging and check that family members do the same. Social media becomes a highlight reel, not a live feed of their movements.

Preparing for medical and health needs:

Awareness includes knowing the body. Travelers research whether their prescriptions are legal at the destination. They carry a small medical kit and know the address of the nearest clinic. Those with allergies learn the words for their condition in the local language before they arrive.

Security awareness is not a burden. It is a skill that becomes second nature. When travelers carry this mindset with them, they move through the world with confidence.

The Food & Society Program at the Aspen Institute recently launched their Food is Medicine Community Action Plan. The plan builds upon the work that began with Food & Society’s Research Action Plan published in 2022 and revised in 2024, this time providing tangible ways for community-based organizations (CBOs) to develop and launch food-based health interventions that address food and nutrition insecurity while improving health.

The Food is Medicine Community Action Plan includes case studies, collaborative knowledge sharing, a community action framework, and partner resources and toolkits. It provides a blueprint for communities to take Food is Medicine from concept into practice.

“This resource is designed for organizations at any stage of their Food is Medicine journey…by sharing proven strategies and community-centered approaches, the Action Plan aims to speed up the growth of Food is Medicine programs nationwide,” Corby Kummer, Food & Society’s Executive Director, tells Food Tank.

The Community Action Plan is rooted in community needs, and created through partnerships with organizations across the U.S. Through three convenings, in Boston, Tulsa, and Tucson, Food & Society heard from practitioners and community leaders about their experience implementing Food is Medicine principles in their work.

At these convenings, participants brought their on-the-ground expertise with them, collaborating honestly and openly to create the Action Plan. Faith-based groups, food banks, health care providers, and medically tailored meal providers, are among those the plan convened and hopes to reach.

But scaling Food is Medicine is not without its hurdles, Kummer says. “The biggest challenge, which we explored at our convening in Boston, highlighted inconsistent resources to implement these programs.”

Kummer says that funding, and the interests of various stakeholders, are essential to keep in mind when working to scale Food is Medicine initiatives. During community convenings, one participant pushed back on the idea that Food is Medicine is linked to poverty and hunger. 

While Kummer believes Food is Medicine and food security are “inextricably intertwined,” he understands that making the case to some stakeholders requires advocates to couch arguments “in terms of health.” Until payers—those responsible for medical care’s cost—understand the cost savings that come when eaters’ wellbeing improves, they “are not going to be convinced or interested” he says.

The Action Plan is coming at a time where Food is Medicine is gaining greater national political traction, and Kummer believes the focus from Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission offers an opportunity. He does not agree with all recommendations from MAHA, citing issues with their guidance on saturated fats as an example. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently called for an end to the “war on saturated fats,” stating that past dietary guidelines wrongly discouraged their consumption. 

But Kummer tells Food Tank this is a moment worth seizing: “Nutrition and fewer ultra-processed foods and more whole foods have the attention of the very top policymakers in government.” It’s important to look at the bigger picture, he says, and push for funding for things like getting ultra-processed foods out of school lunches.

Scaling Food is Medicine also requires intermediaries between CBOs and health care companies—a need that Kummer says everyone can agree on. A large health care payer does not have the capacity or vested interest to pay attention to many small organizations. That’s why intermediary organizations work to unite small CBOs across an area, which allows the organizations to be more visible to a larger healthcare payer. This is already happening in New York City, with the 1115 Medicaid waiver, which enables healthcare money to go towards food, and Social Emergency Medicine networks (SEM) that serve as “in-between” organizations.

The Food is Medicine Community Action Plan hopes to serve as its own kind of bridge, bringing practical steps to communities that need them. For an organization that wants to implement its own Food is Medicine program to support the local community, Kummer paraphrases Amy Headings and Jennifer Parsons of the Mid-Ohio Food Collective. “Start with leadership commitment, build broad coalitions, integrate across your organization, keep it simple, and focus on progress over perfection.”

“Nutrition and food are part of the national conversation, in a way they haven’t been,” Kummer tells Food Tank. “It’s a really exciting moment with a lot of potential.”

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Photo Courtesy of Zoe Richardson, Unsplash 

The post Aspen Institute Launches Community Roadmap to Scale Food is Medicine appeared first on Food Tank.

