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Event Facilitator – Second Congo Basin Convening 2026

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) invites qualified consultants to submit Expressions of Interest for the position of Event Facilitator for the Second Congo Basin Convening, to be held from 25–27 August 2026 in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

The facilitator will support the planning and delivery of a high-level regional convening by designing participatory sessions, coordinating speakers and moderators, facilitating discussions, and guiding participants towards the adoption of the Yaoundé 2026 Declaration and the regional action roadmap.

We are seeking professionals with:

• A minimum of five years’ experience facilitating high-level multi-stakeholder events.
• Strong facilitation, communication and moderation skills.
• Fluency in both English and French.
• Knowledge of agroecology, food systems, biodiversity, climate justice, advocacy or sustainable development.
• Experience working with governments, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, farmers’ organisations, women and youth networks.

Application Requirements

Applicants should submit:

• A technical and financial proposal (maximum five pages).
• A current CV.
• Two references from similar assignments.

Submission Deadline: 3 August 2026

Applications should be submitted electronically to afsa@afsafrica.org.

Interested applicants are encouraged to consult the attached Terms of Reference (TOR) for the full description of the assignment, required qualifications, deliverables and application instructions.

You can’t tell when you’re passing one on the highway, but an electric vehicle may well have a superpower. It charges by plugging into the electric grid, of course, but it might also be able to send energy back into it. For a growing number of EVs, this vehicle-to-grid technology, or V2G, creates a revenue stream for drivers, who utilities pay to tap into their batteries when demand on the grid spikes. 

Utilities across the country are pursuing pilot projects for the tech, figuring out how to coordinate hundreds, thousands, and eventually millions of EVs. To that end, today a coalition of companies — Eversource, National Grid, EnergyHub, Sunrun, and the Mobility House — is launching an early test of the technology in Massachusetts so utility customers can give it a try. Lessons learned here and elsewhere could drive the technique into the mainstream, making the grid more reliable, and electricity cheaper, even if you don’t own an EV. “It’s great to have Massachusetts stepping into the lead here and doing this because these learnings are what’s going to allow this technology to scale,” said Chip Silverman, director of grid services at Sunrun, a solar and battery company.

In the new system, participants hook into an existing program called ConnectedSolutions, which allows homes to run off their residential batteries, among other things. Then when there’s a “demand response” event, like during a heat wave, EV batteries can help the grid keep up. Participants are compensated for this, just like some homeowners who provide energy from their solar panels. 

“It’s really kind of a small number of hours per year that you’re discharging the battery,” said Russell Vare, vice president of vehicle-grid integration at the Mobility House North America, a provider of charging infrastructure. “It’s not necessarily like a daily discharge. It’s just during those peak times the events are called.”

Utilities like V2G because they’re dealing with escalating, overlapping challenges. For one, the demand for electricity is growing as more power-hungry data centers come online and people switch from internal combustion cars to EVs and from gas furnaces to heat pumps. At the same time, utilities are trying to ditch gas and coal in favor of renewables like wind and solar. These clean technologies, though, are intermittent, in that the wind isn’t always blowing and the sun isn’t always shining. Utilities need ways to bank energy for later use, which is why they’re building storage facilities and even using the Earth itself as a giant battery.

Already, Americans are struggling with skyrocketing energy prices for a variety of reasons. Utility shareholders are reaping profits, for instance, and customers are footing the bill for improvements, like burying power lines so they don’t spark wildfires or come down in a storm. Building battery facilities and stringing transmission lines will add still more costs — the inevitable price to pay for a cleaner, more reliable grid.

Read Next The US may be hitting a tipping point for heat pumps Matt Simon

Except some of that spending may indeed be avoidable: The promise of V2G is that it can make electricity cheaper. While participants need a bidirectional charger to send energy back to the grid, a utility doesn’t need to reinvent the system as a whole. EV batteries are an existing, widespread, and reliable source of backup energy to tap into in times of high demand, like during the summer when everyone is running their air conditioning. “It’s the cheapest cost of flexible energy storage that will be available for the grid,” Vare said.

The hotter the planet gets, the more enticing V2G looks for utilities. People need additional AC to stay healthy, but the appliances require lots of power to run. If that energy isn’t coming from renewables, it’s causing even more warming and increasing demand for AC, and on and on. In a V2G system, vehicles that follow predictable schedules, like school buses and municipal fleets, will be especially useful, in addition to their batteries being enormous stores of energy. Even a typical EV battery, though, has around six times the capacity as a backup unit mounted outside a house. 

While not all EVs have the hardware needed to tap into V2G, more models are, like the Nissan Leaf, coming equipped to do so. And as with any technology, bidirectional chargers will get cheaper over time. “As hardware costs come down, installation becomes simpler, and standards continue to mature, we expect vehicle-to-grid to become dramatically more accessible over the next several years,” said Seth Frader-Thompson, president of EnergyHub, in a statement.

With EVs sitting idle all across a city, that adds up to some serious power. So much so, in fact, that only a fraction of owners would need to participate for a program to adequately support the grid. But the more people who opt in, the better, as that gives a utility a broader base to draw from. “If you have a higher number of batteries out there in a virtual power plant, you can actually use less energy from each individual battery,” Silverman said. “But collectively, when you patch them all together and aggregate them, it comes out to a very large resource. And that’s really where the magic is.”

These early projects are figuring out how best to coordinate this, like with apps that let people specify when they typically use their vehicle to, say, get to work. (Participants in the new Massachusetts program are able to do this.) The overall idea is for EVs to send power back to the grid when demand is highest, like when people return home from work and switch on appliances. Then, as the night goes on, the vehicles can charge. This would be paired with another technique, known as active managed charging, which staggers when EVs juice up through the evening and early morning hours — that is, they’re not all doing so at 10 p.m., which would suddenly and dramatically increase demand on the grid.

All told, V2G promises to turn consumers of electricity into more active participants in the grid, with power flowing both ways. Far from straining the grid to the point of collapse, EVs will instead help save it. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The secret to a better grid? Electric vehicles. on Jul 23, 2026.

Interpretation Services – Second Congo Basin Convening 2026

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) invites qualified interpretation service providers to submit Expressions of Interest for the provision of professional interpretation services during the Second Congo Basin Convening, which will take place from 25–27 August 2026 in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

The assignment includes simultaneous and consecutive interpretation in French, English and Portuguese, together with the provision, installation and technical management of all required interpretation equipment. The selected provider will support a high-level regional convening bringing together approximately 140 participants from across the Congo Basin and neighbouring countries.

We are looking for service providers with:

• At least five years of proven experience delivering interpretation services for international conferences.
• Qualified conference interpreters working in French, English and Portuguese.
• Experience providing interpretation equipment and on-site technical support.
• Familiarity with agroecology, food systems, biodiversity, climate justice or related development sectors.
• Demonstrated experience supporting multilingual, multi-stakeholder events.

Application Requirements

Interested firms should submit:

• A technical proposal.
• A financial proposal.
• Evidence of similar assignments.
• Two references from comparable events.

Submission Deadline: 3 August 2026

Applications should be submitted electronically to afsa@afsafrica.org.

Applicants are encouraged to carefully review the attached Terms of Reference (TOR) for the complete scope of work, qualifications, deliverables and submission requirements before preparing their proposals.

Data centers, competition in the transmission sector and PJM Interconnection governance reform were other key topics at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.

Law Will Impose Undue Burdens on Voters and Disproportionately Suppress the Democratic Rights of Communities Already Facing Environmental Harms 

Contact: kayla@unbendablemedia.com

Washington, D.C. – In response to the passage of the Save America Act through the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon, which imposes undue burdens on voters by requiring them to show citizenship papers (like passports and birth certificates) when registering to vote and restricts mail-in voter registration, Climate Justice Alliance’s Executive Director KD Chavez issued the following statement:

“Undermining our voting rights and reducing access to the polls by attempting to strongarm states is an attack on democracy. Whether the Senate ultimately approves this remains to be seen, but Congress focusing on undemocratic measures like this right now is unacceptable.

At a time when our constitutional rights are rapidly being eroded, environmental and public health regulations are being undone, and scientific certainties like greenhouse gases exacerbating climate change are being denied, voting is a crucial tool in so many communities’ ability to participate in our democracy and choose representation that will address their concerns and issues. 

Many communities–including those on the frontlines–who face environmental racism and climate change often don’t have the identification cards required by the SAVE America Act. Less than half of American citizens have passports and nearly 9% of eligible voters don’t or would not have access to the necessary identification the SAVE America Act would require to vote. And for rural communities that will have to travel farther, trans individuals who have changed their names, and working class communities, the SAVE America Act’s impact is clear: significant barriers to voter registration and participation in the voting process. 

Rather than focusing where the real needs are: protecting public health, ensuring environmental protection, or bringing down costs of living for every-day families, the Republican Majority is using budgetary processes to shove through hateful policies that align with hate-mongerers and big business while imposing undue burdens on the very families and communities whose ancestors built this country. 

Congress must protect, rather than erode, the integrity of the voting process and not create undue and additional burdens on those who exercise their democratic and constitutional rights to participate in it.”

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The post CJA Condemns Congress’ Latest Attack on Democracy with the passage of anti-voting rights legislation in the House appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

Emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is easy. Pulling it back out? Not so much. Researchers have now developed a battery-like device that captures carbon dioxide from air by using a charging and discharging process.

The technology relies on electricity and saltwater chemistry. It promises to be simpler, more economic and sustainable than known methods for direct air capture (DAC). The team of engineers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Toyota Research Institute of North America report their findings in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The use of fossil fuels isn’t slowing down despite rise in alternative energy technologies. Most climate scientists agree that removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is going to be a necessary tool for meeting climate targets.

But carbon dioxide is present in the atmosphere at relatively low concentrations. Today’s DAC technology relies on huge fans that blow air over expensive materials that soak up carbon dioxide. Once the materials have sopped up the gas, they need to be heated to release it for storage underground or to make useful chemicals and fuels.

 

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Companies have been trying to scale up DAC for years, and some projects are underway, but the technology remains expensive and hard to deploy on large scale.

Instead of heat and sorbent materials, the new DAC system uses a battery-like electrochemical cell. The researchers make the device by putting together potassium-stabilized manganese dioxide electrodes in a saltwater solution.

The capture and release of carbon dioxide happens in a two-step reversible cycle. In one step, the device changes changes the pH of the solution, making it alkaline so it absorbs carbon dioxide. When they flip the device’s current, it reduces the alkalinity and releases the greenhouse gas for storage.

The early laboratory results look promising, but the researchers say there are challenges they need to overcome to make the technology ready for scale up. The main one is to prevent the mixing between its two separate liquid streams. This will reduce energy consumption and boost its capture efficiency.

Source: Paul G. Rozzi et al, Toward a Low-Energy Direct-Air Capture Cycle by Reversible Proton-Intercalation-Mediated Alkalization, Environmental Science & Technology (2026).

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Sa porastom broja putničkih vozila širom Evrope, gradovi se suočavaju sazagađenjem vazduha, saobraćajnim nezgodama i gubitkom javnog prostora. U Španiji, grad Pontevedra uspeo je da prebrodi ove izazove, nadmašivši nacionalne standarde kvaliteta vazduha i stvarajući bezbednije ulice. Prema rečima gradonačelnika ove galicijske opštine, ključ ovog uspeha leži u urbanističkom modelu koji daje prednost stanovnicima umesto automobilima, bez uvođenja potpune zabrane na privatna vozila.

Vedro je letnje veče u Pontevedru, galicijskom gradu na severozapadu Španije. Vazduh je ispunjen kontraaltom, praćenim živim džez orkestrom, koji dopire iz ugla velikog gradskog trga. Nekoliko metara odatle, četvoro tinejdžera igra fudbal narandžastom loptom, koju par mlađe dece neuspešno pokušava da dodirne. Jedna porodica pravi selfi, dok četiri starije žene vode živahan razgovor na obližnjoj klupi. Pauze između džez numera ispunjene su cvrkutom ptica, privučenih zelenilom oko fontane.

Gledajući fotografije Pontavedre iz devedesetih godina prošlog veka, fotografije prepune redova automobila koji se prostiru unedogled, bilo bi veoma teško predvideti ovakvu budućnost. Međutim, otkako je doktor Migel Anšo Fernandez Lores izabran za gradonačelnika 1999. godine, ovaj galicijski grad sprovodi politike koje daleko prevazilaze puko regulisanje saobraćaja naulicama. Prema rečima sedamdesetjednogodišnjeg gradonačelnika, cilj ovoga je povratak javnog prostora građanima.

„Kada povratimo javni prostor i zagarantujemo univerzalnu pristupačnost, ljudi stiču autonomiju”, kaže gradonačelnik. Kao političar Galicijske nacionalističke stranke (Bloque Nacionalista Galego, BNG), Lores trenutno obavlja svoj sedmi mandat i spreman je da se kandiduje i za osmi 2027. godine. Galicija je istorijski i većinski pod upravom desničarske Narodne partije i predstavlja rodno mesto više njenih nacionalnih lidera, što dugotrajnu vlast lokalnog levičarskog i nacionalističkog BNG-a u Pontevedri čini izuzetkom u regionu.

U decembru 2022. godine, španska vlada je usvojila kraljevski dekret kojim se nalaže da sve opštine sa više od 50.000 stanovnika moraju imati uspostavljenu zonu niskih emisija (Low Emission Zone, LEZ). Radi poboljšanja kvaliteta vazduha i smanjenja emisije ugljenika, dekret preporučuje mere poput ograničavanja pristupa vozilima koja više zagađuju, na osnovu njihovih ekoloških oznaka, kao i uvođenje zona sa ograničenim saobraćajem u kojima se naplaćuje ulaz.

Španija je ovu meru usvojila kako bi ispunila pravno obavezujuće zahteve Pariskog sporazuma, međunarodnog sporazuma o klimatskim promenama, više od šest godina nakon njegovog stupanja na snagu u novembru 2016. godine. Ipak, budući da je Pontevedra već u potpunosti ispunjavala parametre kvaliteta vazduha, predviđene nacionalnim zakonom 7/2021 o klimatskim promenama, gradsko veće je odlučilo da napravi znatno ambiciozniji korak: da čitavo urbano područje (oko 490 hektara) proglasi „zonom smanjenog saobraćaja”.

Bilo je doslovno skladište automobila, a ljudi, naročito oni sa invaliditetom I stariji, nisu mogli da šetaju ulicama jer su u potpunosti bile zauzete vozilima.

Tokom sunčanog i svežeg podneva krajem juna, u svojoj kancelariji u centru grada, Lores se priseća kako je Pontevedra izgledala kada je prvi put preuzeo dužnost: „Bilo je doslovno skladište automobila, a ljudi, naročito oni sa invaliditetom i stariji, nisu mogli da šetaju ulicama jer su u potpunosti bile zauzete vozilima”.

Tokom govora, gradonačelnik je pomenuo katalonskog inženjera iz 19. veka Ildefonsa Serdu i Sunjera (Ildefons Cerdà i Sunyer), najpoznatijeg pourbanističkoj reformi centralne barselonske četvrti Ešample, sa njenim prepoznatljivim mrežastim rasporedom i simetričnom strukturom. Nalik Serdi, i on posmatra javni prostor kao produžetak doma.

Automobili: kontinentalni problem

Više od 75 procenata populacije Evropske unije živi u urbanim sredinama, a očekuje se da će ovaj broj porasti do približno 83 procenta do 2050. godine. S obzirom na to da se zagađenje vazduha široko prepoznaje kao najznačajniji zdravstveni rizik u Evropi, smanjenje emisija iz drumskog saobraćaja, koje su odgovorne za 37 procenata zagađenja azotnim oksidima, od ključnog je značaja.

