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Just as Colombia – a coal-producing country that has halted new exploration licenses for hydrocarbons – was set to host the first fossil fuel phase-out summit in late April, the government received notice from a foreign energy firm operating on its soil. It was being sued for millions of dollars.

One day before Colombia hosted representatives from around 60 countries for the first Global Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, Spain-based firm Termocandelaria Power, which operates two of the country’s diesel- and gas-fired power plants, sued the government for $198 million alleging a breach of investor protection rules under a bilateral agreement.

Termocandelaria said government measures since 2024 have prevented its Colombian subsidiaries from receiving full payment for the power they supplied to a public utility, while the Colombian government justified its actions as needed to guarantee financial solvency and deliver electricity to rural communities.

While Termocandelaria declined to comment for this article, the company said in a press release last month that investment protection treaties “are designed to provide a stable and predictable legal framework for long-term investments in strategic sectors”.

The timing shows how trade agreements that offer investors protection when government decisions are seen as causing harm to their business – a system known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) – can hamper the transition away from fossil fuels even when countries are pushing for it. Governments in the Global South are particularly exposed, experts told Climate Home News.

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As part of the official academic contribution to the Santa Marta conference, researchers recommended that governments should “recognise” ISDS as a barrier to the energy transition, and called for negotiations on an international initiative to dismantle ISDS protection for fossil fuel investments, either through “a new standalone” international agreement or as part of a broader treaty.

Mario Osorio, a research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), said Termocandelaria’s claim against Colombia “puts in perspective how serious, concrete and real these threats are” for developing countries.

Osorio said the second fossil fuel transition conference – to be held next year in Tuvalu – presents an opportunity for advancing ISDS reform from discussion to “something more concrete”.

Plenary of the first conference on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta. (Photo: Ministry of Environment of Colombia) Colombia pledges to exit ISDS

ISDS is a mechanism in international trade that allows foreign corporations – many of them linked to fossil fuel interests – to sue governments in international arbitration courts. One 2022 study estimated that possible legal claims from fossil fuel investors could reach $340 billion.

In the lead-up to the Santa Marta conference, Colombian President Gustavo Petro pledged to exit the ISDS system by reviewing Colombia’s 129 investment protection agreements. This came after more than 200 economists sent Petro an open letter urging Colombia to abandon the ISDS system.

Eunjung Lee, a senior policy advisor at UK-based think-tank E3G, said the Santa Marta conference had helped elevate ISDS reform as a key element of the transition away from fossil fuels, despite the issue remaining relatively little-known, even among climate negotiators.

She added that governments tend to be cautious about discussing ISDS at climate summits, as these treaties also implicate trade and economy ministries. “If it is not your file, then you can’t really say much about it and taking action is not necessarily up to you,” she explained.

Kyla Tienhaara, Canada Research Chair in Economy and Environment and a professor at Queen’s University who has worked on the issue for two decades, said the conference in Santa Marta marked a new approach, and that Colombia had placed ISDS “prominently in the agenda”.

The next transition conference presents an opportunity for governments to land on something more practical, particularly under the agreed work stream on “macroeconomic dependence and financial architecture”, but it will depend on the co-chairs Tuvalu and Ireland, she said.

Ireland was sued in May by oil company Lansdowne for failing to award a lease in the Barryroe offshore field. The claim was made under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), which fossil fuel companies have used to sue several governments over the consequences of enacting their climate policies.

Following a similar move by some other European states, Ireland left the ECT in April while the Santa Marta conference was ongoing, but existing fossil fuel investments are still protected for 20 years under a “sunset clause”.

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“Disappointing” conference report

Despite the prominence of the issue in the conference rooms, experts told Climate Home that the chairs’ takeaways report was “disappointing”, as it did not explicitly mention ISDS as a key obstacle to the energy transition.

The Netherlands, which co-hosted the summit, may have faced conflicting interests, said Tienhaara, as it is second only to the US as a “home state” for the investors bringing the most ISDS cases, including foreign companies structuring their investments through the country.

The Dutch government also withdrew from the ECT last year, which means it understands and has acted on the threat of investment treaties to climate action, the researcher said. “Unfortunately, they seem unwilling to extend their concern to the harm that these treaties cause in other countries, particularly in the Global South,” she added.

Lee of E3G said Global North countries like the Netherlands tend to export capital to developing countries, which is why they seek to protect their investors’ interests and are unlikely to drive a dismantling of the ISDS system themselves.

Developing countries like Colombia, which have been negatively affected by ISDS claims, have an incentive in “voicing their concerns” and forming a bloc around this topic. “Uniting Global South countries can make a stronger case,” Lee said.

The post Santa Marta process can confront trade protection for fossil fuels, experts say appeared first on Climate Home News.

Today, Montana conservation organizations challenged the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for dramatically weakening a core benchmark for grizzly bear conservation in Montana’s Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. The lawsuit targets the agencies’ approval of the Larabee Hat Vegetation Project—a large-scale logging and road-building project—for abandoning the science on grizzly bear conservation to obscure the project’s significant impacts to the species.

On behalf of Native Ecosystems Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Council on Wildlife and Fish, the Western Environmental Law Center filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana this morning.

The challenge centers on how the agencies define “secure habitat” for grizzly bears—areas free from roads and human development large enough for a bear to safely meet its daily foraging needs. For decades, science has established that secure habitat patches must provide an individual female grizzly adequate space to forage for 24-48 hours without crossing or nearing motorized routes. The scientific community agrees grizzly bears need thousands of acres to meet these daily needs.

USFS and USFWS followed the scientific consensus and used a 2,500-acre minimum secure habitat patch size when they approved the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest’s Forest Plan in 2021. But in April 2025, USFWS quietly reversed course, redefining “secure habitat” outside the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) grizzly recovery zone as patches of just one acre. USFS followed in May 2025, updating its internal guidance to match.

“There is no scientific support for one-acre ‘secure habitat’ patches,” said David Woodsmall, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “The agencies simply redefined the problem away. A one-acre island of forest surrounded by roads isn’t secure habitat—it’s a death trap for a bear trying to survive there. Federal land managers must follow the law, even under the Trump administration, and pulling policy changes like this out of thin air is clearly outside the law.”

The stakes extend well beyond this single instance. The Larabee Hat project sits in the Divide Geographic Area, part of the only public lands corridor connecting the NCDE and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) grizzly bear recovery zones. Genetic exchange between these two isolated populations is considered essential to grizzly bear recovery in the contiguous U.S.