In April 2026, Colombia and the Netherlands will bring together a “coalition of the willing” governments and partners in Santa Marta to advance a roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels. Carbon Tracker is contributing through the associated Global Science & Policy Conference, an academic convening immediately before the governmental conference that translates current research and ideas on transition pathways into roadmap options and evidence for the main intergovernmental discussions. 

What is the Santa Marta Process?

The Santa Marta Process is intended to move the fossil fuel phase-out debate from general commitments to practical pathways which can inform an overall roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. It will focus on the real-world challenges: supply and demand, economic and fiscal vulnerabilities, the role of state-owned enterprises, pathways to diversify and decarbonise, the key enabling condition of finance. The process links political decision-making with expert and civil society inputs so that the roadmap reflects both climate objectives and economic realities. 

Why it matters

The Santa Marta conference in April is unprecedented – the first time that a strong group of countries have come together actively to discuss how to transition away from fossil fuels, to meet the goals of the Paris agreement to limit warming. This conference marks the start of an ongoing Santa Marta Process to progress real-world transition, with a second conference envisaged for later this year. The challenge of the transition raises important questions that sit with finance ministries, economic planners, regulators and investors: fiscal reliance on fossil revenues, balance-of-payments exposure, sovereign credit dynamics, and the enabling conditions required to mobilise investment at scale. The Santa Marta Process provides a collaborative forum to address these constraints directly and to test policy and financing approaches against real-world geo-political and economic conditions. 

How Carbon Tracker is contributing

Carbon Tracker is a co-convener of the Global Science & Policy Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels hosted by the Universidad del Magdalena in Santa Marta on 24-25 April 2026. Carbon Tracker will work with universities and partner organisations to provide cutting-edge research and analysis that will inform the decisions governments and finance actors need to make. The purpose of this expert convening is to develop policy-relevant outputs – grounded in evidence – that can inform the roadmap discussions and strengthen the quality of the political decisions. 

What Carbon Tracker brings to the table

Carbon Tracker works at the intersection of the energy transition and capital markets. Our contribution will focus on three areas: 

• Managed decline through a finance and economics lens – Analysis of how different fossil fuel phase-out pathways may affect sovereign credit, fiscal resilience and market pricing of transition risk, including implications for sovereign borrowing costs and access to investors’ capital. 
• Diversification and transition finance enabling conditions – Evidence on the policy and investment conditions that support diversification and mobilise capital to fund clean energy infrastructure at scale, with a focus on the questions typically led by finance ministries, economic planners and regulators. 
• Data and decision support – Scenario-based work (drawing on the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels as a policy tool) to help compare decline pathways. These scenarios are intended to demonstrate the implications of various routes to decabonisation and transition trade-offs, not to prescribe outcomes. 

About the Global Science & Academic Pre-Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels 

The Science Pre-Conference convenes scholars, think tanks and practitioners across economics, political science, law, sociology and related disciplines. It includes outcome-focused workstreams: self-organised workshops designed to produce practical outputs which will feed into the inter-governmental conference proper. Workstreams include central banking, fossil methane, roadmap architecture, labour transition and regional economic diversification, economics and data, and state-owned enterprises, among others. Co-conveners are Universidad del Magdalena; University of British Columbia; University of Sussex; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology Guangzhou; Carbon Tracker Initiative; Climate Strategies; IISD; and LINGO. 

Explore Carbon Tracker key resources relevant to the Santa Marta roadmap 

PetroStates of Decline: oil and gas producers face growing fiscal risks as the energy transition unfolds – fiscal exposure and sovereign risk
https://carbontracker.org/reports/petrostates-of-decline/ 

Switching to battery powered electric vehicles will save the Global South over $100 billion annually – demand-side disruption and oil demand implications
https://carbontracker.org/reports/electric-vehicles-in-the-global-south/ 

Tracking Emissions to Source – methodology underpinning the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels
https://carbontracker.org/reports/tracking-emissions-to-source/ 

Global Registry of Fossil Fuels – overview of the tool and how it is used
https://carbontracker.org/finally-we-have-a-global-registry-of-fossil-fuels/ 

 

For more information, contact the policy team financialpolicy@tracker-group.org  

The post Charting credible pathways to phase out fossil fuels – Santa Marta 2026 appeared first on Carbon Tracker Initiative.