Evropska unija je pokrenula niz inicijativa kako bi podstakla gradove da postanu čistiji i zdraviji. Jedna od najznačajnijih je Zeleni gradski sporazum (Green City Accord), koji poziva gradove sa više od 20.000 stanovnika da se obavežu na unapređenja u oblastima kao što su kvalitet vazduha i vode, smanjenje buke, očuvanje biodiverziteta i napredak ka cirkularnoj ekonomiji. Ova inicijativa, takođe, poziva gradove da se povežu sa širokom evropskom mrežom radi razmene znanja.

Još jedna inicijativa jeste Misija klimatsko-neutralnih i pametnih gradova EU (Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities EU Mission), koja pruža podršku za 100 gradova u Evropskoj uniji i još 12 u zemljama pridruženim programu Horizont Evropa. Cilj ove misije je razvoj pilot-projekta radi postizanja klimatske neutralnosti do 2030. godine. Rešenja i modeli testirani u ovim gradovima bi mogli poslužiti kao primer i pomoći svim evropskim gradovima da slede put do 2050. godine, kada se EU obavezala da dostigne neto nultu emisiju gasova sa efektom staklene bašte.

Postoje i neformalne inicijative poput Hodajućih gradova (Ciudades que caminan, Walking Cities) u Španiji, koja funkcioniše kao neprofitna organizacija otvorena za gradske uprave i druge javne institucije posvećene unapređenju pešačenja. Mreža gradovima učesnicima obezbeđuje obuke i forum za razmene informacija i iskustava. U njenom okviru postoji i onlajn škola javnog prostora, a odgovorna je i za upravljanje i promociju platforme Školska okruženja (Entornos escolares), najvažnijeg španskog sajta posvećenog podsticanju dečje samostalnosti i urbane mobilnosti.

STOPA MOTORIZACIJE 2024, broj putničkih automobila na hiljadu stanovnika

I dalje, uprkos inicijativama koje se primenjuju i „odozdo” i „odozgo”, broj automobila na našem kontinentu nastavlja da raste: broj vozila u Evropskoj uniji premašio je 259 miliona 2024. godine, što predstavlja povećanje od 5,9 procenata u odnosu na 2019. godinu. Zemlja sa najvišom stopom motorizacije, odnosno brojem automobila na 1.000 stanovnika, jeste Italija (701), zatim Luksembrug (670) i Finska (666 automobila). Sa stopom od 544 (uz napomenu da je reč o privremenim podacima), Španija se nalazi ispod proseka Evropske unije, koji iznosi 576.

SuprotstavljajućI se normi

U međuvremenu, u Pontevedri se poslednjih godina broj automobila konstantno smanjuje. Grad je, takođe, uveo propise kojima se ograničava svrha korišćenja automobila, kao i vremenski periodi u kojima im je dozvoljeno kretanje.

Na pitanje da navede jedan od najboljih primera uspeha svoje administracije u davanju prednosti pešacima u odnosu na vozila, gradonačelnik bez oklevanja pominje transformaciju jednog od glavnih gradskih trgova. Pored ruševina gotičkog ženskog manastira Santo Domingo iz 14. veka nalazi se prostrani Španski trg (Praza de España), koji se smatra „nultim kilometrom” grada; polaznom tačkom njegovih glavnih i prirodnih ruta. Danas ovo mesto funkcioniše kao živahno središte u kojem se, tokom bilo kog letnjeg dana, susreću šetači privučeni čestim kulturnim događajima i hodočasnici na Putu svetog Jakova (St. James’ Way, Camino de Santiago). Lores ističe da je krajem devedesetih godina ovim trgom svakodnevno prolazilo oko 26.000 automobila. Neverovatno je da su mnogi od tih automobila jednostavno pokušavali da napuste grad i upute se ka nekoj destinaciji van njega, poput plaža u Sanšenšu (Sanxenxo), turističkoj opštini udaljenoj oko 30 kilometara, ujedno i rodnom mestu gradonačelnika, pritom prolazeći kroz Španski trg. Danas, međutim, tranzitni saobraćaj i kruženje u potrazi za parkingom nisu dozvoljeni nigde u gradu, pa prema Loresovim rečima, svega oko 800 vozila dnevno stigne do gradskog trga. Kako objašnjava, odluka o zabrani prolaznog saobraćaja i njegovo preusmeravanje na obilaznice doveli su do smanjenja ukupnog saobraćaja u gradu za 40 procenata.

Ne postoji mesto u gradu do kojeg se ne može doćI automobilom, Ali samo za one kojima je to zaista potrebno, a ne za bilo koga ko to požel.

Jedino „neophodan saobraćaj” je dozvoljen u Pontevedri: vozila hitnih službi i javne bezbednosti, komunalne službe (uključujući vozila gradske čistoće, cisterne za vodu itd.), prevoz osoba sa smanjenom pokretljivošću, kao i pristup privatnim garažnim mestima imaju dozvolu kretanja 24 časa dnevno. Međutim, utovar i istovar komercijalne robe, kućne dostave, prevoz kabastih predmeta, selidbe i slične aktivnosti su dozvoljene samo u određenim terminima u toku dana. Besplatna mesta za parking su raspoređena širom grada kako bi građani mogli da se privremeno zaustave tokom obavljanja ovih aktivnosti. U slučaju prekršaja, policija može izreći kazne u iznosu od nekoliko stotina evra.

„Ne postoji mesto u gradu do kojeg se ne može doći automobilom, ali samo za one kojima je to zaista potrebno, a ne za bilo koga ko to poželi”,izjavio je Lores. Svojim prepoznatljivim, direktnim ali učtivim tonom dodaje:„Ideja da svoj privatni automobil parkirate na javnom prostoru je suluda: ako nemate mesta za svoj zamrzivač, da li ga ostavljate na trotoaru?”

U hijerarhiji prioriteta, sva vozila, uključujući električna, nalaze se na poslednjem mestu u Pontevedri:„Čitava piramida prioriteta je promenjena: prednost imaju pešaci, zatim bicikli, trotineti, javni prevoz i tek na samom kraju, privatni automobili”. Inspirisan knjigom autorke Džejn Džejkobs Smrt i život velikih američkih gradova (The Death and Life of Great American Cities), objavljenom 1961. godine, Lores je očuvanje „kompaktnog grada” postavio u središte urbanističkih politika svoje administracije: održavanje većine aktivnosti u centru grada, obeshrabrivanje izgradnje velikih tržnih centara na periferiji, podsticanje mešovitih kvartova umesto zona sa jednom namenom (poput izdvojene „pravosudne četvrti”), kao što je kompleks sudova u Barseloni, kao i unapređenje javnog prevoza. Cilj nije samo smanjenje nepotrebnog putovanja automobilom, već i oživljavanje naselja i jačanje društvene kohezije.

Šetajući kroz centar grada bilo kog radnog dana, iznenađujuće je videti veliki broj raznovrsnih prodavnica, naročito za jedan provincijski grad. Lokalni butici, zlatare, cvećare i knjižare uspešno posluju jedne pored drugih.

Pored Pontevedra, i drugi evropski gradovi preduzimaju korake ka većoj održivosti. Frajburg je, na primer, dobro poznat po svojim održivim politikama, uključujući regulaciju automobilskog saobraćaja. U ovom živahnom univerzitetskom gradu na jugozapadu Nemačke, građani učestvuju u procesu urbanističkog planiranja, bicikli čine oko 30 procenata svih vozila, a jedan kvart, Vauban, gotovo je u potpunosti bez automobila. Štaviše, Oslo je 2019. godine postao prvi evropski grad koji je sasvim zabranio automobile u svojim centralnim zonama. Grad je proširio mrežu javnog prevoza i uklonio stotine mesta za parking, zamenivši ih klupama, zelenim površinama i biciklističkim stazama.

U Pontevedri pešaci imaju očiglednu prednost u centru grada, kao i na otprilike trećini ukupne gradske teritorije. Tamo su kolovozi i trotoari parktično neodvojivi. Onima koji to vide prvi put, zapanjujuće je posmatrati ljude kako šetaju sredinom ulice, potpuno bezbrižno, dok automobili polako čekaju iza njih da se oni spontano pomere i propuste ih. Niko ne trubi; ne postoje semafori koji bi regulisali kretanje. Takođe, parkiranje nije dozvoljeno u čitavoj zoni između 18 časova i osam ujutru.

U ostatku grada, ulice su jednosmerne sa širokim trotoarima. Automobili mogu da se zaustave tokom radnog vremena na ograničeno vreme (15 minuta za uslužne delatnosti i 30 minuta za utovar i istovar), dok je parkiranje dozvoljeno između 21 čas i devet ujutru. Semafori se nalaze samo na dvosmernim avenijama na spoljašnjem prstenu grada, gde pešački mostovi i kružni tokovi podsećaju vozače da uspore. Na svega deset minuta od centra nalazi se otvoreni parking koji predstavlja alternativu za oko 4.500 privatnih podzemnih parking mesta u gradu. Ukupno, Pontevedra raspolaže sa više od deset besplatnih javnih parkinga, udaljenih najviše 10-15 minuta hoda od centra grada. To je naročito korisno za ljude koji ne žive u gradu, ali svakodnevno dolaze na posao iz okolnih mesta.

Bezbednije, zdravije I pristupačnije

Godine 2010, Pontevedra je postala prvi španski grad koje je uveo ograničenje brzine od 30 km/h na svim saobraćajnicama unutar urbanih područja. Danas je ograničenje u najužem centru grada 10 km/h, „ali samo ako nema ljudi u blizini”, objašnjava Daniel Makenle, bivši policajac i sadašnji generalni direktor za zaštitu građana u gradskoj upravi. „Ako su pešaci prisutni, brzina se smanjuje na 6 km/h”. U ostatku gradskog centra, maksimalna brzina iznosi 20 km/h dok u drugim delovima grada vozila mogu da se kreću do 30 km/h.

Rezultat ovakve politike jeste da u poslednjih deset godina nije bilo smrtnih saobraćajnih nezgoda na gradskim ulicama. Danas, prema opštinskim podacima, 73 procenta dece ide u školu peške (od čega 44 procenta u pratnji, a 29 procenata samostalno). Studija sprovedena 2012. godine u Danskoj, koja je obuhvatila 20.000 dece i bila deo šireg istraživanja o vezi između koncentracije, ishrane i fizičke aktivnosti, pokazala je da deca koja pešače ili voze bicikl do škole, zadržavaju viši nivo koncentracije i do četiri sata kasnije.

U Pontevedri, kao i u drugim španskim gradovima, poput Barselone, već godinama se primenjuju „školske rute”. Reč je o posebno obeleženim zonama u okolini škola, koje učenicima omogućavaju da bezbedno dolaze i odlaze peške, samostalno ili u grupama.

Prednosti ovakvog pristupa osećaju svi stanovnici: sveukupno, broj ljudi koji biraju da se kreću peške ili biciklom u ovoj galicijskoj opštini, porastao je sa 66 procenata 2011. na 90 procenata 2021. godine. Štaviše, danas se oko70 procenata sveg kretanja unutar grada obavlja peške ili biciklom. Gradska uprava, takođe, procenjuje da su emisije CO₂ smanjene za oko 67 procenata od kraja devedesetih godina prošlog veka.

Kako bi, pored same udaljenosti koju prelaze peške, mogli da saznaju i broj koraka, kao i broj potrošenih kalorija do određene destinacije, stanovnici Pontevedre mogu koristiti aplikaciju Metrominuto. Ova sinoptička mapa sadrži i informacije o istorijskim lokalitetima grada, novosti (na primer, o međunarodnim studijama o mobilnosti), kao i servisne informacije poput nacionalnih subvencija za električne automobile.

Iako bi se moglo pretpostaviti da se za sprovođenje saobraćajnih pravila u Pontevedri intenzivno koriste kamere sa geo-lokacijom, kazne i uklanjanje nepropisno parkiranih vozila, većina ispitanika ističe da sistem funkcioniše jednostavno jer ga građani smatraju praktičnim.

Isto važi i za poslovnu zajednicu:„Grad koji je prijatan prema vama, poziva vas da ga istražite i uživate u njemu, a kada šetate, takođe i trošite”, rekao je Andres Martinez, četrdesetosmogodišnji vlasnik optičarske radnje u ulici Calle de la Oliva, jednoj od najkomercijalnijih u gradu. On živi u istoj zgradi u kojoj mu se nalazi radnja, a svoj privatni automobil parkira u zajedničkoj garaži.

Drugi stanovnik je pedesetsedmogodišnji Santi Kakadas, koji već 30 godina prodaje ribu na gradskoj pijaci. On ukazuje na još jednu prednost ovog modela:„Ljudi koji dolaze u kupovinu, dođu, završe i odu, što znači da se mesto za parking oslobađa za sledećeg kupca, i tako redom, što dovodi do većeg kretanja”.

Promena paradigme, odnosno odustajanje od grada zamišljenog za automobile I povratak gradu namenjenom ljudima.

Santi živi oko tri kilometra od posla i svakog jutra ostavlja automobil na besplatnom parkingu pored reke Lerez, a zatim prešači oko 500 metara do svoje tezge.

Ipak, treba napomenuti da dva od pet ispitanih vlasnika radnji, jedan koji vodi kiosk i drugi koji drži prodavnicu ekoloških proizvoda, navode da se njihovi kupci često žale na nedostatak mesta za parking.

Na pitanje zašto smatra da su politike u Pontevedri bile uspešne, gradonačelnik ukazuje na nekoliko faktora: jasnu komunikaciju i edukaciju o ciljevima grada, umrežavanje „sa najproaktivnijim i najdinamičnijim ljudima u gradu”, sprovođenje participativnih procesa i odluku da se automobili ne zabrane u potpunosti. Takođe, dodaje:„Sproveli smo brojne projekte proširenja trotoara i pešačkih zona; čim bi projekat bio završen, prostor bi se spontano ispunio aktivnostima. Osim toga, dozvolili smo ulazak vozilima kojima je to bilo neophodno, što je umirilo one koji su imali nedoumice”.

Preneti uspeh pontevedre

Tokom godina, ova severozapadna opština Španije, Pontevedra, dobila je brojne nagrade za uspeh svojih praksi, uključujući Međunarodnu nagradu za najbolje prakse u održivom razvoju, dodeljenu od strane UN-Habitata u Dubaiju 2014. godine, za svoj model grada usmeren ka ljudima, kao i Nagradu za bezbednost saobraćaja u urbanim sredinama (koju dodeljuje Evropska komisija) 2020. godine, za „impresivno postizanje nijednog smrtnog slučaja u saobraćaju između 2011. i 2018. godine”.

Na pitanje da li smatra da se uspeh Pontevedre može preneti drugde, Lores jasno odgovara da svaki grad mora pronaći sopstveni model i strategiju, te da se svaki spoljašnji primer mora prilagoditi lokalnom kontekstu. Na pitanje da li postoji bilo kakva pouka koja bi mogla poslužiti kao inspiracija drugim gradovima, i ako da, za kakav tip grada, bez oklevanja je odgovorio:„Promena paradigme, odnosno odustajanje od grada zamišljenog za automobile i povratak gradu namenjenom ljudima”.

Ovaj članak je nastao u ovkiru zajedničke prekogranične
novinarske inicijative PULSE (koju koordiniraju organizacije
n-ost i OBCT), u saradnji sa novinarkom Elis Faćini.
Prevod: Veljko Vulićević

Warming has brought extreme rain to the parched Sahel, which is seeing aquifers refill as monsoons grow stronger. But heavier downpours alone cannot explain the groundwater revival, say hydrologists, who believe efforts to harvest rainfall may also be paying dividends.