“The adverse cumulative impacts of this project would be devastating to wildlife and wildlife habitat, native plants, and aquatic species, which demonstrates why this project generates absolutely no net public benefit,” said Steve Kelly with Council on Wildlife and Fish. “It makes no ecological or financial sense to degrade irreplaceable, untrammeled native forest into failed tree plantations and marginal pastureland for subsidized livestock at great taxpayer expense.”

The project proposes logging on nearly 17,700 acres, including 1,266 acres of clearcuts, more than 1,850 acres of other timber harvest, and 16.8 miles of new temporary roads over the next 15 to 20 years.

Under the old 2,500-acre definition, the Divide Geographic Area contained approximately 41,531 acres of secure habitat. Under the new one-acre definition, that number jumps to 59,143 acres—an artificial increase of more than 17,000 acres that makes the landscape appear far healthier for bears than it actually is.

“We won a court case on a similar issue last year in which the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service tried to shrink the definition of secure habitat for grizzlies from 2,500 acres to 10 acres, which is ridiculous for these wide-ranging bears,” said Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “The Judge said in the ruling: ‘In relying on a 10-acre patch size to define grizzly bear secure habitat in the absence of any scientific evidence showing that such acreage provides adequate habitat, the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to use the ‘best available science’ in violation of the Endangered Species Act,’ adding ‘grizzly bears in other ecosystems have been found to need upwards of 2,500 acres of secure habitat.’”

“Here, the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest secretly shrunk grizzly bear secure habitat to one acre in size without telling the public,” Garrity continued. “The Larabee Hat project area is in an important corridor for grizzlies from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem to connect with grizzlies from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.  For grizzlies to be delisted, they once again have to have one connected population in the Northern Rockies with secure habitat.”

“Changing the parameters of what qualifies on paper as habitat doesn’t make more habitat,” said Sara Johnson Ph.D., a wildlife biologist for the Forest Service for 14 years. “It just makes it easier to approve more logging and more roads while ignoring the real consequences for grizzly bears. The law doesn’t allow it, and we will apparently have to be the people who say ‘no.’”

This case builds directly on a successful 2025 legal challenge, in which a federal court struck down a similar attempt to shrink grizzly bear secure habitat patch size on the Custer-Gallatin National Forest, finding the approach scientifically unjustified and harmful to bears in fragmented landscapes.

“The court already rejected this approach once,” said Woodsmall. “These agencies are trying the same thing again in a different forest. We intend to stop it again.”

 

Contacts:

David Woodsmall, Western Environmental Law Center, 971-285-3632, woodsmall@westernlaw.org

Mike Garrity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, 406-459-5936, wildrockies@gmail.com

Steve Kelly, Council on Wildlife and Fish, 406-920-1381, troutcheeks@yahoo.com

The post Lawsuit challenges USFS’, USFWS’ drastic redefinition of “secure habitat” slashing grizzly protections in critical connectivity corridor appeared first on Western Environmental Law Center.

Certain light-duty vehicles have the potential to earn around $3,000 per summer, and school buses $12,000, by enrolling in the state’s virtual power plant, a state program manager said.

By Cecilia Allen, Global Zero Waste Cities Program Director, GAIA

(c) Nipe Fagio

Lo que antes se consideraba un sueño de idealistas,  «basura cero» es ahora una corriente dominante. Incluso ha entrado en el lenguaje de la ONU: el organismo elaboró una resolución en la que instaba a los gobiernos a «promover iniciativas basura cero», estableció un Día Internacional Basura Cero y creó un Consejo Asesor Basura Cero; además, el PNUMA, ONU-Hábitat y otros organismos de la ONU utilizan el concepto en campañas e informes. Este año, basura cero fue nombrado una de las principales prioridades de la Agenda Global de Acción Climática. La Fundación Basura Cero de Turquía, uno de los principales promotores de estos esfuerzos, está organizando su segundo Foro Global Basura Cero bajo el lema «Camino a Antalya: basura cero como acción climática». Turquía será la anfitriona de la COP31 sobre el clima.

Si bien este avance es emocionante, las palabras importan. Cuando los mismos organismos de la ONU que se supone deben promover basura cero reconocen las plantas de incineración de residuos para generar energía y la reutilización de las cenizas volantes altamente tóxicas de los incineradores como una solución basura cero, significa que algo anda mal. Del mismo modo, cuando Pakistán afirma que busca una economía “basura  cero” al aumentar la capacidad de conversión de residuos en energía, las alarmas suenan entre los defensores de basura cero en todo el mundo: la incineración es un oxímoron para basura cero. Lo que nos muestran estos ejemplos es que es necesario adoptar y defender enérgicamente una verdadera definición de basura cero.

¿Qué es basura cero?

El concepto «basura cero» surgió hace 30 años al adaptar objetivos de fabricación como el de «cero defectos» a los residuos sólidos. Basura Cero es tanto una visión como un plan de acción. Como plan de acción, incluye estrategias para eliminar la idea de «basura»: prevención de residuos, rediseño, reutilización, cambios en los patrones de consumo, reciclaje, compostaje y otros métodos para re procesar la materia orgánica. Basura Cero se guía por el objetivo de reducir progresivamente el vertido en vertederos e incineradoras, un criterio para juzgar la eficacia de los programas y políticas de residuos.

Como visión, su objetivo final es cambiar la forma en que producimos, consumimos y procesamos los desechos para que nuestra economía de materiales se ajuste a los límites planetarios. Esto no solo se refiere a los materiales, sino a nuestra relación con ellos, con el medio ambiente y entre nosotros. Es por eso que «basura cero» tiene sus raíces en la justicia ambiental: apoya el florecimiento de todos, independientemente de la raza, la clase o cualquier otra identidad, y los derechos de la naturaleza. Los sistemas basura cero se basan en la comunidad, reconocen a los recolectores de residuos como trabajadores, eliminan las «zonas de sacrificio» que suponen una carga desproporcionada para las comunidades pobres y marginadas, y sitúan a las personas en el centro de las soluciones.

Esa es la belleza del sistema basura cero: ofrece una alternativa alentadora a un sistema lineal que perpetúa la eliminación, el agotamiento de los recursos, el cambio climático y la contaminación que amenazan la salud pública y el bienestar. No sucederá de la noche a la mañana, pero establece una dirección clara.