In our latest, we talk again with the great Mickey Huff, director of Project Censored ( @ProjectCensored ) and professor of journalism at Ithaca College. We talk about Project Censored on its…

Bob and Scott celebrate President’s Day with our encore episode from 2025. Listen in: In this episode, they discuss the recent history of the presidency and look at how neoliberals…

A statement from the Chicago Teachers Union on the passing of Ofelia Torres, a 16-year-old junior at Lake View High School:

After months of fighting both cancer and the cruelty of Trump’s unconscionable and inhumane immigration policies, one of our own precious young scholars, Ofelia Torres, has lost her battle with cancer. She passed away just days after her heroic fight for her father’s freedom resulted in an immigration judge offering a potential pathway to citizenship for her father—who was taken by ICE while trying to care for his family. Ofelia’s fight illuminated the fear that has gripped immigrant communities amid the racial profiling, detention of family members and use of deadly force by federal agents, while also struggling with the skyrocketing cost of health care. Her courage and her story will live on at Lake View High School and in the hearts of educators across this city.

For far too long, Trump and his far-right allies have worked to convince the public that immigrant families are somehow the problem. The truth is the opposite: their labor, their love, and their commitment to family and community are part of the backbone of this nation. From the so-called ‘Midway Blitz’ here in Chicago to continued assaults on communities of color in Minnesota and beyond, these actions echo some of the darkest chapters in our history—periods marked by state-sanctioned violence and terror like Chicago’s 1917 Red Summer, the anti-immigrant strikebreaking in Washington state by federal troops in 1919 or the assault on Black folks trying to register to vote throughout the 20th century.

Like the countless stories of family separation during xenophobic and anti-Black periods throughout our nation’s history, Ofelia and her family’s experience is not isolated. It reflects a broader pattern of fear, instability, and inhumanity imposed on people who are our neighbors, our friends, and integral members of our school communities. We grieve this loss deeply, and we recommit ourselves to building a world worthy of the young people we are entrusted to serve.

A student dying of cancer should never have to experience the anxiety and stress that Ofelia endured to ensure her father was treated with humanity and compassion. Rest in Power Ofelia.

Planning consent at the controversial Balcombe oil site in West Sussex has lapsed, officials confirmed today.

Opponents of oil operations outside the Balcombe site in 2013, where the then operator, Cuadrilla, drilled a new well. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent

The site operator had been required to start testing a well drilled more than 10 years ago by last Friday (13 February 2026). It also had to give notice of the work to West Sussex County Council at least a week before the deadline.

DrillOrDrop reported last week that there had been no notification from the current operator, Angus Energy.

Today, we asked West Sussex County Council whether planning permission had lapsed if no work on the well test had begun by the deadline. A spokesperson said:

“Yes, permission has now lapsed”.

We understand there are no other current permissions for the well site in woodland at Lower Stumble.

The council spokesperson also said:

“We have not received any notification about the well test or the Lower Stumble site from Angus Energy or its agents in the past week.”

Asked whether any work had been carried out at the site in the past week, the council said:

“Not that we are aware of”.

We also asked about what action the council would now take. The spokesperson said:

“The county council will consider the operator’s intended next steps and take action as necessary”.

The council said Angus Energy had been expected to make a statement to the financial markets today.

At the time of writing, no online statement has been published.

The Balcombe oil site has been unpopular with many villagers since plans for the new well were first made public in late 2009.

The drilling operation in summer 2013 prompted daily anti-fracking protests and later inspired nationwide campaigns against the UK onshore oil and gas industry.

The village campaign group, Frack Free Balcombe Residents’ Association (FFBRA), took three legal challenges to the Royal Courts of Justice in London against planning permission at the site .

Last week FFBRA said:

“We won’t quite believe it until the deadline has passed but we are counting the days now with growing excitement. We’ve been watching the site closely in the last few weeks and to our great relief it has remained quiet.”

Sue Taylor, a former FFBRA chair said:

“We look forward to West Sussex County Council enforcing the restoration of the site”.