Read more on E360 →

Tras los Acuerdos de París de 2015, el movimiento climático cobró impulso cultural y político, culminando en el Pacto Verde Europeo. Pero la guerra, la inflación y el resurgimiento de una derecha afín a los combustibles fósiles han provocado una fuerte reacción en contra de la acción climática en todas sus formas. Para ganar esta batalla, según Florent Marcellesi, Europa debe considerar la soberanía energética y la justicia climática como dos caras de la misma moneda.

La economía es un suceso de ciclos. Ya sean cortos según Kitchin, medios según Juglar o largos según Kondratieff, se suceden periodos de recuperación o creación, auge y depresión o destrucción, y vuelta a empezar, en bucles infinitos aunque nunca parecidos. 

De igual manera, la transición ecológica y justa se enfrenta a sus peculiares ciclos históricos. Desde que surgió la conciencia ecologista en los años 1960-70, ha pasado de ser un outsider para minorías concienciadas a convertirse desde el Acuerdo climático de París del 2015 en el alfa y omega del mainstream socio-político. Sin embargo hoy, acosada sin piedad por los imperialismos renacientes cuyos intereses se mimetizan con los del capitalismo fósil, se enfrenta a una potente fase depresiva. Libra una lucha existencial contra el “imperio fósil”, buscando aire para que la depresión no se convierta en destrucción. 

Al revés, para que llegue pronto su recuperación, es fundamental (re)pensar y adaptar la visión estratégica de las fuerzas que luchan por la justicia social y ambiental. Para ello, en este artículo repasaremos primero lo ocurrido a partir del Acuerdo de París desde la hegemonización de la transición ecológica hasta su demonización por las corrientes reaccionarias y negacionistas. En base a este análisis de ciclos cortos-medios, pensaremos en las nuevas estrategias ecosociales para que la transición ecológica y justa pueda resistir al backlash ecológico y consolidarse en este nuevo (des)orden mundial. Más concretamente, ¿qué hilos directores, prioridades socio-políticas y alianzas tendría que adoptar la transición ecológica y justa para iniciar cuanto antes un nuevo ciclo virtuoso, sinónimo de sostenibilidad y prosperidad? Dicho de otra manera, ¿cómo puede la transición ecológica derrotar al imperio fósil? 

Érase una vez la hegemonía cultural climática 

2015 no es una fecha cualquiera en nuestra historia reciente. El 12 de diciembre de dicho año, se aprueba por unanimidad en la COP21 el Acuerdo climático de París. Si bien imperfecto en muchos aspectos, pero grabando en el mármol de un Tratado internacional la meta de 1.5ºC de calentamiento global que no debería superar la Humanidad, este Acuerdo marca un antes y un después en la acción climática. Impulsado por una amplia coalición de países alineados (islas del Pacífico, UE, Estados Unidos de Obama, etc.), de un Vaticano carburando al Laudato Sí del Papa Francisco y de una sociedad civil con deseo de pasar página de la fracasada cumbre de COP15 en Copenhague, representa el inicio de un nuevo ciclo donde el clima ya no es una coordenada subalterna y secundaria sino el centro de atención mediático, una prioridad política y social, y el nuevo motor de una economía emergente en torno a la transición ecológica y las renovables. Dicho de otra manera, marca el inicio de un periodo con una profunda capacidad de transformación estructural y de los imaginarios colectivos bajo el dominio de la idea climática en la opinión pública, las instituciones y el mundo empresarial: la hegemonía cultural climática. 

Tras años de depresión y austeridad social y económica, este cambio hegemónico impacta de forma intensa en varios frentes. Por un lado, las calles juegan un papel clave en la dinámica cultural y social internacional a favor del clima gracias a una presencia tanto cuantitativa como cualitativa de la juventud por el clima. Detrás de Greta Thunberg, figura central del movimiento, casi mesiánica y fuente de inspiración mundial para toda una generación, supone una visibilización sin precedentes de la causa climática en los medios y los debates de a pie de calle, situando el clima como un asunto existencial –para la juventud y cualquier colectivo o nación que sufre directamente sus impactos– y de máxima prioridad socio-política. Mientras centenares de miles de personas llenan las calles de Berlín, Bruselas, Melbourne, Nueva York, Vancouver y también Madrid, con una manifestación multitudinaria el 6 de diciembre del 2019, la idea climática percola por los meandros de la conciencia colectiva española, europea y global. 

En un bucle retroactivo constante e inscribiéndose en el camino abierto por París, este caldo de cultivo socio-climático tiene a su vez una fuerte repercusión en lo político e institucional. El 5 de diciembre de 2016 la ciudad de Darebin en Australia se convierte en la primera ciudad del mundo en declarar el “estado de emergencia climática”; el 1 de mayo de 2019 el Parlamento del Reino Unido es el primer parlamento nacional en hacerlo mientras que España se suma oficialmente tras acuerdo de su Consejo de Ministros el 21 de enero del 2020. A día de hoy casi 2400 jurisdicciones en 40 países, cubriendo una población de hasta mil millones de ciudadanos, han declarado una emergencia climática, convirtiendo, en los años posteriores a 2015, el clima en una de las mayores prioridades políticas. Con total lógica, esta visibilización social e institucional tiene también su corolario en las urnas. En las elecciones europeas del 2019, cabalgando y promoviendo al mismo tiempo la ola climática, los partidos verdes consiguen un resultado histórico con más de 80 eurodiputados/as, transformando su agenda ecosocial en fuerza motriz del Parlamento Europeo. 

Como si de un juego de dominós se tratara, esto desencadena a su vez otra consecuencia virtuosa. Bajo la presión combinada de las calles y de las urnas, y a pesar de que no formaba parte siquiera de las prioridades electorales del Partido Popular Europeo en aquel momento, la Comisión Europea recién designada bajo la primera presidencia de la conservadora Von Der Leyen, pone encima de la mesa su principal respuesta: el Green New Deal o Pacto Verde Europeo. El debate ya no gira en torno a la necesidad o no de tener una política climática sino al grado de ambición de ésta. Si bien por debajo de lo que pedían el movimiento ecologista y la ciencia pero muy por delante del resto de bloques geopolíticos, la UE se erige en líder climático, comprometiéndose a reducir sus emisiones en al menos un 50% para 2030, al tiempo que convierte en legalmente vinculante el objetivo de neutralidad de carbono para 2050.  

Si fuera poco, todas las políticas europeas, ya sean energéticas, industriales o agrícolas, tienen además que integrar o combinarse, al menos en el espíritu, con las preocupaciones climáticas. En este ambiente propicio a la ecología, la economía siente el soplo de la transición energética y de la sostenibilidad, piedra angular de los negocios post-París. Fin de la extracción de carbón en España y eliminación gradual en toda Europa, instalación acelerada de energías renovables, auge del coche eléctrico, descarbonización de la industria o reverdecimiento de la agricultura, la economía y el empleo verde viven su edad de oro, mientras que la transición justa se abre paso. París, la juventud por el clima y el electorado han hecho mella, la hegemonía cultural climática está en su cénit.  

Pero cualquier edad de oro tiene un fin y cualquier cénit, un declive. El primer golpe viene de la COVID. La crisis sanitaria, junto con sus confinamientos, para en seco a la “generación clima”: desde 2020, no ha vuelto a haber una manifestación pro-clima multitudinaria. A pesar de quitarle a uno de sus más potentes brazos sociales, no para al Pacto Verde Europeo como recién estrenada brújula europea. Es más, gracias al capital social y político acumulado durante los años previos, y a pesar de las incipientes oposiciones de las derechas radicales en Hungría, Polonia o de la presidencia anti-climática de Trump 1.0, la transición ecológica se consolida como uno de los pilares de los Fondos de recuperación NextGen. De los 275.000 millones de euros en inversiones de capital, se aprueba dedicar el 42% de los fondos a la acción climática, un verdadero maná para la gran transformación de un sistema fósil a otro renovable.  

Pero apenas superado este primer golpe, viene el segundo en 2022. Rusia invade Ucrania, no solo poniendo en evidencia el hambre imperialista de Putín y la dependencia europea al gas fósil ruso, sino engendrando también una inflación de los precios de la energía y el coste de la vida, creando a su vez un creciente malestar social. Las corrientes reaccionarias y negacionistas huelen sangre. El Pacto Verde Europeo sigue vivo pero por las heridas de la crisis sanitaria y ucraniana se cuela el relato anti-clima y contra la transición ecológica que se erige en un eje básico de la reacción fósil. 

El imperio fósil contraataca 

Ya sea a nivel político, cultural o económico, hemos entrado en un nuevo ciclo, el del backlash ecológico, es decir de los retrocesos en materia ambiental. Es la era de la cruzada y del ataque permanente contra la transición ecológica y justa, mientras se intenta reforzar por todos los medios el imperio de las energías sucias y su entramada político. Dicho de otra manera, el capitalismo fósil, en colaboración con la internacional reaccionaria y negacionista, ha declarado la guerra, casi santa, contra la ecología bajo todas sus formas. 

Mientras que las personas defensoras del medioambiente son tachadas de “terroristas” o “fanáticos climáticos” y el cambio climático no es ni más ni menos, según Trump, que “una estafa” o un “timo”, las políticas verdes están en la diana constante de las organizaciones climato-escépticas y de extrema derecha. Junto con la inmigración, estos convierten al Green New Deal en su enemigo a derrotar en España y Bruselas; pintan, en contra de toda evidencia, a las políticas ambientales como las responsables de las más de 200 muertes de la dana del 2025 en Valencia y atacan un día sí y otro también a las renovables, bien durante el apagón del 2025 en península ibérica, bien alimentando el rechazo territorial a las energías eólicas y solares.  

En este contexto de bulos y ofensiva continuos, donde la extrema derecha provoca y la derecha recoge los frutos (y parte de la izquierda flirtea con el retardismo), los retrocesos ecológicos son legiones en las instituciones. Por ejemplo, en Europa donde el cordón sanitario entre conservadores y neo-fascistas es cada vez más fino desde las elecciones europeas del 20241, se han rebajado los compromisos ambientales en la Política Agrícola Común, los requisitos de sostenibilidad ambiental para las grandes empresas, la ambición para terminar con los motores de coche fósiles, mientras que la desregulación ambiental, que permite más productos dañinos para la naturaleza y la salud pero económicamente competitivos y buenos para el bolso de las grandes multinacionales, tiene el viento en popa. Si fuera poco, en un movimiento orwelliano, el Gobierno de Estados Unidos, tras retirarse de nuevo del Acuerdo de París y de cualquier institución política o científica internacional que luche a favor de la acción climática, hasta prohibe los términos “cambio climático” y “emisiones” en agencias federales y documentos oficiales nacionales, incluyendo la revisión de programas educativos. Más allá de la política, la batalla cultural es total. 

Tras años de hegemonía climática, la reacción ha sido y sigue siendo inversamente proporcional a los avances de la transición ecológica en los últimos años. De hecho, al igual que la restauración monárquica fue una respuesta de restablecimiento de los intereses de la nobleza ante las ideas revolucionarias y republicanas en el siglo XIX, el backlash ecológico está siendo un intento de restauración fósil ante la revolución de las renovables del siglo XXI. Esto es una señal inequívoca de que la transición ecológica y justa ha tocado dónde duele. Para el capitalismo fósil, la transición ecológica era tolerable mientras era algo sectorial y socio-económicamente marginal. Pero hoy se ha convertido en un obstáculo de primer orden para sus negocios que, recordemos, pesan en la actualidad 97 billones de dólares, casi tanto como el Producto Interior Bruto mundial. Y de forma totalmente interrelacionada, representa también una amenaza contra parte de las élites y población mundial cuyos modo de vida y valores, basados en la energía fósil y la fantasía del crecimiento ilimitado de la producción y del consumo, sigue siendo no negociable.  

En este sentido, la Estrategia Nacional de Seguridad de Estados Unidos (ESN, noviembre del 2025) es, además de sibilina, paradigmática de cara a este intento de vuelta al orden mundial fósil. Además de volver a doctrinas ideológicas y geopolíticas imperialistas basadas en el poder duro y zonas de influencias, el autoritarismo y el supremacismo occidental, no anda con rodeos ni usa eufemismos. En contra de “las desastrosas ideologías del «cambio climático» y del «cero neto»”, su objetivo es “restaurar el dominio energético estadounidense (en petróleo, gas, carbón y energía nuclear)” y “ampliar el acceso de Estados Unidos a minerales y materiales críticos”. En este contexto, la operación militar a principios de 2026 en Venezuela, siendo el eslabón más débil del continente por la debilidad orgánica y la falta de legitimidad social e internacional del régimen chavista, ha sido el primer ensayo de control ideológico y de los recursos naturales por parte de EEUU en su hemisferio de influencia. Envalentonado por el aparente éxito de esta estrategia, el imperialismo trumpista ha pisado el acelerador, intentando someter también al régimen iraní, quién, de paso, controla el Estrecho de Ormuz donde transita el 20% del petróleo y gas del mundo.   

Pero este proceso de neo-colonización política, territorial y energética no se circunscribe únicamente a los enemigos históricos de EEUU. Europa está también en el menú del avasallamiento. Mientras la ESN reza que el “objetivo [de EEUU] debe ser ayudar a Europa a corregir su trayectoria actual” a través de los “partidos patrióticos”, hoy verdaderos caballos de Troya en la UE de este neo-imperialismo, asistimos en directo y sin tapujos a una injerencia externa en los asuntos internos europeos. En la visión ideológica de la internacional reaccionaria, y más allá del amago de controlar Groenlandia, el proyecto de la Unión Europea sobra. A pesar de las contradicciones y dobles varas de medir en conflictos internacionales por parte de la UE, a la derecha reaccionaria le sobran sus valores fundacionales basadas en el derecho internacional, el multilateralismo, la cooperación y la solidaridad continental. Y, mimetizando sus intereses con los del capital fósil, les sobra su apuesta por la transición energética. 

Ciertamente, dicha transición energética choca con el imperialismo fósil. Más allá de poner en duda los beneficios gigantescos del sector energético fósil, también rebate las cartas geopolíticas. Mientras EEUU, Rusia o los países del Golfo asientan gran parte de su poder en base a su liderazgo como primeros productores mundiales de crudo, la UE, pero sobre todo China, la nueva gran potencia del capitalismo verde, han acelerado el paso hacia las renovables. En esta “nueva guerra fría ecológica”, la encrucijada y el choque se hace cada vez más acuciante entre los viejos petro-estados que no quieren morir y los aspirantes a electro-estados que no acaban de nacer.  

En este sentido, quién apuesta por la transición energética apuesta de facto por reducir su dependencia del capitalismo fósil, sea empresarial o de estado, y por reforzar su soberanía en todas sus dimensiones ante el imperialismo, sea trumpista o putinista2. Por tanto en el caso de la UE, además de todas las razones éticas y climáticas heredadas del Acuerdo de París y tan de actualidad hoy como ayer, la transición ecológica tiene capacidad de eregirse también en el imaginario político y colectivo como una potente herramienta de soberanía frente al vasallaje fósil, sea ayer del gas ruso o hoy del gas estadounidense, así como del crudo árabe. Convertir a la UE en un electro-continente y sus Estados Miembros en electro-estados es una de las claves centrales de la geopolítica mundial de los próximos años.  