Defender basura cero

Existen múltiples debates dentro del movimiento ambientalista sobre la cooptación del concepto basura cero. ¿Debemos dejarlo pasar? ¿Defenderlo? Hay argumentos sólidos en todos los lados de la mesa. Pero nuestro objetivo es expandir el verdadero basura cero a nivel mundial. La generalización significa que las ideas se aceptan como normales porque la mayoría de la gente las comparte; eso es por lo que miles de comunidades, funcionarios gubernamentales y empresas han trabajado durante décadas. Luchar contra esta apropiación es, por lo tanto, una parte inevitable de la generalización.

Cada vez que se presenta un proyecto de conversión de residuos en energía o de plásticos en combustible como «basura cero», las autoridades en la materia deben aclarar las cosas. La incineración de residuos para generar energía perpetúa la generación de residuos porque requiere materia prima para quemar, compite con la reutilización y el reciclaje por materiales de alto poder calorífico, depende de materias primas de origen fósil como los plásticos, produce emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y genera residuos peligrosos. Nada de eso podría estar más lejos del concepto basura cero.

Lo más importante es que el concepto basura cero no es solo un concepto abstracto.

Durante más de tres décadas, cientos de ciudades, miles de comunidades y muchos profesionales del sector de los residuos han liderado la transición hacia él. Han demostrado que es posible lograr más del 90% de separación en origen, tasas de desvío del 80% o más, mejores condiciones de trabajo para los recolectores de residuos y economías locales basadas en la reparación y la reutilización. También demuestran que seguir la jerarquía de residuos crea más empleos, reduce más las emisiones de metano y mejora la salud pública.

Facilitar la implementación de la iniciativa «basura cero» 

En los últimos años, más gobiernos, instituciones financieras, universidades y profesionales del sector de los residuos han adoptado la visión «basura cero» y han priorizado las medidas en las etapas iniciales por encima de la eliminación. Eso es alentador, pero se necesita mucho más. Por ejemplo, solo el 1 % de la financiación internacional destinada a la reducción de metano en el sector de los residuos se destina a estrategias «basura cero», como el compostaje.

Si los bancos multilaterales de desarrollo y otras instituciones financieras internacionales destinaran el 99 % restante, en lugar de a sistemas nocivos de tratamiento final como incineradoras y megavertederos, a la prevención y recuperación de residuos orgánicos a nivel comunitario, se nivelaría el campo de juego: habría más incentivos para un cambio en los patrones de producción y consumo, y los gobiernos locales y las comunidades acelerarían la transición hacia basura cero. Si los gobiernos que afirman perseguir basura cero actuaran en consecuencia, liderarían la transición e inspirarían a otros.

Los organismos de la ONU, como el PNUMA, ONU-Hábitat y el Consejo Asesor Basura Cero, tienen la responsabilidad especial de establecer una visión clara para los gobiernos y las instituciones, y promover una agenda auténtica basura cero para impulsar la sostenibilidad ambiental, la equidad social y los sistemas económicos que respeten los límites naturales.Mientras continuamos trabajando hacia un futuro basura cero, honremos su verdadero espíritu, que impulsa el cambio de los sistemas. Y apoyemos y ampliemos los programas y políticas de eficacia probada que los gobiernos, las comunidades, los recolectores de residuos, las ONG y las empresas están sosteniendo. Protejamos el término y honremos la práctica: pongamos en práctica el verdadero basura cero.

Rommel Cabrera/GAIA, 2019. Waste pickers collecting separated waste from households. Tacloban City, the Philippines.

The post En defensa del verdadero espíritu  «basura cero» first appeared on GAIA.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

June 2, 2026 

President Trump Revokes Executive Orders Protecting Public Lands from Unmanaged Motorized Recreation  Repeal threatens wildlife, public safety, and outdoor recreation across federal lands  

Contacts:
Laura Peterson, Senior Attorney, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (801) 236-3762; laura@suwa.org

Washington, D.C. – Last Friday, after most people left work for the weekend, President Trump announced the repeal of two executive orders (11644 and 11989) that govern off-road vehicle (OHV) and over-snow vehicle (OSV) use on public lands. He further directed federal land management agencies to rescind or revise their regulations implementing these orders, risking chaos and confusion on public lands across the country. 

For 54 years, these orders have helped protect streams, wildlife and their habitats, and opportunities for safe recreation by providing clear and consistent guidance for motorized and nonmotorized users on Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and National Park Service lands. In response, numerous conservation organizations cried foul over this latest attack on public lands. 

Below are quotes and background information:

“These executive orders provided the foundation for common-sense management of motorized vehicles on public lands, recognizing the detrimental impact unmanaged motor vehicles have on cultural sites, wildlife, waterways and other public land users,” said Laura Peterson, Senior Attorney at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “In Utah alone, there are tens of thousands of miles of dirt roads and trails open to motorized vehicles. Far from motorized vehicles being kept out of public lands, it’s quite the opposite: it’s the wildlife and visitors trying to picnic or camp with their families that are being chased out at every turn. The impacts of repealing these executive orders will be long-lasting and devastating.” 

“Removing or weakening regulations for properly managing motorized recreation will endanger at-risk fish and wildlife, particularly grizzly bears and bull trout, because off-road vehicles choke streams with dirt and damage sensitive habitats,” said Adam Rissien, rewilding manager with WildEarth Guardians. “Today’s off-road vehicles are even more powerful, more damaging than when the first orders were put in place to protect public lands from unfettered motorized recreation, and removing long-standing protections will only make matters worse.” 

“Nobody wants national parks damaged by off road vehicles. The administration is making sweeping changes that could throw open the doors to unchecked off-road vehicle use that puts at risk the very resources national parks were created to protect,” said  Cory MacNulty, Southwest Region Campaign Director for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). “With thousands of miles of roads and trails across public lands already open to off-road vehicles, what is at stake here is not access – it’s the future of the places that Americans love most.”

“Public lands are big enough for hikers, hunters, horseback riders, mountain bikers, motorized users and families looking for quiet places to camp, if we are wise about how we share them,” said Alison Flint, Acting Vice President for Federal Policy at The Wilderness Society. “For more than 50 years, common-sense safeguards have helped land managers reduce conflicts, protect clean water and wildlife habitat, and make sure public lands can be enjoyed by everyone. This administration is working to destroy this foundation, which has been in place since Richard Nixon. This is a cynical attempt to pit public land users against one another while weakening the rules that protect the land itself. Our children and grandchildren deserve public lands that are healthy, shared and cared for—not places where decades of balanced management are tossed aside for special interests.”

