News Feeds

BYOP is increasingly evolving into a collaborative utility-customer model for serving large load growth. 

FERC 1920 requires rigorous long-term planning, transforming how planning activities produce results.

When it comes to California’s climate future, the most important figure in the state’s chaotic governor’s race may not be any of the candidates on the debate stage. It may not even be outgoing governor Gavin Newsom or President Donald Trump. 

Instead, it might just be Chevron, the multinational oil company that was founded in the Golden State more than 100 years ago. It is among the largest producers, refiners, and sellers of petroleum products in a state rapidly shifting toward electric vehicles. Depending on which candidate is talking, the company is an example of how Big Oil is strangling consumers or an example of how climate regulations are strangling the state economy. 

The behemoth — it reported $12.3 billion in profit last year — took the spotlight last month when an interviewer asked leading Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra about Chevron’s contributions to his campaign. The former state attorney general and Biden-era health secretary gave what seemed to be a candid response:

“Chevron, that’s the problem with politics. They’re not the bad guy. Does everybody here drive an electric vehicle? You need Chevron. I need Chevron. My people of the state of California need Chevron … Chevron wants to give me a check, that’s — that’s their prerogative.”

The phrase “I need Chevron” soon appeared in anti-Becerra videos by the likes of climate hawk Jane Fonda, implying that the candidate was saying he needs Chevron to get elected. Progressive billionaire Tom Steyer, Becerra’s lead Democratic opponent, urged him to return the contribution and said he is “doing [the] bidding” of Big Oil. Representative Katie Porter, another leading Democrat, said in a statement that she “hasn’t made millions off Big Oil or taken their checks.”

Becerra is not entirely wrong. California consumes around 13 billion gallons of gasoline annually, all of it specifically formulated to meet the state’s stringent clean air standards. Most of it comes from just six refineries, and Chevron owns two that account for one-third of the state’s production. That gives the company and its peers tremendous leverage. But California’s gas consumption has declined by about 15 percent from a peak in 2004 due to improved fuel economy in conventional vehicles and growing adoption of electric vehicles. It could fall by half over the next two decades. 

The primary is June 2. The challenge for the next governor will be to continue the energy transition while retaining the infrastructure needed to move and refine oil. This has never been accomplished in a place as large as California, which was the world’s fifth-largest economy in 2025. The risks are tremendous: If the state moves too quickly, it could create shortages and price spikes for drivers already paying the highest prices in the country. If it moves too slowly, it could lock in decades of air pollution and hinder global climate progress.

“It’s messy,” said Emily Grubert. She is a civil engineer and sociologist at Notre Dame who has studied fossil fuel transitions and advised the state government on oil infrastructure. “As soon as you realize that actually transitioning away from fossil fuels means you have to close things, people get really freaked out.”

Newsom spent much of his governorship going after Big Oil, an effort that included a series of executive actions to restrict fracking in Kern County oil fields. When the war in Ukraine sent gas prices surging, Newsom and Democrats in the Legislature passed a series of bills to stop what he called “price gouging.” These laws empowered a new oil-focused watchdog agency, created a tool that could impose refinery price caps, and required refineries to maintain certain storage reserves, all of which cut profit margins for Chevron and others. The new refinery rules added to multiple carbon taxes that make selling gasoline in California more expensive.

However, there is some evidence refiners have overcharged Californians. Even after accounting for state taxes, environmental fees, and production costs, a gap remains between gas prices in the Golden State and everywhere else. This gap appeared in 2015 after a refinery fire in Torrance and has come to be known as the “mystery gasoline surcharge.” It now averages about $1. Last fall, a state regulator concluded that refiners’ monopoly power may be the reason for the price spikes.

Oil companies accused Newsom of trying to regulate them out of existence, and many threatened to leave. Two major refiners, Wilmington and Benicia, announced last year that they would close their operations, forcing a state that already imports about 60 percent of its oil to rely on imports of gasoline refined in Asia. Chevron relocated its corporate headquarters from the San Francisco suburb of San Ramon to Houston in 2024, and it has delivered a series of ominous warnings this year as climate regulators have revised the state’s almost 15-year-old carbon tax.

“The proposed regulation will cripple the survivability of the state’s remaining refineries, which will result in California losing the entire industry,” Andy Walls, the president of Chevron’s refinery business, wrote in an open letter to Newsom in March. The implication was clear: unless you relax your regulations, we will leave the state and strand you without gasoline. That would mean paying Asian refiners to produce more of the state’s specific blend, at significant cost.

The Newsom administration spent much of 2025 trying to work out a grand bargain with the industry. The Legislature eased rules governing drilling in Kern County oil fields, helping maintain a stable supply of crude to refineries. It also delayed implementing a refinery profit cap and allowed the temporary sale of gasoline with higher concentrations of ethanol. The state’s climate regulator has also suggested giving refineries free allowances under the state’s cap-and-trade system, even if it means less money for big projects like high-speed rail and sustainable housing. The idea is to give investors enough certainty that they’re willing to remain in California even as the state uses less gasoline.

Experts believe it will take a lot more than that to manage inevitable changes.

“You actually can’t have a smooth and safe and effective transition without some form of coordinating function for that decline,” said Grubert. She believes a degree of state ownership of refineries will be necessary to keep facilities open if they stop being profitable. The wrong approach, she says, would be to respond to each potential refinery closure with ad hoc subsidies and state support, since that would allow refiners to extort the state one by one. 

That point was reinforced this month by a report from the California Energy Commission that has not received much notice. The analysis of the state’s shaky fuel system found that “California cannot sustainably manage this transition through repeated crisis interventions at an asset-by-asset level.” It suggested options that included “legal obligations to operate,” “centralized planning of closures,” and “direct state management or ownership of assets.”

The Iran war will accelerate a decline in both the supply of, and demand for, oil. Gas retailers like Chevron are already struggling to find additional imports of refined fuel, and some experts predict shortages if the Strait of Hormuz does not open within weeks. Meanwhile, electric vehicles continue gaining market share, and Newsom plans to roll out subsidies for them this year. Wider adoption of these vehicles, and hybrids, will further crimp demand, making any remaining refineries more likely to shutter. 

Chevron’s Kern River Oil Field near Bakersfield is one of the largest oil fields in California. The state’s climate policies have helped reduce gasoline demand by more than 15 percent over the past decade. Mark Ralston / AFP via Getty Images

All of this helps explain the showdown between the leading Democrats in the governor’s race, who are each trying to find a lane in a field that at one time included more than 50 candidates.

Becerra has given lip service to clean energy, but many public statements suggest a friendliness toward oil producers. As attorney general, he initiated a few lawsuits against petroleum companies, and supported other state climate lawsuits, but punted on major investigations. He has focused his gubernatorial campaign on vows to fight Donald Trump and protect healthcare, and has made controversial promises to freeze utility and insurance rates. On decarbonization, he has noted that “climate action only succeeds if it is affordable, reliable, and fair.”

After the chaos of the early primary, many oil producers have decided that Becerra is their candidate. Chevron last month contributed the maximum allowable amount of $39,200 to his campaign, the first time in a decade it has backed a gubernatorial candidate. Last week, the company contributed another $500,000 to an independent political committee supporting Becerra. California Resources Corporation, the state’s largest driller, also gave $500,000 to a Becerra committee. And gas companies like Sempra are among the donors to an anti-Steyer political committee that has raised more than $24 million.

Steyer, meanwhile, has made attacking Big Oil the focus of his campaign, as it was during his 2020 presidential run. He says he would lower gas prices by activating the refining profit cap that Newsom has declined to use, investigating what is causing high gas prices (something the state has already done), and taxing private jet fuel. When refineries “inevitably” close, he says he will stockpile an oil reserve and import more refined fuel for as long as California needs it.

Steyer has also had to address his own fossil fuel ties. The hedge fund he founded, Farallon Capital, remains a major player in coal power finance abroad, including in Indonesia and Australia. Steyer still holds a stake in the firm, which he left in 2012, but his campaign says he no longer receives dividends from its fossil fuel investments. 

California uses a “jungle primary” in which the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party. The latest poll shows Becerra essentially tied with former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican, with Steyer trailing at around 15 percent. The most likely outcome is that Becerra or Steyer will make it to the general election. (The other Democrats, including Porter and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, trail behind in the double digits.)

Railing against Big Oil has long proven to be good politics in California. But in the wake of Trump’s second election victory, Democrats have sought to downplay climate issues and focus instead on affordability. The question in the governor’s race is how best to achieve that in the long run. Is it better to use a bully pulpit against companies like Chevron in an effort to break their market power, or conciliate them in the hope that they don’t flee?

Mike Madrid, a veteran California political operative, believes Becerra’s approach will resonate more with the young and Latinos, both of whom often decide statewide elections.

“This attack on Chevron, it works for the base Steyer already has,” he said. “Young Latino working-class men are the demographic most affected by gas prices. Do you think they’re saying we need to get rid of Chevron? Of course not.”

Steyer’s campaign may not get him over the line in the primary, but he has at least been consistent. In a 2013 blog post for this very publication, he celebrated the result of the Virginia governor’s race, where a climate-focused Democrat beat a fossil-fuel-friendly Republican with help from Steyer’s own war chest.

“A new political dynamic is emerging,” he wrote at the time. “Climate change is a winner, not a loser,” and is “no longer electoral Kryptonite.”

If Chevron has its way, next week’s primary results will prove otherwise.

toolTips('.classtoolTips4','The process of reducing the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that drive climate change, most often by deprioritizing the use of fossil fuels like oil and gas in favor of renewable sources of energy.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘I need Chevron’: The oil company at the center of the California governor’s race on May 26, 2026.

• May 26, 2026

WEST COAST SEISMIC SURVEY CASE MOVES CLOSER TO HEARING

This Energy Month, the legal challenge between Aukotowa Fisheries Primary Co-operative, The Green Connection, and Natural Justice (the Applicants), and the government together with TGS Geophysical Company UK Ltd (the Respondents), concerning authorisation for offshore seismic surveys along South Africa’s West Coast and Northern Cape coastline, has entered a critical new phase. The Applicants and Respondents have now filed their Heads of Argument and joint practice note in the Western Cape High Court ahead of hearings scheduled for next month.

According to The Green Connection’s Outreach Ambassador, Neville van Rooy, “This case is not about asking the court to decide whether oil and gas is good or bad in general. The question before the Court is whether government decision-makers had and considered all the relevant information before approving this project. Our case is that they did not. Expert evidence before the Court aims to show that several important issues were not properly considered, particularly the potential impacts on small-scale fishing communities and coastal livelihoods. This includes the cumulative effects of seismic blasting over extended periods, as well as scientific evidence indicating that underwater noise impacts may travel far further than suggested in the environmental reports relied upon by the decision
makers.”

The proposed TGS survey would involve seismic blasting using airguns that release extremely loud sound pulses into the ocean every few seconds for months at a time to map the seabed for possible oil and gas deposits.