West Sussex’s planning committee unanimously refused permission for the well test in March 2021. This was despite a recommendation to approve by planners.

Angus Energy successfully appealed against the refusal when a planning inspector overturned the council’s decision in February 2023. A condition of the permission set a three-year deadline for the start of work.

There has been limited activity at the Balcombe site since the 2013 drilling.

An oil and gas site in East Yorkshire has got a go-ahead for reservoir stimulation, the site operator announced this morning.

Rathlin Energy said the Environment Agency (EA) had issued a variation to the environmental permit at the West Newton-A site.

The company had sought permission to inject oil-based fluid and proppant into the target reservoir at pressures high enough to fracture rocks.

The proposed operation is designed to improve the flow of oil and gas at the West Newton A2 well at Fosham Road, Marton.

A statement on Rathlin’s website this morning said the permit variation was subject to pre-operational conditions.

The company said:

“This key regulatory milestone clears a major hurdle in the company’s path toward development and eventual production at West Newton, strengthening Rathlin’s ability to advance its UK onshore assets within a responsible environmental and social governance framework.”

Reabold Resources, the major investor in Rathlin, said this morning:

“The Company believes that the planned recompletion of the WNA-2 well is a low risk and low cost activity that will further derisk the project and provide important information in optimising future production wells.

“The Company is confident that West Newton will prove to be an important strategic asset to the UK as the country looks to secure domestic energy supply and affordable energy.”

Last year, opponents of the variation questioned the safety of the process proposed for West Newton-A in the Kirkham Abbey Formation (KAF).

The local campaign group, West Newton Said No, quoted a scientific paper which said the porosity and permeability of the formation “vary significantly over short distances”. This led to “high uncertainties when predicting subsurface fluid flow and posing a massive challenge when reservoir modelling the KAF”, the paper concluded.

Before the West Newton operation can go ahead, the operator will need to submit for approval a hydraulic fracture plan. This must set out how seismic activity would be mitigated and monitored.

The Environment Agency defines reservoir stimulation is also known as “low volume hydraulic fracturing, proppant
squeeze or minifrack”. It said:

“The difference between high-volume hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” and reservoir stimulation is the smaller quantity of fluid used.”

DrillOrDrop asked the industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority, whether there were formal definitions of reservoir and well stimulations. The organisation said:

“The NSTA dos not have formal and separate definitions of well stimulation and reservoir stimulation.”

Permit notice

Variation notice

Decision document

Activity at West Newton-A Photos used with the owner’s consent. 12 February 2026

Local people spotted activity at the West Newton-A site last week (Thursday 12 February 2026) and contacted Rathlin Energy.

A spokesperson for Rathlin said:

“The work you are referring to is routine wellhead maintenance that Rathlin Energy (UK) Limited undertakes annually. This has been done over the last few years in the same way, which is slightly odd that it hasn’t been picked up on/queried previously. The maintenance team has been on site for a couple of days now and will be finished tomorrow I am reliably informed.

“At the moment, I don’t have any update on the reinstatement of the community liaison meetings/comms. As soon as I know more I will, of course, let you know.”

Last week, the Trump administration declared the federal government has no legal authority to regulate greenhouse gases, its latest move aimed at weakening regulations and boosting fossil fuels. And yet, analysts continue to see waning fortunes for miners and drillers.

Read more on E360 →

Eliot Whittington is Executive Director of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Last week, the Trump Administration reversed the critical finding that greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations, a scientific and legal foundation that has underpinned US climate regulations since 2009. 

In doing so, the US government not only lost its ability to regulate emissions from vehicles, power plants and heavy industry, but created massive uncertainty for businesses and jeopardises the benefits of the energy transition. 

This action is the latest step in a growing battle over the future of climate and energy policy that extends far beyond the US borders and is currently increasing challenging UK and European policy makers.  

The so called  “endangerment finding” was based on overwhelming evidence and widely discussed when it was introduced – with over 380,000 public comments. A rigorous analysis or critique would not overturn it, given the huge and still-growing body of evidence showing the impact of emissions.

But repealing the finding is not evidence-based policy making; it is bad policy, terrible economics and incorrect science, driven by an ideology that is seeing the US pour money into uneconomic coal power plants. 