“The intent of these executive orders was to minimize environmental damage and user conflict from motorized vehicle use (including snowmobiles) on public lands,” said Anneka Williams, Winter Wildlands Alliance Policy Director. “They were established in the 1970s in response to widespread and increasing off-road vehicle use on public lands to balance motorized and non-motorized recreation and protect natural ecosystems and wildlife. Without these orders, there is no guidance to minimize impacts from motorized recreation, a loss that will have lasting consequences for decades to come.” 

 “This rescission is yet another loss for wildlife and natural places,” said Vera Smith, director of national forests and public lands for Defenders of Wildlife. “Removing common-sense tools for managing all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles on public lands is reckless and nonsensical.”

“If you want to make the public land experience worse for everyone – motorized and non-motorized – blowing up travel management is a good place to start,” said Hilary Eisen, federal policy director at Wild Montana. “It’s how we keep public lands working for everyone. These EOs are the foundation land managers rely on to provide motorized access while protecting wildlife, natural resources, and opportunities for quiet, non-motorized recreation. Getting rid of them to satisfy a tiny minority of users just invites more use conflict, makes public lands more dangerous, and degrades public lands and waters. This is a reckless move that could set off a chain reaction that undermines everything we love about our public lands.”

“Recreationists of all types enjoy camping next to clean mountain streams, seeing wildlife, and enjoying the great outdoors with their friends and family. Public lands managers have relied on the previous executive orders to protect water quality, ensure wildlife have space to roam, and preserve high-quality recreation opportunities for everyone,” said John Robison, public lands and wildlife director at the Idaho Conservation League. “If agencies no longer have to minimize the impacts of motorized recreation to water quality, wildlife, and other recreationists, we are in danger of degrading the very values of our public lands that draw us there again and again. In the end, everyone will be worse off.” 

“Loud engines stress wildlife, displacing them from feeding and breeding areas. Tire damage speeds erosion and harms ecosystems,” said Chris Bachman, Conservation Director at the Yaak Valley Forest Council. “Vehicle tires and undercarriages carry seeds into forests and grasslands, disrupting natural systems and food resources. The Roadless Rule has been rescinded, and every effort is being made to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Now this? This administration appears determined to cause significant harm to our public lands at every turn.”

“As we see in nature, balance needs to be our rule. More and more we are seeing the scales of regulation be tipped wildly in one direction, towards extraction and deregulation of public lands,” said Allison Weber, Policy Director for Friends of the Inyo. “We support the protection of ecosystems and species, and we know that regulation of various activities on public lands are necessary to achieve that goal, to obtain balance between natural and recreational values. Deregulating recreation like OHV use ultimately leads to degradation of the landscapes and the routes themselves, followed by additional labor and money by our public lands agency staff to restore them to working order. If we want to all enjoy these landscapes for years to come, we are moving in the wrong direction.”

“This executive order puts America’s wild places at risk by prioritizing motorized vehicle access over the protection of wildlife, clean water, and public lands. For decades, commonsense safeguards have helped land managers balance motorized recreation with conservation and other types of recreation, ensuring that public lands remain healthy and accessible for everyone,” said Athan Manuel, Director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program. “Eliminating responsible motorized management threatens fragile habitats, increases damage to sensitive landscapes, and undermines the experiences of people seeking quiet recreation in nature. America’s public lands belong to all of us, and future generations deserve the chance to experience wild and thriving places. Instead of weakening protections, we should be strengthening our commitment to conserving the natural heritage that makes these lands so special.”

“For decades off-road vehicles have had an outsized impact on BLM-managed lands and that’s especially true today as faster and louder vehicles blanket the landscape,” said retired BLM Director Jim Baca. Baca served as BLM Director from 1993-94. “ORVs harass wildlife, degrade streams and destroy cultural sites, and are generally a nuisance to other public land visitors. BLM has struggled mightily to control this use and its job has only gotten harder under Trump’s second term as career BLM personnel have been fired and the agency’s budget decimated. Trump’s latest Order – undoing Nixon and Carter-era Executive Orders that directed BLM to ‘minimize’ the impacts these vehicles have on public lands and resources – is only going to make BLM’s job harder at a time when it needs to be doing more than ever to rein in this activity.” 

“Without proper management, off-road vehicles tear up vegetation, disrupt wildlife, damage streams, and lead to conflicts among recreational users,” said Thomas Delehanty, attorney at Earthjustice. “President Trump is discarding the long-standing, common-sense framework for managing off-road vehicle use to cater to a narrow set of interests. Our public lands, streams, and wildlife will pay the price.”

Background

In response to the growing use of dirt bikes, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, and other off-road vehicles (ORVs), and corresponding environmental damage and conflicts with non-motorized users, Presidents Nixon and Carter issued Executive Orders 11644 and 11989 in 1972 and 1977, respectively. These executive orders require federal land management agencies to plan for ORV use to protect resources and other recreational uses. Specifically, the executive orders require that, when designating areas or trails available for ORV use, the agencies locate them to: 

(1) minimize damage to soil, watershed, vegetation, and other resources of the public lands; 

(2) minimize harassment of wildlife or significant disruption of wildlife habitats; and 

(3) minimize conflicts between off-road vehicle use and other existing or proposed recreational uses of the same or neighboring public lands.

### 
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org. 

The post President Trump Revokes Executive Orders Protecting Public Lands from Unmanaged Motorized Recreation  appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

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

Do electric vehicles almost always have a lower carbon footprint than gasoline-powered cars?

The EPA, IPCC, and many independent studies have found that electric vehicles have lower lifetime emissions than gas-powered vehicles in nearly all cases.

“Lifetime” calculations include emissions released during EV manufacture, as well as the generation of electricity used to charge the car. An average 300-mile range EV produces less than half the lifetime emissions of a conventional 30 miles per gallon car.  

This is mainly because EVs are significantly more energy efficient than gasoline cars: over 77% of electricity input is converted to power at the wheels, compared to a conversion of 12-30% of energy in gasoline to wheel power. Meanwhile, the lack of tailpipe emissions offsets an electric sedan or SUV’s initial manufacture emissions within just 1.5-2 years of regular use.

As the U.S. power grid becomes increasingly renewables-based, EVs’ emissions superiority vis-a-vis gas-powered vehicles will continue to grow.

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

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

Sources

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Electric Vehicle Myths

U.S. Department of Energy Electric Vehicle Benefits and Considerations

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Chapter 2: Emissions trends and drivers

U.S. Department of Energy All-Electric Vehicles

Environmental Research Letters The role of pickup truck electrification in the decarbonization of light-duty vehicles

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Power Sector Evolution

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

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

A new report from National Nurses United finds that three major Catholic hospital systems have spent the last decade leading the health care industry in the closures of pediatric care units. Among the country’s ten biggest hospital chains, three Catholic systems (Ascension, CommonSpirit, and Trinity) shuttered pediatric units at the highest rates of any major systems.