En el caso de la UE, la transición ecológica tiene capacidad de eregirse también en el imaginario político y colectivo como una potente herramienta de soberanía frente al vasallaje fósil

Estrategias ecosociales ante el nuevo (des)orden mundial 

En este contexto, y de cara a los próximos años, asistimos por tanto a un cambio profundo en la lógica subyacente a la transición ecológica y justa. A partir del Acuerdo de París, ésta era el brazo ejecutivo de la “hegemonía cultural climática”, impulsada sobre todo por motivos éticos y solidarios de cuidado del planeta, de las generaciones futuras o de las islas del pacífico. Sin embargo, a día de hoy la transición energética se hace principalmente en Europa por motivos geopolíticos de soberanía nacional y continental. A través de la electrificación de todo en todas partes, lo cual podríamos denominar la “hegemonía eléctrica”, todavía naciente, la transición energética se resignifica en un marco de “independencia vs imperio”. Sin renunciar a los avances de la década anterior, este nuevo panorama obliga a todos los actores a repensar su visión, estrategias y alianzas. 

Para ello, primero, es importante no caer en una trampa. Por mucho que la acción climática ya no sea un objetivo en sí sino una consecuencia indirecta y posible de la búsqueda de soberanía, esto no quita un ápice a la urgencia climática. Ésta sigue tan o más de actualidad ante el grave y continuo calentamiento del planeta que crea cada vez más estragos sociales, económicos, laborales y ambientales. Quitarle hierro, priorizar la competitividad ante la sostenibilidad, desregulando y desmantelando el Pacto Verde Europeo ante las presiones de ciertos sectores económicos, o tratar las cuestiones de soberanía y de clima de forma no transversal y complementaria serían profundos errores y goles en propia puerta3.

Hoy la transición energética es doblemente urgente. A la urgencia climática se añade la urgencia de construir soberanía a través de la transición ecológica; la segunda no sustituye a la primera, siendo ambas dimensiones tan relevantes la una como la otra y dos caras de la misma moneda. Cualquier retroceso en política climática será pan para hoy de cara a la competitividad y hambre para mañana de cara a la soberanía y la resiliencia.  

Por otro lado, puesto que nos enfrentamos a urgencias climáticas y geopolíticas, lo cual significa que los tiempos apremian, hay una necesidad de actuar en Europa, y por tanto en España, a favor de la transición energética de forma rápida, masiva y a gran escala. Si bien sigue siendo importante y nada descartable, ya no es momento de limitarse a los laboratorios de idea y al “small is beautiful” de los años 1970. A contracorriente de la ola negacionista y aún más cuando las guerras, ya sea en Ucrania o Irán, calientan el precio de la energía fósil de la que todavía tanto dependemos, la transición requiere de más impulso político, industrial y social, a través de grandes inversiones públicas y privadas, para reducir de forma prioritaria, significativa y estructural la demanda energética y, dentro de este marco de suficiencia, llevar a cabo proyectos capaces en poco tiempo de transformar un consumo de masas hoy todavía mayoritariamente fósil en otro principalmente renovable y eficiente. Como sugiere Gorka Laurnaga, “si el cambio climático [y, añado, la geopolítica] es un macro-problema, no se puede resolver con microrespuestas”. 

Para ello, es fundamental superar las contradicciones de la transición energética a nivel territorial donde alianzas de facto y sui géneris entre romanticismo paisajístico y agrícola, nimby, colapsismo y negacionismo climático obstaculizan proyectos de renovables necesarios para estos nuevos tiempos. Sin ninguna complacencia para multinacionales sin escrúpulos o la corrupción a nivel local, siempre protegiendo las salvaguardias participativas y ambientales necesarias en cualquier proyecto y apostando por el retorno socio-económico y laboral para las comunidades impactadas para que no haya tierras de sacrificio y la transición sea justa, es posible acelerar la transición energética. Aunque es bueno intentar que lo sea a nivel estético y cultural, lo grande y masivo no es necesariamente bello pero puede ser salvador ante los grandes retos climáticos y geopolíticos actuales y de las próximas décadas. 

Ahora bien, para que haya transición energética se necesitan también materias primas fundamentales. Que hablemos de litio, cobalto o las llamadas “tierras raras”4, todas estas materias se usan para baterías, eólicas, paneles solares o bombas de calor y son por tanto imprescindibles a la electrificación y descarbonización del continente y de España. Sin embargo, según el Tribunal de Cuentas de la UE (2026), 10 de 26 materias primas fundamentales se importan íntegramente desde fuera de la UE y ninguna de las tierras raras utilizadas en la UE se procesan internamente. Dicho de otra manera, la UE es altamente dependiente de países terceros, empezando por China, para el acceso o la transformación de materias críticas fundamentales para su transición energética. Y sin recursos estratégicos directamente explotados y controlados a lo largo de toda la cadena de valor por la UE, la autonomía estratégica es un eslogan vacío y la transición energética como vector de soberanía una quimera.  

Por tanto, además de una reorientación estructural y a largo plazo de la producción y consumo en términos post-crecentistas así como una apuesta industrial decidida por el reciclaje de materias primas, esto supone también una cierta e inevitable relocalización de la extracción en territorio europeo. Siendo honestos, y también solidarios desde una visión Norte Global-Sur Global, no podemos pretender mantener altos niveles de bienestar y servicios públicos, y activar una transición ecológica exitosa sin relocalizar cerca de casa parte de los impactos negativos de nuestro modo de vida, hoy externalizados a países con menos protección social, laboral y ambiental. Siempre y cuando se haga con reglas democráticas, estrictos límites y condicionalidades sociales, climáticas, de protección de la biodiversidad y laborales, así como beneficios para las poblaciones locales implicadas, no habrá soberanía sin un mínimo de extracción en suelo europeo. 

Hoy la transición energética es doblemente urgente. A la urgencia climática se añade la urgencia de construir soberanía a través de la transición ecológica.

Soberanía a través de la alianza

Al mismo tiempo, la soberanía nunca es absoluta. Por mucho que la globalización pase por turbulencias fuertes, existen y existirán en las próximas décadas todavía muchas interdependencias económicas, sociales y ecológicas en un mundo altamente interconectado. Para evitar caer en un vasallaje energético bajo la tutela colonial estadounidense, rusa o árabe, Europa debe apostar por diversificar aún más sus alianzas estratégicas. Ante la vuelta de hemisferios de influencia por parte de grandes potencias, la diversificación debería pasar por la defensa a ultranza del multilateralismo y la capacidad de sellar con diferentes países acuerdos de diferentes índoles, con un lugar central para la energía y las materias primas, con el fin de suplir lo que no se produce y se no puede reciclar en casa, sin nunca depender de unas pocas fuentes en exceso. Que el gas ruso o la poca fiabilidad política de Estados Unidos sirvan de lección. Eso sí, con una condición: que los acuerdos bilaterales se construyan bajo el paraguas del Acuerdo de París y el Marco Mundial de Biodiversidad de Kunming-Montreal, de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo y de la Agenda 2030, y claras cláusulas espejo en materia laboral y ambiental.  

Más allá, es necesario una profunda reflexión en torno a nuestra compleja relación con China. Por un lado, el gigante asiático, quién controla gran parte de las tierras raras necesarias para las energías renovables, se ha convertido en un motor de la transición verde y de la electrificación a marcha forzada de su economía e industria hacia convertirse, potencialmente, en un electro-Estado. Es por tanto un actor central de la transición ecológica y un socio imprescindible de cara a contrarrestar el imperio fósil. Guste o no, en las cumbres climáticas y más allá, la coalición mundial por el clima pasa por China. Al mismo tiempo, además de ser un Estado profundamente autoritario y represivo, China es también un competidor feroz con la capacidad de hundir grandes partes de la transición ecológica europea al inundar los mercados de su sobreproducción, ya sean hace una década con los paneles solares y ahora con los coches o baterías eléctricas. In fine, con China se trata de buscar un equilibrio dinámico entre una firme defensa de la soberanía económica europea, de su transición ecológica “Made in Europe” y de los valores democráticos, mientras al mismo tiempo se abren y refuerzan canales de colaboración geopolítica y comercial para el sostén y el empuje de la lucha climática a nivel mundial. 

Sin recursos estratégicos directamente explotados y controlados a lo largo de toda la cadena de valor por la UE, la autonomía estratégica es un eslogan vacío y la transición energética como vector de soberanía una quimera.  

Pero la cuestión de las alianzas no solo se plantea a nivel internacional sino también a nivel doméstico. Al considerar la transición ecológica ya no solo como un asunto ético-climático sino también como un asunto de orden geopolítico y de soberanía, esto invita a ampliar las posibles alianzas para alcanzarla. A los usual suspects progresistas y ecologistas, en sus diferentes formatos (partidos, sindicatos, asociaciones, ONGs, empresas, etc.), se suman corrientes liberales, con un fuerte ideario pro-europeo y de soberanía supraestatal, como otras conservadoras y/o (sinceramente) patrióticas, con un fuerte acento estatal y muy celosos de la defensa de su patria. De hecho, la perspectiva de colonización e injerencia externa representa una seria brecha ideológica para algunas corrientes nacional-negacionistas europeas, hasta convertir su cosmovisión, según Emilio Santiago, en un “patriotismo confuso”. Al oponerse con vehemencia al Green New Deal y, de facto, defender política y económicamente al imperio fósil, cava en su interior una profunda contradicción: difícilmente puede uno defender su patria si al mismo tiempo la vende a potencias y fondos extranjeros y se convierten en meros vasallos suyos. Mientras ponemos con claridad el dedo en la llaga nacional-negacionista, toca reforzar alianzas clásicas –en torno al eje ético-climático– y añadir otras más incómodas –en torno al eje soberanía energética.  

No son tiempos para quedarse ensimismados. Más allá de defender lo alcanzado en la última década, son tiempos de adaptación al nuevo contexto y reubicación estratégica para retomar la iniciativa. Para mayor sostenibilidad y soberanía, la transición ecológica y justa puede y debe ganar la batalla cultural y política al imperio fósil. 

Este artículo ha sido publicado originalmente en la Revista Gaceta Sindical. Reflexión y Debate de CCOO, número 42, mayo del 2026.

1. Por ejemplo, el Partido Popular Europeo ha resquebrajado por primera vez en 2025 en el Parlamento Europeo el cordón sanitario en torno a la sostenibilidad ambiental de las grandes empresas. Véase: https://elpais.com/internacional/2025-11-23/el-acercamiento-de-la-derecha-a-los-ultras-tensa-la-cuerda-en-bruselas.html ︎
2. Las similitudes entre Putín y Trump, y más allá de las corrientes políticas que representan, son cada vez más evidentes. A nivel ideológico, son defensores de los “valores tradicionales”, basados en un mundo cristiano y blanco, que hay que salvar del declive, con una obsesión contra el colectivo LGBT y el feminismo, mientras que en la práctica política manejan de forma sistémica la mentira así como el desprecio a la democracia liberal y parlamentaria. ︎
3.  No confundamos simplificación y desregulación. Mientras siempre es posible mejorar la eficiencia administrativa simplificando procesos y leyes (por ejemplo para las PYMES), no es lo mismo que la desregulación cuyo objetivo es debilitar el marco legal, en general a favor del gran capital. Véase: https://www.elespanol.com/enclave-ods/opinion/20260218/desregulacion-ue-amenaza-salud-seguridad-alimentaria-naturaleza/1003744133846_13.html ︎
4. Estos 17 elementos químicos son en realidad óxidos metálicos no solubles en agua, siendo en el siglo XVIII el término “tierra” usado para referirse a los óxidos. Además, muchos no son elementos escasos (incluso pueden ser más abundantes que el plomo o el cobre) pero se las califica de “raras” debido a que es muy poco común encontrarlos en una forma pura. ︎

Headline News:

• “Global Oil Prices Rise To Highest Level In A Month Amid Iran War Escalation” • Oil prices climbed to their highest level in more than a month as fighting in the Middle East escalated and a top US official voiced pessimism about peace talks. Brent crude futures, the benchmark index for worldwide trading, rose to $94.10 a barrel. [ABC News]

Pumpjack (David Thielen, Unsplash, cropped)

• “US Says It Reaches Nuclear Power Deal With Saudi Arabia” • The US and Saudi Arabia have reached an agreement on civil nuclear power, the US DOE said, a deal that allows the kingdom to build nuclear reactors using American technology and to enrich uranium. A civil nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia has been in the works for years. [MSN]
• “Heat Rather Than Lack Of Rain Is To Blame For Europe’s Droughts” • France expects its worst maize harvest in 50 years. The EU’s rivers are so low that shipping is disrupted. Scientists say Europe’s droughts are increasingly driven more by heat than a lack of rain, and soil moisture is vanishing “faster than it would in a world without climate change.” [Euronews]
• “Europe Can Unlock 25 GW of Clean Power By Using Existing Grid Connections” • Europe could add 25 GW of wind and solar to existing hydropower sites across seven EU countries without needing extra grid capacity, according to a new Ember report. In Europe, hydropower plants are particularly well suited for hybridisation. [CleanTechnica]
• “Florida Researchers Bring Endangered Elkhorn Coral Ashore To Protect Them” • Scientists working to save a coral species from extinction transported thirty pieces from nurseries off the Florida coast to a hatchery on land, fearing that warming waters could trigger a mass bleaching event this summer that could wipe them out. [ABC News]

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

As another cache of historic industry documents emerges, the documentary record surrounding Shell’s environmental knowledge continues to grow.

By John Donovan

For almost forty years my website has published internal Shell documents, confidential correspondence, court papers and whistleblower material that have helped illuminate the inner workings of one of the world’s largest energy companies.

Now another collection of historic industry documents has entered the spotlight.

This time, the catalyst is The New York Times, which has reported on newly highlighted documents assembled by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI)—including a previously obscure 1966 Shell discussion paper that suggests Shell engineers were already discussing methane emissions nearly sixty years ago.

The article, by veteran environmental journalist Hiroko Tabuchi, is another reminder that the history of the oil and gas industry is increasingly being reconstructed from its own documentary record.

The 1966 Shell Document

At the centre of the story is a discussion paper produced by a Shell study group at Shell Centre in London on 25 October 1966.

According to The New York Times and the Center for Climate Integrity, notes from the study group indicated that natural gas was being released in “embarrassingly large quantities” at oil fields, often through flaring or venting.

At the time, methane was not yet at the centre of public debate over climate change.

Today it is recognised as one of the most potent greenhouse gases, with a warming effect many times greater than carbon dioxide over a twenty-year period.

The significance of the document therefore lies not simply in its age, but in the evidence that engineers within the industry were discussing methane losses decades before the issue became widely understood outside specialist circles.

A Wider Archive

The Shell paper is only one document among many examined by the Center for Climate Integrity.

According to its report, industry archives contain evidence stretching back to the 1960s and 1970s showing that oil and gas organisations were studying methane emissions while publicly promoting natural gas as a comparatively clean fuel.

Among the documents cited are:

• a 1968 American Petroleum Institute report concluding that methane in the atmosphere was likely coming, at least in part, from gas fields;
• a 1979 American Gas Association study suggesting emissions from major gas fields were substantially higher than official estimates;
• internal public relations material showing efforts to present natural gas as an environmentally friendly energy source while concerns about methane leakage remained under discussion.

Taken together, the documents form part of a growing historical archive examining what the industry knew, when it knew it, and how that knowledge was communicated publicly.

The New York Times Investigation

The significance of this story is heightened by the fact that it has been reported not by a campaigning organisation but by The New York Times, one of the world’s most influential newspapers.

Its report carefully distinguishes between the claims made by the Center for Climate Integrity and the responses from the industry.

The newspaper also places the newly highlighted documents within decades of subsequent scientific research that ultimately confirmed methane as a major contributor to global warming.

Shell Responds

Shell rejected the suggestion that the Center for Climate Integrity’s report fairly represented the company’s actions or intentions.

A Shell spokeswoman told The New York Times that the report “mischaracterized Shell’s actions and intent.”

