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Thursday, May 14, 2026
Press Contact: Sumeet Bal, Director of Communications, 917-647-1952, sbal@publicadvocates.org

California Can’t Lead the World While Leaving Workers Behind

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California enters this May Revision in a moment of unexpected abundance—and familiar avoidance. 

Tax revenues are more than $16 billion above forecast. The state’s cash position has hit record highs. California dominates the global technology economy, leading the world in IPOs, artificial intelligence, Fortune 500 companies and innovation. But California cannot claim to lead the world while its teachers, nurses and essential workers are being priced out of the communities they sustain. Dominating in technology while losing ground on economic security for working families is not a strong legacy—it is a contradiction that demands solutions. The question this May Revision must answer is not whether California can dominate. It already does. The question is who that dominance works for.

California already knows how to build the things families need—the governor’s commitment to increasing per-pupil funding, investing in our educators, and expanding community schools proves that. When the state chooses to invest directly, boldly and consistently, it changes lives. Community schools are doing that now, in the communities that need it most. 

Housing and transit deserve the same commitment—not threats, not red tape reduction alone, but direct state investment that meets the scale of the crisis. Without substantial and sustained funding for affordable housing, low-income Californians will continue to struggle, regardless of how much development streamlining or local government oversight the state pursues. Meanwhile, the state’s basic protections against rent gouging and arbitrary evictions, the Tenant Protection Act, will expire in 2030 unless a governor with the courage to fight for and strengthen it steps forward. At the same time, without an infusion of state money, our public transit network is in danger of collapse. 

Abundance is not the same as security—AND it is not the same as justice. The working families at the center of our state’s story are experiencing a cost of living crisis that no IPO can solve—and they are waiting to see whether California’s record revenues will reach them, or pass them by once again. The question is made more urgent by federal cuts stripping millions of Californians of healthcare, food assistance, and housing support, and a proposed restructuring of Cap-and-Invest revenues that could cut affordable housing, transit, and clean air programs in half—redirecting dollars from low-wealth communities to fossil fuel companies. Seven years ago, the governor promised to fix the state’s boom-and-bust tax system. The boom is here. The question is whether he will use it for the Californians who built this state—and can no longer afford to live in it.

Education: A Legacy Built, A Problem Unaddressed

“Governor Newsom’s historic community schools investments will cement one of his enduring legacies, just as LCFF defined Jerry Brown’s,” said John Affeldt, Managing Attorney for Education Equity. “The research is showing that California’s community schools have cut chronic absenteeism by 30% compared to similar schools, reduced suspensions by 15% overall and delivered learning gains in English equivalent to 151 extra days of instruction for Black students.”

“But the governor’s May Revise failed to address one of the key equity challenges remaining for him—the state’s unconstitutional discrimination against low-wealth school districts in modernizing facilities. The State’s program for renovating dilapidated schools substantially favors high-wealth communities who are able to raise much more in matching funds, leaving students in poor districts in overheated portables and leaky classrooms amidst black mold and unremediated asbestos. The governor has acknowledged ‘you can’t look in the eyes of these kids,” but today, he chose to look away—and to keep fighting them in court,” added Affeldt, a lead counsel in a Public Advocates’ lawsuit suing the State over the issue.

“As far as moving forward into the future, our state cannot continue to rely on temporary AI stock market bubbles. To his credit, the governor proposed some modest new taxes, but to build a budget that will enable our residents to thrive, California needs more robust permanent revenue streams to support our schools and healthy communities. We cannot ask teachers to transform students’ lives while those same teachers are being priced out of the communities they serve.”

Higher Education: Affordability Crisis Threatens College Access & Completion?

“California’s economy is growing because generations of students had a path to affordable higher education. But too many low-income students are still being left behind as the cost of education and living continue to rise. If we want a future powered by innovation, we need to make sure opportunity isn’t reserved for those who could afford college anyway. We call on the governor and the legislature to strengthen and expand Cal Grant to keep the door to economic mobility open for the students coming after us—and ensures California’s future includes everyone,” said Sbeydeh Viveros-Walton, Director of Higher Education.

“For low-income Black and Latinx students, affordability is the difference between access, completion and attrition,” said Jetaun Stevens, Deputy Director of Higher Education Equity & Senior Staff Attorney. “Housing is the largest cost students face when pursuing higher education, and California’s housing crisis makes higher education out of reach for many low-income students. With 60% of community college students facing housing insecurity and nearly a quarter of community college students facing homelessness, we need greater investment in housing. We call on the governor and legislature to invest in additional projects through the Higher Education Housing Grant program—including reinvesting funds from withdrawn projects—and open up access to part-time community college students. We encourage the governor and legislature to make greater investments in affordable housing and homelessness prevention to improve economic opportunity for all low-income Californians, including supporting the Senate’s proposal to invest $1 billion in Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program 7 (HHAP) and an additional $1 billion for HHAP 8.”   

Housing Relief Deferred, Renters Left Behind

We welcome the inclusion of $500 million in HHAP 7 funds—California’s primary homelessness assistance program—in the governor’s proposal, but we are concerned about new requirements to receive that funding. Requiring a local funding match will shut out many jurisdictions. Requiring a Prohousing Designation is even more limiting: only 47 jurisdictions would currently qualify. Further, a Prohousing Designation is substantially based on how friendly a jurisdiction’s development environment is for market-rate developers—a standard which should not impede aid to people experiencing homelessness. Consistent, predictable funding is what moves people from the streets to stability. The Senate’s “Foundation for the Future” budget priorities letter reflects this, committing $1 billion for HHAP 7 and $1 billion more for a subsequent 8th round of funding. The governor should match that commitment—without the barriers.

Governor Newsom’s proposal also fails to address what his administration’s proposed changes to Cap-and-Invest would do to the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program (AHSC), the largest source of affordable housing funding in the state. When asked directly, the governor said it wouldn’t be addressed in his proposal. That is not an answer. Redirecting Cap-and-Invest money away from affordable housing and transit to fossil fuel companies and other polluters is a choice—and it demands a response.  Now is the time, however, for Governor Newsom to propose funding to backfill the affordable housing and transit funding that will be lost if his proposal to redirect AHSC money to polluters moves forward.

The human cost of inaction is not abstract.  More than half of California’s 6.1 million renter households spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Nearly a third spend more than half. Evictions have now surpassed pre-pandemic levels. “Housing is the largest item in a family’s budget and the governor’s housing proposals in his final budget do not address the problem or deliver the help renters desperately need,” said Michelle Pariset, Director of Legislative Affairs. “Governor Newsom will leave office without securing his legacy on rent stabilization and just cause for eviction, as the state’s basic protections against rent gouging and arbitrary evictions are set to expire in 2030. He could have worked with the legislature to remove this sunset on the Tenant Protection Act—permanently shielding renters from gouging and no fault evictions. Instead, renters will face that fight with a new governor and a legislature freshly-drenched in real estate industry campaign spending.”

Transit: When Transit Fails, Working Families Pay

The future of public transit in California hangs in the balance at the same time the rising costs of transportation is hurting low-income families. Citizens in multiple regions are collecting signatures for ballot initiatives to maintain critical service, but the state must do its part. “The governor’s proposed CARB regulations for the Cap-and-Invest program would eliminate over $600 million a year in critical state transit funding—funding for service, lower fares for seniors and students, electric buses, and infrastructure upgrades. These are cuts that the Californians who depend on transit cannot afford,” said Laurel Paget-Seekins, Senior Transportation Policy Advocate. “This governor’s proposal would leave a massive multi-year budget hole for transit and affordable housing at a time when Californians need additional investment to address rising costs of housing and transportation.” 

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Public Advocates Inc. is a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing, transportation equity, and climate justice.

The post Press Statement: California Can’t Lead the World While Leaving Workers Behind appeared first on Public Advocates.

Climber Alex Honnold is best-known for his daring feats, recently scaling Taiwan’s Taipei 101 tower live on Netflix, but he’s more typically climbing some of the world’s most challenging natural landscapes. But he’s also an advocate for renewable energy, and the foundation he started, the Honnold Foundation, supports community-led solar energy growth around the world.

How do those two interests fit together? For Honnold, the connection seems clear. “Go on enough trips like this,” he said, referencing his climbing trips to remote locations, and “you just see how much it matters.”

“A lot of these projects basically help protect the land in a way that you wouldn’t necessarily assume,” he said. “Empowering local communities is always a good way to protect the land on which they live.”

Honnold was interviewed by Grist Editor-in-Chief Katherine Bagley at Grist’s live event Turning the Tide: Stories of Climate Solutions, held during San Francisco Climate Week.

In his own climbing experience, Honnold shared, he’s seen how landscapes have changed even in the span of just a few years due to rising temperatures. “A lot of things that used to be approaches or descents up snowy couloirs … those are mostly melted out,” Honnold said. “Basically, big mountains you see change very quickly right now. It’s pretty sobering.”

But he also emphasized the need for positive stories that help people understand that progress is happening. “I personally am just not inspired by pessimism at all,” he said. “The environment has been severely degraded, we’ve lost a lot for sure, but if you were just dropped onto this planet right here, right now, and you just looked around in the natural world, you’d think, ‘This is incredible.’ There’s so much life, the natural world is still amazing, and there’s still so much to protect.”

Watch the full video of the event, including Honnold’s interview, or read a few excerpts (lightly edited for clarity) below.

Katherine Bagley: You and I are about the same age, and I remember as kids growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was like the recycling ads and the oil spills and that we had to save the ozone layer. And I’m curious when climate became part of the conversation for you.

Alex Honnold: Yeah, honestly, I’m not sure. None of those things really speak to me. I think that I was probably not that environmentally aware as a child. I mean, my parents are both professors. I grew up in Sacramento, just sort of a suburban California kid. And I think those weren’t big things in my house. I don’t think either of my parents were profound environmentalists in any way, even though we went camping and stuff, but that’s kind of different. 

And so I think it really was as I started to travel as a rock climber and go on expeditions. I mean, basically I just started reading a lot more. I read a ton of environmental nonfiction and just started to care a little more and then to see a little bit more. And sort of seeing some of the links between energy access and global poverty and climate change — basically the transition to renewables. And those are all things that I was kind of interested in starting in, I guess 2009.

Basically when I started doing some of my first overseas rock climbing expeditions, I was like, “Oh, I care about the way the rest of the world works and I’m interested.” And really the more I learned, the more it was like, “Oh, this seems important. This seems like something I should be more stressed about.”

Emily [Teitsworth, executive director of the Honnold Foundation] was just talking about Kara Solar, this organization that the Honnold Foundation supports in the Ecuadorian Amazon. And this is in Guyana [referencing an onscreen photo], which is the other side of the Amazon. It’s a different river base and everything. This is called a tepui. It’s like this giant rock face. And this was an expedition for a TV show in National Geographic. But anyway, we basically took river transit boats all the way to the end of the river kind of thing, and then walked for a week through the jungle to get to these walls. 

And so, I mean, I think that has really helped inform my environmental activism. Do you call it activism? Basically, the reason I care. And it’s that you go on enough trips like this and you’re kind of like, Well, we took two-stroke gas-powered boats to the end of the fricking world and then hiked for a week into the jungle to go climb this wall. And you see how these communities — basically you just see how much it matters.

* * * 

Bagley: Have you noticed climate change or other environmental impacts that have impacted some of your favorite places to climb?

View this post on Instagram

Honnold: Yeah, I mean, one of my favorites is Yosemite. And so you don’t really see climate change impacts in Yosemite that much. I mean, other than beetle kill and obvious things like that, where you’re sort of like, “Oh, the forests have changed composition very quickly,” and drought, and fire, and those types of impacts. 

But you really see it in some places that aren’t necessarily my favorite places to climb, bigger mountains with glaciers. I don’t like ice climbing, which is a good thing, because it’s all falling down anyway. Like, that ship has sailed. 

Because actually, one my last experiences in Patagonia in southern Argentina — if anyone’s ever been to some of the climbing areas in Patagonia, the key to success in Patagonia, basically the weather’s always horrible, is to always have a whole spreadsheet of objectives so that depending on the weather window, you can choose the correct objective. If you’re like, “Oh, we have one day of marginal weather in between two storms, what’s the right objective for that?” Anyway, so we had a really, really bad weather window with marginal conditions and cold temperatures. And we’re like, perfect for an ice climbing objective, let’s go in and do an ice route up this one spire. 

And we hiked in. And hiking in is no joke. It’s like a couple of days to walk into the town and you get to the mountain and we get up there. Anyway, we got there and there was no ice route anymore. The whole thing had fallen down and it was gone. And we were just like, huh. Like, that’ll probably never reform. Like, that’s just gone. 

You see that all over the world with glaciers and with ice features. And a lot of things that used to be approaches or descents up snowy couloirs, like basically just hike up a chute in a mountain, those are mostly melted out. And so now it’s just like a rock chute with things falling down it the whole time. Basically big mountains you see change very quickly right now. 

It’s pretty sobering, because those landscapes don’t seem like they should change. Because when you look at it, you’re just like — since time immemorial, this has been these rugged mountains. And then you’re sort of like, “Oh, no, actually since four years ago, that’s completely changed.” 

I mean have any of you guys been to Chamonix? Anybody skied in Chamonix? They have a whole tourist attraction with labels and dates and stairsteps to the level of the glacier so basically you can get off and you’re sort of like, in 1850 the glacier was up to here and then you go down literally hundreds and hundreds of stairs, you drop hundreds of vertical feet down to this, like, tiny, tiny little piece of ice and, like, here’s the glacier now. And you’re kind of like, “Whoa, that’s changed a lot in the last hundred years.” It’s insane.

* * *

Bagley: I feel like there would be this assumption based on your climbing and where you go that your go-to would be land conservation, but your foundation does solar energy work, and I’m just curious how that interest came about in particular.

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Honnold: Well, I would actually say the energy access work in some ways is land conservation or ties in to land conservation in many ways. Just to go back to this project in the Ecuadorian Amazon, when you reduce the cost of river power transit, you know, basically when you make the boats solar, you don’t have to buy gas. It reduces the need for communities to cut roads through the forest. And so that is basically land conservation because once you cut a road to any of these communities, then those roads are jumping off points for illegal mining, illegal deforestation, basically extractive industries can easily take hold there. A lot of these projects basically help protect the land in a way that you wouldn’t necessarily assume. Basically, empowering local communities is always a good way to protect the land on which they live.

* * *

Bagley: You now go to a lot of the Climate Week events, a lot of these other kinds of events all over the country, and I think for a long time, there was this narrative of just everything is horrible. I’ve been covering climate change as a journalist for 20 years, and it’s a pretty depressing beat a lot of the time. I remember when you and I were talking the other week in preparation for this, you wanted to stress the optimism that there is actually a lot that we can do about climate change, and that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. So can you talk a little bit about the need for that narrative shift? 

Honnold: So I was at New York Climate Week, six months ago or whenever, last year in New York, and there were just so many questions about existential doom and gloom, or like, “Climate, it’s a lost cause, we’ve already lost so much,” blah, blah, blah. And at a certain point, you know, maybe like two days into climate week, I just kind of snapped. 