“Small-scale fishers and coastal communities depend on access to a healthy ocean for food, income and survival. However, we believe that the approval process failed to adequately consider how exclusion zones created around survey vessels could prevent small-scale fishers from accessing traditional fishing areas for extended periods, placing livelihoods and food security at risk. So, as we can see, if decisions are made without properly considering the social and economic risks, these communities could carry the consequences. This case is fundamentally about accountability and ensuring that government decisions, that come with long-term impacts, are based on all the relevant facts,” says Walter Steenkamp from the Aukotowa Fisheries Primary Co-operative in Port Nolloth Northern Cape.

This case follows earlier successful litigation against Searcher Geodata’s proposed West Coast seismic survey, where the High Court found serious flaws in the decision-making and consultation process underpinning the project approval. In that matter, the court recognised the risks posed to small-scale fishing communities and marine ecosystems and held that important environmental and social impacts had not been adequately considered before authorisation was granted. Similar concerns arise in the TGS case.

“Government decisions that affect the public must be made on a properly informed basis. We are challenging this decision because we feel that key questions were not adequately tested before approval was granted. This includes whether the project would meaningfully contribute to energy security, whether it would genuinely help address future energy supply concerns, and whether the long-term economic and climate risks were properly understood,” adds van Rooy.

The Applicants also argue that government failed in its duty to protect the coastline as a shared public resource held in trust for all South Africans, rather than primarily for private industrial interests. They further argue that decision-makers failed to properly consider South Africa’s climate commitments and the potential conflict between new fossil fuel exploration and the country’s carbon reduction obligations.

“These are not minor issues. South Africans are already experiencing the impacts of climate change through drought, flooding, extreme heat and growing pressure on livelihoods. At the same time, people need energy solutions that are affordable, realistic and capable of meeting demand. If major projects are approved on the promise that they will solve an energy problem or would bolster local economies, good governance requires that all claims be properly scrutinised before any irreversible decisions are made.”

The matter will be heard in the Western Cape High Court on 1 and 2 June 2026. 

For More Information
Court proceedings will be live streamed on YouTube on 1 & 2 June 2026, from
10:00am(SAST).

TGS Geophysical Company West Coast Seismic Survey Factsheet.

Court Papers
TGS Court Case
TGS – 12391 Applicants’ Heads of Argument 2026-05-05
Third Respondents Heads of Argument_ Aukotowa_ DDG DMPR
State Respondents HoA

The Green Connection administrator September 4, 2024 Archive THE GREEN CONNECTION AND NATURAL JUSTICE NOW HAVE THE RECORD OF DECISION TO PROGRESS LEGAL CHALLENGE AGAINST TOTALENERGIES

September 4, 2024 THE GREEN CONNECTION AND NATURAL JUSTICE NOW HAVE THE RECORD OF DECISION TO PROGRESS LEGAL CHALLENGE AGAINST

The Green Connection administrator October 30, 2024 Archive COASTAL COMMUNITIES AND ECO-JUSTICE GROUPS’ OFFSHORE DRILLING APPEAL HIGHLIGHTS THREATS TO LIVELIHOODS, MARINE ECOSYSTEMS, AND CLIMATE GOALS

October 30, 2024 COASTAL COMMUNITIES AND ECO-JUSTICE GROUPS’ OFFSHORE DRILLING APPEAL HIGHLIGHTS THREATS TO LIVELIHOODS, MARINE ECOSYSTEMS, AND CLIMATE GOALS

The Green Connection administrator November 6, 2024 Archive TO PROTECT OCEANS AND LIVELIHOODS, WESTERN CAPE HIGH COURT SET TO HEAR ANOTHER CASE AGAINST TOTALENERGIES DRILLING PLANS IN SOUTH AFRICAN WATERS

November 6, 2024 TO PROTECT OCEANS AND LIVELIHOODS, WESTERN CAPE HIGH COURT SET TO HEAR ANOTHER CASE AGAINST TOTALENERGIES DRILLING

The Green Connection administrator November 17, 2024 Archive WITH CLIMATE TALKS UNDERWAY, WHY MUST CIVIL SOCIETY STILL FIGHT TOTALENERGIES’ FOSSIL FUEL DRILLING IN COURT?

November 17, 2024 WITH CLIMATE TALKS UNDERWAY, WHY MUST CIVIL SOCIETY STILL FIGHT TOTALENERGIES’ FOSSIL FUEL DRILLING IN COURT? As

The Green Connection administrator January 24, 2025 Archive Eskom’s Proposed Retail Tariff Plan: The Green Connection Joins Calls For Energy Justice And Stakeholder Engagement

January 24, 2025 Eskom’s Proposed Retail Tariff Plan: The Green Connection Joins Calls For Energy Justice And Stakeholder Engagement. Photo

The Green Connection administrator February 28, 2025 Latest News Eco-Justice Organizations Reject Draft Scoping Report For Offshore Drilling On SA’S West Coast (TEEPSA DWOB South).

February 28, 2025 Eco-Justice Organizations Reject Draft Scoping Report For Offshore Drilling On SA’S West Coast (TEEPSA DWOB South). Just

The post WEST COAST SEISMIC SURVEY CASE MOVES CLOSER TO HEARING appeared first on The Green Connection.

Electrical Generation by Renewables Expanded by Over 11% in First Quarter Over The Coming Year, US EIA Projects New Utility-Scale Solar, Wind, and Battery Storage Capacity to Grow by Over 80.6-GW As Nuclear and Fossil Fuel Capacity Falls by 4.3-GW EIA & FERC Analyses Foresee Strong Renewables + Battery Growth Through 2030 and Beyond

Washington DC – New data recently released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign, reveals growth of more than 11% in electrical generation by renewable energy sources in the first quarter of 2026. Moreover, utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage are projected to add more than 80.6 gigawatts (GW) of new generating capacity in the U.S. by March 31, 2027 while total fossil fuel and nuclear power capacity will fall by over 4.2-GW. In addition, multiple new studies by EIA and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) forecast continued strong growth by renewables and battery storage each year through 2030 and beyond.

Electrical generation by renewables sources grew over 11% and was nearly 29% of the U.S. total in the first quarter of 2026.

According to the EIA’s latest “Electric Power Monthly” report (with data through March 31, 2026), renewably-generated electricity during the first three months of 2026 was 11.1% greater than in the first quarter of 2025. The growth was led by utility-scale (i.e., >1 megawatt (MW)) solar (up 23.9%), hydropower (up 21.9%), small-scale solar (i.e., <1-MW) (up 11.9%), and wind (up 2.1%). [1]

In addition, utility-scale battery energy storage capacity increased by 8.5%. [2]

By comparison, the electrical output of the nation’s coal plants fell by 11.4% while natural gas and nuclear both experienced weak growth – 1.1% and 0.9% respectively.

The mix of all renewables, including biomass and geothermal, accounted for over 28.6% of total U.S. electrical generation during the first quarter.

The combination of just wind and solar, including small-scale solar, provided over a fifth (20.3%) of domestic electrical production. Moreover, they out-produced nuclear power by 14.3% and coal by 31.1%. [3]

Renewable energy to add more than 57-GW of new capacity in the coming year.

As of April 1, 2026, renewable energy’s share of total U.S. utility-scale (i.e., >1-megawatt (MW)) generating capacity was 33.6%. EIA projects this to grow to 36.6% by March 31, 2027. Utility-scale solar will add 42,626.1-MW thereby expanding its share from 12.8% to 15.7% while wind will grow by 14,157.4-MW (including 4,155.0-MW of offshore wind), increasing from 13.0% to 13.6%. The mix of other renewables (i.e., hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) will add 297.1-MW.  

The combined capacity growth of all utility-scale renewable energy sources for the 12-month period (57,080.6-MW) is almost double that added during the previous 12 months (30,843.5-MW) – i.e., an increase of 85.1%.

Meanwhile, EIA projects no new generating capacity by nuclear power and a net decline of 4,266.2-MW in fossil fuel capacity. [4]

With the inclusion of new small-scale solar, renewables’ capacity will surpass natural gas by early 2027 – or sooner.

The figures cited above do not include small-scale solar. [5] The capacity of small-scale solar systems grew by 6,358.2-MW during the last year, bringing its total to 60,978.4-MW. EIA does not provide a forecast for small-scale solar but the SUN DAY Campaign assumes it will roughly equal that of the past year (i.e., an additional 6,000-MW or more). [6]

If small-scale solar does add approximately 6,000-MW more by April 1, 2027, it will bring renewable energy’s installed capacity up to about 533,319.7-MW. By comparison, natural gas’ generating capacity would total 514,868.4-MW.

Solar power’s share alone will be almost one-fifth (19.9%) of total U.S. capacity.  

Battery energy storage is projected to increase by over 50% by next spring:

Battery storage increased by 17,301.8-MW in the past 12 months and EIA foresees another 23,523.8-MW being added by April 1, 2027, bringing the total up to 69,971.1-MW – an increase of over 50%.

Thus, the combination of utility-scale renewable energy sources and battery energy storage will provide 80,604.4-MW of new clean energy capacity by early spring 2027. With the inclusion of small-scale solar, that figure could rise to close to 87,000-MW.

EIA forecasts continued strong solar, wind, and battery growth at least through the end of 2027.

In its latest “Short-Term Energy Outlook” report, EIA forecasts installed utility-scale solar capacity to rise 43.3% from 150 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2025 to 215-GW by the end of 2027. Actual electrical generation would increase by a comparable amount (41.6%) – expanding from 0.293 billion kilowatt-hours (BkWh) to 0.415 BkWh.

Similarly, wind capacity would grow 12.6% from 159-GW to 179-GW while generation would increase by 12.5% from 0.464 BkWh to 0.522 BkWh.

The capacity of battery storage was 42-GW at the end of 2025 and is expected to double and reach 85-GW by the end of 2027.

FERC foresees rapidly growing renewable energy capacity at least through the end of 2028.

In its latest “Energy Infrastructure Update” report, FERC notes that between January 2026 and December 2028 (i.e., effectively the remainder of the Trump Administration’s term), net “high probability” additions of utility-scale solar could total 86,126-MW while those for wind might be 19,821-MW. The mix of hydropower, biomass, and geothermal could add another 540-MW.

Taken together, these additions would increase renewables’ share of installed utility-scale generating capacity from 33.0% at the end of 2025 to 38.8% by the end of 2028.

Meanwhile net natural gas additions during the three-year period would total only 8,154-MW. This would be more than offset by reductions in coal and oil capacities of 40,828-MW and 1,590-MW respectively. FERC does not foresee any new nuclear capacity during the period.

Renewable energy growth projected to continue through 2030 and beyond.

In its latest “Annual Energy Outlook” report, EIA expects utility-scale solar capacity to expand from 154.5-GW at the end of 2025 and to reach 257.7-GW by the end of 2030 – an increase of over two-thirds. Likewise, annual electrical generation would more than double from 275.3 BkWh to 578.7 BkWh during the five-year period.  