Shell also stated that it has become a leader in reducing methane emissions and is working towards achieving near-zero methane emissions by 2030.

BP similarly said methane emissions remain an important issue and that the company continues working to measure and reduce them across its operations.

Another Chapter in a Much Larger Story

Viewed in isolation, a single memorandum from 1966 proves relatively little.

Companies routinely commission technical studies exploring issues that may never become corporate policy.

What makes this story noteworthy is the cumulative picture.

Over recent years, journalists, academics, NGOs and researchers have uncovered:

• early Shell climate studies;
• internal planning papers;
• confidential transfer-pricing documents;
• historical engineering reports;
• environmental risk assessments;
• and now historic methane discussions dating back to the mid-1960s.

Each discovery adds another piece to an increasingly detailed documentary history of the modern energy industry.

The Documentary Record Continues to Expand

One of the recurring themes of The Shell Leaks Files has been that Shell’s corporate history is increasingly being written not solely through annual reports or official company histories, but through internal documents that continue to emerge from archives around the world.

Some originate from court proceedings.

Others come from whistleblowers.

Others still emerge from university libraries or historical collections that have remained largely unnoticed for decades.

The newly highlighted 1966 methane study belongs firmly in that category.

The Bottom Line

The New York Times article does not claim that one forgotten Shell discussion paper settles the long-running debate over what the oil industry knew about climate change.

Nor should it.

Instead, it highlights something arguably more important.

The documentary record continues to grow.

Each newly uncovered report, memorandum and engineering study adds another piece to the historical puzzle.

Whether those documents ultimately reinforce existing conclusions or prompt new ones, they deserve careful examination on their own merits.

As this website has argued for many years, history is often written not by press releases, but by the documents that survive them.

Sources

• The New York Times, “Oil Firms Knew for Decades of Methane’s Danger to Planet, Documents Suggest”, Hiroko Tabuchi, 21 July 2026.
• Center for Climate Integrity: Gaslighting the Public: How the Gas Industry Concealed the Methane Threat.
• 25 October 1966 Shell discussion paper: Discussion on Possible Uses of Methane (DocumentCloud).

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: The New York Times Highlights a Forgotten 1966 Shell Methane Study was first posted on July 23, 2026 at 10:36 am.
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THE SHELL FILES MEET THE SHELL FILES: Another Independent Investigation, Another Debate About Corporate Accountability

Different investigators. Different evidence. Different editorial perspectives. Yet the same remarkable title.

For almost forty years, this website has assembled what many readers have come to regard as “the Shell Files”—an archive of internal emails, confidential documents, court papers, whistleblower testimony and investigative reporting spanning decades of Shell’s corporate history.

Entirely independently, the respected Amsterdam-based research organisation SOMO has now launched its own investigative series under exactly the same title:

The Shell Files

The coincidence is more than merely amusing—it neatly illustrates how documentary evidence continues to shape very different investigations into the same multinational company.

The two projects are entirely unrelated. They originate from different sources, examine different issues and have different editorial objectives. Yet both rely on documentary evidence rather than corporate publicity, and both seek to illuminate aspects of Shell’s global operations that might otherwise receive less public attention.

The latest instalment of SOMO’s The Shell Files turns its attention not to transfer pricing, but to one of Europe’s longest-running industrial controversies: the Groningen gas field.

The Groningen Legacy

For decades the Groningen gas field generated enormous wealth for both the Dutch State and its partners, Shell and ExxonMobil.

It also became associated with thousands of induced earthquakes that damaged homes, disrupted communities and gave rise to one of the largest compensation programmes in Dutch history.

Gas production has now ceased.

The debate over responsibility has not.

Billions Generated – Billions Distributed

According to SOMO, Shell and ExxonMobil, through their joint venture Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), earned an estimated €64.7 billion during nearly sixty years of Groningen gas production.

SOMO also notes that the two companies reported approximately US$51 billion in combined profits during 2024 while returning almost US$60 billion to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.

The report argues that these shareholder distributions should be viewed alongside the companies’ remaining obligations in Groningen.

Outstanding Commitments?

SOMO contends that Shell and ExxonMobil have stopped making certain agreed financial contributions connected with earthquake recovery following closure of the gas field.

Among the figures cited are:

• approximately €550 million relating to strengthening earthquake-damaged homes;
• approximately €167 million linked to the regional Perspectief voor Groningen programme.

SOMO argues that these commitments should continue irrespective of whether gas production has ended.

The Arbitration

Adding another layer to the dispute, Shell and ExxonMobil have commenced arbitration proceedings against the Dutch State seeking compensation relating to the earlier-than-planned closure of the Groningen field.

Legally, that arbitration is separate from the compensation programmes.

Publicly, however, many observers inevitably view the two issues together: communities continue dealing with the consequences of decades of gas extraction while the companies pursue legal claims against the State.

Who is SOMO?

Readers should understand the perspective of the organisation behind this report.

SOMO (Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations), based in Amsterdam, openly describes itself as an advocacy research organisation rather than a neutral think tank. Its stated mission is to challenge what it regards as the harmful power of multinational corporations and to promote a global economic system that is equitable, democratic, transparent and environmentally sustainable.

SOMO explicitly argues that the prevailing doctrine of maximising shareholder value should give way to an economic model placing greater emphasis on workers, communities and the environment.

That philosophy naturally shapes the questions SOMO investigates and the conclusions it reaches.

However, it would be simplistic to dismiss its work on that basis alone. Like many respected investigative NGOs, SOMO’s reports are typically detailed, heavily referenced and based on documentary evidence that is open to public scrutiny.

Readers should therefore judge both the evidence presented and the organisation’s stated perspective.

Shell’s Position

Shell has consistently stated that it takes its legal responsibilities seriously and has publicly acknowledged the history of Groningen, the earthquake damage and the associated compensation and strengthening programmes.

The arbitration concerns legal and contractual issues surrounding closure of the field rather than constituting an admission of wrongdoing.

As with many long-running corporate disputes, this remains an active and contested matter.

Another Piece of a Larger Picture

What makes this report particularly interesting is that it joins a growing body of independent investigations into Shell from entirely different directions.

Recent years have seen reporting and investigations by Reuters, the Financial Times, OCCRP, numerous courts, parliamentary inquiries and now SOMO’s own The Shell Files project.

These organisations are independent of one another.

They rely on different evidence.

They pursue different objectives.

Yet collectively they demonstrate that Shell continues to attract an exceptional degree of scrutiny from journalists, researchers, regulators, campaign organisations and former insiders alike.

The Bottom Line

Whether one agrees with SOMO’s broader philosophy or with Shell’s emphasis on creating long-term shareholder value, the Groningen dispute raises legitimate questions about corporate responsibility after decades of profitable resource extraction.

The coincidence that both this website and SOMO have independently adopted the title The Shell Files is almost symbolic.

Different investigators.

Different evidence.

Different editorial viewpoints.

Yet both projects reflect the enduring importance of documentary evidence in understanding one of the world’s largest energy companies.

In the end, readers should judge the evidence—not the slogans.

THE SHELL FILES MEET THE SHELL FILES was first posted on July 23, 2026 at 10:01 am.
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World’s first commercial factory to manufacture wooden wind turbine blades takes important step closer to realisation, after being awarded funding.

The post “First of a kind” factory to mass produce wooden wind turbine blades wins critical EU backing appeared first on Renew Economy.

When Min left the hot, dusty plains of central Myanmar for its mountainous eastern border with China earlier this year, he had few options. A 2021 military coup had devastated the formal economy of the Southeast Asian country, and jobs were scarce. Min’s native Sagaing Region was at the epicenter of an armed uprising, making it a target of airstrikes and other retaliatory attacks. And the military introduced mandatory conscription in 2024, accelerating the exodus of young people from areas under its control. 

As many of his peers fled Myanmar, Min paid a broker 2,000 Chinese yuan ($290) to arrange jobs for him and his younger brother at a rare earth mining site in an autonomous region controlled by a powerful ethnic army. 

Assigned to build roads, Min and his brother each earned around 3,000 yuan ($430) a month. It was far more than they could earn in most industries, but the work came with risks. They were digging on steep slopes and Min’s brother had little experience operating heavy machinery.

Weeks after arriving, Min’s brother died in a landslide. Min’s account of the incident could not be independently verified, but local media have documented at least five fatal landslides at rare earth mining sites in Myanmar in recent years, in one case burying more than a dozen workers.

His family held religious rites without his brother’s body, which could not be transported. Min did not go home either. “Despite the risks, I continue working,” he said. “There are not many other job options.” (Editor’s note: Like other workers interviewed, Min has been given a pseudonym.)

A rare earth mining site, seen here in January 2026, near the town of Hpare in territory controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization near the border with China. Machya

Min is part of an expanding workforce enduring hazardous conditions and handling toxic chemicals to extract some of the world’s most coveted raw materials. Used in the manufacture of wind turbines and electric vehicles, the 17 elements known as rare earths are often framed as essential to fighting climate change. But they are also used in advanced weapons, elevating their geostrategic value.

Many countries consider rare earths to be ‘critical minerals’ — vital to economic and security interests but vulnerable to supply chain disruption. As competition for control over supply chains intensifies, rare earth extraction has left a wake of destruction in source countries. Myanmar, the world’s largest supplier of a particularly sought-after subset known as heavy rare earths, is now enduring a disproportionate burden.

Myanmar’s rare earth mining industry operates in secret, with no public records of active permits or companies involved. Worksites are heavily guarded, and only a handful of journalists have reported on the ground over the past decade. 

Still, news has trickled out — of poisoned rivers, forests devoid of wildlife, and farmland so toxic that growers cannot sell their crops. In May, a local human rights group reported that a Chinese rare earth mining company in Myanmar’s eastern Shan State was using prisoners and human trafficking victims for “slave labor.” It found that both the Myanmar military and United Wa State Army, an ethnic army that maintains a ceasefire with the military, were complicit.

A rare earth mining site, seen here in September 2025, in the Mong Pawk area of Shan State, Myanmar, in territory controlled by the United Wa State Army.
Gawng Loe Mu

The businesses carrying out this extraction face few consequences in Myanmar — in part because the industry operates in a legal grey area. Chinese companies extract rare earths in autonomous, militarized regions controlled by local ethnic armies, which protect mining operations while taking a cut of the profits. The mined material is then trucked across the border into China, where it is mixed and essentially laundered with rare earths from other sources and processed for use in global products.

The conflict monitoring organization Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, or ACLED, has ranked Myanmar’s war as the second-most extreme on the planet, and also the world’s most fragmented, with more than 1,200 distinct armed groups. Corruption and weak rule of law have further contributed to an explosion of criminal activity of all kinds. According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Myanmar has the highest levels of organized crime of any country in the world.

“External influence, such as global demand and China, play a major role in Myanmar’s rare earth extraction,” said Thaw Htoo, a pseudonym for a political ecologist from Myanmar who conducts her research anonymously for safety reasons. “Armed groups and lawlessness allow this to happen while the international community turns a blind eye. … These actors are all involved in these harmful and irresponsible practices, and ideas like responsible sourcing or a just energy transition do not reflect the reality on the ground.”

As the world’s superpowers seek control over rare earth supply chains as a means to advance their national interests, from weapons to renewable energy, their demand is indirectly funding conflict actors in Myanmar during a time of war, incentivizing rapid extraction with minimal safeguards.

Debris surrounds a damaged statue of Buddha in February 2024 following fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Kachin Independence Army in Nam Hpat Kar, Kutkai township in Myanmar’s northern Shan State. STR / AFP via Getty Images

Rare earths are common in the Earth’s crust, but their low concentration, combined with the fact that they occur in complex clays and minerals, makes them costly and difficult to mine. Researchers have found that their extraction tends to occur at the margins of state and corporate power, with those profiting from extraction often using narratives of untapped wealth and critical strategic needs to justify their expansion.

Rare earth exploration has reached Indigenous territories in the Amazon, the deep sea, and even the moon. As the United States seeks ways to reduce its dependence on China, it has made deals involving rare earths in geopolitical hotspots including Ukraine and contested regions of Pakistan, while working to extend its influence over rare earth-rich countries including Venezuela and Greenland.

Within Myanmar, these patterns are repeated along its eastern border. “The question we need to ask about rare earths is why these same regions keep getting remade as extractive sacrifice zones,” said Jasnea Sarma, an ethnographer and geographer at the University of Zurich. 

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Myanmar’s borderlands have been contested since shortly after the country, formerly known as Burma, gained independence from Britain in 1948. Ethnic groups like the Kachins that had relative autonomy under the British rose up against direct central rule by the Burman majority. The Burmese military has sought to quell these rebellions with a brutal tactic known as “four cuts” — starving opponents of food, funds, intelligence, and recruits by targeting entire communities. Now in its eighth decade, Myanmar’s civil war is considered the world’s longest.

The central military and ethnic armies holding territory along the country’s borders take taxes from resources including jade, timber, and gold. Their affiliated companies profit directly from these industries. Armed groups that agreed not to fight against the military have been rewarded with a higher degree of autonomy to do business, giving them an added layer of impunity. Their territories have become hubs for more overtly criminal industries including drug production and online scams.

Because rare earth mining in Myanmar is so secretive, data on the industry is scarce. But China’s customs reports show that from 2017 to 2024, it imported more than 320,000 tons (290,000 metric tons) of rare earths from Myanmar, or roughly two-thirds of its total imports. According to the environmental nonprofit Global Witness, Myanmar surpassed China as the world’s largest source of heavy rare earths in 2021. It is a particularly vital source of dysprosium and terbium, components of heat-resistant permanent magnets — known as neodymium-iron-boron, or NdFeB magnets — used in a range of technologies with military and civilian applications.

There is limited publicly available data on the uses of dysprosium and terbium by volume, but research by the U.S. Department of Energy found that consumer electronics and industrial motors accounted for nearly 60 percent of global NdFeB magnet demand as of 2020, while offshore wind turbines and electric vehicles accounted for an additional 20 percent. If the world speeds up its shift away from fossil fuels as predicted in a high-growth scenario, offshore wind turbines and electric vehicles would account for nearly two-thirds of global demand for NdFeB magnets by 2030, according to the Energy Department.

China, which holds more than 90 percent of the world’s rare earth processing capacity, began restricting its exports of heavy rare earths last year in response to U.S. tariffs. The shutoff left global economies scrambling to find new ways to procure them, and prompted new deals and partnerships. 

Samples of rare-earth minerals from the Bayan Obo mining district are on display at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in May 2025 in Beijing, China.
VCG / VCG via Getty Images

The highly sanctioned Myanmar military has meanwhile stepped up efforts to ingratiate itself with the Trump administration. In April, its Ministry of Information hired Roger Stone, one of America’s most notorious lobbyists, to help build ties with the U.S.

Some Americans have already lobbied for the U.S. to pursue access to Myanmar’s rare earths. Such a pursuit would most likely involve collaboration with India, Myanmar’s western neighbor and China’s rival in the region; analysts warn it would face immense logistical and geopolitical hurdles. 

Whether these hurdles will stop the U.S. from trying remains unclear. In May 2026, the Trump administration signed a deal with India to cooperate in securing supplies. Days later, Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing visited India and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, discussing “ways to deepen cooperation” in rare earths among other topics, even though extraction areas are outside the military’s control.

A recent report by Forest Trends, a conservation-focused nonprofit, found that nature crimes — the illegal extraction and trade of natural resources — are “deeply embedded within broader illicit economies” across Southeast Asia’s Mekong Region, and that global demand for rare earths may intensify not only extraction in Myanmar, but associated conflict and crime. 

Although legality in Myanmar is complicated by the military’s illegitimate claim to power and its involvement in criminal enterprises, Myanmar’s role as a hub for environmental exploitation is undisputed. According to Forest Trends, this activity provides military and criminal groups with revenue outside formal banking systems that can fund other illicit operations.