Nurses from National Nurses United will protest in St. Louis on June 3. Nurses first plan to protest outside the district office of U.S. Representative Wesley Bell to call on him to return and refuse campaign contributions from Palantir and American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The dose makes the poison – but there’s more to the story Anthony Lacey June 2, 2026

Does the dose define how chemicals can lead to harm? Yes.

But is the dose the only thing that “makes the poison”? No. 

The idea that the dose makes the poison – originally explained as “all things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous” – was introduced by a 16th-century physician named Paracelsus. It laid the foundation for what is, more than 400 years later, the field of toxicology.

Today the chemical industry and its supporters point to the phrase when claiming health risks only exist above certain chemical exposure levels and some doses are “too low” to be harmful.

It’s generally true that a chemical is more toxic at higher doses. But our understanding of how chemicals and mixtures interact with our bodies has improved considerably over the past 400 years, showing that there’s more to consider than just the amount of a substance.

A complicated mix of factors affect the ‘poison’

Who you are, when and how often you are exposed to something, and what else you’re exposed to all matter. And what is defined as a low dose might, with prolonged exposure, be sufficient to lead to health harms.

Relationships between dose and biological response – how it impacts a body – can be linear, where a higher dose results in a greater response. But scientists have also observed a variety of other, non-linear relationships between dose and response. Depending on the chemical, a higher dose doesn’t necessarily mean a higher response, or more “poison.”

In some cases, both lower and higher doses can trigger certain health harms, while moderate doses do not (see Panel F in Figure 1 below). For other chemicals (like in Panel D), the relationship might be logarithmic, meaning that toxicity might drastically increase at lower dose-ranges but taper off as doses get higher.  

Figure 1. A variety of documented dose-response relationships

Source: Ramaiah et al., Figure 1 from Toxicological Pathology

What does ‘dose’ even mean?

The dose is the amount of a substance that is absorbed into the body. But not everything that we come into contact with will be absorbed into the body. 

The exposure route can play a large role. 

For example, titanium dioxide is an effective active ingredient in sunscreens, an ultraviolet filter that does not cross the skin barrier when applied. But its use in sprays or powders raises concern, since the particles can be inhaled deep into the lungs and harm health. 

So the impact of exposure isn’t just about the amount, it’s also about how a person is exposed. 

What else matters, apart from the dose?

When you are exposed 

Low exposures in utero or during early childhood can have very different effects than the same exposure in adulthood. Even when they’re exposed to the same amounts of a chemical, children may absorb more than adults. 

A World Health Organization study found young children can absorb up to five times more lead than adults from the same ingested dose. 

And even if the dose is the same, it could have a greater impact on kids than adults because their brains are still developing. They may suffer irreversible damage to the brain and experience developmental impacts later in life. 

What else you are exposed to

We know we aren’t exposed to chemicals one by one but instead to mixtures of chemicals over long periods of time. We constantly come into contact with combinations of chemicals from food, water and consumer products. 

Research shows that small, seemingly insignificant doses of multiple chemicals can add up or interact together to multiply each other’s effects, creating a total health risk that is measurably more harmful than those from the chemicals acting alone.

Glyphosate, an herbicide, and cypermethrin, an insecticide, are sometimes used together to manage crops. A 2025 study compared the impacts in cells of individual exposures to glyphosate and cypermethrin with exposure to both pesticides at the same time. The authors found that joint exposure triggered early and late cell death, along with overall toxicity in animal models.

When combined, these two pesticides triggered more late cell death than would be expected from simply adding their individual effects together. A decade earlier, another study reported the same pattern – that these chemicals magnify each other’s effects when mixed.

Both pesticides are frequently used together on soy and corn fields, so this mixture analysis is a simulation of real-world exposures.

In 2021, the European Commission and European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA, announced a joint strategy to integrate cumulative risk assessments in pesticide reviews. This new approach incorporates methods to assess the effect of chemical mixtures on human health. EFSA is reviewing the status of multiple approved pesticides in light of toxicity findings from mixtures assessments. 

U.S. regulatory safety assessments routinely fail to account for chemical interaction, when the presence of one chemical can unexpectedly amplify the toxicity of another by altering how much is absorbed or metabolized. 

The bottom line: It has been known for a while that exposure to chemicals in combination can multiply their effect. In other words, for some chemical mixtures, the sum is greater than its parts. 

How often you are exposed 

The average person uses between 10 and 14 personal care products a day, spanning several categories. You aren’t exposed just once, you’re exposed every day for years. 

This repeated, long-term use leads to what’s called cumulative exposure. While many chemicals are rapidly excreted, they can still have an impact with repetitive low dose exposure. 

The issue isn’t just a single dose today. It’s repeated exposure – even at low levels – across months or years that can add up.

Who you are

Individual susceptibility, genetics, and your microbiome matter. 

Your genes can act like a personalized instruction manual for how well your body processes toxins. Some people have versions of enzymes that clear chemicals quickly, while others can have versions that allow the same small dose to build up to dangerous levels.

Your immune system and gut microbiome can also change how you respond. A “safe” dose of a given substance could be “poison” to an immunocompromised individual or someone taking a specific medication.

Statins, widely used cholesterol medications, are broken down in the body by an enzyme called CYP3A. Grapefruit juice contains compounds called furanocoumarins that stop CYP3A from doing its job. 

So when ingested with grapefruit, more of the drug can be absorbed than intended. Both substances alone are safe, but the combination can be unexpectedly toxic. This is why some medications warn about consuming grapefruit while taking the medicine.

Some medication labels warn against consuming grapefruit when taking the drugs

The case of hormone disruptors 

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, are a class of chemicals that mimic the body’s natural hormones. Our hormone system is designed to respond to tiny “doses” of substances that act as signals to control how we grow and how our bodies use energy.  

One well-known EDC is bisphenol A, or BPA. Results from a 2012 study linked low doses of BPA, legally considered “safe,” to endocrine disruption. 

The study emerged from a partnership among the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and 14 independent researchers, called CLARITY-BPA. 

As a landmark 2007 report in Environmental Health News notes, even exposure to a tiny dose of an EDC can interfere with these signals. Repeated exposure over time can cause health impacts later in life.