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US firms face uncertainty and regulatory chaos

Even the most powerful politician cannot change scientific reality, and attempts to do so undermine the health, wealth, and safety of Americans and, ultimately, people everywhere. 

Trump has been celebrated by the coal industry as its strongest champion and has thrown his weight behind fossil fuels, but that has not and will not stop the US’s energy transition. Even in his first term, there were record coal retirements, and the US shows no sign of a coal renaissance any time soon. 

Instead, Trump’s actions take a wrecking ball to US regulation, one that is likely to be challenged in court, leaving companies facing years of uncertainty, delaying investment and risking the loss of innovation to global competitors. 

Repealing the “endangerment finding” is a self-inflicted wound to climate action and a strategic error as the energy system is rewired around technologies like solar, wind, electric vehicles, heat pumps, batteries, and digitalised grids. These are increasingly outcompeting fossil fuels on efficiency and cost. 

The US government setting its weight against the market will not hold back the tide, but it will lead to regulatory chaos, cede ground to competitors, and slash the benefits the US could reap. 

Clean technologies outcompete incumbents

While the US has chosen slow innovation and investment in the clean economy, China is pursuing the industries of the future and leading on solar power, batteries, electric vehicles and more.  

New analysis shows its emissions are now flat or possibly even falling and, while it will take time for this clean energy juggernaut to push coal and industry emissions out of the system, the direction of travel is becoming ever clearer. 

China is not just doing this because it is good for the climate. Clean technologies and an electricity-centred economy outcompete the incumbents. 

• Feb 9, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies Beijing is bracing for a tsunami of spent EV batteries by taking steps to boost recycling – a strategy that could also cut its reliance on imports of clean energy minerals Read more
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Analysis by energy think tank Ember shows that these clean, electricity based technologies are three times more efficient than burning fuels. Not only this, but costs are also falling and domestic production bolsters energy security, providing a competitive edge. 

The US will find itself isolated in its return to fossil fuels. In 2024, clean power surpassed 40% of global electricity, led by record solar growth, while electrification is now responsible for almost all the demand growth in road transport and is surging in buildings and parts of industry. 

With China – and a growing group of other emerging markets – progressing in their energy transitions, and the US turning its back, incumbent clean-economy champions, the UK and Europe, seem caught in the headlights, wanting to simultaneously leap forward while also glancing back at supposedly affordable fossil fuel resources.  

It is paramount that they resist the urge to take a leaf from Donald Trump’s book and legislate for a fossil fuel ideal rather than a clean energy reality. Instead, they need to ensure the investment and political will to be brave and walk the road ahead without the US. 

The post As China builds the future, Trump’s repeal of climate finding is self-inflicted wound appeared first on Climate Home News.

A recent report from Health, Environment, Agriculture, and Labor (HEAL) Food Alliance argues that precision agriculture is “a costly distraction” from real climate solutions, and cautions policymakers against overreliance on it to solve agricultural challenges.

Precision agriculture (PA) refers to technologies including GPS, drones, robotics, and AI, used to efficiently apply chemical inputs on specific areas of a field. Public sector investments in PA technologies have been increasing–amounting to about US$11.1 billion in 2021, according to the HEAL Alliance–as corporations and lawmakers suggest that technologies can boost agricultural automation and productivity.

But HEAL’s report calls PA a “false solution that diverts attention and resources away from proven solutions.” They believe that regenerative farming methods such as intercropping, agroforestry, and silvopastoralism are more climate-resilient, and more accessible to small and mid-sized farms.

The wide-spread adoption of PA is a conflation between efficiency and sustainability, Celize Christy, Member Organizing Lead at HEAL, tells Food Tank. She says that while proponents of PA argue innovations can reduce the amount of water or fertilizer used per acre, it doesn’t cut the emissions from these fertilizers.

According to HEAL’s report, precision agriculture technologies were utilized on approximately 50 percent of U.S. corn and soybean acreage by 2010 to 2012. But data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows fertilizer use did not go down over this time—it actually increased. After 30 years of observing developments in the field, the Alliance concludes that there is minimal reliable evidence to support that PA has reduced the use of chemical inputs.