I’m personally a pretty optimistic person, and just often see the good in things, but I was kind of like: Yeah, I mean, the environment has been severely degraded, we’ve lost a lot for sure, but if you were just dropped onto this planet right here, right now, and you just looked around in the natural world, you’d think, “This is incredible.” There’s so much life, the natural world is still amazing, and there’s still so much to protect. I think we’re better off highlighting what we have and what we can save, rather than mourning what we’ve already lost. Because in a way, what’s lost is lost. You basically only have from the present moving forward. And that’s still pretty freaking great. 

I interview climate folks all the time, and one of the things that I’m often struck by is I interview a lot of marine biologists and people working in ocean conservation, and when you protect reefs — basically anytime you make something a no-fishing zone or you protect it in any way, life just returns. I mean the oceans seem to recover even faster than things on land. Every time I’m just like, man, there’s such a capacity for restoration if you give nature even the slightest chance. 

And I feel like to date, humans haven’t really given nature much of a chance. We haven’t really chosen to make that much effort yet. I mean, obviously in some cases, local communities can put tremendous effort into saving one river, let’s say. But at a big picture, humans haven’t really tried that hard yet. And I’m kinda like, man, humans are capable of a lot when we try. And so that keeps me pretty optimistic.

* * *

Everybody here knows more about all of this than I do. I just love rock climbing, and I’m trying to do my small part to do something useful in the world. But I do think that there’s something lost in the pessimism around environmental storytelling and all that kind of stuff. Just because at least I personally am just not inspired by pessimism at all. I’m kind of like, “Oh, well, if it’s already lost, then screw it, it’s already lost.” But if I’m making progress, if I am improving, then I’m very motivated to keep making progress and keep improving. 

And I mean, that’s kind of a personal thing. That’s true for training, that’s true for all the things that I do in sport and climbing. If I feel like I’m making progress then it’s easy to get up and try hard and absolutely try my best. And so I feel with environmental issues, it’s like you’re better off focusing on the places that you can make progress. I mean like seeing a river restored like that and just seeing the absolute transformation in just a few years [referencing the restoration of the Klamath River after the removal of dams], that’s incredible. It’s stories like that I think are worth highlighting.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Alex Honnold: ‘You just see how much it matters’ on May 14, 2026.

This year of the Fire Horse brings a long-awaited transformation to one of America’s oldest Chinatowns. 

After years of organizing, planning, and fundraising, APEN and Friends of Lincoln Square Park are finally breaking ground to renovate the Lincoln Recreation Center into a state-of-the-art Resilience Hub!

With disasters becoming more frequent and intense, we need deep investment in the systems and social supports that strengthen our communities and offer resources in times of crisis.

This is where Resilience Hubs come in.

By turning a place where the Chinatown community gathers every day into a resilience hub, we shift disaster response from an individual burden to a collective plan.

Hear directly from APEN Chinatown members and community advocates on the importance of this project.

Since the 1970’s, Lincoln Rec Center has been more than a building; it’s been an essential gathering spot.

Today, it serves roughly 1,000 neighbors each day, including youth, seniors, immigrants, and low-income families who rely on the Center for CalFresh assistance, voter registration, free community college classes, and essential services in their own languages, like Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese.

“I have been a member of APEN and a resident of Oakland for nearly 20 years. To me, Lincoln Recreation Center is more than just a place—it is the heart of our Chinatown community,” shares APEN member Feng Ying Zhou.

Feng Ying Zhou and Chinatown members kicking off the year with APEN’s big member meeting in 2024.

Our Chinatown members’ passion and courage have been critical to the momentum of this long-spanning project.

“We have met with city departments on-site, joined countless meetings, and provided feedback to shape the design. We have spoken directly with elected officials, sharing the real needs and voices of our community,” Feng Ying explains.

And a Resilience Hub can’t come soon enough. California’s perennial wildfires have shown how quickly smoke, ash, and power outages can put vulnerable residents at risk.

This project will turn Lincoln Rec Center into a safe shelter where neighbors can access clean air, emergency resources, culturally appropriate services, and recovery support when disaster strikes.

Volunteers created 5,800 emergency starter kits packed with life-saving essentials like flashlights, first aid kits and masks at Lincoln Rec Center.

“I was deeply moved when I first heard about the vision for a Resilience Hub,” shares Feng Ying.

“I was reminded of the devastating wildfires in California. It made me realize how critical and urgent this project is. This is not just a renovation—it is about building a lifeline for our community.”

Every dollar you donate today helps our members continue to build resilience in Chinatown and steward a place where generations can continue to live with dignity and security.

We hope to welcome you soon to the new Lincoln Rec Center!

 

With gratitude,

Sky Liang (APEN Lead Organizer) and Feng Ying Zhou (APEN Oakland Chinatown Member)

 

 

The post A Long Awaited Glow Up for Oakland Chinatown appeared first on Asian Pacific Environmental Network.

Richard Kidd has seen what happens when energy runs out.

As an emergency logistics officer with the United Nations, Kidd was responsible for ensuring the flow of food, fuel, and water in some of the world’s most fragile environments. In refugee camps, energy isn’t abstract — it’s life or death.

“The refugee camp is the ultimate energy poverty environment,” he says. “If you run out of diesel to run the generators, you turn off the generators that clean the water, and people start to die of waterborne disease. You turn off the generators that provide power to the medical clinics, and you no longer have cold chains to keep medicines effective. Or you turn off the power that provides the lighting and the security, then you have violence.”

That experience shaped how Kidd understands energy: not only as infrastructure, but also as the foundation for human dignity, safety, and survival.

That perspective influenced his approach to driving efficiencies in last-mile logistics, and led him to RMI.

In the early 2000s, Kidd was invited to participate in an RMI design charrette exploring what a net-zero refugee camp might look like — an ambitious idea that brought together thinkers from across disciplines.

“I was brought into the charrette as the refugee camp guy,” he recalls. “I met Amory and the entire Rocky Mountain team. It was really enriching and exciting.” Richard then went on to collaborate with Amory and RMI on Winning the Oil End Game. He also briefed RMI’s board on energy and environmental security.

What stood out for Kidd during these early collaborations wasn’t just the people, but the way they approached problems.

“Two principles I learned from RMI that cascaded through everything were whole-systems integrated design and the idea of ‘making the problem bigger.’ Because then you have more solutions.”

At first, that idea can sound counterintuitive. But in practice, it means stepping back from a narrow technical question to understand the real need behind it. Instead of asking, “How do I heat my house?” you ask, “How do I keep people warm?” That shift opens up entirely different solutions — like better insulation, smarter building design, or passive heating — that can reduce or even eliminate the need for a furnace altogether.

It’s a way of moving from what RMI cofounder Amory Lovins calls the “hard path” to the “soft path.” The hard path focuses on producing more energy — bigger power plants, more fuel, and more supply. The soft path starts by reducing demand through efficiency and smarter design, often solving the problem before new energy is needed.

By expanding the frame, challenges that once seemed intractable become flexible, and new, often simpler solutions come into view.

Those ideas would stay with Kidd as his career evolved.

Kidd went from the UN to the US government, where he spent over 16 years leading public-sector sustainability projects at the Department of Energy, the Army, and later, the Department of Defense.

Initially, he led the Federal Energy Management Program at the US Department of Energy, helping federal agencies meet their sustainability goals through improved building performance, energy efficiency, and renewable energy deployment.

Later, he brought that same systems-thinking approach to the US Army, where he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy and Sustainability. There, he helped drive significant reductions in energy use, including cutting petroleum consumption in the Army’s vehicle fleet by more than 40% in just a few years.

“Enabling fuel savings required looking at more than just vehicle efficiency. It required examining rule sets and patterns of use,” Kidd says. “In the federal government, the higher the individual’s rank, the larger the vehicle. We changed this and allotted vehicles based on use-cases, matching form to function.”

While with the Army, Kidd implemented what was then the federal government’s comprehensive High Performance Sustainability Design Guide — a set of standards designed to ensure federal facilities are energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective — resulting in the largest portfolio of LEED-certified buildings in the nation. He also led efforts that resulted in the largest pipeline of energy savings performance contracts in the federal government and the deployment of over 700 megawatts of renewable energy systems.

Kidd then served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for environmental and energy resilience, where he and his team guided policies associated with a $13 billion energy bill and authored the Department of Defense’s climate adaptation and mitigation plans.

Today, Kidd continues to apply that systems-thinking approach as a strategic advisor on energy innovation, decarbonization, and climate resilience. He works with a wide range of clients — from consulting firms and investors to utilities, research institutions, and emerging technology companies — helping them identify solutions that are both commercially viable and socially beneficial.

And he traces this kind of impact back, in part, to the way RMI shaped his thinking.

It’s why he believes the organization’s influence can’t be measured by projects alone.

“RMI’s impact goes far beyond what shows up in an annual report,” he says. “It’s in the people they’ve influenced — people who’ve had some interaction with RMI and then are inspired and go do other things.”

Over time, that ripple effect adds up.

“I would suspect RMI’s cumulative impact… is much higher than the sum of all their annual reports.”

Today, Kidd continues to support RMI as a Solutions Council donor — part of a deliberate giving strategy focused on both humanitarian and environmental work. He sees his contributions not just as charitable, but also as a way to sustain the ideas and insights that have shaped his own work, and a way to help others do the same.

“Every little bit counts,” he says. “This is a collective problem that we collectively have created as a society, and we collectively have to address it.”

For those considering their first gift, his message is simple:

“Everyone has an opportunity to be part of the solution… and if you really want to make a difference, RMI is one of the best places to do it.”

The post From Energy Scarcity to Systems Change: Why Richard Kidd Gives to RMI appeared first on RMI.

Creating the Grid of the Future: Transmission planning in Oregon and our Region Joshua Basofin Thu, 05/14/2026 - 1:55 pm

With only hours to spare, union nurses represented by California Nurses Association successfully forced Kaiser to back off from firing a DACA nurse colleague because the federal government has been extraordinarily slow to renew her work authorization.

For Immediate Release:

May 14, 2026

Contact:
Ashley Castaneda, ashley@restorethedelta.org

SACRAMENTO, CA — In a major blow to an already declining Delta along with California Tribes, Delta farmers, and the environmental justice communities across the Bay-Delta region, Governor Newsom’s May Revise budget proposal allocates $25 million to the misleadingly named “Healthy Rivers and Landscapes” program, which would send even more water to corporate agribusiness interests, while dedicating zero funding to critical Delta levee protections. 

Investments in Delta levees are essential to protecting the region’s four million residents from worsening flood risks driven by climate change and safeguarding the Delta’s $7 billion annual economy.

Restore the Delta has consistently advocated for Proposition 4 funding designated for levee improvement in the Sacramento San-Joaquin Delta. Yet instead of prioritizing these urgent infrastructure upgrades, the Governor’s proposed budget directs $125 million in Proposition 4 funds to the Bay Area for the development of a park.

A budget is a moral document, and Governor Newsom’s approach to water resources management fails the tests of morality, fairness, affordability, and protection for everyday Californians. Under this administration, the Delta has not only been neglected, it has been placed at even greater risk by policies that continue to endanger the region, its communities, and its future.

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VANCOUVER — Joanna Kyriazis, director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada, made the following statement in response to newly released federal vehicle sales data for March:

“We knew March would be an important month for EV sales: it was the first month that fully captured the return of the $5,000 federal EV rebate in February, and it was the month the war in Iran began driving up gas prices. 

“The anecdotal evidence that Canadians were increasingly looking to go electric was strong, but today’s numbers are unmistakable: Canada saw a 75% increase in EV sales in March compared to the same month last year.

“Regionally, this was a phenomenal 136% year-over-year increase in Quebec, a 53% increase in B.C. and the territories, and a 40% increase in Ontario.

“That amounts to 12.2% of new vehicle sales in Canada (compared to 6.5% last March), but provincial numbers tell another story. Roughly a quarter of British Columbians and those in the territories (23.5%) purchased an EV in March, 21.8% of Quebecers did likewise, while Canada’s largest province, Ontario, continues to catch up with EV sales at 8%.

“While price matters, clarity is similarly important. Last year’s EV rebate pause caused many would-be EV buyers to wait on the sidelines, artificially deflating normal EV demand. That is now being rectified.

“To build on this momentum, Canada must ensure that it’s not only providing consumers with rebates but also access to affordable models. The introduction of a limited number of Chinese EVs is already having an impact, with Tesla recently significantly dropping the price of its popular Model 3 after shifting production back to Shanghai. Hopefully, new models from Chinese companies will give Canadians even more budget-friendly options and, critically, keep other automakers on their toes. The forthcoming $35,000 import price quota for a sizable percentage of these vehicles can help realize this important goal.

“Likewise, ensuring Canada’s forthcoming tailpipe standards are designed to achieve roughly 75% EV sales by 2035 is the other, massive piece of this puzzle. Like improving competition, the regulation will compel automakers to meet the market with more affordable EVs.

“Affordable EVs exist, and Canadians are hungry for good options that make financial sense in the short term as well as the long term. Recent Clean Energy Canada analysis found that EVs still save typical drivers about $23,000 to $32,000 over 10 years of ownership. But not everyone can afford to save money a few years down the road. Upfront price matters, and where it works, Canadians are ready to hit the accelerator.

“The proof is in the numbers.”

The post 75% EV sales spike in March a strong signal that 2026 will be Canada’s EV comeback year appeared first on Clean Energy Canada.

Utah’s San Rafael Swell and San Rafael Desert are known for their sinuous slot canyons, soaring redrock cliffs, and prominent buttes. These quintessential redrock landscapes are home to irreplaceable cultural and historic resources, important wildlife habitat, and unmatched recreation opportunities, including destinations such as Mexican Mountain, Buckhorn Draw, Tomsich Butte, Sweetwater Reef, designated wilderness areas, and the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is considering substantially expanding damaging off-road vehicle use across these landscapes.

Please speak up today for the San Rafael Swell and the San Rafael Desert.

As a refresher, the BLM previously completed travel management plans for the San Rafael Swell and San Rafael Desert in 2024 and 2022, respectively. Frankly, neither plan was particularly good because each prioritized off-road vehicle use at the expense of natural and cultural resources as well as non-motorized recreationists. Together, those plans designated hundreds of miles of new motorized vehicle routes. Now the Trump BLM is planning to go even further and is proposing to open hundreds of miles of additional off-road vehicle routes in its latest quest to transform quiet, wild places into motorized playgrounds.

The San Rafael Swell and Desert are too special to meet that fate.

The BLM is accepting comments through Monday, June 8. While the comment deadline is the same for each plan, they are being analyzed separately. Follow the links below to comment on each plan.

Click here to submit comments on the
San Rafael Swell
  Click here to submit comments on the
San Rafael Desert
 

These beloved landscapes offer endless opportunities for hiking, camping, and spending time with family and friends. They should be known for stunning vistas, abundant cultural sites, and opportunities for solitude, not off-road vehicle damage.

Do you know the San Rafael Swell or Desert especially well? Comments that draw from first-hand knowledge and experiences in these areas are the most effective. Have questions? Reach out to our Utah Organizer, Mimi Ortega, and she’ll be happy to help guide you through the process.

Thank you!