Meanwhile, installed wind capacity would expand from 159.0-GW to 204.4-GW, including a nearly ten-fold increase in offshore wind capacity (i.e., from 1-GW to 9.7-GW). Annual electrical generation would rise from 463.9-BkWh to 662.8-BkWh by the end of 2030, with almost 5% coming from offshore turbines.

The total capacity of all utility-scale renewables would rise almost 40% from 400.2-GW to 559.4-GW. Combined, their actual generation would reach 1,564.0-BkWh, up from 1,118.8-BkWh at the end of 2025.

“The Trump Administration has now passed the one-third mark and largely failed to stop the clean energy transition,” noted the SUN DAY Campaign’s executive director Ken Bossong. “By a wide margin, renewables and battery storage will continue to dominate new growth in electrical capacity and generation.”

Notes:   

[1] In January-March 2026, wind produced 136,360-GWh (12.3%) of total U.S. electrical generation while utility-scale and small-scale solar combined produced 89,728-GWh (8.1%), hydropower produced 77,293-GWh (6.9%), biomass produced 11,340-GWh (1.0%), and geothermal produced 4,014-GWh (0.36%).

[2] EIA presents its capacity data as “summer capacity” defined as the maximum output that generating equipment can supply to system load at the time of summer peak demand. See Table 6.1 in the “Electric Power Monthly” report.

[3] In January-March 2026, the mix of wind and solar, including small-scale solar, produced 226,088-GWh while nuclear power generated 197,731-GWh and coal provided 172,493-GWh.

[4] Capacity factors for fossil fuels and nuclear power are generally higher than for solar and wind. For 2025, EIA reported capacity factors of 48.7%, 58.4%, and 91.0% for coal, natural gas, and nuclear power respectively. By comparison, the capacity factors for wind and utility-scale PV were 34.2% and 24.4% respectively. See Tables 6.07.A and 6.07.B. Capacity factors for small-scale solar systems (10%-25%.) are usually lower than for utility-scale solar.

[5] In its “Electric Power Monthly” report, EIA refers to small-scale or distributed solar as “Estimated Small Scale Solar Photovoltaic.” Unless otherwise indicated, all calculations presented in this release include electrical generation by small-scale solar which EIA estimates to have totaled 21,437 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in January-March 2026. Utility-scale solar totaled 68,291-GWh for the same period.

[6] Between April 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026, estimated small-scale solar accounted for 6,358.2-MW in new capacity additions. The SUN DAY Campaign is therefore assuming that at least 6,000-MW in new small-scale solar capacity will be added during the ensuing 12 months.

Cuba continues to show the world an alternative mode of development even in the face of US regime change, argues Helen Yaffe

The post Cuba stands firm appeared first on Red Pepper.

Another Memorial Day: boasts, insults, "self-defense strikes," cheap clichés from a "Secretary of War" prattling about dead boys "delivered from the battlefield into the arms of a loving Lord and savior." Spare us. And maybe revisit the war to end all wars, which didn't - its "infinity of waste" and trenches with skulls in the sides where "he who had a corpse to stand on was lucky." Pat Barker: “A society that devours its own young deserves (no) unquestioning allegiance.”

"Happy Memorial Day to all," babbled our ever-unseemly Idiot-In-Chief, "including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year," because obviously the best way to honor the dead is to not acknowledge their sacrifice but to denigrate half the ravaged country they died defending. Also, at Arlington National Cemetery, the infinitely hollow, "Wherever the American soldier (falls), he does it for the destiny of a nation like no other - there’s never been anybody like you." Also, noted Private Bone Spurs, 18,000 Williams, over 20,000 Johns, and other names fell, but "not too many" Donalds. Huh.

Adding to the day's eloquence with a much-needed "monster truck rally vibe" was inexplicably non-veteran, Hegseth bestie, tawdry aging rock star Kid Rock. Because "Tokyo Rose wasn't available," he was chosen by the Pentagon to honor American service members' ultimate sacrifice in a hoodie, fedora, gold chain and sunglasses, looking like "a creature you’d expect to hiss at you from the dank depths of a garbage bin" and intoning, "We are remembering the sacrifice and service of so many who are not with us today...It’s a special day. We’re thinking of them... Keep on Kid Rocking in the free world."

Then there was bombastic, dime-store-cliché-spouting Christo-fascist Pete Hegseth urging we "remember our republic was forged and purchased with blood, American blood," evidently only male according to his pronouns. Ever a fatuous buffoon, he declaimed "the sacred names of bygone eras to the 13 souls of Epic Fury (who) answered the call when it mattered the most (and) gave the last full measure of devotion," even when he failed them in an Iranian strike in Yemen: "They stood against the darkness of the world wearing the breastplate of righteousness (and) raced to the brink so we could walk in freedom and prosperity (and) may almighty God bless our warriors." Jesus weeps.

It remains unclear how many of the up to 22 million dead, both military and civilian, and over 20 million wounded, "the butcher's bill" of World War One, came to be blessed by almighty God, especially in its Western Front's godforsaken trenches teeming with sludge, rats, mud, blood, water and disease. The war's "inconceivable loss" and "purposeless waste of a generation" is perhaps best exemplified by the Battle of Verdun, where the French, set upon by German forces, adopted a "They Shall Not Pass” mantra that in the end saw over 700,000 dead on both sides - ultimately, vast "heaps of bones."

For many, the horrors of "the greatest conflagration the world had seen" live on through the searing literature, both prose and poetry, that emerged from them. Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est epitomizes the bitter, bloody tone that often prevailed amidst its "guttering, choking, drowning" victims - Hegseth's benighted "warriors." "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks/ Knock-kneed, coughing like hags," cursing, gargling, limping bootless through sludge, "blood-shod...deaf even to the hoots/Of gas-shells dropping softly behind," they reject, "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori."

Siegfried Sassoon lived the privileged life of a British country gentleman, writing poetry and fox hunting, until the start of World War 1, when he served as an officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in France. He was awarded a Military Cross, was later wounded in action, and refused to fight any longer to protest "a senseless slaughter." On June 15, 1917, he wrote "A Soldier's Declaration" as "an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those how have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers."

"I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolonging those sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust," he wrote. He was protesting, he made clear, "against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed...against the deception which is being practiced on them. Also I believe that it may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise."

His letter was read before the House of Commons and printed in The London Times. He expected to be court-martialed; instead, he was declared "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Dr. William Rivers was charged with restoring Sassoon’s “sanity” and sending him back to the trenches. The story of their real-life encounter, wherein Rivers came to diagnose war's "shell-shock" and share Sassoon's view, is powerfully told in Pat Barker's historical novel Regeneration, the first in a trilogy about the psychological carnage of war. "It (was) the Great White God de-throned. We assumed we were the measure of all things," Rivers says. "(But) nothing justifies this. Nothing nothing nothing."

Siegfried Sassoon's 1918 Suicide in the Trenches mourns "a simple soldier boy/Who grinned at life in empty joy" until he goes to war: "In winter trenches, cowed and glum/With crumps and lice and lack of rum/He put a bullet through his brain./No one spoke of him again./ You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye/Who cheer when soldier lads march by,/Sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go." Too many of those young lie in a cemetery near Ypres, where one Inscription stands out in a sea of "For King and Country" headstones. It was written on the grave of Arthur Young by his father, a diplomat wiser than any vacuous Hegseth: "Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war."

Thirst case scenario for climate Channel News brendan 26th May 2026 Teaser Media

Liverpool Plains farmers, landholders and Gomeroi people say they face ongoing uncertainty after Santos today confirmed it would hold onto and deprioritise its controversial and long-delayed Narrabri gas project. 

Editor’s note: A version of this article originally appeared on Signal Doctrine and is republished with permission.

Stand in a surface parking lot in Phoenix on a July afternoon and you are standing on one of the hottest surfaces a human body can approach without being burned.

Phoenix has 12.2 million of these spaces.

That figure comes from a peer-reviewed inventory published in 2019 by researchers at Arizona State University, among them Mikhail Chester, who led the study, and David King, an associate professor of urban planning and a student of the late Donald Shoup, whose work on parking economics reshaped the field. They counted off-street residential spaces, off-street commercial spaces, on-street spaces — all of it.

The result: 4.3 parking spaces per registered vehicle. Roughly 3 spaces per person. Ten percent of all urbanized land in the metro devoted to storing cars. Since 1960, Phoenix has added roughly 200,000 new spaces per year.

NASA ECOSTRESS thermal image of Phoenix, June 2024. Parking lots and roads register between 120 and 160°F. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The asphalt beneath your feet absorbs approximately 95 percent of the solar radiation hitting it. Its surface temperature is somewhere between 150 and 170 degrees Fahrenheit — the upper range hot enough to cause a second-degree burn in under 30 seconds. NASA’s thermal imaging of Phoenix on a June day in 2024, when the air temperature was 106, showed roads and parking lots glowing between 120 and 160 degrees across the metro. The cars sitting in those lots are ovens. The air rising off the pavement is a wall.

The number is hard to feel from inside a car, which is where most people in Phoenix experience the city. The parking lot is invisible infrastructure — noticed only when it is full, which it rarely is, because the system was designed around the assumption of peak demand and routinely runs at a fraction of capacity. Most spaces sit empty most of the time. Their vacancy is not experienced as waste. It is experienced as availability, which is to say, as comfort, which is to say, as the whole point.

But the lot does not stop existing while the car is away.

Recommended Phoenix Leaders Are Climate Hypocrites — And They’re Not Alone Joe Cortright December 4, 2020

Surface parking accounts for roughly 29 percent of all heat emitted from pavement and vehicles across the metro on a typical summer day. Chester, who led the original study, confirmed the estimate remains current. Asphalt radiates 46 percent more heat than natural landscape during the afternoon. It emits 37 percent more sensible heat than bare ground. And it does not cool quickly. Unlike vegetation or even bare soil, pavement stores the day’s heat and releases it slowly through the night — keeping nighttime temperatures elevated long after sunset.

This is not a new finding. It has been documented here for decades. What it means, measured over time, is a 9-degree rise in average nighttime temperatures in Phoenix over the past twenty years — a number that appears in city reports so often it has started to lose the quality of alarm.

Nine degrees. Every night. Added to a city that was already one of the hottest on earth.

Before 2000, Phoenix averaged roughly five summer nights that did not cool below 90 degrees. In 2024, that number was 37. On July 19th of that year, Sky Harbor Airport recorded an overnight low of 97 degrees. The models now suggest the city could experience a night, within this decade, that does not fall below 100.

The parking lot did not cause this alone. Phoenix’s heat island is the product of everything the city has built: roads, rooftops, walls, the relentless substitution of absorptive surface for desert ground. But parking is one of the largest single components of that surface area, and it is the one whose thermal cost is most clearly optional. A city needs roads. It needs buildings. It does not need 4.3 spaces per vehicle.