There are also concerns about the resources needed to power PA tools.  According to Christy, as farms harness efficiency through technology, “precision ag might make one farm more efficient, but across the system it drives more extraction of water and energy to power the data centers.”

HEAL finds that the 2,600 U.S. data centers used to operate AI in agriculture were among the top 10 water users in the country’s commercial and industrial sectors as of 2022. The report calls this an example of the Jevons Paradox, the principle that increased resource efficiency can actually lead to an increase in resource consumption in the long-term.

“What [PA] has done is drive consolidation, putting more power and land into the hands of corporation giants like Bayer and John Deere,” Christy tells Food Tank. “Precision ag doesn’t transform agriculture; it just makes industrial systems more efficient at causing harm.”

PA technologies also disproportionately favor large farms, predominantly owned by white farmers, HEAL argues. Due to discriminatory land access and lending practices excluding Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, the U.S. Government Accountability Office finds that BIPOC farmers are more likely to operate small-scale family farms. HEAL also notes that BIPOC farmers are more likely to grow diversified specialty crops with regenerative practices. But their research shows that PA technologies are better suited to large monocropping systems of commodity crops like corn and soybeans. And research published in Journal of Rural Studies states that they can give inaccurate and unreliable assessments for more diversified cropping.

Considering the financial barriers to adopting PA, authors worry that these tools will further exacerbate the deeply-rooted racial and economic equities in agriculture. “High costs and data-driven platforms will push out small BIPOC farmers… it creates a future where farming is dictated by algorithms, not ecosystems,” Christy tells Food Tank. “It’s a model that prioritizes machines over communities, and efficiency over equity, deepening the very crises it claims to solve.”

HEAL calls for policymakers to reckon with the environmental and social costs that accompany the production and use of precision agriculture technologies. They recommend divestment from PA methods and more investment in federal support and incentives for practices that holistically reduce input use. Christy also wants policymakers to promote Farm Bill initiatives that better reach small, diversified, BIPOC producers. “Redirect funding toward practices that regenerate soil, strengthen rural economies, and prioritize equity,” she says.

HEAL also wants to see policymakers have greater oversight in PA use, and more collaboration with small and mid-size farmers to determine what practices benefit their production – including fair labor and pay practices. In turn, collaboration with farmers can support practices that naturally transform farming systems such as agroforestry and silvopasture, cover crops, integrated crops, and livestock production.

The HEAL Alliance already sees biodynamic farming systems, relying on agroecological practices such as intercropping and cover cropping, adopted across the country that have been shown to decrease emissions and increase nutrient availability—reducing reliance on chemical inputs. Now they want to see them adopted at scale.

“Climate solutions should serve communities,” Christy tells Food Tank. “Not corporations.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The post New HEAL Report Calls Precision Agriculture a ‘Distraction’ appeared first on Food Tank.

The cyclone-induced flood that destroyed rice farms across Sumatra, Indonesia in late-November last year, doesn’t show up in any economic model. Neither do the weeks families spent in emergency shelters, or the infections from contaminated water, or the lost harvests farmers will spend years repaying. 

People wade through the floodwater in the aftermath of flash floods at Tukka village, Central Tapanuli, North Sumatra province, on December 2, 2025.  Photo: YT HARIONO / AFP via Getty Images

What does show up is Indonesia’s 5.11% GDP growth in 2025, a number widely deemed as proof the country was thriving. Ironically, the 51.8 trillion rupiah ($3.2 billion) the government is spending to rebuild what the floods destroyed is not really registered as a loss, in the language of economics. Recovery from massive destruction now counts as progress, as long as money changes hands.

This is a core flaw at the heart of how we measure progress in our current global economic and political systems. And now a new study involving 68 climate scientists from 12 countries, reveals we’ve been drastically underestimating the economic toll of climate change.

What we actually mean by “growth”

We hear about progress and economic growth constantly. From headlines to election promises and budget announcements. It’s presented as proof a country is doing well, and if the country is doing well, our lives must be improving too.

In practice, growth actually measures almost entirely one number: GDP, or gross domestic product. It adds up the total value of goods and services produced in a country over a given period. When GDP rises, businesses are assumed to be producing more, hiring more workers, paying more wages. When it falls in hard times, like during the 2009 global financial recession and COVID-19., companies cut back, jobs vanish, incomes shrink.