The post Take Action: Speak Up for the San Rafael Swell and Desert! appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

By Jane HoltTen people gathered at Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center on a recent April morning, a morning filled with sunshine, warm temps and bird song. While the sun and 60-degree temperature...

The company said it plans to use the funding to finance “tax-driven investments,” including “hybrid tax equity, accelerating the deployment of clean energy.”

Every time a lease sale looms over the Arctic, we hear a version of the same hopeful, persistent question: Why can’t Alaska Wilderness League—or everyday people—simply show up, bid on the land, and choose not to drill?  

The answer reveals a system that is far less democratic than it should be—and far more focused on corporate profit than the public good.

Lease Sales Are Built for Extraction

Oil and gas lease sales on public lands are not open marketplaces. Lease sales are carefully constructed processes, governed by agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and built from the ground up to serve the singular purpose of facilitating extraction.  

Caribou near Trans Alaska Pipeline. Photo by Lisa Shon Jodwalis, BLM

To be a qualified bidder, an entity must register with the federal government, demonstrate financial capacity, and have the expertise and intent to actually follow through on oil and gas development. This includes bonding requirements, compliance obligations, and operational expectations layered on top, particularly if seismic exploration or development programs are pursued. 

All of it reinforces the same baseline assumption that oil under federal public lands exist for extraction. There is unfortunately no pathway in this system for someone whose goal is protection when conservation is not considered an eligible use.  

Previous Attempts to Bid 

In 2008, student and climate activist Tim DeChristopher entered a Utah BLM auction and successfully bid on 14 parcels of land, covering 22,500 acres, with the explicit intention of keeping them out of the hands of oil and gas companies. He had no intention of developing the leases and, critically, no ability to pay the $1.8 million he committed to.

DeChristopher was charged, convicted, and ultimately sentenced to federal prison.  Even efforts that attempt to operate within the system’s gray areas reveal its limits.

When the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) stepped in to bid on Arctic Refuge leases, it raised a new set of questions that cut to the heart of who this process is meant to serve.  

Photo sourced from Northern Alaska Environmental Center

AIDEA is a state-backed financing entity, not an oil company, and its participation blurred the lines between public interest and industrial development. If an entity that doesn’t drill can acquire leases, who is it ultimately acting for? And if the rules can stretch to accommodate certain actors, why do they remain so rigidly closed to others—particularly those seeking to protect rather than exploit?

Whose interests in the Arctic Refuge are recognized as legitimate? 

The Refuge Is Not a “Product” 

The Arctic Refuge is a living, interconnected ecosystem. It supports the Porcupine caribou herd, sustains migratory birds across continents, and holds profound cultural and spiritual significance for the Gwich’in people, who have depended on and protected this land for generations.

Elder Kenneth Frank warming up before the 2014 Gwich’in Gathering that was held in Old Crow, Yukon. Photo sourced from Alaska Magazine / Peter Mather.

Time and again, attempts to industrialize it have faltered. Lease sales have struggled to attract interest. Major oil companies have stayed away. The economic promises used to justify development have not materialized.

Meanwhile, the broader context in which these lease sales are proposed tells its own story.

As global tensions rise, including ongoing conflicts with Iran, oil prices fluctuate and often climb, placing strain on families across the country. But the notion that drilling in the Arctic Refuge would provide relief is misleading and ignores the basic timeline of Arctic development. 

Even under the most aggressive scenarios, oil extracted from this region would not reach the market for decades. It would do nothing to lower prices today, tomorrow, or in the near future. What it would do is lock in long-term industrialization of one of the last intact ecosystems in the United States, all while oil and gas companies continue to post enormous profits driven in part by the very instability used to justify their expansion. 

How You Can Take a Stand

We believe that if people were given the opportunity to bid on the Arctic for the purpose of protecting it, they would. And while the current system doesn’t allow for that kind of participation, we’re creating a way to make that collective will visible.

By contributing “$25 per acre” to Alaska Wilderness League, you can show how much land you would choose to protect if the rules were different. This is a symbolic action, not a literal bid. But it sends a powerful message: the Arctic’s value is not measured in barrels of oil. It’s measured in caribou migrations, intact ecosystems, and the right of future generations to inherit a thriving, wild landscape.

Take a Stand

We know that the reason you can’t simply “bid to protect” the Arctic Refuge is not a lack of care, creativity, or commitment on the part of the public. The system was just never built to accommodate those things in the first place. Changing that reality will take persistence, pressure, and a reimagining of what we believe public lands should be.

Until then, we will keep fighting—for the Arctic, and for the principle that some places are too important to be reduced to a line item in a lease sale.

Audubon is calling on beachgoers to make beaches safer for birds by avoiding their nesting areas during this busy holiday weekend and throughout the summer.These special birds lay their eggs right on...

This week on the Talking Headways, former Supreme Court law clerk and Cardozo School of Law Professor Michael Pollack discusses his new book Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resource.

Pollack discusses who manages, owns and feels ownership of sidewalks, and advocates for a department dedicated to them.

We also talk about the nexus between sidewalks and roads, the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Denver’s successful funding and maintenance referendum.

Scroll past the audio player below for a partial edited transcript of the episode — or click here for a full, AI-generated (and typo-ridden) readout.

Jeff Wood: Are we free on the sidewalk?

Michael Pollack: Ha. That’s a loaded question.

Jeff Wood: I know. People should go read the book to get the whole answer.

Michael Pollack: Are we free on the sidewalk? We are freer than we might think, but also more subject to being made un-free than we might think. So again, it’s public space, or at least it is private space with a public easement, and so the Constitution applies.

We have rights to speak. We have rights to protest. We have our First Amendment rights. We have our Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by the police. I don’t get into this in the book, but sidewalks also raise Second Amendment concerns about the freedom to carry weapons openly or concealed.

So we have our constitutional rights on the sidewalk, and yet the law, the constitutional law, as well as what cities have in fact done, has limited all of those rights, sometimes in the name of public order, as we were discussing before, and sometimes in the name of protecting the adjacent property owners.

So for example, you do get to protest and picket on the streets, but the courts have said it’s okay sometimes if a municipality says you’re not allowed to do that in a residential neighborhood. Sometimes that’s gonna be upheld. Why? Because the owners of those homes or the residents of those homes deserve their peace and quiet, even if, you know, or perhaps especially if they are the target of that protest.

But we are in fact free to picket in front of commercial establishments. That’s well established. We’re free to, as I was saying before, engage in signature gathering for petitions, referendums, things like that on most sidewalks, except sidewalks at post offices, where there’s a whole line of cases where that’s deemed to be obstructive of important federal efforts, right?

When it comes to policing and our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, well that’s true, except that we can be stopped by the police and briefly frisked by the police. If you put your garbage out for collection on the sidewalk, which in New York City, that’s what we do, that garbage can be searched by the police because it’s considered abandoned property.

And then there’s all of the new technology surveillance architecture that is deployed on the sidewalk, so that’s cameras or license plate readers or facial recognition. None of that is really governed by our current Fourth Amendment law at all. So yes, are we free on the sidewalk? Absolutely. It is public space.

It is not private space, therefore we have constitutional rights. But those rights are not quite as capacious as I think we often think they are. Now, when I say that, I don’t mean that we automatically don’t have the right to protest in a residential neighborhood or that we don’t have XYZ rights from unreasonable searches and whatnot.

Rather, what the Constitution tells us is that, or at least how the courts have interpreted the Constitution, what it tells us is that governments have the ability to prohibit us from protesting in a, in a residential neighborhood. They have the ability to instruct their police officers to stop and frisk folks in these ways.

It doesn’t mean that they have to make those choices. It doesn’t mean that we as voters have to make those choices either. And so part of my message in the book is when we think about what we want our public life to look like, that includes what we want our speech, protest, policing, surveillance public life to look like.

And we have more, we as voters have more of a role to play here than I think we often think we do. The Constitution does not answer all of these questions one way or the other. It leaves them to the local political process. And so if you don’t like what’s happening, you can and should vote for something else.

This article From ICE to Iran, veterans are challenging US militarism  was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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One hundred fifty people holding tulips stand in formation on the marble floor of the Cannon House Office Building, until Capitol Police arrest over a third of them and remove them in cuffs. 

Maybe you saw an image of these veterans with their flowers — the red tulips that are an Iranian national symbol honoring martyrs. Perhaps you saw a photo of a disabled veteran’s wrists being handcuffed while leaning on a cane. You may have caught a video where a mother or a partner of a deployed soldier spoke about wanting their loved one back from this unconscionable war.  

When 66 protesters from a coalition of veteran and military family organizations were arrested on April 20, these images went viral worldwide. This attests to not only the specific weight given to veterans who speak out against wars, but also the deep hunger to see any kind of tangible action against the United States and Israel’s profoundly unpopular war with Iran.

One of those arrested was Katie Chorbak, president of 50501 Veterans, which organizes more than 2,000 members into policy fights, nonviolent direct action and sustained advocacy. Chorbak, a fifth-generation combat veteran, chose to bring her concerns directly to lawmakers out of the belief that veterans have a “responsibility to speak plainly” when the country is moving toward war without transparency or congressional debate.

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“Veterans showing up in that space matters because we understand the realities of war beyond headlines and talking points,” Chorbak said. 

Despite decades of demonization of Iran by U.S. politicians, amplified by mainstream media, Trump’s war on Iran was met with immediate disfavor in March (a Reuters poll found that only 27 percent of voters approved of the initial strikes). Still, there has been little substantive resistance in Congress and relative quiet in the streets of cities that saw record-breaking protests against President George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s.  

Yet, over these last 20 years, veterans never stopped organizing against U.S. wars and militarism. The organizers of the April 20 action — About Face Veterans Against War, Veterans for Peace, 50501 Veterans, the Center on Conscience and War, Military Families Speak Out and others — are building antiwar veteran and service member leadership, offering a vision of how we could end this country’s marriage to reckless, crushing militarism.

Where did this come from?

GI resistance is the tradition, dating back to the Revolutionary War, of American soldiers choosing to stand on their conscience and withdraw their consent to carry out the orders of commanding officers. The spectrum of resistance has encompassed the Vietnam War era’s more visible draft dodging and widespread disobedience in the ranks, and the quiet, mostly unseen refusal of soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars to execute civilians, load their guns, carry out missions, report for duty or even to deploy. 

In a 1971 demonstration, Operation Dewey Canyon III, antiwar veterans threw their medals at the U.S. Capitol. (Vietnam Veterans Against the War)

Now, military resistance to the war on Iran is beginning to take publicly visible forms. Hundreds of complaints were filed by troops in every branch of the military when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, directed his commanders to inform their units that the Iran War is a holy war anointed by Jesus. And in the theater of war, service members whose labor enables the war machine can always find ways to clog the gears (sometimes literally). Rumors abounded of sailors clogging toilets and starting a fire on the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which had to retreat for repairs in March.

Public acts of refusal are vital to building a movement. Many soldiers can’t imagine refusing orders or deployment until they see someone else doing it. But courage is contagious, and an opportunity to join a collective action can offer the necessary bridge to take that risk. 

Antiwar groups offer two core ingredients to transform spontaneous individual acts of refusal into a movement: visibility and access to support. Kelly Dougherty, who co-founded About Face in 2004 after returning from a year in Iraq in the Army National Guard, now serves as the counseling director for the Center on Conscience and War, or CCW, supporting service members seeking separation from the military, information about their rights or conscientious objector status. Dougherty says that while the Iran War has prompted a recent surge in calls to CCW’s hotline, “most service members I speak to have been questioning the system of war and whether or not they can morally participate in it for months or years.”

About Face has carried the banner of supporting GI resistance since its founding by Iraq War veterans with the support of seasoned organizers from Veterans for Peace. The group launched a Right to Refuse campaign after the 2024 election to bring renewed attention to the long tradition of refusal of illegal and immoral orders. To get the word out, Right to Refuse uses visibility efforts, direct actions, social media, on-the-ground outreach and word of mouth. An encrypted support form allows for anonymous inquiries. The campaign works in tandem with the GI Rights Hotline, which has fielded calls from active duty questioners and emerging conscientious objectors since 1994.

Previous Coverage

What happens when soldiers stop believing in war?

As mainstream media conglomerates continue to shift rightward, so grows the importance of direct actions that alert soldiers to their options, as well as pressuring elected officials.  This is why the CCW chose to have its executive director Mike Prysner risk arrest in the April 20 action. “Most people in the military aren’t familiar with their right to seek discharge as a conscientious objector,” Dougherty said. “We wanted to let service members know that if they are experiencing a moral crisis because they cannot, in good conscience, participate in war, that they can file for conscientious objector status and there is an organization that will support them every step of the way.” 

GI resistance has power because war requires obedient soldiers. But active duty service members’ opportunities to make direct impacts are shrinking as war becomes increasingly outsourced and automated. Remote-controlled weaponry is taking over from real humans (often referred to as “boots on the ground,” underlining the nature of using youngsters as cannon fodder). Perhaps the most concerning trajectory is the trend of replacing decision makers with AI that can deploy and direct weaponry, as seen with Israel pioneering a shocking rate of mass death in Gaza with their Lavender and Where’s Daddy programs. These trends make the launch of this war on Iran a critically important window for supporting GI resistance before complete control over mass killing is in the hands of the ruling class and their machines. 

Work stoppage or interference by active duty military can slow or impair the war machine, but this alone may not end the war on Iran. There are more ways in which antiwar service members and veterans can leverage their social position not only as workers, but as symbols. Their voices on military matters have weight both with elected officials and the general public. They have the platform to challenge the myths of morality, necessity and infallibility in which the warhawks wrap their armies and wars. As they increase the unreliability of the armed forces, they can also decrease public confidence in how the troops are being used. Both resistance and public opposition are key toward ending not only a specific war, but tearing up the blank checks for endless wars at home and abroad. 

Veterans rising to meet the moment 

Founded as Iraq Veterans Against the War, About Face has expanded from opposing the war on Iraq to a deeper critique of militarism, as new members joined over the years who had participated in many different facets of the so-called Global War on Terror. Its opposition to the war on Iran is part of a broader recent effort to challenge the U.S.-Israeli wars for regional dominance, resource control and global positioning. 

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After Oct. 7, 2023, About Face welcomed hundreds of new members who were moved to organize with other veterans in solidarity with Palestine. To harness that energy, they immediately formed Veterans for Ceasefire, whose first of many direct actions was a sit-in on Nov. 9, 2023 in Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office. Eight members participated in the 2025 Global Sumud Flotilla. 

In addition to challenging U.S. aggression overseas, veterans have also become important voices for demilitarization of the homefront. In the summer of 2020, when troops were turned against U.S. civilians in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police, About Face reached out to National Guard members, encouraging them “Stand Down for Black Lives” by refusing mobilization against racial justice protesters. 

Challenging militarism at home — and connecting it to wars abroad — has become even more crucial in a time of rising authoritarianism. “Right to Refuse was definitely created with Project 2025 in mind and what was promised in that document about domestic use of the military to enforce their authoritarian agenda,” said Matt Howard, interim national organizing director of About Face. 

Sure enough, ICE surges in 2025 saw the use of military forces to quell civil dissent and carry out race-based purges. The National Guard occupied cities, while the Department of Defense offered bases, staging areas and logistical support for mass detentions. Anti-ICE resistance also faced the kind of intensified surveillance and data collection tested in the killing fields of U.S.-Israeli wars abroad.