Recommended Parking? Lots! Car Spaces Would Comprise 10% of Phoenix Angie Schmitt February 25, 2019

The city has been aware of this for a while and has begun, slowly, to respond. The Cool Pavement Program applied reflective coatings to more than 140 miles of city streets — out of more than 5,000 total. ASU studies found the treatment reduces surface temperatures by roughly 10 to 12 degrees at noon. The effect on nighttime air temperature barely registers. The thermal mass problem runs deep.

The more structurally significant change came in January 2024, when the Phoenix City Council voted 8–1 to reduce parking minimums citywide. In walkable urban zones along light rail corridors, the minimum dropped to 0.75 spaces per unit. For affordable housing near transit, it fell to zero. A 100-unit affordable apartment complex near light rail that once had to provide 113 spaces now has to provide none.

The reform passed over the objections of eight village planning committees. King, who has studied parking policy for over a decade, describes the opposition as “making a good faith, incorrect argument.” The deeper problem, he says, is that cities have required so much parking for so long that reducing the mandate feels like a concession rather than a correction.

“They haven’t yet taken that step to say, we’ve been wrong for the last century,” King told me. “Which I think is a critical thing that the cities have to do.”

Recommended This Parking Bill Could Help Solve the Housing Crisis Kea Wilson April 29, 2025

Phoenix has not eliminated parking minimums, and the citywide default remains well above zero. But the vote was meaningful. Just because a city stops requiring parking, King points out, does not mean no one will supply it. The market still responds to demand. What changes is that the supply is no longer mandated at levels the market never justified.

What is changing in the urban core is visible enough. Block 23, the mixed-use tower that opened in 2019 on the site of what had most recently been a surface parking lot, brought 332 apartments, 200,000 square feet of office space, and the first grocery store in the downtown area. Other lots are becoming hotels, housing, parks. The ground is slowly being reclaimed.

But the urban core is not most of Phoenix. Most of Phoenix is the arterial corridor: the strip mall anchored by a pharmacy and a nail salon and a mattress store, each surrounded by more asphalt than any reasonable traffic model requires.

The BedMart at 19th and Northern had thirty-two parking spaces and, in my experience, zero customers. The store closed. A coffee shop moved in and installed a drive-thru. The thirty-two spaces remain.

19th Avenue and Northern, April 2026. Photo: Signal Dispatch

Drive 19th Avenue at two in the afternoon in June and the whole corridor shimmers. The lots are empty. The heat is not. You can feel the pavement through your shoes in the twenty seconds between your car door and the entrance, and those twenty seconds are the entirety of your relationship with the public realm.

When I asked King what he sees driving Phoenix’s arterials that most people don’t, his answer was immediate: “Arterial walls rather than permeable spaces.” The buildings all turn away from the street. The front door faces the parking lot. The corner — which should be the highest-visibility, highest-accessibility point — is treated as an afterthought. Every curb cut for every parking lot is, in his words, “an insult to the pedestrian environment.”

King argues that exposure should be a key metric of planning in a city like Phoenix. Three or four minutes in the summer sun is tolerable. Ten or fifteen is not. The difference between those two experiences is often the distance a parking lot adds between the street and the door. The twenty seconds I described are not an accident of design. They are the design.

I grew up in that corridor. The parking lots never looked like a problem. They looked like the ordinary space between things.

Each of those lots was mandated into existence by a zoning code that assumed the car was the only unit of movement worth designing around. Removing that mandate does not immediately remove the pavement. Changing what gets built next takes longer than changing what the code requires.

Recommended This Heat Wave is a Car Dependency Problem Kea Wilson July 18, 2024

King calls the science behind parking requirements “100 percent pseudoscience.” No study determined that a pharmacy needs a certain number of spaces, or that a nail salon needs another. The numbers were invented, codified, and enforced for decades. And the mandated parking, once built, generated its own secondary costs: stormwater runoff required bioswales and retention ponds, which further shrank the buildable footprint, which pushed buildings further apart, which guaranteed more driving. The code created the problem and then created the infrastructure to manage the problem it created.

There is a word for what Phoenix has built, and it is not parking. The word is infrastructure — the infrastructure of a particular assumption about how life in a desert city should be organized. That assumption was: you arrive by car, you park, you enter, you leave, you drive. The space between things is transition, not place. The outdoors is not somewhere you are meant to be; it is somewhere you are briefly passing through on the way to somewhere cooled.

Recommended Sustainable Transportation Can Ease the Affordability Crisis — And Help Climate Champions Win Streetsblog May 19, 2026

The pavement encodes that assumption in both directions. It stores the day’s heat and holds it through the night. It repels the monsoon’s rain — five to eight inches a year, nearly all of it arriving in violent bursts — and channels it fast, hot, picking up motor oil and heavy metals and fertilizer, into a storm drain system that delivers it to rivers and washes without treatment. For every additional percentage point of impervious surface, annual flood magnitude increases by an average of 3.3 percent.

The city has spent tens of millions on drainage infrastructure to manage flooding events generated by its own hardscape. The surface that will not release heat will not absorb water either. The imperviousness is the same.

That assumption made the lot possible, and the lot made the assumption self-fulfilling. More parking meant more driving. More driving meant less walking. Less walking meant less pressure to build the kind of dense, shaded, connected environment where walking made sense.

The city that built 12.2 million parking spaces was also building the case for why it needed them. Chester describes what emerged as a system that nobody designed: “For a century we’ve codified and normalized decision making that builds out this system. Now we have it and are largely unaware of its scale and impacts.”

Recommended Study: We Can Build Our Way out of Climate Change Amal Ahmed September 27, 2024

This is not a design flaw. It is a design choice that Phoenix made for seventy years and is only now beginning to question. The cost was always there. It was just measured in degrees rather than dollars, and Phoenix does not have a habit of reading thermometers critically. “There’s a lot of people who don’t like to accept the truth when it implicates them in the system,” King told me. “If parking is the problem, then I have to drive less. Maybe I’m the bad guy.”

Phoenix is not the only American city that made this choice. It is the one where the cost of the choice is most directly physical and most directly measurable — in degrees, in burn rates, in the temperature of a surface that a fallen person cannot get up from.

ASU’s Urban Climate Research Center has estimated that a half-degree reduction in average air temperature across the metro could save Phoenix $15 million per year in avoided air conditioning costs. The math of the lot, run in the other direction, is considerably less comfortable.

The city is beginning to learn what it built.

The 9 degrees are already here.

The cars go home.

The lots do not.

A major change in the way that China measures its core climate goal has effectively halved the growth in the country’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the past five years.

The revised measure of “carbon intensity”, the amount of CO2 per unit of economic output, implies that China’s emissions have only gone up by 7% from 2020-2025.

This is just half of the 14% rise indicated by previous official statistics.

On paper, the revision creates a gap of 700m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) per year, equivalent to the total emissions of Germany or South Korea.

While China has never officially defined how it measures carbon intensity, it has now made what appears to be a retrospective change, with the effect of making targets easier to meet.

The shift means that China officially came close to meeting its carbon-intensity target for 2020-2025, whereas official statistics had previously pointed towards falling well short.

The new definition of carbon intensity has not been made public, but plausible approaches to calculating the metric do not seem to be sufficient to explain the Germany-sized gap.

The apparent gaps or inconsistencies in China’s new carbon accounting also mean that China could meet its international climate pledges for 2030, even if its emissions go up, whereas the previous measure would have required them to fall.

This article explains how the metric appears to have shifted, what changes might potentially explain the revision and what the revised measure implies for China’s climate goals.

Measuring carbon intensity

Reducing carbon intensity – CO2 emissions per unit of GDP – has been China’s key climate commitment since the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009.

At that time, the country pledged to cut its carbon intensity to 48% below 2005 levels by 2020. This was followed up by a 2030 target of a 60-65% reduction, announced in 2014, which was then upgraded to more than 65% in 2021.

Since carbon intensity was made a key progress indicator in China’s 14th five-year plan for 2021-25, the country has reported reductions in carbon intensity every year in its statistical communique, issued at the end of February.

Neither China’s international climate pledges (its nationally determined contributions, NDCs) nor other official documents have ever set out a definition of carbon intensity, despite it being a cornerstone of the country’s climate commitments.

However, until this year, it was possible to closely reproduce the reported numbers, based on a straightforward interpretation of what carbon intensity means.

But the types of emissions that are included in the carbon-intensity metric have now changed.

Previously, it was possible to reproduce the reported carbon-intensity data by combining official GDP data with estimates of emissions from the use of fossil fuels. The latter could be estimated based on the officially reported consumption of coal, oil and gas, multiplied by China’s official emissions factors for the CO2 per unit of energy from each fuel.

The previous carbon-intensity measure apparently included emissions from the use of fossil fuels to generate energy, as well as their use as chemical feedstocks, so-called “non-energy uses”. However, it did not include non-fossil fuel CO2 emissions from industrial processes, such as the production of cement, as shown by the “old scope” in the figure below left.

Old and new scopes of China’s CO2 emission reporting from fossil-fuel use and industrial processes. Source: Analysis for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta. See “about the data” for further details.

Based on the annually reported progress against this old scope, China’s carbon intensity had fallen by a total of 12.4% from 2020-2025.

This was well short of the 18% target set for these years under the 14th five-year plan.

In September 2025, Huang Runqiu, head of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, acknowledged this gap, saying that meeting China’s carbon-intensity targets had become “more challenging” due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and trade tensions.

Yet the 15th five-year plan, published in March 2026, reported that China had cut its carbon intensity by 17.7% over the same period – just shy of the 18% target.

As such, it is clear that there has been a major shift in the way that China measures its carbon intensity, specifically in terms of which types of emissions are included.

Moreover, the revised numbers imply that – rather than missing it by a large margin – China officially came close to meeting its carbon-intensity target for the 14th five-year plan.

A footnote in China’s latest statistical communique offers a brief description of carbon intensity as relating to the CO2 emissions from “energy activities and industrial production”.

This indicates that the carbon-intensity calculation now includes industrial process emissions and excludes non-energy uses of fossil fuels, shown by the “new scope” in the figure above.

In comments sought by Carbon Brief, Ryna Cui, associate research professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, who was not involved in the analysis, agrees that the changes to the carbon-intensity methodology are “unclear”. However, she notes that “limited data” makes it challenging to fully verify the nature and impact of the changes.

The revision mirrors a recent change made to the way that China measures its “energy intensity”, the energy use per unit of economic output. In 2024, energy intensity was changed to exclude non-energy use of fossil fuels and energy use from non-fossil fuels.

This exclusion also created a major incentive for expanding the chemical industry and the non-energy use of fossil fuels.

As for the change in carbon-intensity metric, this follows the highly energy-intensive pattern of economic growth during and after the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s “zero-Covid” policy.

Germany-sized gap

The shift in the way that China is measuring its carbon intensity has implications for estimates of the country’s emissions, which are only reported officially some years later.

Changes in carbon intensity and GDP are reported far more quickly – and can be used to estimate changes in China’s CO2 emissions.

China’s total emissions from energy and industrial processes were 11.2bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) in 2020. Based on the originally reported changes in carbon intensity and GDP, its fossil-fuel CO2 emissions had grown 14% by 2024, an increase of 1,430m tonnes (MtCO2).