These extractive industries are highly lucrative, in some cases generating billions of dollars annually. The military claims the profits benefit the public, though many of the military’s conglomerates are sanctioned by the U.S. and other Western countries for funding human rights abuses. Groups fighting against the military, meanwhile, use narratives of revolutionary struggles and ethno-territorial rights to justify claims to land and resources, without taking responsibility for the harmful impacts. 

“Everyone’s talking about rare earths now, and understandably so. But the story didn’t start there, and it won’t end there either,” said Sarma of the University of Zurich. “People are finally paying attention to the slow, perpetual violence that’s been unfolding here for decades beneath layers of extraction.”

An unexploded projectile sits on the roof of a house in February 2024 following fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Kachin Independence Army in Nam Hpat Kar, Kutkai township in Myanmar’s northern Shan State.
STR / AFP via Getty Images

China once mined most of the world’s supply of rare earths domestically. In the Bayan Obo district of Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of northern China, open-pit mining in the 1990s and early 2000s scarred the landscape with massive tailings ponds and poisoned the air and water. 

Bayan Obo is mainly a source of light and medium rare earths. Heavy rare earths are scarcer and more difficult to extract, and are typically mined in Myanmar through a process called in-situ leaching. It involves dispersing acid and chemical solvents through mountains, leaching out the rare earths in chemical pools, and burning them in furnaces.

The method carries substantial environmental and public health risks, according to Regan Kwan, a research analyst at the Stimson Center who studies the impacts of rare earth mining in Southeast Asia — particularly when pollution makes its way into water. “Chemical leaks and wastewater discharge can turn rivers toxic, reduce biodiversity, and expose communities to elevated levels of rare earth elements and heavy metals in crops,” he said. “On a human level, chronic exposure can affect the brain, liver, bones, and immune systems, and can be extremely detrimental during childhood development.”

China initially endured the consequences of in-situ leaching in its southeastern provinces, but eventually, the harms reached a tipping point. In 2012, the government found that rare earth mining had caused “great damage” to public safety, health, and the environment, and vowed to overhaul the industry. It has since drastically tightened regulations, driving the shift into Myanmar. 

“Regulations were looser,” said Ryan Castilloux, the founder and managing director of the critical minerals strategy firm Adamas Intelligence. “Chinese companies or interests could take their expertise and get production going quickly.”

Thai activists gathered outside the embassy of The People’s Republic of China in Bangkok in July 2026 to demand China address pollution affecting the Kok, Sai, Ruak, and Mekong rivers due to cross-border pollution linked to mining in Myanmar.
Peerapon Boonyakiat / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

The origin story of rare earth mining in Myanmar is difficult to pinpoint, but satellite images and Chinese import data show that it reached an industrial scale around 2017. 

By 2022, satellite images showed hundreds of rare earth mining sites in Myanmar’s northernmost Kachin State. Most of these sites spread out from the border town of Pangwa, which served as the headquarters for a warlord named Zahkung Ting Ying. 

A former member of the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, one of Myanmar’s oldest and strongest ethnic armed forces, he established his own rival army in 1989. He signed a ceasefire with the military the same year; in return, it designated his territory as a Special Region, an administrative status conferring a high degree of autonomy.

Ting Ying’s army is one of several to benefit from this arrangement. According to Kevin Woods, a political ecologist and research associate at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, the military and ethnic armies on Myanmar’s border with China have used ceasefires as a deliberate means of generating wealth from natural resources while asserting control over land and people — part of a strategy he calls ceasefire capitalism.

In Ting Ying’s territory, the strategy was a success. Over three decades, he cultivated relationships with the military and Chinese investors while opening his territory for business. It became a hub for logging, poppy cultivation, banana plantations, and various types of mining. When China began looking for new places to source rare earths, his territory was a natural fit. 

Zahkung Ting Ying, center, leader of the New Democratic Army-Kachin, attends the Kachin State Special Region 1 People’s Conference on March 20, 2006 in Panwa, Kachin State Special Region 1 of Kachin State, Myanmar. China Photos / Getty Images

Kachin’s rare earth mining boom coincided with a political transition in Myanmar. In 2011, the military began handing over power to a civilian government following a half-century of direct rule. Five years later, it took a back seat to the elected democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Although her party initiated reforms seeking to strengthen natural resource governance and curb corruption during its five-year term, it ultimately faced criticism for its limited achievements. While activists accused it of suppressing independent voices and walking back protections for customary land ownership, the civilian government also lacked independent access to Myanmar’s Special Regions like the one set up for Ting Ying, hindering its ability to monitor some of the worst environmental offenses.

Still, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party was easily reelected in November of 2020. The military refused to accept the results, however, and on February 1, 2021, it arrested Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of her party and took power in a coup. Widespread nonviolent protests followed; when the military cracked down with lethal force, many protesters turned to armed resistance.

Hundreds of new armies emerged with a shared aim of overthrowing the military and establishing a democracy, but their goals went further. They also sought a federal political system that granted autonomy to ethnic states — a goal that brought them in step with some of the country’s most powerful ethnic armies. The Kachin Independence Army is one of several that sided with the resistance, hedging its bets that victory would bring it closer to the self-determination it had been seeking since the 1960s.

Armed and trained by the KIA and other established forces, Myanmar’s anti-junta resistance has made significant gains. The military, backed by Russia and China, has retaliated with a heavy hand, killing thousands of civilians and displacing millions. United Nations investigators have accused it of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 2025, the U.N. found that Myanmar was facing a polycrisis that had pushed millions into poverty and “reshaped every aspect of life.”

An anti-coup protester holds a banner during a peaceful protest in Yangon, Myanmar in March 2021.
Hkun Lat / Getty Images

A scramble for resources followed the coup, offering armed actors and their business partners new opportunities to make money. “There has been less rule of law since the coup, and a much stronger demand for revenue generation among a proliferation of armed groups,” said Woods, the political ecologist. “That has created a context, especially along the China border, that has little remaining accountability.”

In Kachin, Ting Ying initially experienced a windfall. As war raged across the country, his territory remained peaceful, and rare earth mining expanded. Chinese customs data shows that China imported $3.6 billion worth of rare earths from Myanmar from 2021 to 2024, out of a total of around $4.3 billion since 2017. The vast majority of rare earth mining sites in Myanmar were in Ting Ying’s territory at the time.

Then in late 2024, the KIA defeated Ting Ying’s army. Ting Ying was initially rumored to have fled to China, but has since been cozying up to Myanmar military officials and Chinese diplomats. In his former territory, now controlled by the KIA, rare earth mining has been slow to resume. Some reports indicate the KIA has faced pressure from China, which typically prioritizes its own business interests in the country. Since the coup, China has repeatedly pushed ethnic armies supporting the pro-democracy movement to cease fighting the military or withdraw from territory they control.

To keep business flowing amid the volatility in Kachin, Chinese companies expanded rare earth mining southward into Myanmar’s Shan State — particularly areas bordering China, controlled by ethnic armies that signed ceasefires with the military. 

“China’s rising demand, coupled with uncertainty in Kachin, has shifted investment,” said Xu Peng, a political scientist at the University of Manchester. “With high margins and reliable tax take, rare earths have become a key, competing extractive resource for ethnic armed organizations, reinforcing today’s rapid growth.”

A drone shot taken in September 2025 of a rare earth mining site near the town of Hpare in territory controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization near the China border.
Machya

Five rare earth mining workers based in areas controlled by the KIA and United Wa State Army in Shan State described exploitative and risky conditions. All of them have been given pseudonyms.

Kaung worked his way up from a laborer to a supervisory role over five years, but quit his job earlier this year due to feelings of discrimination by his Chinese employers. He said they underpaid him, and walked back their offer of a commission based on mining output. “Because there were no written contracts, they claimed they had no obligation to pay,” he said.

He and other workers from Myanmar said that Chinese nationals held almost all senior positions, and that even when workers from Myanmar were promoted, they were still under Chinese bosses. “There were many structural challenges,” said Kaung. “Working under Chinese management meant that all work depended on their decisions and authority.”

Without written contracts, workers had little recourse from dismissal. Women faced particular risks. “Some Chinese supervisors sought second wives, and if female workers refused their advances, they were dismissed from their jobs,” said Kaung.

He added that even the value set for a worker’s life differed by nationality. “If a Myanmar worker dies, compensation is limited to between 80,000 and 100,000 yuan,” he said. “If a Chinese national dies, compensation can exceed 1 or even 2 million yuan.”

Pann Ei fled her village in Shan State as fighting escalated in 2023. Now a cook at a rare earth mining site, she typically works 10 hours a day, with only two rest days a month. “Most workers don’t stay long because of problems like not receiving salaries regularly or having deductions,” she said. “Even though the jobs are dangerous, salaries are still uncertain.”

Si Thu, a laborer at another site, works similar hours for daily wages. “When I arrived here, I found that the work is not done under a formal contract,” he said. “There are no fixed rest days. We can take leave if we request it, but the missed days are deducted from our pay.”

His job is to dig boreholes and install pipes for dispersing chemicals through the mountains. “It’s like injecting medicine into a patient’s vein,” he said. “We drill holes into the mountain and inject liquid acid through the pipes so that it seeps into the ground.”

Mi Mi, who works as a cook, said her company provided protective gear for laborers, but that people would sometimes take off their gloves and boots due to the heat. She witnessed the consequences for a Chinese worker who handled acid without wearing gloves. “It caused burns on his hands, leaving red, blister-like marks,” she said.

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Research by Tanapon Phenrat of Thailand's Naresuan University found that water samples taken from areas of extraction in Kachin State were severely contaminated with radioactive elements, toxic heavy metals and other harmful substances, representing levels that would “substantially exceed” regulatory thresholds in China.

Kaung, the site supervisor, said he had little choice about the water he used in daily life. “Drinking water is taken from mountain sources through pipelines connected to areas where there are no rare earth mines. We boil the water before drinking it, and the same water is used for bathing,” he said. “Even though the water is sourced from non-mining areas, I believe it may still be contaminated.” 

While he has not identified any discernible consequences on workers’ health, he said that supervisors of rare earth-burning furnaces had heard of infertility problems among both male and female workers — an impact of rare earth exposure that has been identified in some laboratory research and studies of other contexts. 

Workers in Myanmar also described severe environmental destruction. “The water is lifeless, and the mountains have been badly damaged,” said Kaung. “Plants and trees can no longer grow. … Wild animals have lost their habitats due to extensive drilling and the digging of boreholes.”

According to Mi Mi, companies abandon mining sites after depleting their resources. “No one takes responsibility for what happens to the land,” she said. “Despite this, we have no choice but to rely on this work for our livelihoods.”

Nyi Tun, a man in his 50s who has also been given a pseudonym, described major impacts in his village. His family has survived generationally through hill cultivation and raising livestock, but this way of life is now under threat. “In the past, this area was very pleasant to live in,” he said. “It is not good to live in anymore. There is a lot of mining across the mountains, including rare earth mining.”

People stand next to debris in the aftermath of a landslide in a mining area in Pangwa in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State in June 2024.
STR / AFP via Getty Images

The problems started around six years ago, when Chinese businessmen and local officials informed village leaders that they would soon begin mining rare earths just a few miles away. “No one asked for the villagers’ opinions,” said Nyi Tun.

Destruction followed. “The soil color has changed; it used to be rich and reddish, but now the environment is dry, like the soil from the desert, and it looks pale and yellowish,” he said. “Dirty water, polluted water, and waste from rare earth mining in the mountains flow into our streams and creeks.”

In the dry season, trucks transporting rare earths to China blow up dust and damage the roads. The hot season feels hotter than in the past, while the rainy season brings deadly landslides and floods. “Crop yields are lower now,” said Nyi Tun. “We can only farm enough for our own consumption; the yield isn’t good enough to produce a surplus to sell.”

As the conditions worsen, young people are migrating to cities and towns in search of work. “I am not educated, but I know and understand how this village began and the current situation,” said Nyi Tun. “Some people call this development, but I don’t see it that way. I feel sad seeing our ancestral lands and farms damaged.”

These impacts point to a double standard. While China now mandates that companies mining rare earths within its borders adhere to strict environmental regulations, it doesn’t require the same compliance abroad, according to Xu Peng of the University of Manchester. “The regulatory framework governing overseas extraction, including in Myanmar, remains comparatively vague,” she said. “There does not appear to be a clear, directly enforceable Chinese legal restriction specifically prohibiting environmental harm from rare earth mining overseas, including in Myanmar.”

Once these rare earths cross into China, processing is highly centralized. Castilloux of Adamas Intelligence compared China’s rare earth processing industry to a coffee grinder, so thoroughly blending together material from different sources that the individual components are nearly impossible to trace to their origin countries. “Unless you’re on the floor and you can kind of track the molecules down the separation line and then follow it to a metals plant, it becomes really, really tricky,” he said.

Still, he asserted that based on proportionality, companies using heavy rare earths in their products could be sure that their supply chain, at least a portion of it, is tied to Myanmar. “If you’re buying magnets from China, or let’s say Japan with inputs from China, there is some portion of that material in those magnets … that has certainly come from Myanmar, in every case,” he said.

According to Ben Hardman, Mekong legal director at the environmental nonprofit EarthRights International, companies are aware of the problem but are skirting responsibility. “I think companies are consistently using Myanmar as a sacrifice zone,” he said.

He called on companies that rely on heavy rare earths in their supply chains to both reduce this dependence and engage with local civil society groups and ethnic armed organizations controlling rare earth mines in Myanmar, in order to mitigate and remedy the harms. “It’s not acceptable for companies to say, ‘We are going to keep sourcing magnets that include these heavy rare earths but we can’t do anything about it because it’s complex,’” he said.

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Julie Michelle Klinger, a geographer and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison warned that rare earths’ other applications — including their use in petrochemical refining, nuclear, and hydropower, as well as weapons — are often overlooked. “There are currently no measures in place to track, much less ensure, that mines opened ostensibly to meet the growing demand for renewable energy technologies actually serve that purpose,” she said. “In the context of global rearmament, it is reasonable to guess that an even smaller share of global rare earth output is actually going toward technologies that might be used in an energy transition.”

While accountability remains near-absent in Myanmar, the problems continue, and are spreading to other countries. In neighboring Thailand, water testing over the past year has revealed toxic contamination of rivers from rare earth extraction and other forms of mining in Myanmar. Local advocates in Thailand are calling on the Thai government to take action, even though it does not formally engage with the ethnic armies controlling areas of Shan State where the rivers originate, and where civic space is minimal.

In Kachin, a sliver of hope has emerged since the KIA took over rare earth mining areas in 2024. The Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, which oversees the KIA, has a history of engagement with civil society, but has long struggled to balance its dependence on resources with its accountability to the public. Since the coup, it has come under renewed pressure to reform its approach to resource governance, but its response has been mixed.

In a landmark case in 2023, it canceled plans to mine rare earths at one site following widespread protests, only to later allow mining in the same area. In another case, it dispersed protests at a planned site and detained more than 20 people, effectively silencing local activism. With independent media unable to visit the area, it is unclear whether the mining proceeded. 

A civilian living in Kachin, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that locals were being paid to allow rare earth mining on their land, but lacked the conditions enabling them to make free and informed decisions. “There is no formal consultation, information sharing, or public announcement process with communities,” he said. At the same time, he remained fearful of expressing this or other concerns directly to the KIO. “Raising the topic of rare earth mining is still very sensitive,” he said.