Tapping into the organic dissent in the ranks is a particular gift of the Right to Refuse campaign. Billboards facing the main gates of North Carolina’s biggest military installations appeared in September 2025 announcing a website titled NotWhatYouSignedUpFor.org (a joint visibility campaign of Win Without War and About Face). When thousands of active duty Airborne troops (a cold-weather division from Alaska) and military police were placed on standby for Department of Homeland Security support, including a 500-person brigade from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a billboard at the main gate greeted them with, “Did you go Airborne just to pull security for ICE?” Marines entering Camp Lejeune saw “Not what you signed up for? You have options.” 

In U.S. cities experiencing paramilitary occupation from DHS forces, U.S. military veterans found opportunities to demilitarize the skills they brought home and apply them to justice, protection and liberation. A delegation of  About Face members traveled to Minneapolis in February to join local members and other community organizations in building a grassroots response to the escalation of ICE violence. 

Additionally, About Face’s Monitoring and Analysis of Military and Border Operations, or MAMBO, project uses open source intelligence gathering to analyze and map domestic deployments of military and DHS forces, offering usable reports to community groups. Some members of About Face and its close partner Veterans For Peace provide security for local actions and community events, and train and mentor emerging movement security practitioners, both civilian and veteran. This is a radical revisioning of what security can be when seen through a lens of demilitarization — neighbors keeping each other safe. 

Alongside the DHS and National Guard occupation of U.S. cities, the impacts of the war economy and continued cuts to social spending have provided many opportunities for action. Last Veterans’ Day, About Face organized a Vets Say No War on Our Cities march in major cities including those dealing with ICE occupation like Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C. and Memphis. The message they shared was: “We will not allow attacks on our neighbors, or military occupation of our cities and deadly cuts on vital services to be normalized.”

On March 19, the 23rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, About Face coordinated national visits to senators to push for a repeal of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that opened the door to the “forever wars,” and for a vote against further supplemental military spending. A couple days later, members joined the Nuestra América relief convoy to Cuba, bringing supplies and challenging Trump’s saber-rattling. 

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About Face has also been incubating Veterans Against Fascism, a politically diverse coalition of vets united behind the call for No ICE, No War, No Cuts. “Fascism is everywhere, spread throughout the entire government. We have a responsibility to make it grind to a halt,” explained Joseph Funk, a member of About Face and leader in Veterans Against Fascism. “That means we have to defeat it anywhere it wants to exercise its power. That might look like opposing war and international violence, and that might look like standing against federal goons hunting children. It will probably look like a lot of things in the future.”

Winning public opinion

The Trump regime is not attempting to manufacture approval or even consent for its wars, but they are fighting on the narrative and cultural fronts. Nonpartisan organizations like About Face, which has challenged U.S.-led wars under every administration for the last 20 years and is not scared of calling out Democratic leaders, are laying a critical foundation. Those of us who remember Obama’s presidential victory on a platform of ending Bush’s wars, and the subsequent abdication of the forces who might have pushed him to follow through, know we need an antimilitarist movement bigger than opposition to Trump’s caricatured shock and awe. 

“Despite the fact that both parties have had a shitty track record on war and militarism, in the last 10 years MAGA has claimed to be the true antiwar standard-bearer,” Howard said. “We are in a moment where the betrayal of Trump’s base is really clear. They thought they voted in a peace time president and are finding out it was another empty talking point. For movements who have been committed to an antiwar politic, no matter who was in office, there is an opportunity to use our credibility to undermine authoritarianism and contest for people who are waking up.”

The good news: There is leadership and vision. Antiwar veterans are increasing their ranks, building collective power in campaigns and coalitions, and taking strategic aim at multiple pillars of the war machine. 

“Veterans can help focus public energy into concrete demands,” said Katie Chorbak, from 50501 Veterans. “If opposition is going to be effective, it has to be organized, informed and sustained. Veterans can help anchor that effort. What is needed right now is seriousness, discipline and sustained engagement. Change rarely happens because people are upset for a week. It happens when people stay organized long enough to matter.”

This article From ICE to Iran, veterans are challenging US militarism  was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Four EWG-backed California bills clear key appropriations panels, advancing protections Ketura Persellin May 14, 2026

SACRAMENTO – Stronger safeguards for families and the environment are moving forward after four bills sponsored by the Environmental Working Group cleared California Legislature spending committees. The bills address consumer protection, food safety and clean energy.

“Today is a great day for California families,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, EWG’s senior vice president for California. “Four bills that would make a real and lasting difference in people's lives just cleared a major hurdle.”

Three of the bills are pending in the Assembly and must now pass a floor vote by May 29 to proceed to further debate and approval before getting sent to the governor. 

One bill is pending in the Senate and faces the same deadline for a floor vote ahead of further action.

The bills address some of the most urgent and unresolved threats to California consumers:

• The toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS used on produce as pesticides 
• Mystery ingredients in baby diapers
• No clear way for consumers to identify harmful ultra-processed food, or UPF
• Electricity bills that are straining California ratepayers’ pocketbooks

“Californians are being exposed to toxic chemicals in their food, their baby products, and their water. And their electricity bills are bleeding them dry,” said Del Chiaro. 

“The legislature has a historic opportunity to act on all of these urgent issues this year. We are calling on every legislator to vote yes on each of these four bills,” she said.

“The clock is ticking,” said Susan Little, EWG director of California legislative affairs. “These bills now go to the full Assembly and full Senate for votes that will determine whether California continues to lead the nation on consumer protection or lets the moment slip away. 

“EWG will be fighting for every vote between now and May 29,” she added.

Potential for groundbreaking change for consumers 

Assembly Bill 1603: Banning PFAS pesticides 

California, which grows half the nation’s produce, applies more than 2.5 million pounds of PFAS pesticides to crops every year, contaminating fruit and vegetables, soil and water. State test results have already found PFAS pesticide contamination on nine out of 10 samples of non-organic peaches, nectarines and plums grown in California. 

AB 1603 would ban the use, sale and manufacture of PFAS pesticides used on crops statewide by 2035. The bill, authored by Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank), would immediately pause new state approvals of these pesticides, set a 2030 deadline for phasing out use in the state of PFAS pesticides not allowed in Europe and require public disclosure of all PFAS pesticide applications.

“Consumers have no idea that PFAS pesticides are being deliberately sprayed on California crops, contaminating produce soil and water,” said Del Chiaro. 

“California grows food for the entire country. When forever chemicals are so pervasive on produce, that is not a California problem. That is a national food safety problem.”

Assembly Bill 1901: Baby diaper ingredient disclosure  

Parents and caregivers have a right to know what chemicals sit against their baby’s skin 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the first years of life.

Authored by Assemblymember Mark Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1901 would set a first-in-the-nation requirement for manufacturers of children’s diapers sold, distributed or manufactured in California to fully disclose all ingredients on the product packaging and online.

Recent tests found diapers can contain potentially harmful ingredients like phthalates, which are linked to hormone disruption, and bleaching agents linked to skin and respiratory irritation. 

Infants and toddlers are especially vulnerable, because their bodies are still developing and their skin absorbs chemicals more quickly.

“A baby wears a diaper every minute of every day for years, yet parents are forced to make purchasing decisions with zero information about what’s in them,” said Little. 

“AB 1901 is the most straightforward consumer protection bill you can imagine. It just requires manufacturers to tell parents what is in their product,” she added. “There is no good reason to vote against it.”

California already proved with baby food that this approach works. When the state required disclosure of heavy metal test results, manufacturers lowered levels in the food.

Assembly Bill 2244: Ultra-processed food certification seal 

Ultra-processed food makes up more than two-thirds of children’s diets and more than half of the typical adult diet in the U.S. Research consistently links high UPF consumption to obesity, metabolic disease and other serious health harms. 

But it’s hard for consumers to know what is and isn’t UPF at a grocery store or supermarket.

AB 2244, authored by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), would establish a California certification system for foods free from the additives, emulsifiers, artificial dyes and flavors that characterize UPF. 

This system would be based on the state’s trailblazing UPF definition enacted last year. Products meeting the standard could carry a certification seal, a clear, at-a-glance tool to help consumers make healthier choices.

“Parents are trying to feed their kids better, but the food industry has made it nearly impossible to know what you are actually buying,” said Del Chiaro. 

“AB 2244 gives consumers a simple, trusted signal at the point of purchase – no chemistry degree required.”

“California already defined ultra-processed food. Now it is time to bring that definition to the grocery aisle. This bill could change how millions of American families shop for food, starting in California,” she added

Senate Bill 868: Balcony solar  

California ratepayers face some of the highest electricity bills in the country, as well as some of the worst air pollution. Solar energy can help solve both problems.

Small, portable balcony solar panels offer a practical, affordable alternative that is especially suitable for renters because they’re not permanently fixed to a home. But complex rules make the systems largely unavailable in the U.S., even as balcony solar markets thrive in Europe.

Authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), SB 868 would streamline and accelerate access to balcony solar by removing unnecessary regulatory barriers while establishing consumer safety standards. 

Setup is simple – comparable to plugging a small appliance into a wall outlet – and affordable enough that most consumers could recoup their investment within a few years.

“Electricity bills are crushing California families’ finances, and the solution could be sitting not just on rooftops but also on balconies and patios across the state,” said Del Chiaro. 

“Balcony solar puts clean, affordable energy within reach of millions of California consumers. SB 868 removes the red tape standing between California families and lower electricity bills. There is every reason to make clean energy easier to access for everyone,” she added.

Protein bill fails to advance

Another EWG-backed bill, to require manufacturers to disclose levels of heavy metals in their protein supplement products, failed to advance after the Senate Appropriations Committee held it in suspense.

Millions of Californians consume protein shakes, powders and bars every day but don’t know whether the products contain dangerous levels of lead, cadmium, mercury or arsenic. 

SB 1033, authored by Sen. Steve Padilla (D-San Diego), would have followed similar ingredient transparency state laws for baby food and prenatal vitamins.

A recent study found about half of protein supplement products tested exceeded at least one state or federal safety limit for heavy metals. These substances are potent toxins, and even at low levels, repeated exposure can cause lasting and irreversible harm, particularly to pregnant people and the developing fetus.

Next steps for remaining bills

The four remaining EWG-backed bills must pass their respective chambers – the three Assembly bills in a full Assembly floor vote and the Senate bill in a full Senate floor vote – by May 29. 

Following floor passage, the bills would be sent to their respective other chambers for committee hearings and votes before heading to Newsom’s desk for signature in September.

EWG is urging all California Assembly and Senate members to vote yes on all four bills.

Californians can contact their state legislators directly at legislature.ca.gov to urge a yes vote on the bills: AB 1901, AB 1603, AB 2244 and SB 868.

###

The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Ultra-Processed Foods Energy Renewable Energy Children’s Health Pesticides PFAS Chemicals California Legislation targets PFAS pesticides, energy affordability and more Press Contact Monica Amarelo monica@ewg.org (202) 939-9140 May 14, 2026

Open access notables

The Perils of Climate Catastrophism: A Call to Situate Crisis and Change, Bickerstaff, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change

Catastrophic imaginaries are inextricably bound to how we think about climate change and also how we respond—individually and collectively—to the urgent challenges of achieving rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This advanced review reflects on, and problematises, the power and persistence of ideas about climate catastrophe. It is argued that this politically and culturally dominant framing of imminent planetary devastation impedes and constrains action on climate change. It is a position that underlines, I suggest, a need to rethink and better situate our narratives of, and relations to, climate crisis and emergency. I pursue this argument in four parts. First, I begin by introducing and theoretically contextualizing “environmental catastrophism”. Second, and following on, I address the ways in which the problem of climate change has become synonymous with imaginaries of apocalyptic catastrophism, tracing dominant tropes and discourses. In the third step I raise interconnected perils of the catastrophic gaze for climate action: the impossibility of solving a problem framed as a predominantly totalising whole-planet challenge; defeatism that displaces action to “total” and/or depoliticising solutions; and public despair around, and alienation from, climate action. Finally, and in response to these challenges, I make the case for a situated view of climate crisis and change—one that offers and embraces imaginaries that are fundamentally partial, located and positioned.

Unseen but increasing: recent changes in risk of extreme precipitation over Southern Africa and Southeast Asia, Perez et al., Weather and Climate Extremes

There is evidence that rainfall extremes have become more intense and frequent over the last few decades, but it is difficult to assess these changes due to the limitations of our short observational records. We use the UNprecedented Simulated Extreme ENsemble (UNSEEN) approach to (1) assess changes in extreme rainfall over Southern Africa and Southeast Asia over the last 40 years and (2) identify locations that have a high chance of breaking rainfall records. We find that extreme rainfall risk has already increased since 1981 during the rainy season in both regions, including a doubling of risk in some months for many major population centers such as Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Bangkok, Hanoi, Maseru, Johannesburg, Lilongwe, and Lusaka. The pattern of increasing risk of extreme rainfall is projected to increase further in the coming 20 years in the CMIP6 ensemble; yet UNSEEN estimates of changes from the last 20 years are already greater than these future projections in the Philippines, northern Mozambique, and northern Madagascar. Finally, we compare the UNSEEN ensemble to historical records to identify places that have “soft records” and are likely to see record-setting events. These places with increasing risks but no recent extremes are labeled as “sitting ducks” in today's climate. We find that much of Mozambique, the Philippines, and Laos would be considered “sitting ducks” for extreme precipitation in at least one month of the year. Disaster risk managers should use these types of large ensembles when estimating the risk of extremes in today's climate, in order to ensure that society is prepared for record breaking events. This approach can also be used for improving engineering design estimates of rainfall return periods and for stress-testing health system and disaster preparedness.

Facilitating permanent carbon storage through risk transfers? Analyzing the insurability of the carbon leakage liability, Spencer et al., Energy Research & Social Science

Geological storage of CO2 is expected to play a role in mitigating climate change, especially for carbon capture and storage (CCS) in hard-to-electrify sectors, and for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) under net-zero targets. One challenge of geological CO2 storage is the risk that CO2  later returns to the atmosphere. Policymakers aim to address this risk by imposing  leakage liabilities on storage operators, potentially also mandating insurance cover. However, whether such liabilities are insurable is still open given the undeveloped state of the insurance market for this risk. Here, we adapt the Berliner (1982) framework from insurance economics to this question, to consider actuarial, market, and social factors that might constitute barriers to insurability. Due to the lack of a loss history, we systematically use the upstream oil & gas industry as an analogy. Combining expert workshops and techno-economic estimates, we find two barriers: the possibility of correlated material failures across the industry and gradual leakages, which will likely have to remain uninsured initially (though increased experience will likely improve the situation). We also find three general preconditions for insurability: appropriate care in site selection, robust regulations for information sharing and risk mitigation, and limited coverage periods to exclude CO2 price volatility. Overall, the insurability of CO2 leakage does not appear to be a roadblock for the deployment of CCS and CDR. The future price of CO2 emissions and removals, however, remains an important uncertainty. ‘In-kind’ insurances (based on reserve CO2 units) are a possible way out.