In contrast, the newly reported carbon-intensity figures imply that China’s CO2 emissions only grew by 7% between 2020 and 2025, up just 690MtCO2, as shown by the figure below.

The gap between these figures amounts to 730m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2), equivalent to the annual emissions of Germany or South Korea.

Estimated annual changes in China’s CO2 emissions, relative to 2020=100. Blue line: Estimate based on originally reported changes in carbon intensity. Red: Based on changes reported in 2026. Source: Analysis for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta. See “about the data” for further details.

On paper, therefore, the change in the carbon-intensity metric effectively halves the rate of growth in China’s CO2 emissions over the past five years.

Decoding the new carbon-intensity methodology

The change in the carbon-intensity metric could have other significant implications, explored below, making it important to understand how it is being calculated.

Yet, while there are some indications of what the new approach entails, these changes do not seem to account for the magnitude of the revision.

The new scope includes industrial-process emissions. One of the largest sources of these emissions, the cement industry, has been contracting due to a slowdown in real estate and infrastructure construction.

This reduction in emissions is one reason why China’s carbon intensity has improved more quickly under the new scope than under the old one.

In addition, the new scope excludes non-energy use of fossil fuels – largely relating to the chemicals industry – where there has been rapid growth over the past five years.

This is another factor in carbon intensity improving faster under the new scope.

Indeed, China’s chemicals industry drove more than half of the growth in its total fossil-fuel use in the past five years, including 40% of coal use and all of oil use. As a result, non-energy use reached 13% of the total consumption of fossil fuels in 2025, up from 7% in 2020, after growing at an average annual rate of 13%.

The figure below illustrates the impact of these changes in scope. It shows the change in China’s emissions from 2020-2025 due to the use of fossil fuels for energy, its industrial-process emissions and non-energy use of fossil fuels.

The first few rows show changes based on the consumption of fossil fuels overall, amounting to a combined 1,430MtCO2 rise in emissions.

This compares with the 690MtCO2 rise implied by the new carbon-intensity metric, leaving that Germany-sized 730MtcO2 gap in emissions. The new scope explains some of this gap.

In terms of industrial processes, the 30% fall in cement production could account for a 300MtCO2 fall in China’s CO2 emissions. In addition, the amount of carbon stored in products, such as plastics, asphalt and rubber, could account for an estimated 100MtCO2 fall in emissions.

On the other hand, emissions from the incineration of plastics increased by an estimated 40% and from metals industry processes by 10%, with aluminium production having expanded by 21%. Together, these would have increased emissions by an estimated 60MtCO2.

In total, the changes in emissions from fossil-fuel use, industrial processes, carbon retained in products and waste incineration add up to a combined 1,070MtCO2 rise from 2020-2025, shown in the penultimate row of the figure below.

Again, this revised total – based on the change in scope of the carbon-intensity metric – goes some way to explaining the Germany-sized gap in China’s CO2 emissions.

However, the new carbon-intensity figures imply that China’s CO2 emissions only increased by 690MtCO2, as shown in the final row of the figure below. This leaves a residual gap of around 380MtCO2, which does not appear to be accounted for by the data available.

Changes in China’s emissions by source from 2020-2025, MtCO2. Source: Analysis for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta. See “about the data” for further details.

One way to make the numbers add up would be to assume that the amount of carbon embedded in chemical-industry products has increased by the equivalent of 500MtCO2.

However, the reported output of major chemical-industry products cannot account for this level of embedded carbon. The figure below shows that the increase in output of major chemical products only explains around a 110MtCO2 increase in retained carbon.

Much of the increase in the production of plastics was cancelled out by a contraction in the use of bitumen for asphalt, due to lower road-building activity.

The amount of carbon retained in products from 2005-2025, MtCO2. Source: Analysis for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta. See “about the data” for further details.

Furthermore, the 14th five-year plan for 2021-25 had a target of raising the share of waste incineration to 65% of urban residential waste treatment capacity, up from 45% in 2020.

So, while plastics production did go up, resulting in increased amounts of retained carbon, a larger share of this retained carbon was being incinerated, meaning its carbon would quickly be released back into the atmosphere.

One reason why carbon retained in products has grown more slowly than the amount of fossil fuels used in chemicals production is that the fastest growth has been in the coal-based chemicals industry.

Coal-based processes have a much lower conversion efficiency than oil- and gas-based production, with process emissions that are typically multiple times as high.

For example, these emissions are 10 times as high for the production of olefins – a key plastics feedstock – from coal as compared with oil or gas. The process is reported to require 3.75 tonnes of standard coal per tonne of product. This implies that only 30% of the carbon in the coal is retained in the product, with the other 70% being emitted in the process.

There are also chemical processes that use fossil fuels as a feedstock, but where the end product does not contain carbon. One example is ammonia, a key building block for fertiliser, where production grew by 52% from 2020 to 2025.

Neither the change in scope of the carbon-intensity calculation, nor the change in the amount of carbon retained in products, is sufficient to explain the size of the revision in the newly reported numbers. There must be another explanation.

There are two options. Either the new scope broadly aligns with what is outlined above, but also excludes a subset of the CO2 emissions. Or the scope does not exclude any of the CO2, but there are gaps in the monitoring of some energy or industrial-process emissions.

Either explanation would mean that China is not accounting for some of its CO2 emissions. It would also mean that the improvement in carbon intensity for 2020-2025 is over-reported.

China’s latest officially reported emissions inventories reinforce the second of the two options above, namely, that there are gaps in emissions reporting from the chemical industry.

From 2018 to 2021, the latest year for which China has reported on its emissions, the CO2 output of chemical-industry processes only increased by 13%. Over the same period, non-energy use of fossil fuels increased by 29%, according to data reported to the International Energy Agency by the Chinese government.

One factor in these apparent gaps could be that China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is required to publish data on carbon intensity very quickly, since it is a key indicator in the country’s five-year plans.

On the other hand, detailed greenhouse gas emissions inventories and energy statistics are only published years later, by the environment ministry and NBS, respectively.

What the change means for China’s targets

The change in the definition of carbon intensity has the effect of weakening China’s climate targets and introducing more uncertainty into tracking progress.

On the basis of China’s new numbers, it will require less effort to hit the 2030 target for a 65% reduction in carbon intensity on 2005 levels, as per China’s Paris pledge.

This target can now be met even if CO2 emissions go up between 2025 and 2030, whereas the previous metric would have required a reduction.

It will also require less effort to hit the 17% target in the 15th five-year plan. 

The apparent gaps in the CO2 emissions numbers for 2025 could affect the delivery of China’s other key climate pledges, such as the commitment to peak CO2 emissions before 2030. They could also allow the chemical industry’s CO2 emissions to continue climbing rapidly, while still officially meeting the 2030 goals for CO2 intensity.

Moreover, the apparent gaps or inconsistencies in China’s new carbon accounting also mean that China would be able to officially meet its target to peak its CO2 emissions by 2030, even if its overall CO2 emissions do not actually reach a peak.

The apparent gaps could also affect the delivery of China’s newer target to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035 and beyond.

Nevertheless, researchers and analysts can still monitor progress by calculating China’s CO2 emissions independently.

China’s reporting on fossil-fuel consumption, the output of plastics and other carbon-containing products, as well as manufacturing of commodities with substantial process emissions, provides a basis for tracking emissions under the new scope.

While under the UN’s climate framework China is free to use any definition it wants to meet its own nationally determined climate pledges, retrospective changes to methodology or inconsistent accounting could erode the value of the country’s commitments.

Moreover, it will, ultimately, have to close any gaps in its emissions data and reporting, under the transparency rules of the Paris Agreement.

China’s next transparency report to the UN, due by the end of this year, should also provide more clarity on the methodology and data underlying the revised numbers.

This underscores the importance of monitoring, reporting and verification for industrial process emissions. “Mass balances” based on fossil-fuel consumption and product output could be used as a check on CO2 emissions reporting. Finally, China’s emissions data could also be made more granular and clearly defined.

Carbon Brief has approached the National Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of Ecology and Environment for comment.

The University of Maryland’s Cui tells Carbon Brief that in general, China’s climate goals are “improv[ing]” in terms of their coverage and scope. However, she adds:

“The issue is…the ambiguity and inconsistency in the coverage, definition and method between target setting and progress tracking, which can lead to large uncertainties and room for manipulation. It highlights the importance of transparency in national climate targets, following the UNFCCC’s international transparency framework, which should also be applied as best practices for domestic targets.”

About the data

The calculations in this analysis are based on China’s total coal, oil and gas consumption from energy statistical yearbooks covering the years until 2023, with data for 2024 and 2025 taken from the latest statistical communiques.

“Originally reported” CO2 emissions were back-calculated from carbon-intensity reductions and GDP growth given in annual statistical communiques. The revised emissions for 2020, 2024 and 2025 are similarly back-calculated from the reductions in carbon intensity from 2020 to 2025 and from 2024 to 2025, as reported in the 15th five-year plan outline and the 2025 statistical communique, respectively, combined with annually reported GDP growth.

Cement process emissions up to 2024 are from Robbie Andrews’ estimates, scaled to 2025 based on year-on-year change in total cement output.

Process emissions from the metals industry are based on calculating emissions for aluminium, silicon, lead, zinc and crude steel from the bottom-up, using industrial output data and IPCC default emission factors scaled to the reported total in 2021. For steel, the calculations are based on typical quicklime use in basic-oxygen and electric-arc furnaces.

Emissions from the incineration of plastics are based on a peer-reviewed estimate of plastics incineration in 2022, combined with growth rates in the overall power generation from waste-to-energy plants. The analysis assumes that the share of plastics in the energy content of the incinerated waste stayed constant over this period, which is a conservative assumption given the rapid rise in plastics production.

Total non-energy use of fossil fuels in 2020, 2024 and 2025 is available from an NEA data release, with data for 2021-2023 found in the China energy statistical yearbook 2025.

The mix of coal, oil and gas within non-energy use is based on the energy statistical yearbook data up to 2023, with the increase in coal in 2024 and 2025 based on Wind Financial Terminal data on coal consumption in the chemical industry. Gas use, which is relatively minor, is assumed to have grown on trend and oil is calculated as the residual.

Primary plastics, rubber, and urea output data are from NBS industrial statistics. The production of solvents, lubricants and waxes, as well as the use of bitumen in construction, is from energy statistical yearbooks. The analysis assumes no change in output from 2023 to 2025, given the lack of clear trends.

Guest post: How changes to coal mining have affected China’s methane emissions

China energy

|

19.03.26

Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ mean for climate change?

China energy

|

06.03.26

Ma Jun: ‘No business interest’ in Chinese coal power due to cheaper renewables 

China energy

|

19.02.26

Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months

China energy

|

12.02.26

jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_e7ae9aa7a33c7eb45d5886f0abe0220f .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });

The post Analysis: China’s new carbon metric leaves Germany-sized gap in its emissions appeared first on Carbon Brief.