The relationship between the amount of an EDC and its effect on health doesn’t always proceed in a straight line or in one direction. When the relationship doesn’t move in one direction only – when the shape of the dose-response relationship does not consistently increase or decrease – the low-dose effects of exposure to EDCs “cannot be predicted by the effects observed at high doses,” one study found.

This study’s results demonstrate how, if only high doses are tested, serious health impacts that only show up at lower doses can be missed. 

The researchers tested a cancer-causing chemical called TCDD on rats. At a “high dose” of 0.25 micrograms per kilogram, or µg/kg, TCDD didn’t seem to cause any reproductive problems. But when the dose was tested at a much lower level, 0.064 µg/kg, researchers saw a significant drop in the rats’ daily sperm production.

This doesn’t mean that higher doses are safer. The authors point out that high levels of TCDD are still harmful to many organs and can even be deadly. Instead, the study shows why we can’t just say “the dose makes the poison.” Low levels of exposure can interfere with the body in ways that are not seen at high doses.

Low doses do not mean safe doses

Analysis of the science documents made public through trial discovery led to EWG advocating for increased regulation of the “forever chemical” perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. At the time, PFOA was extensively used as a processing aid in the manufacturing of Teflon.

But industry representatives pushed back, citing the notion that dose makes the poison to argue that health concerns about PFOA were “unfounded.” PFOA detections were “negligible … and within government standards,” they said, characterizing the measured average PFOA concentrations of 4 parts per billion in drinking water as a mere “shot glass … spread among 250 railroad tankers.” 

Since 2005, research has repeatedly documented the dangers of exposure to this supposedly “negligible” – and, at the time legal – level of PFOA. 

That same concentration would today be 1,000 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s legal limit for PFOA in drinking water, currently set at 4 parts per trillion.

Chemical companies and pesticide manufacturers have long argued that low doses are safe. For example, Dow, a global materials science manufacturer, lists “the dose makes the poison” on its position statement page, arguing that “as a dose increases . . . the likelihood of a toxic response increases as well.” 

Despite the wealth of peer-reviewed literature indicating otherwise, Dow maintains that findings of the toxicity of low doses are unsubstantiated.

Outcomes matter in defining safe doses

A “safe” dose is safe only for the specific health outcomes being measured. 

Traditional tests often look for obvious signs of harm, like organ damage or a specific birth defect. But they may completely miss changes in other parts of the body, like the immune or nervous systems.

This means a chemical can be labeled safe at a certain level because it doesn’t cause organ damage in animals, even if the same dose is high enough to disrupt hormones or immunity. 

What we define as the level at which a chemical becomes a poison depends entirely on which part of the body we’re looking at.

For example, PFAS were long considered safe at levels that didn’t appear to harm the liver. But once scientists researched impacts on immunotoxicity, they found these supposedly safe doses contributed to suppressed immune responses in children, prompting increased research and regulator scrutiny, including restrictions and bans on use and lower limits for allowable water contamination.  

When setting a drinking water standard, the EPA evaluated data about all available health outcomes. It found that, in the case of PFOA, low exposure levels could lead to increased cholesterol, decreased birth weight, weakened immune response and liver harm.

The herbicide dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, commonly known as DCPA and sold under the brand name Dacthal, was initially approved in 1958 and deemed safe for use. In 2024, the EPA banned it following new findings that linked the pesticide to “irreversible harm to unborn babies’ developing brains,” among several other hormonal issues.

It’s more complicated than just dose

The science now suggests a more refined interpretation of Paracelsus’s statement: the dose matters, but the timing, the individual, and what else one is exposed to are also critical aspects in predicting harm.

While it’s generally true that a chemical is more toxic at higher doses, there are cases where that is not the whole picture. “The dose makes the poison” is overly simplistic and has been used for years to defend the continued use of harmful chemicals. The dose contributes to the poison, but there are many other factors at play.

And that’s why legal does not always mean safe.

Areas of Focus Family Health Toxic Chemicals Authors Alexa Friedman, Ph.D. Varun Subramaniam, M.S. June 3, 2026

This factsheet shows that Ontario can easily accommodate enough solar and wind installations to meet the projected provincial demand for electricity in 2050.  These options will be lower cost and faster to deploy than new nuclear. Read the factsheet

The post Does Ontario Need New Nuclear to Keep its Lights on in 2050? appeared first on Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies will need to be deployed at rates even faster than those seen for solar power, if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2100, says a new report.

Nearly all pathways to meeting the Paris Agreement’s highest ambition of keeping global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in 2100 involve CDR techniques – ranging from tree-planting to sucking CO2 from air with machines.

This is in addition to steep and immediate emissions cuts.

Scientists expect carbon emissions to push warming beyond 1.5C in the decade ahead, meaning that the target can only be achieved “from above” via large-scale CDR that brings down global temperatures.

These temperature trajectories are known as “overshoot” pathways.

The third “state of CDR” report, written by more than 50 scientists, says that countries’ current CDR plans would fall short of what is needed to limit warming to 1.5C by more than 5bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) per year by 2050.

Global CDR would have to increase fourfold – from 2.2GtCO2 in 2026 to 8.75GtCO2 by 2050 – to have a chance of meeting the 1.5C target by 2100, according to the report.

It adds that deploying CDR can be a “gradual process”, making the period 2026-30 “crucial” for “establishing CDR’s role in limiting climate damages” in the future.

Below, Carbon Brief covers the key findings of the third state of CDR report. (This follows from Carbon Brief’s coverage of the first report in 2023 and second report in 2024.)

• What is CDR?
• What are current levels of CDR?
• How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?
• What does the science say about the potential and costs of CDR?
• What have governments pledged on CDR?
• What is the current funding and research landscape for CDR?
• How is policy impacting CDR demand?

What is CDR?

According to the report, the definition of CDR is:

“Human activities capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it durably in geological, terrestrial or ocean reservoirs, or in products. This includes human enhancement of natural removal processes but excludes natural uptake not directly caused by anthropogenic [human-caused] activities.”

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In addition to this, the report includes “three key principles” for CDR, which are:

1. The captured CO2 must come from the atmosphere, not from “fossil sources”.
2. The subsequent storage “must be durable”, so that the CO2 is not soon reintroduced to the atmosphere.
3. The removal must result from human intervention that is in addition to Earth’s natural processes.

In this report, a CDR method is considered durable if it is able to lock up carbon for “decades or more”.

The report classifies CDR techniques as either “conventional” or “novel”.