Dust Decline Amplifies High-Cloud Ice-to-Liquid Transition and Buffers the Radiative Feedback Under Warming, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters

The response of the cloud phase to global warming is a critical yet poorly constrained component of Earth's climate sensitivity. While rising temperatures drive a thermodynamic transition from ice to liquid clouds, the role of ice-nucleating particles in modulating this shift remains underexplored. Here, we provide evidence that the declining trend of mineral dust in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) may act as a microphysical amplifier of this transition. Satellite observations of high clouds (

Opposing transient and equilibrium effective radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions, Dagan, Nature Communications

Aerosols influence clouds, and therefore Earth’s radiation budget, through processes that operate across multiple and interacting time scales, making aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) a persistent source of uncertainty in estimates of effective radiative forcing (ERF). Here we examine the time-dependent response of the local, convection-focused ERFACI using an ensemble of high-resolution simulations initialized from different atmospheric states and subjected to an instantaneous aerosol perturbation, together with simulations in which aerosol concentration changes with prescribed periods. We find that the transient ERFACI during the first  ~ 2 days is positive, driven by rapid microphysical invigoration, enhanced high-cloud fraction, and increased longwave trapping. In contrast, the equilibrium ERFACI becomes negative as upper-tropospheric warming increases static stability and reduces anvil cloud fraction. As a result, the time-mean forcing depends on the ratio between the environmental adjustment time scale (τadj) and the aerosol-perturbation time scale (τaer). For intermediate regimes, where τaer is only moderately longer than τadj, the system exhibits pronounced hysteresis: ERFACI depends not only on the instantaneous aerosol loading but also on its recent history. These results imply that snapshot-based observational constraints and near-instantaneous-equilibrium convective parameterizations may systematically misestimate ERFACI.

From this week's government/NGO section:

Pedal to the Metal 2026. The iron and steel industry’s coal lock-in crisis, Grigsby-Schulte et al., Global Energy Monitor

The authors present the newest annual survey of the current and developing global iron and steel plant fleet. The authors examine the status of the iron and steel sector compared to global decarbonization roadmaps and corporate and country-level net-zero pledges. Included in the survey are asset-level data on 1,293 iron and steel plants in 91 countries and nearly 700 operating and proposed mines worldwide. A closing window for transition With 2030 decarbonization deadlines approaching, the global iron and steel industry is running out of time to shift away from coal-based production methods. Continued investment in coal-based capacity and underinvestment in green hydrogen threaten net-zero targets. Now more than ever, it is crucial to disrupt emissions-intensive blast furnace developments and redirect resources to iron and steelmaking technologies that align with net-zero goals.

Trust, Governance, and Climate Disasters in the Indo-Pacific, Sohail Akhtar, Toda Peace Institute

The author argues that climate emergencies generate epistemic stress: situations in which uncertainty and competing narratives disrupt shared understandings of risk and appropriate response. Drawing on recent bushfire events and subsequent reviews of disaster governance in Australia, the author shows how disagreements over climate attribution, institutional readiness, and political accountability can complicate emergency coordination and weaken public trust even where operational capacity remains strong. The author concludes with policy recommendations for Indo-Pacific governments, regional organizations, and international partners aimed at strengthening crisis communication, institutional credibility, and the capacity of democratic systems to manage contested knowledge during climate emergencies. 129 articles in 63 journals by 1077 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Changes in Wind Extremes Shaped the Summertime Weakening of the Eurasian Subtropical Westerly Jet, Li et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2025jd045904

Critical role of low cloud feedback in irreversible sea level rise, Wang et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72898-4

Impact of the AMOC Weakening on Upper Troposphere/Lower Stratosphere Warming Over the Extratropical North Pacific, Joshi & Zhang, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122116

Stratospheric cooling and amplification of radiative forcing with rising carbon dioxide, Cohen et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-01965-8

The Role of Internal Variability in Springtime Arctic Amplification from 1980 to 2022, Gale et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0421.1

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Arctic amplification-induced intensification of planetary wave modulational instability: A simplified theory of enhanced large-scale waviness, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 10.1002/qj.4740 19 cites.

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Observations of climate change, effects

Equatorward shift of marine heatwaves centroids in the Atlantic Ocean, Ji et al., npj Climate and Atmospheric Science Open Access 10.1038/s41612-026-01426-4

State of polar climate (2025), Ding et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2024.08.004

Unprecedented 2025 glacier mass loss in Pamir, Fan et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.04.018

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Human-induced intensified seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-48381-3 36 cites.

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Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

A Climatology of Heat Domes Over North America, Loikith et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100913

Four decades of global surface albedo estimates in the third edition of the CLARA climate data record, Riihelä et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-16-1007-2024

The DLR CO2-equivalent estimator FlightClim v1.0: an easy-to-use estimation of per flight CO2 and non-CO2 climate effects, Bruder et al., elib (German Aerospace Center) pmh:oai:elib.dlr.de:217602

Unseen but increasing: recent changes in risk of extreme precipitation over Southern Africa and Southeast Asia, Perez et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100910

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Exploring the spatial and temporal changes of compound disasters: A case study in Gaoping River, Taiwan, Climate Risk Management, 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100617 4 cites.

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Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Asymmetric Spring–Summer Responses of Interannual Dry–Wet Transitions in Eastern Asia and North America Under Global Warming, Yang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122510

Joint Risk Assessment of Humid Heatwave-Heavy Precipitation Compound Events in East China During the Late 21st Century, Yu et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70395

Levante and poniente winds in the Strait of Gibraltar: Present and future characterization using regional climate models, Ortega et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.109071

Observed and Projected Future Changes in Climate and Extremes in a Himalayan Watershed Based on CMIP6 Model Outputs, Phuyal et al., Journal of Hydrometeorology 10.1175/jhm-d-25-0175.1

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Projections of temperature and precipitation trends using CMhyd under CMIP6 scenarios: A case study of Iraq's Middle and West, Atmospheric Research, 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107470 31 cites.

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Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Baseline Climate Variables for Earth System Modelling, Juckes et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-18-2639-2025

Conditional diffusion models for downscaling and bias correction of Earth system model precipitation, Aich et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-1791-2026

Integrating climate model ensembles for reliable regional drought assessment through redundancy control, Abbas et al., Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 10.1002/qj.70211

Modeling snowpack dynamics and surface energy budget in boreal and subarctic peatlands and forests, Nousu et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-18-231-2024

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Systematic and objective evaluation of Earth system models: PCMDI Metrics Package (PMP) version 3, Geoscientific model development, 10.5194/gmd-17-3919-2024 30 cites.

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Cryosphere & climate change

A comprehensive database of thawing permafrost locations across Alaska: version 2.0.0, Webb et al., Earth system science data Open Access pdf 10.5194/essd-18-3147-2026

Acceleration of an Antarctic outlet glacier driven by surface meltwater input to the base, Sugiyama et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-72724-x

Compound drivers of Antarctic sea ice loss and Southern Ocean destratification, Narayanan et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb0166

Decadal re-forecasts of glacier climatic mass balance, Laan et al., Leibniz Universität Hannover Open Access 10.15488/20255

Glacier surge activity over Svalbard from 1992 to 2025 interpreted using heritage satellite radar missions and Sentinel-1, Strozzi et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-1679-2026

Glacier velocity as a primary control on areal retreat and surface thinning across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its surrounding regions, Guo et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105528

Ice core reveals longest-ever continuous record of Earth’s climate, Castelvecchi, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-01523-7

Quantifying Asymmetries in the Societal Impact of Mass Loss From the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, Bolliger et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2024ef005914

The effect of the present-day imbalance on schematic and climate forced simulations of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse, Akker et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-1405-2026

Unprecedented 2025 glacier mass loss in Pamir, Fan et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.04.018

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
A Multifaceted Look at Garhwal Himalayan Glaciers: Quantifying Area Change, Retreat, and Mass Balance, and Its Controlling Parameters, Environment Development and Sustainability, 10.1007/s10668-024-04917-7 6 cites.

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Sea level & climate change

Critical role of low cloud feedback in irreversible sea level rise, Wang et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72898-4

Quantifying the Sea Level and Estuary Contributions to Changing High Water Levels in Four Major Australian Estuaries, Palmer et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef006175

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Storm surges and extreme sea levels: Review, establishment of model intercomparison and coordination of surge climate projection efforts (SurgeMIP)., Weather and Climate Extremes, 10.1016/j.wace.2024.100689 39 cites.

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Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

Impact of the temperature-cloud phase relationship on the simulated Arctic warming during the Last Interglacial, Arima et al., Climate of the past Open Access 10.5194/cp-22-891-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Changes in monsoon precipitation in East Asia under a 2°C interglacial warming, Science Advances, 10.1126/sciadv.adm7694 26 cites.

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Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Autonomous Float Data Reveal Decoupled Trends in Chlorophyll and Stratification in the Indian Ocean, Ishaque et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023417

Biogeochemistry of climate driven shifts in Southern Ocean primary producers, Fisher et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-22-975-2025

Climate-driven degradation of marine foraging habitats for Adélie penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula, Liu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105518

Climate-induced range shifts support local plant diversity but don’t reduce extinction risk, Wang et al., Science 10.1126/science.aea1676

Current and Future Potential Distribution of the Invasive Thrips Echinothrips americanus (Terebrantia: Thripidae) Under Global Climate Change, QingLing et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73636

Deforestation-induced drying lowers Amazon climate threshold, Wunderling et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-026-10456-0

Evaluating the protection status and exposure to warming of Caribbean reefs with high functional potential, Melo?Merino et al., Conservation Biology Open Access 10.1111/cobi.70302

Flash drought-driven forest gross primary productivity declines in China amplified by extreme heat, Sun et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105515

Forest tree fecundity declines as climate shifts, Foest et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02638-5

Future Drought Will Lead to a Decrease in Vegetation Resilience in China, Jiang et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007070

Increasing Mortality of Rare Tree Species Amplifies Extinction Risk in Tropical Forests Under Climate Change, He et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography 10.1111/geb.70235

Loss of competitive strength in European conifer species under climate change, Grünig et al., bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) Open Access 10.64898/2026.02.13.705703

Reorganization of Subtropical Phytoplankton Communities in the Warming Ocean, Xin et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2025jc022734

Scientists’ warning on the global destruction of rock outcrop ecosystems, Paula et al., Conservation Biology Open Access 10.1111/cobi.70316

Ten Strategies to Promote Climate Resilience and Sustainability of Global Forests, Wang et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70064

Variations in the temperature response of photosynthesis among nine common tree species planted in Singapore, Teo et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1738900

Vegetation responses to air dryness amplify future land surface warming, Green et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-73063-7

Vulnerability and Adaptations to Climate Change in EU Protected Areas: A Natura 2000 Managers’ perspective, Zavattoni et al., bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) Open Access pdf 10.64898/2025.12.19.695111

Warming-driven shifts in floral traits generate flower–pollinator size mismatch and decrease reproductive output, Dong et al., Ecology 10.1002/ecy.70368

Water-Regulated Carbon Cost–Benefit Drives Divergent Effective Rooting Depth Across the Greening Loess Plateau, Su et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122356

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Rapid climate change increases diversity and homogenizes composition of coastal fish at high latitudes, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17273 14 cites.

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GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

A Comprehensive Global Aquatic N2O Emission Database (GANED): Unravelling N2O Emission Patterns from Different Water Bodies, Nazir et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.18442133

Carbon sequestration service in the Atlantic Ocean: an assessment from coastal to ocean ecosystems, Zunino et al., Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105536

Evolution and drivers of CO2 and carbon intensity in Malaysia, Su et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115364

Global methane emissions rebounded in 2024 despite a deceleration in atmospheric growth, Wang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-72764-3

Integrated climate effects on nitrogen cycles in global grasslands, Zheng et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aec5940

Microbial Controls on Carbon Pump Partitioning in the Subtropical North Atlantic: Stoichiometry and Nutrient Limitation Across a Basin-Scale Transect, Marx et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023638

Sentinel-5p Reveals Unexplained Large Wildfire Carbon Emissions in the Amazon in 2024, Laat et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl115123

Stronger Southern Ocean Anthropogenic Carbon Uptake in Eddying Ocean Simulations, Patara et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0198.1

The increasing impact of vegetation productivity on global wetland methane emissions, Wang et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105523

White Is a New Shade of Blue Carbon: A Case Study of a Traditional Salt Production Pond That is a Net Carbon Sink, Alexandre et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2025jg009016

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Global nitrous oxide emissions from livestock manure during 1890–2020: An IPCC tier 2 inventory, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17303 19 cites.

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CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Facilitating permanent carbon storage through risk transfers? Analyzing the insurability of the carbon leakage liability, Spencer et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104746

On the Efficiency and Durability of Purposefully Sinking Seaweed Biomass as a Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Strategy, Sten et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007628

Short-term action is key for gigaton-scale Direct Air Capture by 2050, Zurbriggen et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-72691-3

The state of macroalgae carbon dioxide removal: insights from a methodology development team, III et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1761760

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Modeling direct air carbon capture and storage in a 1.5 °C climate future using historical analogs, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2215679121 37 cites.

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Decarbonization

Carbon-neutral Powertrains – Research into Non-fossil Energy Sources and Life Cycle Analyses, Tutsch, MTZ worldwide 10.1007/s38313-026-2194-y

EV-ready building codes and electric vehicle adoption, Lou & Niemeier, Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-72664-6

Offshore wind farms reshape ocean stratification and productivity differently in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, Maar et al., npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44183-026-00202-4

Potential and challenges for CDR in the European pulp and paper sector, Jordal et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1834276

Sustainable EV adoption with clustering and predictive modelling for optimal charging infrastructure in the West Midlands and North East UK, Cavus et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-43106-6

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The roll-to-roll revolution to tackle the industrial leap for perovskite solar cells, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-48518-4 70 cites.

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Geoengineering climate

A Climate Intervention Dynamical Emulator (CIDER) for scenario space exploration, Farley et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-1809-2026

Assessing the impact of solar climate intervention on future U.S. weather using a convection-permitting WRF model, Sun et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-2239-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Opinion: A research roadmap for exploring atmospheric methane removal via iron salt aerosol, Atmospheric chemistry and physics, 10.5194/acp-24-5659-2024 9 cites.

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Aerosols

Dust Decline Amplifies High-Cloud Ice-to-Liquid Transition and Buffers the Radiative Feedback Under Warming, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl121917

Effects of climate change on desert dust, Middleton & Goudie, Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105540

Nitric Oxide Radiative Relaxation Time: Damping Timescales of Lower Thermospheric Thermal Perturbations, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl117874

Opposing transient and equilibrium effective radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions, Dagan, Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72896-6

Strong global radiative effects from wildfire dark brown carbon, Xu et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-01972-9

Climate change communications & cognition

A technocognitive approach to detecting fallacies in climate misinformation, Zanartu et al., Scientific Reports Open Access 10.1038/s41598-024-76139-w

Climate Creativity for Action: Conceptual Development and the Catalytic Effect of Hope., Spence & Burge, Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103075

Scientists as activists: An ethnography of the ‘critical moments’ in scientists’ transition to climate activism, Finnerty, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000828

The Perils of Climate Catastrophism: A Call to Situate Crisis and Change, Bickerstaff, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70062

The psychology of real-world collective climate action: A mixed-methods approach, Brouër et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103072

When Climate Anxiety Motivates Versus Paralyzes: A Conceptual Replication of the Inverted U-Shaped Relationship between Climate Anxiety and Pro-Environmental Behavior, Dijk et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103069

When Trust Is Good and Worrying Is Even Better. Trust in Science and Climate Change Specific Worries Are Linked to Policy Support and Pro-Environmental Behaviours., Nitschke et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103042

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Setting the agenda for climate assemblies. Trade-offs and guiding principles, Climate Policy, 10.1080/14693062.2024.2349824 15 cites.