This is a re-post from And Then There's Physics

If you’ve been paying attention to the climate debate on social media you might have noticed the RCP8.5 debate rearing it’s ugly head again. This is because a new set of emission/concentration projections have been developed for the climate modelling community (CMIP7). These new projections no longer include an RCP8.5-like projection and so all of those who have been critical of its use are now crowing about this proving them right.

I’ve written about RCP8.5 numerous times before. My views have probably evolve somewhat over time, but my previous posts are probably a reasonably good reflection of them. So, if you do want to know them, you could read some of these earlier post. I don’t want to delve too much into the re-invigorated “debate” but instead thought I’d post links to other posts/articles that I think explain the situation pretty well. If you want to read alternative takes, they’re not all that difficult to find. You can probably guess the authors.

I will, though, repeat the sub-heading of Gavin’s Realclimate post:

The fantasy version of the normal updating of scenarios for a new round of CMIP simulations doing the rounds is bad faith BS.

Links to other posts:

Scenarios, Schemarios – Gavin Schmidt at Realclimate.
On the death of RCP8.5 – Zeke Hausfather, Glen Peters and Piers Foster at Climate Brink.
Factcheck: Trump’s false claims about the IPCC and ‘RCP8.5’ climate scenario – multiple authors at Carbon Brief.
IPCC does not create scenarios – Reto Knutti at Linkedin
Sorry, climate change is still dangerous, no matter what nonsense Trump emits – Bulletin article by Genevieve Guenther

This article An ethically honest Memorial Day was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

On Memorial Day, it is my family’s practice to remember and honor all those who have died in war — including but not limited to those who have served in our country’s military. This broader act of memorialization is both truer to the history of Memorial Day, and more responsive to the moral imperative that all humans — and especially U.S. citizens — face as a result of the suffering and risk that organized violence causes throughout the world.

Like Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day has been gradually co-opted as an opportunity to show unquestioning, blank-check support for the U.S. military. We think participating in these commemorations is just being a good citizen, but in truth by participating we are adding our voice to a highly organized political message that speaks very loudly to the rest of the world. The political message we help send is that we value the lives of U.S. military personnel thousands upon thousands of times more than we value the lives of all others.

This is not my family’s belief, and therefore we cannot participate in Memorial Day in this way.

Historically, like Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day started as an expression of the strength of human desire for peace and respect for all life. The roots of the holiday began in the days following the end of the Civil War by those wanting to honor the fallen in the name of preserving the peace which had been achieved. Formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina held perhaps the first documented memorial day on May 1, 1865. While focused on honoring those who served as soldiers for the Union, these early commemorations also remembered and mourned all who died in the fighting, including civilians on both sides and soldiers for the South. So strong was this tendency to name and recognize the harm on both sides that some historians have critiqued these early Memorial Days as having the effect of whitewashing the moral battle that did take place as each person chose which side they were on in that critical time.

#newsletter-block_8a80a971a2882f9d43450b9f41afe3ae { background: #ECECEC; color: #000000; } #newsletter-block_8a80a971a2882f9d43450b9f41afe3ae #mc_embed_signup_front input#mce-EMAIL { border-color:#000000 !important; color: #000000 !important; } Sign Up for our Newsletter

We’ll send you a weekly email with the latest articles.

Yet today our Memorial Day celebrations have the exact opposite problem. We dedicate so much time and resources and emotional energy to remembering the fallen soldiers and servicemembers on “our side,” while we willfully decline to mention the exponentially outsized larger picture: the uncountable lives lost, the incalculable cost, and the sheer depth of human suffering caused by war and organized violence around the world. This tendency, to honor the lives of our own military above all other lives, is deeply morally and psychologically dangerous. It trains our minds to accept the unnamed tens of thousands as correctly, reasonably invisible; to consider those whose names and ranks we can recite to be the only losses deserving of pause, mourning and honor.

This is a deep error and our souls know it. Every single person who dies in any war is a human being with a family. Every single loss rips a hole in the hearts of those that loved them. For each soul lost there is unfathomable pain that can never be fully understood or articulated.

But it can and should be recognized. To remember, to memorialize, does help.

Yesterday, Ms. magazine published an article that points to this need for a broader understanding of Memorial Day. It specifically named the women and children whose deaths and suffering in war are often invisibilized. In particular, they name the horrifying deaths of the 165 Iranian girls who were killed when our military, in an apparent but as of yet unacknowledged error, bombed their school. To hold an ethically honest Memorial Day, we could start by naming these children, these innocents – and turning our eyes and our hearts to the unfathomable suffering of their mothers.

Veterans for Peace has also consistently lifted up a call for Memorial Day to acknowledge the full cost of war and affirm the strength of our desire for peace. In their 2025 statement, they include a quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a World War II veteran: “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

The will of the people

I believe that a huge number of Americans hold a similar opinion of war, even those who participate in Memorial Day commemorations. Despite decades of efforts to bake blank-check militarism into U.S. culture, most people are implicitly aware that the entire game serves the interests of the political elite and the very rich, while demanding sacrifice mainly from working class people. Research shows that antiwar sentiment was one of the primary motivations of a subset of Trump voters. A decisive number of voters withheld votes from Kamala Harris due to horror at the Biden-Harris administration’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Neither group of voters has seen their will expressed. 

I myself feel agonizingly helpless by the current news, and I can only imagine how a peace-motivated Trump voter must feel. Far from holding to his antiwar plank, Trump has acutely escalated both the culture and the practice of endless war. He renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War and has run it in a way that eviscerates all subtlety and respect for human rights. Far from resolving the genocide in Gaza, he has escalated it into a regional conflict that could easily lead to nuclear war. Trump has made numerous horrifying threats, including “that a whole civilization will die,” which is the definition of genocide. He is implementing automatic draft registration for our sons ages 18 to 26, so none can refuse to register as an act of conscientious objection. One is reminded of God’s warning through the prophet Samuel: “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.”

#support-block_85c81e085e5bccf2dae3e7c94127d433 { background: #000000; color: #ffffff; } Support Us

Waging Nonviolence depends on reader support. Make a donation today!

Donate

In the midst of this, we are all being encouraged to accept these escalations as normal and continue to join in and march and smile and show unquestioning respect and approval of such behavior. No! We must forge a better way.

What we need is an ethically honest Memorial Day. What the human spirit needs is a Memorial Day infused with heart and thoughtfulness, a Memorial Day that harnesses the power of our remembrance toward our deep desire for peace and well being for all. We can start by naming all those we know who have died in war — including soldiers and civilians who were killed in visible, recognized wars; soldiers and civilians who were killed in small conflicts; unofficial military actions that don’t make the news; and all victims of organized violence. We can name each soul whose names we know, and light candles for them.

But we should not stop there. We should also name in some way the unnameable. We should all visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in our hearts, and in doing so consider consciously not just those on “our side,” but all the loss of life that our global community has suffered because of war and organized violence. We can mark those uncountable deaths whose names we don’t know, but of whom we are aware. Doing so is an act of psychological honesty; it gives voice to our soul’s knowledge that their lives and their deaths do matter. In doing this we may not change anything outwardly, but we do change the rhythm of our own awareness, and the power of such a shift should not be underestimated.

Art by CODEPINK

This article An ethically honest Memorial Day was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Expansion of the Wressle oil site near Scunthorpe would result in more than one million tonnes of climate-damaging greenhouse gases, documents have revealed.

But the developer, Egdon Resources, has said the proposal would not have a significant impact on climate change.

Well trajectories (proposed in red and existing in green) from the Wressle oil site.
Source: Egdon Resources application

The expansion would produce an estimated extra 1 million+ barrels of oil over 15 years. Gas produced alongside the oil would be an additional 5.264 billion cubic feet.

The figures were published in a new assessment of the climate impact of the plans.

Egdon first submitted the proposal in March 2024 for two new wells, lower-volume fracking, 15 years of production and a 600m gas pipeline.

An approval by officials at North Lincolnshire Council in September 2024 was quashed in a legal case brought by a local campaigner.

This followed the landmark Finch ruling at the Supreme Court, which required decisionmakers to take account of the greenhouse gas emissions from the use of onshore oil or gas production.

Egdon had previously said the plans did not need a detailed environmental impact assessment (EIA).

But the company agreed earlier this year to voluntarily submit a slimmed-down version of an EIA, looking at just climate change, socio-economic impacts and cumulative effects.

Emissions estimates

Egdon’s consultants, Bureau Veritas, has estimated that at worst the greenhouse gases from the project would amount to 1,007,731 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

More than 90% of the total, 917,999 tCO2e, would be from burning the oil and gas produced at the site, known as scope 3 category 11 emissions.

The remaining emissions, mainly from the production process, are estimated to total 89,732 tCO2e.

The climate assessment said:

“Overall, the Proposed Development is not expected to result in significant adverse effects on climate change, and the assessment demonstrates that emissions and climate risks have been considered in a proportionate and robust manner, consistent with relevant guidance and best practice.”

On the scope 3 category 11 greenhouse gases, the assessment said:

“While these emissions represent a very small proportion of global emissions, it is recognised that climate change is highly sensitive to cumulative emissions.

“Taking into account the global and downstream nature of these emissions, their lack of direct control at the project level, and their consistency with broader decarbonisation pathways, the effect is … considered to be minor adverse overall.”

The assessment estimated that at peak annual production, the scope 3 category 11 emissions would represent, at worst, 0.00033% of the remaining global carbon budget.

This would indicate a moderate adverse effect, the assessment said. But it concluded that the effect was “minor adverse when viewed in the context of global mitigation trajectories”.

The scope 1 and 2 emissions and scope 3 excluding category 11, were also considered to be “minor adverse following mitigation”.

These emissions, compared with UK carbon budgets) ranged from 0.0009% (seventh budget) TO 0.002% (sixth budget).

Other assessments

An updated ecological impact assessment on the Wressle plans said there would be no significant impacts on air quality affecting internationally-important wildlife sites on the Humber Estuary.

It also said there would be no “significant adverse effects” on sites of special scientific interest at Broughton Far Wood, 210m away from the well site, and Broughton Alder Wood, 600m away.

The socio-economic impact assessment concluded there would be “moderate to major beneficial effects” for employment and economic performance in civil engineering, mining and quarrying industries.

On cumulative effects, the assessment said:

“No long term significant effects identified and no greater [impacts] than for the proposed development in isolation”.

Public consultation

People and organisations can now comment on the new documents, either online (go to bottom of application webpage and click submit comment button), by email to planning@northlincs.gov.uk or in writing to the Development Management team, North Lincolnshire Council, Church Square House, 30-40 High Street, Scunthorpe, DN15 6NL, quoting PA/2024/275.

The application’s website lists the closing date for the consultation as 30 June 2026.

DrillOrDrop will report on reaction to Egdon’s climate and other assessments.

At least 67 NHS hospital wards, departments and other sites across the UK have been forced to temporarily close or relocate due to weather-related flooding over the past five years, a Carbon Brief investigation reveals.