Lahkyen Roi, a Kachin scholar-activist, is speaking out using a pseudonym. “Even if these mines are providing vital revenue for the war against the military, the KIO should place a moratorium on these extractive activities for now, considering short- and long-term implications on the local communities, local economy, and environment,” she said. “With rare earth exploration expanding across many ethnic territories to exploit the current sociopolitical instability, the industry is headed toward a ‘race to the bottom.’”

Whether in Kachin or Shan, workers face pressure to keep their heads down. “If information related to rare earth mining is posted online, monitoring becomes stricter and more vigilant,” said Min. 

After his brother’s death, his employers urged him to refrain from posting about the incident on social media, while offering him compensation amounting to around a year’s worth of wages. Ultimately, he accepted the offer, sent the money home to his family, and continued his work. “There is no freedom to speak openly about rare earth mining,” he said. “Workers simply work, rest when their shifts end, and receive their salaries when the time comes.”

Additional reporting by Gawng Loe Mu

toolTips('.classtoolTips2','A group of 17 soft gray metals including lanthanides, scandium, and yttrium, so-called rare earths form key parts of the magnets in wind turbines and are used in high-tech products ranging from consumer electronics to defense satellites.'); toolTips('.classtoolTips8','A lightweight, silvery-white alkali metal with properties that allow it to store large amounts of energy. Lithium is a key component of many batteries, including those that store renewable energy and power electric vehicles.'); toolTips('.classtoolTips10','A conductive and heat-resistant metal that forms a key part of many battery cathodes, which allow electric charges to flow. It is used in the lithium-ion batteries that power many EVs as well as solar energy systems and wind turbine components.'); toolTips('.classtoolTips11','A scarce blue metal that helps battery cathodes store large amounts of energy without overheating or collapsing. It is a key component of lithium-ion batteries. ');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How war in Myanmar is driving a deadly rare earth mining boom on Jul 23, 2026.

After more than a decade of nurturing, it had come time to infect this 28-acre grove of American elms with a disease that would almost certainly kill them. Dressed in hunter-green muck boots, grey pants, and a brown Nature Conservancy T-shirt, Gus Goodwin knelt down to give the first tree its shot. Using a bamboo stake marked at 12 inches as a gauge, he measured that far off the ground, held his drill at a slight downward angle, and pulled the trigger. 

“We need to create a wound,” Goodwin, the conservancy’s director of science and technology advancement in Vermont, said as the tool began to whir. He bore an inch-deep hole into the tree, the bit sending shavings spiraling out behind it. Putting the drill aside, he took a blue pipette from his tool box and injected 2 teaspoons of a clear solution containing roughly 100,000 spores of the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease. 

“That’s it,” he said. “Pretty simple.”

One by one, row by row, the plan was to stick nearly all of the 5,300 or so elms at the sprawling site in southern Vermont, save the few that received a squirt of water as a control. In the coming weeks, most of the trees would doubtlessly succumb to the pathogen that has already killed tens of millions of their ancestors and made Ulmus americana an endangered species. The ones that live, however, could help save the species.

A research specialist with the University of Vermont records information young elm trees that have been inoculated with Dutch elm disease on May 19, 2026. Jessica Rinaldi / The Boston Globe via Getty Images

This project is the most promising attempt yet in the decades-long effort to restore a crumbling pillar of American forests. If successful, it could spawn the largest, healthiest, most genetically diverse population of disease-tolerant elms North America has seen in more than a century. Those trees would provide shade and elegance wherever they cast shadows and support the creatures, like double-toothed prominent moths, specifically adapted to them. “Their life is so tightly tied to the species that they evolve to look like the edge of the leaf,” Goodwin said, explaining how the caterpillar camouflages neatly with the stegosaurus-like ridges along the edge of an elm leaf. “If you substitute another species in, you kind of pull the rug out from under that.”

American elms also help mitigate flooding, which climate change is making more frequent, intense, and devastating. It’s a threat that Vermont knows well, having experienced two 100-year deluges since 2023. According to one study, bolstering the state’s floodplains could avoid as much as $1 billion in property damage over the next century. Similar logic applies across New England and beyond. “There’s no other floodplain tree that’s shade tolerant, flood tolerant, and long-lived,” said Goodwin. The hope is to bring that buffer against climate disasters back. 

If, of course, any of the trees here survive.

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After Goodwin injected his first sapling, he marked it with a dab of orange paint to show that it had been jabbed. He then opened an app detailing this research plot, and looked up the tree. Elm number 439 is the offspring of Valley Forge, a nursery strain bred to be disease-tolerant, and an individual called Damon from the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. Survivor tree 31, as the latter is known, measures more than 7 feet around and is one of about 50 potentially hearty parents represented in this research plot. Those with the most resistant and genetically diverse progeny will be cloned and moved to the new seed orchard of “super trees.”  

Goodwin also recorded where sprouts, called epicormic shoots, had popped out of number 439. Knowing this was important because, if more of them appeared later, it could be an indicator of stress. With that done, he moved to the next elm, then the next, a trail of orange paint in his wake. In the coming days, as many as six crews would descend on the grove to finish the task. After each tree-tap was registered in the app, the icon went from red to green.

“I get the satisfaction of watching that dot turn color,” said Goodwin, who was eager to see which trees would start to die. In a few weeks, trees without resistance would begin to develop symptoms — wilting, discolored leaves, or an outburst of epicormic shoots. Only then would the researchers know if their plan for a reinvigorated army of elms might work. “We’re at a really exciting milestone in the project.”

Researchers inject experimental elms with Dutch elm disease at a test site in Benson Vermont. The Nature Conservancy

The American elm is remarkable. Its branches arch upward and outward, forming a cathedral-like canopy of green that can stretch more than 100 feet above the forest floor. Each autumn, the leaves turn a vibrant golden-yellow. “The elm is a tree which can be distinguished farther off perhaps than any other,” 19th-century naturalist Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal. “It is beautiful alike by sunlight and moonlight.” 

These fecund specimens achieve their mature height and vase-like shape in as little as 15 years and, unencumbered, can live as long as 300. With their expansive native range and a love of moist, fertile soil, the trees used to dominate river valleys and floodplains from the Canadian maritimes to East Texas. For Indigenous populations, they were meeting places, signposts and council trees around which important gatherings revolved. As the New World became America, settlers began clearcutting across New England, with forests giving way to sheep pastures. Elms, however, have a tendency to warp that makes them nearly worthless as lumber. This spared the trees from the worst of the denuding.

Instead, elms were often celebrated as shade givers, with particularly stately examples known by name: the Washington Elm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for instance, under which George Washington is said to have assumed control of the Continental Army in 1775. The Deerfield, Pittsfield, Wethersfield, and Concord elms were after the New England towns where they once stood.

An 1853 colored engraving of the Washington Elm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bettmann / Getty Images

It wasn’t until the mid-19th century, though, that the elm grew into a cultural icon. Spurred by a twin push to uplift native tree species and beautify neighborhoods, the fast-growing and vast trees become a go-to for arborists. “They’re kind of like junkyard dogs. They can grow in really tough locations and be perfectly fine,” said Stephanie Adams, a tree pathologist at Texas A&M University. “That’s why you see pictures of Main Street, USA back in those times and all the streets are just lined with American elms.” Thousands of roadways still bear the tree’s name, and what else would Wes Craven call his 80’s slasher classic but A Nightmare on Elm Street. 

“The American elm is a symbol for American history,” said Doug Still, an arborist and host of the podcast “This Old Tree.” “Until, of course, Dutch elm disease wiped them out.”

The aptly abbreviated DED kills with incredible efficiency. While it likely originated in Asia, Ophiostoma ulmi was first observed in northern Europe around 1910 and Dutch scientists officially described it in 1922. The fungus that causes it soon arrived in North America, reportedly on logs imported to make veneer, and native elm bark beetles carried it on their backs as they burrowed into their hosts. The afflicted tree mounts an aggressive immune response, trying to stop the invader by deploying balloon-like plugs called tyloses that prevent transmission through the xylem, which shuttles water and nutrients from its roots to its leaves. These arteries eventually clog, and the tree essentially starves. Death can come in as little as a year.

Rings are pictured in the trunk of an elm tree in Boston in 2017. Planted in the 1880s, the tree was taken down after succumbing to Dutch elm disease.
David L. Ryan / The Boston Globe via Getty Images

The impact on the American landscape was immediate. Trees suspected of having the disease were quickly felled to curb the plague, and, by 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had allotted $2.5 million to the effort. Culling intensified, but instead of stemming DED it may have hastened its expansion. “The only tool we had in our toolbox at the time was a chainsaw, and when that’s the case, everything looks like a removal,” said Adams, explaining that, once introduced, the disease can move from one elm to another through their interconnected roots. “We didn’t know that removing before severing the root grafts actually exacerbated and sped up the spread.” 

The 1940s brought more setbacks. America’s entry into World War II diverted attention and resources away from the elm war. Then a far more aggressive strain — Ophiostoma novo-ulmi — arrived, turning the epidemic into what one researcher, in 2017, deemed “arguably the most significant event in the history of urban forestry.” This potent variant raced through the country, killing as many as 100 million trees.

Though the percentage of elms lost is murky, the impact is unmistakable. Trees came down by the thousands in cities and towns nationwide. New Haven, Connecticut, once known as “Elm City,” was almost entirely stripped of its namesake. The population on the University of Illinois campus tumbled from 1,850 to 92 in a little over a decade. By the 1970s, Minneapolis was taking down more than 20,000 of its roughly 400,000 elms each year, estimated Ryan Murphy, who leads the elm selection program at the University of Minnesota. A mere 35,000 remain in the city, and statewide the devastation is even worse, with the plague claiming 95 percent of the elm population. “In some communities in Minnesota there are just a few American elm left in the entire city,” he said. “And the disease is still killing trees.”

The easiest way to find the plot of dying elms in Benson, Vermont is to put “Preserving God’s Creation Taxidermy” into a GPS, and cross the street when you get there. The business is in some ways emblematic of what scientists are doing in the field below — ensuring that people can continue enjoying a species. And like taxidermy, it requires that individuals die. “I feel like we should warn them and apologize to them because we’re torturing them,” said Leila Wilson, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, as she set out to start injecting another young elm. She cringes each time, knowing the consequences. “I don’t like that part. But they’re serving the greater good.” 

In an era of high-tech fixes, Wilson, Goodwin, and their colleagues are doing little more with their elms than Gregor Mendel did with his peas: crossbreeding them. The idea isn’t new; such efforts began almost as soon as scientists learned of the disease, but no one has had much success. Between 1937 and 1965, scientists at Cornell University and the Boyce Thompson Institute grew, infected, and tested 21,000 seedlings. Only 16 survived, and many of those couldn’t pass along their genetic resistance. None made it to nurseries for distribution. That failure, among others, dampened the appetite to fund such costly, long-term research. “So many false hopes have been raised that there is apathy in some quarters about the outcome of our battle against this disease,” the author of a 1975 scientific paper on the subject wrote. But, he added, “surely it is worth the trouble.”

“Trouble” implies inconvenience and feels insufficient for the toils of restoring elms. By one estimate, only about 1 in 100,000 elms are truly tolerant to DED rather than simply lucky. But just what makes those survivor trees special remains a bit of a puzzle. Unlike the American chestnut, which was similarly ravaged by a blight, there isn’t a clear genetic marker that points to exactly what allows some elms to stave off DED more effectively than others. That makes gene editing moot and breeding the only option.  

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After earning his doctorate in forest genetics and plant breeding in 1969, Alden “Denny” Townsend found a job at the U.S. National Arboretum’s Agricultural Research Service in Ohio. The young scientist’s work spanned a range of species and projects, including an American elm program that had lain mostly dormant for years. The assignment came as DED rampaged, and pessimism about the species was nearly as pervasive. “American elms were dying everywhere,” said Townsend. “I thought there was hope.” 

Townsend, though, inherited something of a mess. His predecessors had, fortunately, planted around 70,000 American elms at the Ohio research station that had grown to 40 or 50 feet and were available for testing. But with no proper accounting of where the trees came from, Townsend started infecting them en masse to see what would happen. Slowly, he identified tolerant elms, then cloned or bred them to generate versions with even greater resistance. After more than two decades, he eventually ended up with one variant — dubbed “Valley Forge,” after George Washington’s Revolutionary War encampment — that was fit enough to send to nurseries. He identified another survivor along a road in Ohio that also proved exceptional and the arboretum eventually released it too, as New Harmony.

A conservation information manager for The Nature Conservancy injects a young elm with Dutch elm disease on May 19, 2026.
Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Since those breeds went on sale in the late 1990s, others have joined the fray. The Jefferson elm, for instance, is essentially a copy of a tree that grows on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which boasts one of the largest remaining stands of mature American elms in the country. But there are still only a handful of cultivars available, and they have quirks. Some, for instance, have weaker crotches and snap more easily during storms. “They are probably better suited in parks or country clubs or where there’s lots of land,” said Townsend. “If these trees do get Dutch elm disease, they’re gonna be a real hazard.” 

They have another drawback too: limited genetics. There simply aren’t enough reliably tolerant strains to provide the genetic diversity needed for the widespread floodplain repopulation that Goodwin envisions. “It’d be like starting a population over again with six individuals,” he said. But Townsend said previous efforts like his should be considered building blocks rather than failures. “Mistakes were made,” he acknowledged with a chuckle. But he’s optimistic that the funding and scientific rigor being applied to the problem this time around will drastically improve the odds. “I’m glad to hear the Forest Service is continuing to work on it,” he said. “Diversity is the key.”

Christian Marks started working at The Nature Conservancy in 2007 as an ecologist studying floodplains along the Connecticut River. He knew the dwindling ecosystems act as vital sponges when the water runs high, absorbing the torrent and preventing inundation downstream. The more he learned, the more he realized the peril these New England bulwarks were in. Because they rely on just a handful of species to function, the loss of even one could be devastating — and most of them are faltering.

Like Townsend, Marks thought elms stood the best chance of recovery, as long as their tolerance could be boosted. While he said the roughly 90 percent survival rate often seen among cultivars might look impressive, floodplain elms should ideally live for well over a century, during which they will probably be exposed to the DED pathogen repeatedly. “You have to be able to survive many times,” said Marks. That requires trees that survive closer to 97 out of 100 times, a standard that could mean the difference between a tree living 50 years or 150 years. “It’s a much more rigorous test,” Marks said.

An old-growth elm trees that survived Dutch Elm Disease grows in Castine, Maine, as seen in February 2022.
Tristan Spinski for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Ironically, earlier failures to stop DED were one reason Marks was confident he could do better. In the decades since Townsend’s work, millions more elms had died, making it far more likely that those left standing were actually DED-tolerant rather than lucky. “You need to have enough trees die for the ones with resistance to become apparent,” said Marks.  

But, although well-versed in floodplain elms, he had no experience breeding them and reached out to Jim Slavicek, a research biologist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station in Ohio. The latest federal elm project had started in 2003 and Slavicek had helped set up a handful of test sites across the Midwest. The two scientists went about trying to establish one in New England too.

The first thing they needed was more survivor trees, and Marks knew where to find them. Starting around 2010, he went around New England, clipping samples and sending them to Slavicek. One of the first he collected was the Rainbow Beach elm in Northampton, Massachusetts, which is over 3 feet in diameter and, he recalled, “magnificent.” Eventually they amassed enough cuttings to raise 53 elms, and the Forest Service began crossbreeding them. By 2018, their offspring were rising from soil at test sites in Ohio and Vermont. Within a decade the trees stood about 8 feet tall, then 12, and soon they were ready for testing. Although Marks recently left The Nature Conservancy, he remains invested in the results. “This is the playoffs,” he said. “What you’ve been preparing for.”