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Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

Climate and ecological constraints of cultivating bioenergy crops for climate mitigation in tropical regions, Navarro et al., PNAS Nexus Open Access 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag123

Climate vulnerability and adaptation pathways among smallholder sheep farmers in the Drakensberg Grasslands of South Africa, Slayi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1785998

Decarbonizing desert greenhouse crop production with direct air capture–based CO2 enrichment, Lopez-Reyes et al., npj Sustainable Agriculture Open Access 10.1038/s44264-026-00149-6

Engineering resilient food systems in a warming world, Woodrow, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-01250-z

Financial accounting of carbon forestry with data from Florida, Kärenlampi, Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1738771

Interdependent adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among rice farmers in northwest Bangladesh, Islam et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-51096-8

Renewable energy installation as a catalyst for sustainable and climate-resilient agricultural growth in Kenya, Masibayi et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115371

Scientists breed low-emission rice to fight climate change, You, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02614-z

Thermal limits of estuarine amphipods and their implications for aquaculture production, Rodrigues et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108109

Warming winters and cultivar resilience in sweet cherry: agroclimatic requirements and future suitability under Mediterranean-continental conditions, Santolaria et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111138

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Organic food has lower environmental impacts per area unit and similar climate impacts per mass unit compared to conventional, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01415-6 27 cites.

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Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Assessing the Role of Tropical Cyclones on Drought Characteristics in the Hurricane Region of the Americas Between 1983 and 2024, Herrera et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2025jd045998

Climate Change Amplifies Rainfall Sensitivity to Deforestation in the Southern Amazon, Zhang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl119000

Dealing with water extremes: An exploration of conditions for transformative adaptation, Pahl?Wostl, Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103163

Dynamics and risk assessment of water conservation in a high-mountain river basin under climate change, Chai et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105527

From opinion to action: Impact of social networks and information policy on private adaptation to floods, Wagenblast et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104393

Global irrigation reservoirs are at a higher risk of water shortages, Shah et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03571-3

Global Vegetation Greening Is Exacerbating Soil Dryness, Qu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.70901

Joint Risk Assessment of Humid Heatwave-Heavy Precipitation Compound Events in East China During the Late 21st Century, Yu et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70395

Unseen but increasing: recent changes in risk of extreme precipitation over Southern Africa and Southeast Asia, Perez et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100910

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
California’s 2023 snow deluge: Contextualizing an extreme snow year against future climate change, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10.1073/pnas.2320600121 18 cites.

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Climate change economics

Fixing carbon credits requires a new financing model, Probst & Egli, PNAS Nexus Open Access 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag117

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Tackling debt, biodiversity loss, and climate change, Science, 10.1126/science.ado7418 10 cites.

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Climate change mitigation public policy research

Carbon markets rule change would harm mitigation and Indigenous peoples, Williamson et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02629-6

Climate governance overlooks the ocean: a structural limitation exposed at COP30, García-Soto, npj Ocean Sustainability Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44183-026-00206-0

Evaluative governance for climate action in Australia, Kotarba-Morley et al., Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01814-x

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Are consumers ready to adopt electric vehicles? Analyzing the barriers and motivators associated with electric vehicle adoption in India: Policy implications for various stakeholders, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114173 34 cites.

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Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

American cities in a time of global environmental change: the case of the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative, Zaitchik et al., Environmental Research Infrastructure and Sustainability Open Access 10.1088/2634-4505/ae636e

Assessing vulnerability and risk of coastal settlements in The Gambia to windstorms: integrating socioeconomic and environmental dimensions, Dibba, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1741665

Climate resilience in Indian smart cities: Linking dry–hot extremes and urban vulnerability for sustainability, Sahu et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102922

Digital climate education for rural resilience: validation and effectiveness of an e-learning module for farmers in flood- and cyclone-prone regions of India, Gorai et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1756972

From opinion to action: Impact of social networks and information policy on private adaptation to floods, Wagenblast et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104393

From the Mediterranean to the Arctic: the climate change approaches of Mersin and Tromsø municipalities, Da??d?r, Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental Integration 10.1007/s41207-026-01155-3

The climate justice implementation gap: are urban health and planning workforces trained for equitable climate adaptation?, Acuña-Rodríguez et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1827634

The importance of recognizing opportunities in climate change impacts, Carter, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02626-9

Trees halve urban heat island effect globally but unequal benefits only modestly mitigate climate-change warming, McDonald et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-71825-x

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Linking the interplay of resilience, vulnerability, and adaptation to long-term changes in metropolitan spaces for climate-related disaster risk management, Climate Risk Management, 10.1016/j.crm.2024.100618 26 cites.

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Climate change impacts on human health

Modelling the impact of climate on cholera: a case study of Kolkata, Shackleton et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-51415-z

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Indian Ocean temperature anomalies predict long-term global dengue trends, Science, 10.1126/science.adj4427 43 cites.

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Climate change & geopolitics

Caribbean small island developing states and the climate change advisory opinions: engagement and potential use, Berry et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1782320

Other

An analytical assessment of greenhouse gas impacts on HF propagation using the Appleton-Beynon approach, Zossi et al., Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 10.1016/j.jastp.2026.106825

Evidence of hydrological regime shifts associated with a major decades-long drought in West Africa, Peugeot et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-72648-6

Scientists as activists: An ethnography of the ‘critical moments’ in scientists’ transition to climate activism, Finnerty, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000828

Socioeconomic Disparities in Climate Change-Induced Compound Energy Droughts in China, Wang et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007598

World-leading climate centre takes Trump administration to court, Witze, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-01501-z

Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

The future of plant extinction, McChesney et al., Phytochemistry 10.1016/j.phytochem.2007.04.032

The Paradox of Climate Justice, Isenhour, Local Environment 10.1080/13549839.2012.729570

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Just urban transitions: Toward a research agenda, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change, 10.1002/wcc.640 165 cites.

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

24/7 renewables: The economics of firm solar and wind, Dardour et al., International Renewable Energy Agency

The authors' analysis shows that the cost of firm renewable electricity has declined rapidly across all major technologies and markets. In high-quality solar and wind resource regions, co-located hybrid systems can already deliver round-the-clock electricity at costs competitive with - and in many cases below - those of new fossil-fuel generation. China currently defines the global cost floor, while costs in Brazil, India, South Africa, Australia, and the Gulf region are declining rapidly towards fossil-fuel cost parity. The authors identify key drivers of firm renewable costs – technology performance, resource quality and system configuration – and examine the policy levers that are proving decisive in translating cost competitiveness into deployment at scale. They conclude that the technologies are maturing, the costs are falling and the commercial demand is growing. The pace at which firm renewable electricity is deployed will be among the most consequential determinants of the global energy transition in the decade ahead.

Powering Reliability Through Market Design. Addressing Rising Demand and Constrained Supply, and Stimulating Investment to Support Durable Reliability, PJM

For two decades, the PJM region managed its electricity system in an era of relative stability. The Reliability Pricing Model, PJM’s capacity market, was built for that environment: a system with predictable, gradually changing load; a coal-to-gas fuel transition that could be managed over a years-long horizon; and a generation development timeline that aligned with the market’s three-year forward horizon. The PJM region is now navigating a convergence of three structural forces that have pushed the system into disequilibrium: an unprecedented surge in demand driven by the rapid expansion of large-load data centers and broader economy-wide electrification; the accelerated retirement of dispatchable generation due to environmental policy and economics; and significant supply chain and permitting frictions that have extended the time required to bring new resources online. The PJM Board of Managers directed PJM staff to undertake a holistic review of the capacity market design and investment incentives. The Board recognized that the market’s current price volatility – while economically rational – is placing unsustainable stress on the governmental compact that allows the market to function, and that the foundational assumptions of the Reliability Pricing Model design must be reexamined in a resource-constrained world. This white paper is PJM’s response to that directive.

Homegrown Energy: A policy blueprint for energy affordability, Eberhard et al., Rewiring America

A coordinated set of policies can make whole-home electrification, rooftop solar, and battery storage affordable for 96 percent of eligible U.S. households, delivering $26,000 in average lifetime savings per home, or $1.5 trillion nationwide. Home electrification alone is affordable for roughly 40 percent of U.S. households. By reshaping incentives and economics to capture the value of household energy infrastructure, policymakers can shift affordability from 1 in 10 eligible households to more than 9 in 10. The authors identify six market-based policies that lower costs, bring in new capital, and ensure households are paid for the value they provide; reduce soft costs; require large new energy users to invest in distributed resources; enable inclusive utility investment; modernize rate design; redirecting gas infrastructure investment; and scale virtual power plants.

Distributed Energy Can Unleash the Resilient, Affordable Grid of the Future, Lightbody et al., Pew Charitable Trusts

Distributed energy resources (DERs)—energy generation and storage technologies including rooftop solar, battery storage, smart appliances, and “managed” electric vehicle charging, which involves controlling when EVs are charged to account for demand on the grid—offer a low-cost, readily available, scalable solution to increased demand. To help address this demand, the authors identified three core DER policy goals and specific recommendations that can help decision-makers, including state elected officials and public utility regulators, begin the work of bringing DERs to scale nationwide; integrate DERs as core grid resources into utility planning, investment, and procurement decisions; reduce administrative, technical, and regulatory barriers to allow DERs to be permitted and granted grid access faster and at lower cost; and strengthen community resilience by using DER solutions to improve grid reliability.

Watts Wasting Texas Water. How coal and gas power plants guzzle billions of gallons every year and how we can transition to a more secure water future, Lindsay Stafford Mader, Sierra Club

Texas is facing drought, water shortages, and declining river and stream flows in all reaches of the state. Amid these ongoing water crises, it is important to understand just how much water coal and gas power plants use every year, whereas renewable energy and battery storage barely use any. To determine the enormity of water resources dedicated to Texas power plants, the author analyzed water consumption numbers from the U.S. Energy Information Administration as well as state water rights data.

Water Use Requirements for Data Centers in Texas, COMPASS Research Affiliates Program at the University of Texas at Austin

The authors address the urgent and growing need to understand and quantify the water footprint of data centers, alongside their escalating energy demands. Water has now emerged as a primary constraint in data center planning, particularly in regions vulnerable to drought, water stress, or infrastructure limitations. The adoption of water-intensive cooling systems, such as evaporative and hybrid technologies, while advantageous for energy efficiency, raises concerns over freshwater use and long-term sustainability. The authors position water not as a secondary input, but as a core engineering, environmental, and policy issue in the future of digital infrastructure.

Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa, Muttitt et al., Oil Change International and Power Shift Africa

As global energy markets are rocked by conflict and geopolitical instability, the authors found that oil and gas production has failed to deliver economic development in Africa’s producing countries and is instead deepening vulnerability, inequality, and dependence. The authors use data from 13 producing countries in Africa and find that decades of extraction have failed to reduce poverty or drive economic growth, and instead are lining the pockets of an elite few.

A New Phase for the U.S. Battery Industry. Policy Considerations to Sustain Momentum, Bridge Gaps, and Avoid Pitfalls, Ray Cai and Jane Nakano, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Drawing on extensive desk research and stakeholder interviews, the authors use their report to inform policy debates through evidence-based analysis of the complex dynamics that are shaping the industry at today’s critical inflection point. The authors focus on three central strategic questions: where are the most critical supply chain vulnerabilities, what should be the approach to international linkages, and how can innovation be aligned with industrialization?

Offshore Wind: Status and Issues for the 119th Congress, Clark et al., Congressional Research Service

The U.S. offshore wind industry has faced economic challenges in recent years that have led to the postponement or cancellation of some projects. Projects also have faced lawsuits from coastal homeowners and preservationists, the fishing industry, tribes, and those concerned about potential impacts to marine wildlife. Recent federal policies toward U.S. offshore wind have shifted from those in place during the Biden Administration. President Trump has halted OCS wind leasing and permitting and directed other actions to reverse prior federal support for offshore wind. Also, in P.L. 119-21, the FY2025 budget reconciliation law, Congress limited offshore wind tax credits and rescinded unobligated balances for federally funded activities related to interregional and offshore wind electricity transmission. Congress continues to consider issues related to offshore wind leasing, permitting, transmission, tax credits, and related matters through oversight and legislation.

Hydrogen Energy: Technologies Offer Potential Benefits but Face Challenges to Widespread Use, Fletcher et al., Government Accountability Office

Hydrogen energy technologies offer long-duration energy storage, increased transportation efficiencies, quiet operation, reduced air polluting emissions, and potentially broad availability. For example, hydrogen fuel cell power generation technologies could provide quiet, clean backup power to data centers and other large-scale operations during power outages. These generation technologies could increase overall electricity grid security by providing long-duration energy storage. Currently, hydrogen fuel cells provide about 0.03 percent of utility-scale electricity generation.

Trust, Governance, and Climate Disasters in the Indo-Pacific, Sohail Akhtar, Toda Peace Institute

The author argues that climate emergencies generate epistemic stress: situations in which uncertainty and competing narratives disrupt shared understandings of risk and appropriate response. Drawing on recent bushfire events and subsequent reviews of disaster governance in Australia, the author shows how disagreements over climate attribution, institutional readiness, and political accountability can complicate emergency coordination and weaken public trust even where operational capacity remains strong. The author concludes with policy recommendations for Indo-Pacific governments, regional organizations, and international partners aimed at strengthening crisis communication, institutional credibility, and the capacity of democratic systems to manage contested knowledge during climate emergencies.

Taiwan’s Climate Adaptation Leadership in the Caribbean: Technology, Capacity, and Strategic Cooperation, Hernandez-Roy et al., Center for Strategic and International Studies

Climate change represents an existential threat for Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS), where exposure to extreme climate events intersects with structural economic vulnerabilities, limited fiscal capacity, and high economic dependence on climate-sensitive sectors. As Caribbean states seek technical expertise in climate adaptation strategies such as water resilience, disaster preparedness, and agricultural security, Taiwan—itself an island—could be a natural partner with which to collaborate on innovative and impactful projects.

Pedal to the Metal 2026. The iron and steel industry’s coal lock-in crisis, Grigsby-Schulte et al., Global Energy Monitor

The authors present the newest annual survey of the current and developing global iron and steel plant fleet. The authors examine the status of the iron and steel sector compared to global decarbonization roadmaps and corporate and country-level net-zero pledges. Included in the survey are asset-level data on 1,293 iron and steel plants in 91 countries and nearly 700 operating and proposed mines worldwide. A closing window for transition With 2030 decarbonization deadlines approaching, the global iron and steel industry is running out of time to shift away from coal-based production methods. Continued investment in coal-based capacity and underinvestment in green hydrogen threaten net-zero targets. Now more than ever, it is crucial to disrupt emissions-intensive blast furnace developments and redirect resources to iron and steelmaking technologies that align with net-zero goals About New Research

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As electricity demand in the United States continues to grow — from data centers, electric vehicles, and other large loads — utilities are struggling to keep up. Instead of building more traditional power plants, utilities can meet that demand in a cleaner and cheaper way by also turning to virtual power plants (VPPs).