This pattern has made GDP become the dominant yardstick of success. Governments pursue it, economists track it, politicians campaign on it. What began as a technical economic measure has become shorthand for whether a society is moving forward or falling behind.

Which means key government decisions including budgets, rest on economic models built around the GDP. These models shape how much governments spend on healthcare, housing, schools, transport, climate action and other public services to make life better for ordinary citizens. 

But…the calculations are wrong

Despite their widespread use, economists have long acknowledged that GDP doesn’t measure wellbeing, health, inequality, or quality of life, the actual, vital indicators that show whether people are doing well.

Now, a study led by the University of Exeter has revealed that these models have an additional, critical blind spot: they fail to account for the cascading shocks of climate change which are the extreme events and tipping points that can rapidly unravel livelihoods, infrastructure, and entire economies.

Most economic models treat climate damage as slow, gradual, manageable. They focus on global average temperatures, which are projected to rise steadily from around 1.2°C of heating today toward 2°C in coming decades, and estimate damages based on those smooth trends.

But that’s not how climate impacts unfold in the real world.

Climate change doesn’t raise your local temperature by 1.5°C and wait politely for you to adapt. It floods your city on a Tuesday in March. It burns your forest in a week. It kills your crop in a single heatwave while economists debate smooth curves and average temperatures.

The study shows that we and the systems we rely on suffer most from such sudden shocks and local and regional disasters, not from small, gradual shifts in global average temperaturs. A sudden flood destroys crops, leading to food prices spiking. Power stations go offline so factories shut down. Heatwaves overwhelm hospitals and workers fall ill. Roads and ports close, breaking supply chains. One shock triggers another in what the researchers call “cascading failures.”

A million deaths can look like growth if you measure it so

Going a step further, the study also argues that GDP-based metrics give a fundamentally warped picture of progress because they miss what matters most to people: lives, health, ecosystems, social stability. In fact, after disasters, GDP can even rise because rebuilding and emergency spending count as ‘economic activity’. Destruction can register as success, and this is dangerous. 

For instance, in the US, climate-related costs – including disaster recovery, repairs, and surging insurance premiums- are responsible for $7.7 trillion, or 36%, of the country’s GDP since 2000, meaning a significant chunk of what we call “growth” is actually disaster recovery spending.

LAKE LURE, NORTH CAROLINA – SEPTEMBER 28: The Rocky Broad River flows into Lake Lure and overflows the town with debris from Chimney Rock, North Carolina after heavy rains from Hurricane Helene on September 28, 2024, in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Approximately six feet of debris piled on the bridge from Lake Lure to Chimney Rock, blocking access. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

 

What broken models actually cost us

By missing the cascading failures and compounding shocks that define climate risk, today’s economic models create a false sense of safety. Precise-looking numbers incentivise governments and investors into delaying action — playing down impacts, skipping hard choices, and chasing short-term wins like political successes over long-term protection for citizens. Meaning we skip early planning and investment. We leave people unprotected. Governments underfund prevention while spending vastly more on disaster response after it’s too late.. For example, Hurricane Maria killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico in 2017 and caused $90 billion in damage. The island had received minimal pre-disaster mitigation funding because models suggested the risk was manageable. Pakistan’s 2022 floods displaced 33 million people and caused $30 billion in damage; early warning infrastructure that could have saved lives had gone unfunded for years.

Destroyed homes and vehicles sit in floodwaters after Hurricane Maria in this aerial photograph taken above Hamacao, Puerto Rico, on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. Photo: Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg

By the time governments react, lives are already lost, damage costs have skyrocketed, and recovery drags on for years while displaced families wait for aid that’s never sufficient. Prevention looks expensive until disaster strikes, but when it does then recovery costs six times than what prevention would have required. And this is crucial extra public money that could have been spent on schools, hospitals, housing, and the basic services communities need to thrive.

The consequences of this miscalculation are staggering. The study’s findings reveal that missing catastrophic shocks and cascading failures could lead to GDP losses as high as 50% between 2070 and 2090–losses that don’t appear in the models guiding policy decisions today.