The Benson test site is surrounded by a 10-foot wire fence intended to keep the deer from making a buffet of the elms inside. Chris Hansen and John Butnor had parked their white Dodge Ram with U.S. Forest Service logos on the doors and government plates on the bumpers right outside the gate. It was early July, and the first time they’d come since helping with the inoculation in May. “This guy right here is completely gone. It’s not got a living branch,” Hansen, a researcher at the University of Vermont, said, standing beside a tree with shriveled brown leaves. Then he pointed to a perky green specimen. “This tree right next to it seemingly has nothing going on, which is pretty cool.”

Butnor, a plant physiologist with the Forest Service, checked the tag at the bottom. “Thirty-eight,” he announced, reading the survivor elm’s parent aloud. Goodwin joined him, and the trio walked among the saplings. Each time Butnor saw a healthy-looking tree, he excitedly called out the identity of its parent. Thirty-six. Twenty-five. Three. Another 38 — suggesting it may be a particularly strong donor. “You hear us throw around the words resistance and tolerance, and I think most of the time we should actually be saying tolerance,” said Hansen. “There’s plenty, as you’re seeing.” 

An initial accounting of the plot revealed a range of responses to injection, including about 800 trees that aren’t yet showing signs of DED. “It’s too early to make predictions about individual trees,” stressed Goodwin, who, along with his colleagues, will monitor the elms for another two years before deciding which of their parents are most suitable for planting in the new superseed orchard. From there it’ll take another 10 to 15 years before the new trees bear seed. So far, though, the results are promising.

A land management fellow with Thee Nature Conservancy walks down a row of young elms as she works to inoculate each one with Dutch elm disease on May 19, 2026.
Jessica Rinaldi / The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Any campaign to make elms great again will, and should, run into limits. No one particularly wants to completely revive the species, which in some cities dominated the urban canopy. “One lesson we learned from Dutch elm disease devastating the urban tree canopy was not to plant a monoculture of trees,” said Doug Still, the arborist, citing the more recent plight of emerald ash as another example of why overreliance can be a problem. Today, urban planners tend to be much more restrained, said Ryan Murphy, the elm expert in Minneapolis. “Diversifying your tree population is a sort of a safeguard or hedging your bets against future pests or disease coming through,” he said. “We’ve learned the hard way.”

Some people ask whether the quest to save the American elm is worth decades of effort and millions of dollars in funding, especially when Asian elms are naturally much more tolerant to DED. But Hansen emphasized that such inquiries are rare, and come primarily from journalists and scientists, not the public, which is generally excited about the prospect. “Even people who aren’t necessarily interested in trees know that elm shape,” he said. Goodwin sees a philosophical element to the work too. “There’s kind of like a moral injury of extinction,” he said. “This is a way to try to repair that.” 

The price of not doing this work is evident on the hills surrounding the grove, which are spotted with dead and dying elms. Many look like they’re choking on epicormic shoots. “They’re probably not healthy,” said Hansen. Although no one has tested them, Dutch elm disease is likely the culprit. As he walked back toward the truck, he stopped in a patch of shade and looked up at least 50 feet into the canopy of a middle-aged elm. 

“It’s called the Benson tree,” he said. It’s imperfect — the limbs are haphazard and, as Butnor described them, “a little unruly.” But the vase-like shape is unmistakably an elm and, at somewhere between 50 and 100 years old, one that has long outlived its peers. Hansen isn’t sure if it’s a survivor or simply lucky. There’s a chance Dutch elm hasn’t reached it, though now that the field it abuts is infected, that probably won’t last.

Like the younger elms, the Benson tree awaits its fate. In the meantime, it stands watch over the scientists trying so hard to save its kind.

Correction: This story originally misstated the century in which Henry David Thoreau lived.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The deadly experiment that could save the American elm on Jul 23, 2026.

Tadej Pogačar is expected to ride to victory on the Champs-Élysées in Paris when the Tour de France ends Sunday. While his commanding performance has left little doubt about the outcome, the journey to the finale has been remarkable for another reason: climate change. 

The grueling 23-day trek through France has seen a barrage of emissions-driven extremes, from wildfires to blistering heat. It was so dry at one point that organizers banned TV crews from a French pastime, smoking. Pogačar even suggested that the race, which has almost always spanned late June and early July, no longer occur during the summer. 

“If I had the power,” he said, “I would change all the calendar and not race in July and August in hot places.” 

The trouble started earlier this month when wildfires threatened the Pyrénées-Orientales region during the third stage, as each day’s race is called. Organizers considered cancelling it, but decided it would continue. Still, they limited the caravan that typically follows it to essential vehicles. They also asked fans, a fixture along every route, to stay away from the last 27 miles of the day’s 121-mile race.

“We invite the public not to come to the edge of the race or to the finish site,” race director Christian Prudhomme told France TV. “With exceptional fires, exceptional measures on the Tour, the first thing is the protection of the people.”

The more persistent problem has been a record-breaking European heatwave. According to ProCyclingStats.com, the first two weeks of the Tour brought the highest average temperature of the past two decades: 87 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to 79 degrees in 2022. 

Paul Seixas and his teammates wear vests dotted with ice packs to cool down at the start of the ninth stage of the race. Ann-Christine Poujoulat / AFP via Getty Images

“I’ve never seen weather conditions this hot every single day,” said XDS-Astana Team sports director Yvon Ledanois. “It isn’t a case of having one extremely hot day and then returning to normal conditions the next.”

Enduring such heat for one race would be rough, but each of the 21 stages is effectively a race of its own. Competitors ride an average of about 100 miles daily for the better part of three weeks, and it isn’t unusual to see them maintain speeds around 30 mph for hours at a time. Much of the Tour crosses the Alps and Pyrenees, with treacherous climbs. Through it all, riders get just two days of rest.

That kind of prolonged exertion during extreme heat can be dangerous, even for athletes with the specialized training required to complete the Tour. Pogačar reported having a “full headache” at the start of Stage 4 as temperatures topped 100 degrees. Officials relaxed their rules around food and hydration, and one team said each of its riders was drinking around 28 bottles of water every day, which is several times the norm. Many also wore “ice vests” before the start of each day’s ride, and “ice socks” during it. Things got so bad that race organizers shortened one leg for the first time in Tour history when they cut 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from Stage 9. The government told regional officials they could cancel them entirely in the event of a red heatwave alert. 

Even when the sun went down, the respite was minimal. Temperatures didn’t ease much, and many European hotels do not have air conditioning. “When we have these high nighttime temperatures, the body isn’t able to recover sufficiently,” Kurt Shickman, who works on heat issues at the World Resources Institute, told Grist when asked about early July’s heatwave. “They’re going into the next hot day with a couple strikes against you from a health perspective.”  

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Recent research has shown these hazards are growing more frequent and intense. “My co-authors and I have been following the heat during this Tour with horror,” Ivana Cvijanovic, a climate scientist at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development and the paper’s lead author, told TIME. “This summer is clearly extreme — there was simply no opportunity to be lucky as France and Spain have been under heat wave warnings for weeks.”

The brutal conditions have sparked a discussion about the Tour’s support from fossil fuel companies. French oil giant TotalEnergies sponsors a team and has signed a three-year deal to underwrite the race. Australian energy company Santos has long backed the Tour Down Under. While their funding helps finance riders and events, these companies are driving climate change, which threatens the viability of cycling and other sports, including the World Cup — where Saudi oil giant Aramco was a major advertiser. 

“It’s almost impossible to avoid becoming a billboard for them,” one anonymous rider told Cycling Weekly. “I’d go further and say that, concerning the climate crisis, and professional cycling’s addiction to sponsorship from oil companies, airlines, and car manufacturers, there is a rule of silence, as deeply rooted in cycling culture as the old omertà about doping.”

Whether and how the Tour adjusts to climate change remains to be seen. Pogačar’s suggestion that the race be held at a different time of year would upset the traditional order of the sport’s three grand tours. A number of other solutions have been proposed, including altering start times. But even small changes can be a big problem given the complex logistics and broadcast schedules involved. 

In the meantime, the Tour is racing toward its inevitably sweaty conclusion.

Correction: The average temperature for the first two weeks of the Tour de France has been changed. It was 87 degrees Fahrenheit, not 90 degrees F.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The year climate change came for the Tour de France on Jul 23, 2026.

A recent report from Brazil’s national space agency showed that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is the lowest it’s been in a decade. The news made headlines and was lauded as an example of the progress President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had made toward his promise of eliminating illegal deforestation there by 2030. Since taking office in 2023, Lula’s administration has ramped up environmental policies aimed at making the country’s beef industry more transparent, such as increasing policing and remote monitoring of forest lands.     

But some of that progress is at risk of being undone, say environmental experts. 

In January, a number of agrifood groups left a voluntary trade agreement known as the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which had been highly effective at curbing deforestation for the sake of cultivating soybeans. The pact prohibited members from buying soy grown on lands deforested after July 2008. When the moratorium fell apart earlier this year, researchers and advocates expected it to usher in a rise in deforestation for soy cultivation. Now, thanks to a group of scientists working in both the U.S. and Brazil, we have an initial expectation of how much deforestation is likely to occur in the coming years. 

In a new paper published last week in Science, researchers say that the Amazon forest is at risk of losing 1.4 million hectares — or the equivalent of about 2 million soccer fields — to deforestation over the next 10 years. 

Before the moratorium was in place, soy cultivation was one of the main drivers of deforestation in the Amazon; for example, in Mato Grosso, Brazil’s leading soy producing state, a quarter of soy production from 2001 to 2005 came from clearing forested lands. After a widespread public campaign led by Greenpeace, public and private sector actors working in the Amazon forest came together to create the soy moratorium. “People generally followed it,” said Lisa Rausch, one of the authors of the Science paper. “There weren’t many violations of it, especially in the early days and years. This created a situation where land deforested after 2008 was no longer valuable to soy traders.”

Ane Alencar, a director of science at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, or IPAM, agreed that the soy moratorium was a “very important private policy mechanism” for curbing deforestation. She also argued that without it, lands deforested after 2008 that are currently used for things like raising cattle will now be converted to soybean production — and that the cattle ranching will move to “new frontiers,” likely leading to deforestation elsewhere in the Amazon. 

Area that has been cleared for soy cultivation in the Amazon rainforest near the Brazilian city of Belém. Larissa Schwedes / picture alliance via Getty Images

The new research on soy-driven deforestation in the Amazon also comes at a time when private commitments from major food groups to clean up their supply chains have been flagging. This month, JBS, the world’s largest meat producer, publicly walked back its so-called promise to reach net-zero deforestation by 2040. The news shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise, as last year, the company’s chief sustainability officer admitted in an interview with Reuters that the pledge was always purely aspirational.  

Alencar believes that the private sector still has a role to play in disincentivizing deforestation, and that companies like JBS are still susceptible to consumer pressure to do the right thing. “They are very reactive to the public opinion,” she said, “so maybe there is a need for more campaigns asking for these companies to be more responsible in the Amazon.”

Other forest countries in Latin America are working on curbing deforestation. Colombia recently passed a first-of-its-kind law aimed at increasing traceability within its beef industry. Over the next two years, government agencies must work with cattle ranchers to ensure they are not raising herds on illegally deforested lands — as well as bring in slaughterhouses, meat processors, cattle auctioneers, and exporters to make sure they are not moving or selling products from these areas. Rausch called this development a strong signal, but said much remains to be seen about how Colombian authorities will accomplish these goals. 

And there are still other agreements in place that aim to restrict deforestation in Brazil — such as the nation’s Forest Code, which limits how much land can be cleared for any type of agricultural production. When lands are deforested outside of these limits, the owners receive a fine and then the land in question is placed under embargo, meaning it cannot be used for any commercial agricultural use. 

But Rausch argued the Forest Code does not go far enough to protect forested land. Her paper found that 20 percent of soy farms in the Amazon have embargoes against them for illegal deforestation. “The economic incentives for deforestation are still there,” she said, while adding that the latest deforestation update from Brazil’s space agency is welcome news. “But unless there are new things brought to the table, this will be a temporary drop, and it will creep back up for sure.”

Alencar also finds the future outlook of deforestation in the Amazon “worrisome.” With Lula up for reelection — and facing off against Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro — Alencar fears that progress could be undone. 

“I’m afraid that all of these results that we have achieved,” she said, “they’ll really be in danger if the government becomes more anti-environmental.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Without stronger government action, Brazil’s low deforestation in the Amazon is unlikely to last on Jul 23, 2026.

The distribution of medicines follows a priority logic defined by MINSAP itself—Dirección General de Salud Pública de La Habana (the Cuban Ministry of Public Health).

The post Brazil: “Ajude Cuba” Solidarity Campaign by MST Sends More Than 7 Tons of Medicines to Cuba appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The tribunal was convened by a diverse group of farmers’, peasants’ and Indigenous organisations along with community networks.

The post Declaration: From the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (Costa Rica), in Defense of Seeds appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Last week, something incredible happened. On 15 July 2026, more than 50 of our partners, friends and comrades from across the movement gathered to discuss a bold new vision for South Africa’s energy future. Our message is already loud and clear: “Asinimali Kodwa Sinelanga!” — we have no money, but we have the sun. The struggle to afford the basics of life, including electricity, continues in South Africa, but there are opportunities to help solve the crises we face. We must take them!

A crisis we can’t ignore

If we’re being honest about the situation: it’s grave. Since 2007, electricity prices in South Africa have skyrocketed by 1,172%, rising six times faster than inflation. Today, nearly 60% of households live below the poverty line, and many families are forced to make the impossible choice between buying maize meal or keeping the lights on.

The government’s current Free Basic Electricity (FBE) grant of 50-60 kWh is symbolically insufficient. It might power a lightbulb, but it won’t run a fridge, a stove, or a heater. Meanwhile, our reliance on ageing, fragile coal plants is costing the public R960 billion (US$55.2 billion) a year in health impacts alone.

The vision: 350 kWh of clean, public power

Our demand is clear: we want a 350 kWh FBE grant generated with publicly financed renewable energy. This isn’t just a number we pulled out of a hat. Based on the recommendations of experts from the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and other economic justice organisations, 350 kWh is the Minimum Threshold Level of Consumption required for a family to reach basic developmental standards. Data from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity group (PMBEJD) shows that even households with only one person working for a minimum wage already purchase an average of 350 kWh just to survive. By securing this grant, we enable bulk food refrigeration, hot water, and the “micro-business capability” needed to break the cycle of poverty.

As massive investments from the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET-IP) and other international sources flow into the country, it only makes sense that this money is first spent where it matters most. These funds must be directed toward programs that directly alleviate poverty and support economic activity in our most underresourced communities. This is a necessary step to finally reducing the historical inequalities that continue to hold us back. By shifting the R118 billion (US$6.8 billion) currently spent on annual fossil fuel subsidies, we can begin public funding of clean, affordable power for households across the country.

 

Building our campaign community

The meeting was a generous and celebratory start to this journey. We heard from researchers, media experts, and grassroots organisers from organisations across the country. We’re moving forward strategically. Our eyes are on the local government elections on 4 November 2026. We’re going to use this moment to demand that every candidate pledges to support 350 kWh of FBE from municipal solar power.

Get involved

We need everyone in this fight. There are two ways you can help right now:

1. Join a Working Group: If you represent an organisation or have specific skills to offer, please sign up for a working group and join our next planning meeting on 29 July 2026.
2. Join the Campaign for Affordable Electricity. Get campaign updates and action alerts by signing up to our email list.

Together, we can secure the clean, affordable power our communities deserve.

In solidarity, 

Ferron Pedro
Senior Campaigner, 350.org South Africa

 

The post Asinimali Kodwa Sinelanga: Taking Our Next Steps Towards Climate & Economic Justice appeared first on 350.