Maternity centres, surgical theatres, a neonatal intensive-care unit and even entire hospital buildings have been disrupted by heavy rainfall or encroaching floodwaters.

Carbon Brief submitted freedom-of-information (FOI) requests to 162 NHS trusts, which show that while many flood-related shutdowns were brief, some lasted for weeks or months. 

In total, 148 trusts responded to these requests with reports of 67 flood-related shutdowns, giving detailed data for 30 incidents that resulted in a total of 3,000 days of closures.

Reports of flooding at NHS sites have been on the rise, according to NHS England data.  

This comes as the UK experiences wetter winters, with periods of extreme rainfall that are increasingly linked to human-caused climate change.

These floods can exacerbate existing problems in a healthcare system that is already struggling with insufficient funding, old hospital buildings and a backlog of maintenance work.

Indeed, while there have been efforts to make UK hospitals more resilient to extreme weather, one expert tells Carbon Brief that such measures are difficult to implement when these institutions are struggling to keep their “heads above water”.

Rising floods

Floods pose a threat to people’s health, but they also threaten the UK’s healthcare infrastructure. Water can enter hospitals, paralyse ambulance services and damage equipment, placing strain on an already stretched NHS.

NHS records show that the number of flood incidents “caused by external weather events” in facilities across England has doubled since 2021, reaching nearly 400 in 2024-25. 

Equivalent data is not available for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, although there have been reports of floods disrupting services across the whole UK.

As global temperatures rise and the atmosphere holds more moisture, UK winters are getting wetter. Attribution studies show climate change has increased the severity of recent rainfall and flooding events – including Storm Eunice in 2022 and Storm Babet in 2023. 

There is also a risk of increased flooding when heavy rain hits after periods of intense drought, of the kind seen in recent years.

Environment Agency modelling suggests that a rising share of medical facilities in England will be at risk of flooding due to climate change. It says the share of sites at risk will increase from a quarter in 2024 to a third by the middle of the century.

Despite this apparent threat facing the UK’s healthcare system, there is limited information about the extent to which these floods are already disrupting NHS services.

Closed services

To build a fuller picture of NHS-wide flooding, Carbon Brief sent FOI requests to 162 trusts and health boards – the organisations in charge of health services – across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

They were asked for details of wards, departments or services that had been temporarily or permanently closed due to weather-related flooding, such as river floods or heavy rainfall, between 2021-22 and the start of 2026.

In total, 148 of these bodies responded with details of 67 incidents in which weather-related floods have triggered closures. The map below shows where these incidents were located, from hospital wards in Scotland to an eye unit on the south coast of England.

Sites of weather-related flooding incidents at NHS facilities. The size of the circles indicates the number of incidents reported at each site. Source: NHS trust FOI responses to Carbon Brief.

The 67 flooding-related disruptions reported by NHS trusts and health boards is likely an underestimate. Many trusts told Carbon Brief they did not record such detailed information or that collating it would be too time-consuming.

Nevertheless, the results provide an insight into the kind of risks facing NHS services as weather gets more extreme.

Among the closures were 13 accident and emergency (A&E) departments, urgent treatment centres and minor injuries units. There were also 10 hospital wards, 10 surgical theatres, five maternity units and a neonatal intensive-care unit affected by flooding. 

Many trusts did not provide information about how long each closure lasted. However, the 30 incidents where timespans were provided add up to the equivalent of more than 3,000 days – or eight years – of closures across NHS sites. 

The infographic below provides a snapshot of some notable closures from the dataset.

Notable incidents of weather-related flooding at NHS facilities. Source: FOI responses to Carbon Brief. Notable incidents of weather-related flooding at NHS facilities. Source: FOI responses to Carbon Brief. .cb-mobile{ display:none; } @media (max-width:650px){ .cb-mobile{ display:inherit; } .cb-desktop{ display:none } }

The entire Buckland Hospital site in Dover closed for two days in 2025 amid “exceptional rainfall” and flash floods. People seeking radiology, maternity and urgent-care services were told not to visit over the weekend and various clinical services were delayed or cancelled.

The NHS declared a “major incident” in 2021 when flood waters “caused power outages impacting multiple areas” at Whipps Cross Hospital in north-east London – including its maternity service – for four days. Neighbouring hospitals also flooded.

Some closures lasted far longer. In Stroud General Hospital, a surgical theatre was closed for two weeks and an X-ray facility for around two months after storm water overflowed into the building in 2023.

Several NHS trusts stressed that the flooding incidents they reported were localised – often resulting from roof leaks exacerbated by heavy rain – and resulted in minimal disruption. Sometimes, as with a cardiology suite in Cannock Chase Hospital, the service was moved and the trust says patient care was not disrupted.

However, the responses also showed the breadth of damage such events can cause, including rainwater “pouring onto expensive equipment” and floods triggering the long-term relocation of services.

For example, Orchard Cottage, a site that provided care for adults with learning disabilities in Derbyshire, experienced major flooding during Storm Babet in 2023 and was permanently shut down as a result.

Adaptation needs

The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, a group of UK health organisations, concluded in a report in 2025 that, with flood risks projected to grow, there is an “urgent need for adaptation measures” across the nation’s healthcare facilities.

Government advisors at the Climate Change Committee have highlighted the need for flood resilience in UK hospitals, including flood barriers, waterproofed electricals and built-in redundancy for critical areas, such as theatres, labs and IT equipment.

There have been various measures at both government and NHS level intended to improve the resilience of medical facilities to climate-related hazards.

The UK’s national adaptation programme sets out expectations for NHS England to “adapt NHS infrastructure to extreme weather events”. All trusts must have “green plans” in place, which require climate change to be factored into infrastructure decisions, for example, through the creation of drainage systems or green spaces.

Yet, as it stands, three-quarters of UK doctors say their workplaces are not prepared for the impact of extreme weather and nearly half of healthcare workers report that extreme weather has disrupted NHS services in the past five years.

Many hospitals have outdated infrastructure – often predating the founding of the NHS – which was not designed to cope with climate change. Prof Hugh Montgomery, chair of intensive-care medicine at University College London, tells Carbon Brief:

“The hospitals themselves weren’t built for this weather any more than anything else is really – and of course it’s going to get worse, in an exponential function.”

Many of the FOI responses provided to Carbon Brief identified specific building defects, such as roof leaks, which led to the flooding incidents during periods of heavy rainfall. There is a huge – and growing – backlog of maintenance work at NHS hospitals that was estimated in 2024-25 to need repairs costing £15.9bn.

Chris Naylor, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund, a thinktank focusing on health policy, tells Carbon Brief:

“Dealing with some of the backlog maintenance would probably help with climate adaptation as well, because of leaky roofs and all the rest of it. But we do also need to be thinking specifically about climate adaptation within the NHS and making sure there is funding for that.”

Montgomery points out that with trusts “mostly bankrupt” and most hospitals running a deficit, the question remains how to fund such interventions. “They’re struggling to keep their heads above water and they’re losing money,” he says.

Dr Mark Harber, a consultant nephrologist and special adviser on climate change at the  Royal College of Physicians, tells Carbon Brief that hospitals at least need to make plans for extreme weather. This is particularly important for patients in need of time-dependent and life-saving treatments, such as kidney dialysis and chemotherapy.

Harber notes that hospitals, supply chains and transport could all be disrupted by floods:

“You have to have plans in place to deal with that, even if the NHS can’t deal with the flooding risk per se.”

Carbon Brief asked NHS England – which is responsible for the majority of the trusts that reported flooding disruption – for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication. 

Methodology

The list of incidents reported by trusts can be viewed here.

Carbon Brief sent FOI requests to 120 English NHS trusts that have reported any incidents of flooding since 2021 in NHS England’s Estates Returns Information Collection (ERIC) dataset. This covers around 60% of all English NHS trusts. 

Carbon Brief also filed FOI requests with all 42 of the health boards and trusts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are equivalent to English NHS trusts.  

All trusts and health boards were asked for details of wards, departments or services that have been temporarily or permanently closed due to weather-related flooding, such as river flooding or heavy rainfall. 

This matches the wording used to describe a flooding event in the ERIC system, which requires the reporting of all flood events “caused by external weather events” that trigger a risk assessment by staff. Such external events are distinct from floods caused by other issues that are not related to the weather, such as burst pipes.

In total, 14 trusts did not respond and many more said they did not hold the data requested. Some trusts provided data, but on further questioning stated that the data they provided covered all flooding events and it was not possible to say which were related to weather conditions. These cases have not been included in the final dataset.

CCC: Investing in ‘urgent’ UK adaptation action ‘cheaper than climate damages’

Risk and adaptation

|

20.05.26

Analysis: UK no longer top UN Green Climate Fund donor after latest aid cut

UK policy

|

15.05.26

Analysis: Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began

Renewables

|

07.05.26

Q&A: How the UK government aims to ‘break link between gas and electricity prices’

Renewables

|

21.04.26

jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_25973dcf4e61df3c58a69b8c3eef787c .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });

The post Revealed: Floods have forced at least 67 closures at NHS hospitals since 2021 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

This factsheet looks at how much land would be required for solar systems that could meet all of Ontario's electricity needs.  It finds that 4/10ths of one percent of Ontario's landbase would be enough area to meet all of Ontario's current electricity demand.  Ontario covers a massive land area bigger than many countries.  It has

The post Ontario solar generation land requirements appeared first on Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

25 May 2026- As we mark Africa Day 2026, we, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) Africa, are reiterating our urgent call to strengthen the continent’s fight against waste colonialism. 

We call for an end to waste colonialism – the practice of exporting waste from high-income nations to lower-income countries that are often ill-equipped to manage it safely — a system that perpetuates environmental racism and places disproportionate harm on vulnerable communities. 

We are witnessing our environments, our communities, and our informal waste workers being forced to shoulder a burden that is not theirs. Although this waste is often shipped to us under the guise of “recycling,” we know the reality: only 9% of plastic produced since the 1950s has ever been recycled. Instead, countries including the United States, Italy, Germany, and Greece continue to export hazardous waste—including e-waste, plastic waste, and textile waste—to African nations.

We are deeply concerned about the situation in hotspots such as Accra, Nairobi, and Lagos. We see massive dumps filled with illegal imports—toxic electronics, hazardous plastics, second-hand clothing in the form of textile waste and even chemical waste. 

We are outraged that the relentless pursuit of cheap resource extraction by Global North countries is inflicting severe health and environmental harm across the African continent. Most tragically, children are working in toxic waste dumps, exposed to chemicals and pollution with devastating health impacts, because wealthy nations continue to benefit from global systemic inequality.

Gilbert Kuepouo, Executive Director of the Centre de Recherche et d’éducation pour le Développement (CREPD), said that amid the uncertainties and setbacks on many environmental issues, Africa is struggling with a silent handicap. 

‘’35 years after its adoption, the Bamako Convention counts only 30 ratifications (55.5% of the countries of the African Union) and only 3 COPs organized, i.e. about 01 COP every 12 years! A paradox for a region that deliberately designed this instrument to protect itself and its people against waste colonialism.” 