The alternative already exists 

If growth is supposed to mean progress, then our metrics must reflect the conditions that make life better — safety, health, stability, and jobs. And there are ways to measure these conditions directly: is housing affordable? Do people have access to clean air and water? Are we prepared for climate disasters?

The pieces for such a different approach are already in place. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the world’s accounting systems fail to place real value on the environment, and that the global economy must stop rewarding pollution and waste disguised as production and growth.

Around the world, governments, economists, governments and researchers are testing and developing alternative measures of progress that incorporate long and healthy life indicators including environment and social factors like the Human Development Index and Genuine Progress Indicator, inclusive wealth measures that track natural and human capital alongside economic production, and emerging climate-risk-adjusted indicators like Climate Risk Index designed to reflect the he human and economic toll of extreme weather that existing models ignore.

What’s needed now is for decision-makers to abandon the incomplete and dangerous models currently shaping vital societal decisions that don’t serve the world we live in now, and move toward more realistic and inclusive measures that also account for the reality of the climate crisis. Investors, too, should recognize that every dollar flowing into fossil fuel infrastructure today accelerates the very shocks that will destroy portfolio value tomorrow.

Indonesia’s GDP may be rising, but families are still repaying loans for harvests that have drowned. India is losing more people to pollution each year while economists celebrate a ‘booming’ economy. These oppositions may have found a place in our current accounting systems, but they mustn’t in our real lives.

Sources:

1. The public is losing patience with promises of economic growth – Public Finance, July 2025. https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2025/07/public-losing-patience-promises-economic-growth
2. GDP Over Breath: How Systemic Failure Chokes India’s $5 Trillion Dream – ESG News, January 16, 2026. https://www.esgnews.earth/latest-news/gdp-over-breath-how-systemic-failure-chokes-indias-5-trillion-dream/16263.html

1. Indonesia Expects $3 Billion Rebuild After Deadly Floods – Insurance Journal, December 8, 2025. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2025/12/08/850172.htm
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Remember rows of high-walled cubicles and corner offices that felt like isolated islands? Modern work has moved on, and so has office design. The open plan concept has become a favorite for its power to break down physical and social barriers, fostering a new kind of workplace energy. It’s a philosophy that prioritizes flow, light, and connection.

Getting this environment right relies on smart interior office fit out concepts that turn the space into a productive and positive community.

Breaking down the walls:

The most obvious change is the removal of solid partitions. This physical opening creates a visual connection across the entire floor. Natural light reaches deeper into the space, brightening every desk. People can see each other, which encourages spontaneous conversations and makes the team feel unified. It moves away from a closed-off feel to one of shared purpose.

Zones for different modes:

An effective open plan is never just a sea of identical desks. Clever design carves out specific areas for different kinds of work. You might have quiet zones for focused thinking, furnished with sound-absorbing materials. Collaboration hubs with writeable walls and casual seating invite teamwork. A mix of settings gives people the freedom to choose where they work best throughout their day.

The power of flexible furniture:

Fixed, heavy desks are the enemy of adaptability. Lightweight, modular furniture is key. Desks on wheels, movable screens, and reconfigurable meeting tables let the space evolve. Teams can quickly rearrange their area for a project, or the whole layout can shift as the company grows. This flexibility makes the office a tool that serves changing needs.

Managing the soundscape:

Noise is the classic worry with open plans. A good fit out tackles this head-on. Acoustic panels on ceilings and walls, soft floor coverings, and sound-muffling furniture fabrics all help absorb chatter. Sometimes, designated phone booths or enclosed pods are added for private calls. The aim is a comfortable hum of activity, not a distracting roar.

A visual translation of your brand:

Without many walls, other elements carry the visual identity. A cohesive color palette, distinctive lighting fixtures, and branded graphics become central. Materials like wood, glass, or metal are chosen carefully to convey a specific feel. This styling turns the open space into a true reflection of the company’s character, felt by everyone in it.

Nurses at MarinHealth Medical Center in Greenbrae, Calif., will hold a strike for one day on Wednesday, Feb. 18, to protest the administration’s refusal to address RNs’ deep concerns about nurse retention, patient care, and safe staffing.