VPPs are aggregations of distributed energy resources such as batteries, electric vehicles, smart thermostats, and other connected devices that can provide utility-scale and utility-grade services. Designing VPP Programs to meet utilities’ needs, however, requires planning. Just as traditional grid resources are weighed in utilities’ plans, VPPs should also be considered, modeled, and included in the utility planning process.

Today, existing and proposed VPPs are approaching and exceeding the scale of traditional power plants. In 2024, the average combustion gas turbine in the United States was 180 megawatts (MW). Meanwhile, several VPP programs across the country have met or exceeded this capacity:

• In Massachusetts, National Grid launched ConnectedSolutions in 2016, which has grown to 227 MW and includes residential thermostats, residential batteries, and commercial and industrial demand response. Beyond Massachusetts, ConnectedSolutions’ region-wide, open-access VPP shaved 375 MW of demand from the New England grid during a multi-day heat wave in June 2024.
• In California, the Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP) and Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS) programs were launched in 2021 and 2022 respectively, to shore up near-term reliability quickly in response to rolling blackouts. The ELRP reached nearly 800 MW as of 2023 and DSGS has reached 1,145 MW as of October 2025 with a majority of the program’s capacity — 768 MW — stemming from the market-aware storage pilot program.

• In Texas, NRG and Renew Home announced a partnership to develop a 1 gigawatt (GW) VPP by 2035 driven by smart thermostat usage; as of 2025 NRG has reached 150 MW. Meanwhile, CPS Energy started its VPP pilot over 10 years ago, which has grown to over 250 MW in size as of 2024 with 175,000 customers.

Recent policy and momentum in other states will drive further development of VPPs at this scale. In the past year, the Virginia legislature directed Dominion Energy to develop a VPP pilot program for 450 MW, New Jersey’s governor issued an executive order for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to develop a VPP program within six months, and the Colorado legislature directed Xcel Energy to create its first virtual power plant program, which has developed into a 125 MW proposal that was recently approved by state regulators.

Meanwhile, utilities have also directly taken actions to scale VPPs. For example, Xcel Energy in Minnesota plans to procure up to 200 MW of distributed storage, and Georgia Power recently agreed to procure up to 100 MW of new distributed solar and storage.

At these scales, VPPs can provide significant support to utilities in matching supply with demand and maintaining the reliability of the grid. Fortunately, many existing VPPs have already proven their value in both standard and emergency conditions.

During Winter Storm Elliot in 2022, providers across the region provided support by leveraging customer-sited distributed energy resources. CPower, for example, reported providing 50 GWh of energy. And during the 2025 summer heat dome that swept across the eastern United States, numerous VPP aggregators helped manage customer demand across the region to maintain a reliable grid.

For example, on June 24th — one of the region’s highest demand days — Sunrun leveraged more than 340 MW of customer-sited batteries to support the evening net peak, and EnergyHub shed 900 MW of peak load and shifted 3.5 GWh of energy to non-peak periods. And over the course of the, Uplight managed 350 MW of flexible load, all of which supported grid operators in keeping the lights on amid record heat.

Additionally, a test event on July 29 of California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO’s) Demand Side Grid Support program provided more than 500 MW of demand relief during the afternoon in which net load — demand minus renewables — is highest. The chart below shows the impact of the CAISO VPP test. By simultaneously discharging behind-the-meter energy storage from across the state, VPPs flattened net peak demand between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.

Exhibit 1

CAISO event day system net load, with and without VPP dispatch

Similar applications of VPPs are starting to emerge on the distribution system, enabling cost savings and making these resources even more attractive to customers and utilities. For example, as part of its 2024 Grid Modernization plan, National Grid found that at least two of its feeder expansion projects could feasibly and cost-effectively be deferred for five years each by leveraging virtual power plant programs, creating near-term savings for customers while benefitting the grid. And Pacific Gas & Electric recently incorporated two battery projects onto its grid that are able to support local distribution overloads, avoid feeder and transformer upgrades, and can participate in the wholesale energy market and support the larger electrical grid.

Despite the growth in VPPs, utility plans aren’t keeping up

To ensure power delivered to customers is both affordable and reliable, many utilities develop regular long-term plans for their electricity generation and distribution systems —called integrated resource plans (IRPs) and distribution system plans (DSPs), respectively. Utilities that develop these plans do so to ensure that they can deliver power to customers under a range of future scenarios at lowest cost to customers. In these plans, the costs and benefits of various investment options are weighed against each other in order to select the least-cost options to meet all of the utilities’ energy needs while maintaining a reliable grid.

VPPs have increasingly been appearing in state-level regulatory filings, including IRPs, DSPs, and other regulatory dockets (Exhibit 2), reflecting an uptick in utility adoption and increasing interest in these technologies from utilities, regulators, and additional stakeholders. As of 2023, there were already more than 500 VPP programs in operation, serving 30 to 60 GW of peak demand.

Exhibit 2

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However, despite the increasing prevalence of VPPs in utility plans and regulatory filings, these mentions do not indicate that utilities are fully accounting for the value that VPPs are providing to their systems (Exhibit 3).

Exhibit 3

window.addEventListener("message", function (a) { if (void 0 !== a.data["datawrapper-height"]) { var e = document.querySelectorAll("iframe"); for (var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"]) for (var r, i = 0; r = e[i]; i++)if (r.contentWindow === a.source) { var d = a.data["datawrapper-height"][t] + "px"; r.style.height = d } } });

RMI reviewed a nationally representative sample of IRPs and DSPs and found that utilities do not account for VPPs in the same way in their respective plans, if they account for them at all (Exhibit 4).

Exhibit 4

window.addEventListener("message", function (a) { if (void 0 !== a.data["datawrapper-height"]) { var e = document.querySelectorAll("iframe"); for (var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"]) for (var r, i = 0; r = e[i]; i++)if (r.contentWindow === a.source) { var d = a.data["datawrapper-height"][t] + "px"; r.style.height = d } } });

We found that there are significant benefits that VPPs can provide to utilities and customers, but two shortfalls in planning often prevent the expansion of VPPs in resource plans.

First, VPPs are often not evaluated as a selectable resource for expansion, unlike other utility generating options. Traditional assets used in bulk system and distribution system modeling include associated capital and operating costs, reliability contributions, assumed operating profiles, and other relevant inputs, including operating limitations, reasonable build rates and times, location-specific cost-benefit analyses when appropriate, and others.

By including detailed representations of traditional resource options, models can select the resources best suited and lowest cost to meet future energy and infrastructure needs. However, VPPs often do not get the same modeling treatment, and instead are given fixed rates of expansion that do not account for the economic expansion of VPPs on the grid.

Additionally, VPPs can have restrictive parameters based on current VPP programs or existing grid needs that don’t evolve over time or reflect actual grid performance. This can prevent VPPs from being viewed as long-term perennial assets that can support grid needs into the future. As such, the ability of VPPs to expand and offset new generation in models is limited compared to their real-world potential.

A second shortfall we see in planning is the exclusion of the many benefits and value streams that VPPs provide. VPPs provide benefits to both the bulk power system and distribution system and can include benefits beyond reducing demand during peak periods.

However, many of the benefits that VPPs provide are lacking in cost-benefit analyses and in operating parameters used in modeling, which can under-estimate their economic value and usefulness, especially when comparing them to other generating assets. For example, when VPPs aren’t being modeled as options to support grid stability or mitigate distribution system upgrades, utilities may be led to build redundant generating assets or substations to meet these needs at customers’ expense. Without capturing the full value-stream of VPPs, their ability to economically offset new generation and investment options is stymied and can lead to inefficient grid expansion.

Despite inconsistencies, many utilities are working to address the VPP modeling gap.

To ensure that utility plans enable VPPs to deliver on their potential and reduce costs, they must be meaningfully included in utility plans, with detailed capacity values, reliability attributes, cost assumptions, and benefit streams. In other words, they need to be evaluated on an even playing field against conventional resources.

In distribution plans, VPPs should be considered to avoid or defer distribution system upgrades or otherwise reduce system costs by providing locational services. While utility plans as a whole may not be modeling VPPs in a consistent way that shows their full effect on the grid, we have seen some best practices emerge in utility plans that address typical VPP modeling shortfalls that are worth highlighting.

Best practices: Portland General Electric

Portland General Electric (PGE) does robust modeling of the components that comprise a VPP — distributed energy resources, flexible load, and batteries — to inform both its distribution planning and integrated resource planning. In integrated resource planning, PGE takes a novel approach to integrating its VPP components to ensure that the VPPs that are cost-effective today are properly accounted for, and VPPs that may be more cost-effective in the future — especially compared to other supply-side options — have the chance to be selected to serve future energy and reliability needs.

Through robust technical and locationally granular modeling in the distribution plan, the utility finds the VPP assets that provide benefits that exceed costs today and leverages them to modify and offset its future demand. Afterwards, the utility treats the remaining VPP assets — those that can realistically be deployed but may provide more value in the future — as options that can be selected to meet future demand alongside other supply-side assets.

Importantly, the utility develops an Effective Load Carrying Capacity (ELCC) — a metric used to value a resource’s contribution to the grid during periods of grid stress — for distributed resources, along with operating characteristics and costs of the VPP resources.

By approaching its modeling this way, PGE can identify the opportunities to expand VPP resources that currently provide more benefits to customers than costs, while continuing to evaluate whether additional expansion of or modification to VPP programs could provide customer benefits in the future

Best practices: Green Mountain Power

Green Mountain Power (GMP) in Vermont has also been a leader in quantifying emerging value streams on both the bulk power and distribution systems, which has led to expanding VPP programs.

In its planning, GMP accounted for numerous value streams of VPPs. As a result. it proposed expanding its distributed solar and flexible load programs — including on EV charging and commercial and industrial load management — to capture new regional benefits and defer spending on new transmission and generating capacity.

The benefits that GMP highlights for VPPs, which factor into its expansion plan, include lowering capacity and transmission peaks, which reduce RTO demand charges and transmission expansion costs; providing frequency regulation to the region; resilience benefits during extreme weather events; deferred distribution system upgrades; reduced load; and improved stability on local distribution systems.

Planners and decision makers can support VPP growth through modeling improvements

As virtual power plants continue to become grid assets that rival the scale and characteristics of traditional power plants and grid infrastructure, utilities need to weigh them on equal footing with their conventional counterparts. To do this, utilities and regulators can consider the following modeling improvements:

• Develop resource attributes of VPPs so that they can be evaluated like traditional investment options. The characteristics of virtual power plants and the costs and benefits of VPP programs must be part of the utility planning process so that utilities are able to evaluate VPPs against other traditional investment options. Regulators and utilities can work to ensure that key characteristics of VPPs — namely reliability contributions, costs and benefits, and operational profiles — are properly incorporated into planning.

• Allow opportunities for growth of VPPs in models. Once VPPs are able to be compared to traditional investment options, utility models need to be allowed to select VPPs as a feasible future resource option when they are cost-effective rather than solely treating them as a pre-determined resource or adjustment to load forecast. As early as 2007, the Public Utilities Commission of Oregon required electric and gas utilities in their resource planning to “evaluate demand response resources, including voluntary rate programs, on par with other options for meeting energy, capacity, and transmission needs (for electric utilities) or gas supply and transportation needs (for natural gas utilities).

• Evaluate VPP benefits on both distribution and bulk power systems. VPPs have the benefit of being able to provide benefits across the grid, while traditional investment options often benefit either the bulk power system or the distribution system. Utilities need to account for the integrated costs and benefits of VPPs in planning through integrated system planning that looks at both the larger bulk power system and the distribution system together. In the absence of integrated system planning, proxy values or estimates can be incorporated into existing plans to ensure that full benefit streams are being accounted for.

Utility plans today are underestimating the potential of VPPs as a cost-effective grid resource, creating a risk that utilities will overbuild their grid to meet needs that VPPs are already filling. Until VPPs are properly modeled in utility plans, they may not reach their full potential across the country.

The post Grid-Scale Virtual Power Plants are Here. Have Utilities Noticed? appeared first on RMI.

Read in English here.

Amenazas a defensores del territorio indígenas en Bolivia han llamado la atención de las Naciones Unidas. Los defensores denuncian la contaminación del agua y del suelo provocada por varias minas de la zona y documentada por el gobierno estatal.

Líderes de Seque Jahuira han logrado organizarse, manifestarse e incluso conseguir la aprobación de una ley para denunciar los efectos de la minería en la zona. Han sido objeto de amenazas y hostilidad, lo que les ha llevado a temer por la seguridad de sus familias.

Por desgracia, no son los únicos que viven esta situación. Los pueblos indígenas y líderes de comunidades afectadas por la minería suelen sufrir intimidación y violencia, a pesar de que los pueblos indígenas tienen el derecho a rechazar la minería o a establecer condiciones para un proyecto.

Las protestas dan lugar a una legislación contra la contaminación minera

El 1 de septiembre de 2025, el pueblo de Seque Jahuira, en Bolivia, junto con otras comunidades de la región, organizaron una protesta masiva contra la presencia de múltiples operaciones mineras en su territorio. Los manifestantes marcharon hasta la alcaldía y tomaron el edificio.

Llevaban consigo documentos de la oficina del gobernador de La Paz, la capital del país. Los documentos indicaban que, en 2023, al menos nueve empresas operando en la región, tanto de forma legal como ilegal, eran responsables por el vertido de residuos mineros tóxicos y el drenaje ácido de minas, afectando a la salud del agua y del suelo en una zona que depende principalmente de la agricultura y la ganadería para su sustento.

Tras las protestas, la Defensoría del Pueblo también sacó un comunicado afirmando que, «Tras múltiples gestiones y seguimientos a las denuncias de contaminación del agua con cianuro… no obtuvieron respuestas efectivas de las instancias competentes». A pesar de la existencia de documentación y conocimiento del problema por parte del gobierno, Seque Jahuira y las comunidades vecinas seguían sufriendo los efectos de la contaminación minera para su salud y el medio ambiente.

Esa tarde, el alcalde del municipio de Viacha, donde se encuentran estas comunidades, firmó la ley municipal 042/2025. Esta ley declaró al municipio un territorio libre de la contaminación minera con el fin de proteger el derecho a un medio ambiente limpio y saludable. La ley permite inspecciones y sanciones para cualquier operación minera que no cumpliera con la normativa, y compromete al gobierno local a «la mitigación de todo tipo de contaminación debiendo iniciarse las acciones jurisdiccionales para la reparación y resarcimiento de daños ocasionados a las comunidades afectadas».

Los líderes indígenas de Seque Jahuira, organizaciones aliadas como el colectivo nacional de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas, Qhana Pukara Kurmi, y otras comunidades de Viacha celebraron este importante logro, ya que se ordenó a más de 15 empresas mineras a suspender sus operaciones en el municipio.