While the Bamako Convention provides stronger regional protections than the Basel Convention in prohibiting the import of hazardous waste into Africa, we recognise that enforcement and political will across the continent remain inadequate. It is therefore imperative that all African nations exercise their collective sovereign rights to ratify and fully implement the Bamako Convention, and to take a united stand against the continued dumping of waste from the Global North.  

Hellen Dena, project lead for the Pan-African Plastic project at Greenpeace Africa, expresses concerns about the devastating impact of waste colonialism. From toxic chemicals and massive carbon footprints to worker exploitation, the damage is widespread. 

To fix this, she said, ‘’we need stronger laws—like extended producer responsibility (EPR) and stricter supply chain regulations—to ensure brands are held accountable, from production to disposal.”

“New EU landmark rules on plastic waste shipments must be strongly enforced to ensure EU plastic waste exports to African countries are not only prohibited on paper, but stopped in reality, together with their harmful impacts,’’ explained Justine Maillot, EU plastics policy expert, with the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)

We call on African governments to strengthen the implementation of the Bamako Convention to end illegal imports. Western manufacturers must find sustainable solutions for their waste rather than externalising environmental costs to the Global South. 

Jim Puckett, Executive Director and Founder of Basel Action Network (BAN), also calls for stronger advocacy. According to Jim, “Africa has led the way in saying no to waste trade. It’s time to lead in saying no to plastic.”  This is why Sirine Rached, Global Policy Advisor at GAIA advised  ‘’plastic waste prevention – which begins with addressing plastic overproduction – is critical. It is a gap under the Basel Convention, and one which the future global plastic treaty must absolutely cover.” 

On this Africa Day, we call for a future underpinned by environmental justice and the absolute protection of our planet and people. Africa’s future generations must not be left to pay the price for the world’s waste – Africa is not a dumping ground!

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

GAIA Africa: Ibrahim Khalilulahi Usman – khalil@no-burn.org 

BFFP Africa: Masego Mokgwetsi – masego@breakfreefromplastic.org 

ABOUT GAIA & BFFP 

GAIA: GAIA is a global network of grassroots groups, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and individuals, in over 90 countries. The organisation envisions a just, zero-waste world built on respect for ecological limits and community rights, where people are free from the burden of toxic pollution, and resources are sustainably conserved, not burned or dumped. GAIA works to catalyse a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution. www.no-burn.org 

BFFP: The #BreakFreeFromPlastic (BFFP) Movement is a global movement envisioning a future free from plastic pollution. Since its launch in 2016, more than 12,000 organisations and individual supporters from across the world have joined the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement to demand massive reductions in single-use plastics and to push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis. www.breakfreefromplastic.org 

The post Media Release: Stop Dumping on Africa: GAIA/BFFP Calls for Urgent Action Against Waste Colonialism first appeared on GAIA.

A recent United Nations report declares the world is facing a state of water bankruptcy that will force food and agriculture systems to adapt.  

Across the globe, surface waters and glaciers are shrinking, wetlands have been liquidated, and groundwater has been depleted, the report states. As water insecurity grows, agricultural heartlands are running off a diminished supply, and water quality is decreasing. According to the U.N., current expectations around water governance are no longer relevant. 

The term water crisis has been used to refer to systemic issues in water systems, explains Kaveh Madani, Director of the U.N. University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) and author of the report. But he says it’s no longer appropriate for the current reality. “The term “water crisis” implies a temporary shock and deviation from the baseline,” he tells Food Tank. “But we are dealing with a new normal—a post-crisis state of failure.”

The report reveals that humanity’s use of freshwater has surpassed the Earth’s limits. Withdrawals from many aquifers and basins are greater than what the planet can afford. This requires terminology that reflects this new reality, Madani argues. 

“Water bankruptcy reminds us that some of the damages are irreversible and that we require investing in adaptation to a new normal,” he says.

The agriculture sector—responsible for nearly 70 percent of freshwater withdrawals globally, according to the report—is particularly vulnerable to water shortages. In countries where agriculture constitutes a large fraction of the workforce, the impacts of water bankruptcy are intensified. Yields decline, livestock systems become dysregulated, the income of farmers and farm workers suffers. In turn, food prices rise.

But Madani says there is still a sustainable path forward for humanity’s relationship with water, and it begins with telling the truth and using the right language. “Declaring water bankruptcy, just like financial bankruptcy, is a difficult admission for anyone to make,” Madani tells Food Tank. “The language of water bankruptcy, when used by decision-makers, is meant to liberate them of their past lack of transparency and overreliance on short-term, unsustainable measures.”

Farmers are trying to manage water shortages by reducing the size of irrigated land and ramping up the use of water-efficient technology and crops, Madani explains. But they need support from policymakers to help fund their efforts. “Governments must offer alternative economic modes of life to farmers…which entails diversifying national economies and offering compensation for stranded investments.”

A just transition framework is central to planning, Madani argues. Those with the least amount of economic and political power are most likely to bear the brunt of water bankruptcy’s harms, the report explains. That’s why it argues that the restructuring of water governance must ensure legal safeguards, compensation, livelihood diversification, and social protection for societally disenfranchised populations.

The report also calls on nations to prevent further irreparable harm. This means ensuring that remaining wetlands, aquifers, soils, glaciers, ecosystems, and species are protected through government policy.

But water bankruptcy offers an unexpected opportunity, the report states. If recognized as the crisis it is, it can be a “catalyst for renewed cooperation. 

“Water is not a resource like any other. It is the crux of human security, global food systems, biodiversity, public health, and peace,” Madani tells Food Tank.

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 Elibet Valencia Munoz

The post The Path Forward from Global Water Bankruptcy appeared first on Food Tank.

Faktor yang Membuat Slot Disebut Gacor

Istilah slot gacor sebenarnya berasal dari pengalaman pemain yang merasa sebuah game lebih mudah memberikan free spin, scatter, ataupun pengali kemenangan besar dalam periode tertentu. Namun, penting dipahami bahwa tidak ada jaminan kemenangan pasti dalam permainan slot online.

Beberapa faktor yang biasanya membuat sebuah slot dianggap gacor antara lain:

• Frekuensi bonus yang lebih sering muncul
• RTP (Return to Player) relatif tinggi
• Fitur multiplier aktif secara konsisten
• Volatilitas seimbang antara risiko dan hadiah
• Pola permainan yang dinilai stabil oleh pemain

Pragmatic Play dikenal cukup konsisten menghadirkan elemen-elemen tersebut dalam berbagai game populernya. Karena itu, banyak pemain terus memantau daftar slot yang sedang ramai dibicarakan setiap minggunya.

Daftar Slot Pragmatic Play yang Paling Sering Maxwin Minggu Ini Gates of Olympus

Nama Gates of Olympus masih bertahan sebagai salah satu slot paling populer. Tema dewa Yunani dengan fitur multiplier acak membuat game ini sering menghadirkan kemenangan besar dalam satu putaran bonus. Banyak pemain menyukai sensasi pengali x100 hingga x500 yang bisa muncul kapan saja selama free spin berlangsung.

Game ini juga memiliki tempo permainan cepat dan efek visual yang dinamis, sehingga mampu menjaga antusiasme pemain sepanjang sesi bermain.

Starlight Princess

Starlight Princess menjadi pilihan favorit pemain yang menyukai tema anime fantasy. Mekanisme permainan yang mirip dengan Gates of Olympus membuat slot ini cukup sering menghasilkan kombinasi kemenangan beruntun.

Keunggulan utama game ini ada pada fitur tumble dan multiplier tinggi saat free spin aktif. Tidak sedikit pemain yang membagikan hasil Maxwin mereka dari slot ini di berbagai komunitas game online selama minggu ini.

Sweet Bonanza

Sweet Bonanza dikenal sebagai salah satu slot paling ikonik dari Pragmatic Play. Tema permen warna-warni dipadukan dengan sistem cluster pay membuat permainan terasa ringan namun tetap menegangkan.

Slot ini sering dianggap gacor karena mampu memberikan kemenangan besar melalui kombinasi multiplier saat mode free spin berjalan. Selain itu, gameplay yang sederhana membuat Sweet Bonanza cocok dimainkan baik oleh pemain baru maupun pemain berpengalaman.

Mahjong Ways

Mahjong Ways juga menjadi salah satu game yang ramai dimainkan minggu ini. Tema budaya Asia dengan efek suara santai memberikan pengalaman bermain yang berbeda dibanding slot modern bertema aksi.

Banyak pemain menyukai fitur pengganda bertingkat yang terus meningkat selama kombinasi kemenangan terjadi. Faktor inilah yang membuat Mahjong Ways cukup sering dikaitkan dengan peluang Maxwin dalam sesi permainan panjang.

Popularitas Pragmatic Play Terus Meningkat

Sebagai salah satu provider slot terbesar saat ini, Pragmatic Play terus menghadirkan inovasi melalui tema game kreatif, fitur bonus interaktif, dan kualitas visual modern. Hal itu membuat banyak game mereka konsisten masuk daftar slot paling banyak dimainkan setiap minggu.

Headline News:

• “Vertical Gardens Are A Practical, Beautiful Way To Cool Down Cities” • French botanist Patrick Blanc pioneered vertical gardens in the 1980s, and Europe has some striking examples. They are becomming common in South America. Botanist Ignacio Solano is breaking down misconceptions about the technology while he teaches people to turn cities green. [Euronews]

Ignacio Solano in Colombia (AlejandroOrmad, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped)

• “As Wars Hit Power Plants And Fuel Supplies, Rooftop Solar Can Be A Lifeline” • In a recent Guardian opinion essay, US Rep Lloyd Doggett and Michael Shank argue that attacks on Ukraine’s energy system and unstable fuel markets sparked by America’s war with Iran highlight just how vulnerable the infrastructure of fossil fuels can be. [The Cool Down]
• “Dajin Taps Jumbo To Deliver Heavy-Lift Ships” • Dajin Heavy Industry signed a contract with Jumbo Marine, a Dutch offshore shipping company, to build two high-end heavy-lift vessels. The Chinese foundations maker said that the vessels will be equipped with two 1200-tonne heavy-duty cranes with a combined lifting capacity of 2400 tonnes. [reNews]
• “RWE Lands Power Deal For 1.1-GW Oz Giant” • RWE has secured a Capacity Investment Scheme contract for its 1100-MW Theodore onshore wind project in Central Queensland. The company said that the Theodore project could feature up to 170 turbines and a battery storage facility capable of powering about 500,000 Queensland homes. [reNews]
• “US Adds Nearly 10 GWh Of Energy Storage Capacity In First Quarter, Best Q1 On Record” • The US energy storage industry installed 9.7 GWh of capacity in Q1 of 2026, the strongest first quarter in the sector’s history. Energy storage installations in Q1 were up 32% year-over-year despite actions in Washington that target clean energy. [CleanTechnica]

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