“Convential” CDR techniques are “well established, already deployed at scale and widely reported by countries as part of [land-use] activities”.

The methods included in this group are tree-planting, ecosystem restoration, agroforestry (trees in agriculture), improving soil carbon in croplands and natural lands, and durable wood production.

“Novel” CDR techniques have “lower level of readiness for deployment and, as a consequence, are currently deployed at smaller scales”, says the report.

Some examples of different CDR methods are listed on the graphic below.

The graphic also shows whether carbon is captured through biological or chemical processes, as well as how “ready” the method is and for how long it can store carbon, among other features.

CDR techniques and their characteristics. Credit: Edwards et al. (2026)

The report says that CDR is “needed alongside deep and rapid emissions reductions” to give Earth a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C. It continues:

“It should play a smaller role than emissions reductions given uncertainty around the feasible levels of scaling, sustainability limits, storage availability and the risk of reversal, among other constraints. 

“In general, CDR should be seen as a limited resource that will need to be used prudently.”

It adds that CDR can “fulfil three major functions”. 

In the near term, CDR can help reduce “net emissions”, it says.

In the medium term, CDR can “counterbalance residual emissions” to achieve net-zero CO2 or net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the report continues. 

(“Residual emissions” are those that cannot be eradicated through technologies or societal changes, such as methane emissions from rice production.)

Research suggests that global warming is likely to stop, more or less, once net-zero is achieved globally.

In the long term, CDR can “help achieve net-negative emissions”, a state where CO2 removal exceeds emissions, says the report.

In this state, humans could lower global temperatures. This may allow the world to limit global warming to 1.5C by 2100, even if the temperature target is surpassed earlier on in the century. 

Future trajectories where temperatures exceed the 1.5C limit before being brought back down again through CDR techniques are known as “overshoot” pathways.

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What are current levels of CDR?

The report says that, at present, “99.9%” of existing CDR is conventional, land-based techniques such as tree-planting and ecosystem restoration.

The world currently removes 2.2GtCO2 per year, equivalent to around 5% of gross global CO2 emissions, it continues.

The largest contributors to removing CO2 from the atmosphere are China, the US, the EU, Brazil and Russia.

The chart below shows the amount of CO2 removed each year over 2014-23 by the largest contributors, through tree-planting (afforestation) and forest restoration (reforestation).

CO2 removed via afforestation and reforestation each year by the world’s largest contributors to current CDR. Credit: Edwards et al. (2026)

“Novel” CDR, such as biochar and direct air capture, currently removes just 2m tonnes of CO2 annually at present, according to the report.

However, these methods have been growing at a rate of 40% per year – “similar to successful technologies like solar energy, but insufficient for the scale-up required to meet the Paris temperature goal”, says the report.

The graphic below illustrates how the contribution of conventional CDR currently dwarfs novel CDR, but how the latter techniques are quickly growing.

A graphic illustrating the contribution of “conventional” and “novel” to current CDR methods. Credit: Edwards et al. (2026)

The report says that investment in CDR companies recovered in 2025 following a dip – and its “share of all climate-tech funding” grew to 2.6%.

The report also notes that, at present, most CDR efforts are unevenly distributed across the world.

For example, two-thirds of conventional CDR in voluntary carbon markets is in Latin America, according to the report. (Voluntary carbon markets are where companies can buy credits for carbon-reducing or removing projects, such as tree-planting, to claim that they have “offset” some of their own emissions.)

In addition, most pilot projects that aim to demonstrate novel CDR methods are located in only a few countries, such as Sweden, Denmark and the US, says the report.

The chart below shows the location and timeline of demonstration projects that have been announced, are under construction or in operation globally.

Location and timeline of demonstration projects that have been announced, are under construction or in operation globally. Credit: Edwards et al. (2026)

The report continues:

“While first-movers play important roles, if their actions do not diffuse more widely, vulnerability emerges, as evidenced by the impact of US climate policy dismantling.”

(For more, see: How is policy impacting CDR demand?)

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How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?

The report examines three scenarios where global temperature rise is limited to “well below” 2C by 2100:

• A current ambition scenario, based on national climate pledges (but omitting the US);
• A highest-possible ambition scenario;
• A delayed ambition scenario, which is consistent with current targets until 2035 and then switches to the highest ambition scenario.

The pledges considered in the report are “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs, which countries submit periodically to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). NDCs lay out a country’s climate ambition.

Under the current ambition scenario, the report projects a total of 5.9GtCO2 of CDR by 2050 and 12GtCO2 by 2100. 

This scenario would result in end-of-century warming of 1.7-2.7C. Importantly, the report says, this scenario does not result in the world reaching net-zero CO2 levels, “meaning that global temperatures would continue to rise, albeit at a much more gradual pace, beyond 2100”.

Under the highest-possible ambition scenario, CDR scales up to 8.8GtCO2 by mid-century and 15.3GtCO2 by the end of the century.

This scenario assumes “full buy-in by all nations”, with economics, scale-up and sustainability providing the main constraints on CDR deployment, the report says. 

The highest ambition scenario results in global temperatures peaking at 1.7-1.8C around 2050 and the world achieving net-zero emissions around that time. 

Under the delayed ambition scenario, CDR would scale up to 7GtCO2 by 2050 and 23.6GtCO2 by 2100. This scenario shows global temperatures peaking between 1.7C and 2.0C. 

This scenario requires larger CDR deployment in the long term than the highest-ambition scenario does, due to the larger cumulative emissions caused by delaying deep emissions reductions.

In both the high ambition and delayed ambition scenarios, the world reaches “deeply net-negative CO2 emissions” by 2100, the report says. This continued deployment of CDR will further draw CO2 from the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures back down to 1.5C.

The chart below shows annual global greenhouse gas emissions through the end of the century under current ambition (red), highest ambition (green) and delayed ambition (blue) scenarios.

Annual emissions, in GtCO2e per year, for the three scenarios: current ambition (red), highest ambition (green) and delayed ambition (blue). Source: Edwards et al. (2026)

While global CDR capacity scales up more slowly in the first and third scenarios, the report notes that, in all three cases, “novel CDR reaches gigatonne-scale deployment by 2050”.

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What does the science say about the potential and costs of CDR?

There is a wide range of both carbon-removal potential and associated costs between different methods of CDR, according to the report.

However, it also notes that these numbers “range widely” in the scientific literature. 

The discrepancies in estimates of carbon-removal potential are due to a number of factors, the report says, including a lack of available scientific data, inconsistencies in the assumptions made in assessing technical feasibility and a lack of agreement on what, exactly, “potential” means.