Los líderes se enfrentan a amenazas y hostilidad

Sin embargo, al día siguiente Qhana Pukara Kurmi y algunos líderes comunitarios comenzaron a recibir llamadas anónimas amenazándolos por su participación en las protestas y su apoyo a la aplicación de la nueva ley. A raíz de las amenazas, Qhana Pukara Kurmi retiró los señalamientos de su oficina en La Paz y se vieron obligados a abandonar las instalaciones durante unas semanas hasta que se sentían seguros para volver a trabajar allí.

La semana después de que Qhana Pukara Kurmi abandonara su oficina, dos líderes indígenas se vieron obligados a salir de Viacha con sus familias, lo que también supuso que uno de ellos tuviera que cerrar su tienda de materiales de construcción. Mientras las amenazas continuaban, los miembros de Qhana Pukara Kurmi y los líderes de Viacha fueron objeto de una campaña de desprestigio en la cual se difundieron vídeos y mensajes en redes sociales que intentaban socavar su labor y cuestionaban su independencia, acusándolos de ser financiados por organizaciones y actores internacionales.

Más adelante ese mes, miembros de Qhana Pukara Kurmi se reunieron con la Defensoría del Pueblo para hablar sobre las continuas amenazas y el ambiente hostil que enfrentaban. Unos días después, la Defensoría del Pueblo confirmó que solo seis empresas mineras contaban con licencias ambientales vigentes, y que 21 de las 23 empresas operando en Viacha lo hacían de forma ilegal, sin los permisos necesarios.

Aunque algunos organismos gubernamentales, como la Defensoría del Pueblo, se han pronunciado sobre la situación en Viacha, los líderes indígenas siguen preocupados por las amenazas que reciben ellos y sus familias por sus denuncias de los impactos de la minería en su territorio.

La ONU y organismos gubernamentales expresan su preocupación

En octubre de 2025, los Relatores Especiales de la ONU sobre los defensores de los derechos humanos, sobre la libertad de reunión pacífica y asociación, y sobre los derechos de los pueblos indígenas enviaron una carta conjunta al Gobierno boliviano exigiendo una respuesta a los hechos dirigidos contra los defensores del territorio indígenas y toda la información disponible sobre las medidas implementadas para garantizar su protección. La carta denunciaba el incendio provocado en la casa de un líder, ataques violentos, el ataque del hijo de un líder, intimidación y amenazas.

El Gobierno boliviano envió un acuse de recibido y solicitó más tiempo para responder. Hasta la fecha de publicación, no ha habido ninguna otra respuesta por parte del Gobierno.

Mientras tanto, la situación en Seque Jahuira y Viacha se ha agravado desde la protesta, ya que las empresas siguen operando sin atender las preocupaciones de las comunidades respecto al impacto ambiental de sus actividades.

Ya es hora de que el Gobierno boliviano adopte medidas para remediar la contaminación ambiental y del agua en Viacha, regule mejor a las empresas mineras que operan en Viacha y garantice la seguridad de los líderes indígenas que defienden el derecho a la salud y la seguridad de sus comunidades y territorios.

The post Persisten los riesgos para defensores del territorio indígenas en Bolivia appeared first on Earthworks.

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

Listen to the audio version >>

The previous two Strike! commentaries described how Greentech technologies that protect and improve the environment are revolutionizing energy production and consumption worldwide. The Greentech revolution has also been under way in the US, but it has been severely retarded by the power of the fossil fuel industry and its allies and the policies they promulgated.

Plant Bowen, coal-fired power station in Bartow County, Georgia, 2012. Photo credit: Sam Nash, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

What we today call renewable energy was once America’s only energy. From the start of European settlement of America to the late 19th century, firewood and waterpower were the predominant sources of energy. The work of animals, workers, and slaves likewise embodied “renewable energy.” Coal surpassed wood around 1885. Petroleum surpassed coal in 1950. Natural gas surpassed coal in 1958. Fossil fuels—coal, petroleum, and natural gas—dominated US energy for more than a century and a half, accounting for nearly 83% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2023. Renewable and nuclear energy supplied most of the remaining 17%.

Fossil fuels radically increased the amount of energy available for all purposes. Fossil fuel energy became entwined with every aspect of American life, from homes to transportation to manufacturing to agriculture. Indeed, it was largely the basis for the “American way of life.” Fossil fuels also largely shaped America’s relations with the rest of the world, as the US exported massive quantities of coal, oil, and gas, dominated much of the world’s fossil fuel markets, and fought wars in fossil fuel-rich regions of the world that led to further control of global fossil fuel resources. Fossil fuel industries, and businesses, workers, and communities dependent on them, became a powerful force in shaping American politics, society, and daily life.

In the second half of the 20th century, new forms of renewable energy began to emerge in the margins. The earliest roots of the “Greentech revolution” in the US could be traced to the

first practical silicon photovoltaic cells in the 1950s; the first rechargeable lithium-metal batteries in the 1970s; and the world’s first wind farm around the same time. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House in 1979. But the power of the fossil fuel industry and its allies blocked attempts to develop fossil free alternatives. The 2001 Cheney report projected that renewable energy other than waterpower would account for less than 3% percent of total electricity generation by 2020. (The actual proportion by 2020 was six times higher.) On the consumption side, energy conservation was largely the realm of hobbyists; gas guzzlers remained the order of the day.

Doubling Down on Fossil Fuels

An automobile dealership in Orland, California which closed after General Motors cut ties with it and several hundred other dealers as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring efforts in 2009. Photo credit: John Martinez Pavliga from Berkeley, USA – Contemporary American Auto Dealer, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Starting with the 1970s energy crisis, the US spent billions of dollars to promote domestic fossil fuel energy supply chains, mostly for natural gas. In 1976 it established the Gas Research Institute (GRI), a public–private partnership with an annual budget of $200 million. The GRI followed a “whole supply chain” approach. It funded research on enhanced oil recovery, gas transportation, household appliances, and building systems. It also directly funded “drilling experiments, the development of household appliances, and marketing campaigns.”

It was not only the government that invested in fossil rather than renewable energy. While Chinese industrial policy was focusing on electric vehicle production, US auto companies expanded their investments in high-emission trucks and SUVs. They opposed higher standards for fuel economy and carbon emissions. Until 1996 the Big Three did not produce a single commercial electric vehicle – allowing Tesla to corner the market for EVs.

In 2008, rising gas prices and the Great Recession devasted the Big Three’s carefully cultivated market for gas guzzlers. GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy, and an $81 billion bailout left the US government as the majority owner of GM and the UAW and Fiat as the principal owners of Chrysler.

Under the Obama administration’s rescue plan, the auto companies were supposed to “green” their products. But in fact they continued to oppose climate protection policies and to promote high-pollution, low-mileage trucks and SUVs. Indeed, as recently as July 2023 the auto industry’s largest lobbying organization came out against the Biden administration’s proposed rule to ensure that two-thirds of new passenger cars sold in the United States are all-electric by 2032.

Biden’s Industrial Policy

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talks about the Green New Deal in February 2019. Photo credit: Senate Democrats, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Late in 2018 the youth climate Sunrise Movement occupied the office of likely Democratic House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi; newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined them to propose a resolution for a Green New Deal. It called for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal.” The Green New Deal would produce jobs and strengthen America’s economy by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. It would generate 100% of the nation’s electricity from clean, renewable sources within the next 10 years; upgrade the nation’s energy grid, buildings, and transportation infrastructure; increase energy efficiency; invest in green technology research and development; and provide training for jobs in the new green economy. A poll shortly after found that 40% of registered voters “strongly support” and 41% “somewhat support” the concepts behind a Green New Deal.

Faced with the overwhelming support for the Green New Deal, the presidential campaign of Joe Biden proposed a “Build Back Better” program that initially incorporated much of the program of the Green New Deal. It explicitly eschewed the principles of neoliberalism and advocated instead the long-disparaged idea of “industrial policy” – essentially, government selection of economic sectors to encourage with subsidies and technical support. While its programs were touted as means of climate protection, when it was implemented some of the sectors most heavily subsidized, such as carbon capture, hydrogen production, and nuclear energy, are questionable to say the least as means to protect the climate.

Biden’s three major economic bills, the American Rescue, Bipartisan Infrastructure, and Inflation Reduction Acts, proposed to provide trillions of dollars over a decade to incentivize domestic production in targeted industries, notably the auto industry. Rather than restructuring the industry like the Obama program, these plans were largely limited to providing subsidies to auto companies to expand EV production. They were justified in part as stimulus to the creation of a “green” economy that would reduce GHG pollution, but in large part as a means of containing the challenge of Chinese Greentech advances.

US auto companies were happy to accept these federal subsidies, but they were also happy to evade their carbon-reduction purposes. Auto companies gave surface compliance to federal pressure to reduce carbon pollution, but in reality they continued to promote highly profitable but high-carbon SUVs and light trucks and drag their feet on shifting to EVs. The Biden administration policies stimulated an expansion of EV and battery production in the US. But the new plants and infrastructure were not primarily created by US companies but were rather the product of joint ventures with foreign (mostly Asian) companies with far superior technology.

The Greentech Cold War

US-owned factories still import the bulk of their solar cells from Chinese-owned factories in Southeast Asia. Photo credit: American Public Power Association on Unsplash

Many of these Greentech investments and joint ventures were in fact Chinese. Indeed, according to a 2025 database, the US had more than $14 billion in Chinese pledged overseas green manufacturing investment, the fourth highest country in the world. Many of China’s leading solar manufacturers set up assembly factories in the United States. In 2024, for example, Illuminate USA – a joint venture between China’s LONGi and Invenergy, the largest private renewables developer in the United States – began assembling panels at its 5GW factory in Ohio. On one count, Chinese-owned factories would have 20GW of capacity in 2025 – enough to meet about half of annual US demand. Battery manufacturing also attracted sizeable Chinese investments. For example, a joint venture called Amplify Cell Technologies featuring EVE Energy, China’s third-largest battery maker, broke ground on a US$2–3 billion factory for electric truck batteries in Mississippi.

The Biden administration tried to halt the “threats” of Chinese advances in solar and EV technology. In May 2024, it announced tariffs specifically targeting green products, including lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals, and solar cells. It quadrupled duties on electric vehicles to 100%. It also released a “Foreign Entity of Concern” ruling preventing vehicle manufacturers from getting IRA tax credits if any company in their battery supply chain has 25 percent or more of its equity, voting rights, or board seats owned by a Chinese government-linked company.

This was no simple trade war between two countries, however. As an article on “The Great Green Wall” in Phenomenal World put it, “the business model of the entire industry is shifting.” Firms are “no longer competing for dominance on the level of vehicle technology,” but for “the entire ecosystem.” As a result of globalization, these “ecosystems” are normally transnational. So rather than classic economic nationalist protection of national industries, this “trade war” became an attempt by both sides to control fragmented global economic networks. As “The Great Green Wall” put it,

“Biden’s intention is to stave off the Chinese and stimulate a domestic and friendshored buildout of the EV supply chain, stretching from mines to the factory floor. Side deals with friendly governments have been made; Canada and Australia have both been deemed eligible for Defense Production Act support for their battery metals. After their howls of outrage, Europeans, Japanese, and Koreans received a leased vehicle exemption meaning that the “made in America” rules don’t apply to them, and their firms’ vehicles could still qualify for subsidies if they were leased rather than bought.”

After the exemption was finalized in December 2022, EV imports from Korea, Japan, and Germany surged.

US EV and battery production have been based on acquiring non-US technology through joint ventures, most of them in the US South. Foreign direct investment included Hyundai and Rivian in Georgia, Toyota in North Carolina, Tesla in Texas, BMW in South Carolina, and Mercedes-Benz in Alabama. Indeed, US automakers were even licensing superior EV technology from Chinese firms like BYD and CATL.

“Ford (in Michigan) and Tesla (in Nevada) are partnering with CATL to make batteries. CATL says that it has structured its licensing deal with Ford so that it is compliant with “foreign entity of concern” rules. For its part, Tesla already uses BYD cells in Germany; Ford and GM use BYD batteries.”

Just as the impact of climate change was becoming devastating and ubiquitous, climate policy was being turned into a weapon of geopolitical struggle. This was made clear in an interview with John Podesta, senior adviser to Joe Biden on international climate policy. Podesta praised the huge expansion of US oil and gas production: “The US is now the number one producer of oil and gas in the world, the number one exporter of natural gas, and that’s a good thing.” He thereupon added, “The science is clear, we’ve got to transition away and begin to replace those resources with both zero carbon electricity and renewable resources.” If George Orwell came back to earth, he might say, “Fossil fuels are climate protection.”

Podesta also illustrated the way production of “green goods” was being redefined as an issue of national security. The US had recently slapped a 100% tariff on electric vehicles and other “green” products from China. After accusing China of deliberately overproducing green goods, Podesta said:

“The economic security of the US and [its commitments to cut emissions] rely on the need to have an economy that is not overly dependent on a single source of supply, for critical minerals, for batteries, for other upstream green technologies. We need to diversify that supply. We’re witnessing a renaissance of manufacturing in the US in the green technology space and will resist unfair trade practices that are going to undermine that investment.”

Above all, the Biden administration eschewed anything that would reduce the overall production and consumption of fossil fuels. Despite lip service to climate protection, they regarded it as a “good thing” that the US was “the number one producer of oil and gas in the world” and “the number one exporter of natural gas.”

The Greentech Revolution Infiltrates America

President Biden Signs Executive Actions, January 2021. Photo credit: The White House, Public Domain

Biden’s industrial policies had contradictory effects on the rise of Greentech in the US. On the one hand, the IRA and other economic legislation significantly increased production of fossil free energy, EVs, and other GHG-reducing technologies. But the Biden administration oversaw a historic growth in fossil fuel extraction and strove to protect the US and its supply chains from foreign and especially Chinese Greentech.

Nonetheless, by the end of the Biden years the global Greentech Revolution was well on its way to transforming US energy production and consumption, threatening to leave fossil fuel industries as “stranded assets.” In early 2025, just as the Trump administration was coming into office, the US hit a new record low for fossil fuels in the electricity mix as solar and wind reached a record high. In March 2025, for the first time ever, fossil fuels accounted for less than half of electricity generated in the US. The impact on climate-destroying GHG emissions was clear: Since coal generation peaked in 2007, there had been a 68% fall in coal emissions and a 32% reduction in total power sector emissions.

In the one year between March 2024 and March 2025, US solar power increased a “staggering” 37%. Wind power increased by 12%. Over that year fossil fuel generation fell by 2.5%.

The impending transformation was clear in consumption as well as production. In 2024, electrified vehicles made up 20% of all new car sales, with fully electric vehicles comprising 9%. Heat pumps rose to 57% of new space heating installations.

The Greentech Revolution opened the possibility for a “Greentech New Deal.” It made climate-protecting production and consumption far cheaper than continued fossil fuel use. It made possible the rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and thereby the significant slowing down of climate change. It opened the way to good green jobs for all. And it undermined the wealth and power of fossil fuel companies and countries, shifting the balance of power worldwide toward democratic governance.

Enter Donald Trump.

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The post The US and the Greentech Revolution first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.