These elements also influence the cost of different CDR methods, but additional factors – such as deployment costs in different areas, technological approaches and scope – also play a role in establishing price differences. Because of this, the report says, “cost estimates are often difficult to compare across methods, complicating design and policy decisions”.

The chart below shows the reported range of mitigation potential (left) and reported range of costs (right) for different CDR methods. The top four rows indicate conventional CDR methods, while bottom 11 rows show novel CDR methods. The chart refers to “mitigation potential”, rather than removal potential, because some estimates do not distinguish between removals and avoided emissions.

(Avoided emissions refers to the difference in emissions from carrying out a project, compared to a hypothetical alternative – such as the reduced emissions from halting deforestation.)

The darker colours indicate estimates that are more constrained, meaning that they are either based on stricter assumptions or there is more agreement between different estimates.

Annual mitigation potential (left) and cost range per tonne of CO2 (right) for conventional and novel CDR methods. Orange bars indicate the range of values reported, with darker colours indicating less uncertainty about the estimates. Source: Edwards et al. (2026)

The report notes that for most removal methods, the low end of the potential is around 1GtCO2 per year, while the upper limit of costs is more than $200/tCO2.

The least expensive CDR approaches are forestry-based methods, soil-carbon sequestration and biomass burial. For forestry-based methods, the report puts the cost of CDR at $5-$53 per tonne of CO2 removed. Soil-carbon sequestration costs reach as high as $150 per tonne of CO2 removed, but could have negative overall costs “when accounting for crop yield increases potentially resulting” from changed farm-management practices, the report says.

However, it adds that “these CDR methods are typically associated with lower levels of permanence” than other methods.

Other relatively low-cost methods include coastal wetland restoration, biochar, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and enhanced rock weathering, while ocean alkalinity enhancement is a medium-cost option. 

The most expensive methods include direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) and direct ocean carbon capture and storage (DOCCS).

The report also notes that a total estimate of CDR removals cannot be obtained by adding up the removal potential of all of the separate methods, since different methods can compete for scarce resources. For example, BECCS, biochar, biomass burial and biomass sinking all rely on the same base input – biomass – and therefore cannot all be maximised at the same time.

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What have governments pledged on CDR?

While many countries include some amount of CDR in their national climate plans, there is currently a large gap between the amount of CDR pledged in these plans and the amount that will be needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C by the end of the century, says the report.

This quantity is referred to as the “CDR gap” – the difference between what is pledged and what is needed. 

The size of the CDR gap is dependent not just on the pledges made by countries, but also the choice of the “benchmark” scenario against which the pledges are measured. Lower – or delayed – emissions reductions lead to larger shortfalls in the long term, meaning “CDR must subsequently be scaled to very high levels”, says the report.

Current NDCs and other country submissions to the UNFCCC total 2.5GtCO2 per year of removals in 2030, 2.7GtCO2 per year in 2035 and 3.6GtCO2 per year in 2050. 

This gives a CDR gap of 0.3GtCO2 in 2030, 1.2GtCO2 in 2035 and 5.2GtCO2 in 2050, according to the report. These figures are obtained using assumed “immediate, ambitious action at all levels to reduce emissions” and the most-ambitious estimates of CDR set out in national pledges. Together, this provides a “lower bound” for the CDR gap, says the report.

By comparison, a 10-year delay in implementing ambitious emissions reductions will result in the need to remove at least an additional 150GtCO2 from the atmosphere, compared to the most ambitious scenario. (See: How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?)

The report says that the CDR gap has widened since the second state of CDR report was released in 2024, due to the US leaving the Paris Agreement. It adds that other countries have “not delivered a step change in ambition” in their latest round of climate pledges.

It also cautions that “credibility issues with national pledges may mean that the CDR gap is actually larger than what we assess here”.

The report notes that current CDR pledges by companies are “substantially higher than country pledges”, at 5GtCO2 per year in 2050. However, it adds, “credibility in these announcements is low”.

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What is the current funding and research landscape for CDR?

Funding of CDR research and development – as well as investment in CDR companies – has continued to increase in recent years.

In total, there has been around $5.6bn in grant funding distributed to CDR research since 2005, according to the report’s analysis. Roughly one-third of this has come in the past three years.

Funding for CDR research grants grew 13% each year between 2022 and 2025, the report says, and the corresponding number of research publications grew at a similar rate.

Funding was largely targeted at a handful of key areas, notably soil carbon sequestration, biochar and forest-based CDR. 

DACCS and BECCS only make up a small number of active grants, but together account for around two-fifths of all funding due to “substantially larger” project sizes.

Despite the growth of research grants and scientific publications, the report concludes that early-stage innovation in CDR is “uneven” and says there is “no strong evidence of a step-change”. 

It notes that much of the support for CDR has come from projects with a broader focus, rather than those that focus specifically on CDR.

The authors also point to a decline in “inventive activity”, as measured by patenting of CDR-related innovations. While patenting for emissions-cutting technologies in general has been on an upward trajectory, CDR patenting peaked in 2011.

Meanwhile, the report highlights the “remarkable” sustained investment in CDR companies, against a backdrop of falling investment in climate-related technologies. It notes that CDR now accounts for around 3% of overall “climate-tech funding”.

Yet, again, it says future developments remain “uncertain”. Since the previous 2024 “state of CDR” report, companies have scaled back their ambitions and policy reversals – notably in the US – “underscore that funding uncertainty remains a key barrier”. (See: How is policy impacting CDR demand?)

An upward tick in funding in 2025 was driven primarily by a “surge” in grants from predominantly public institutions, as well as $0.5bn in debt financing for a single BECCS project in Sweden. 

Reliance on such funding sources “highlight[s] the volatility of the CDR innovation ecosystem”, according to the report.

The report also has a chapter focusing on the voluntary carbon market, which it describes as “propelling most of the current demand for novel CDR”.

The scale of this market remains fairly small, with contracts for 0.04GtCO2 of removals signed last year. 

Moreover, the concentration of sales within a small number of buyers – particularly Microsoft – remains a “critical vulnerability”, the authors note. 

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How is policy impacting CDR demand?

The report analyses CDR policies in G20 nations – which together account for three-quarters of global emissions – to assess how they are acting to support CDR across their economies.

In total, 140 countries have announced net-zero targets, including virtually all of the world’s major emitters. In doing so, the report points out that the governments of these nations have “implicitly included a role for CDR in their climate plans”.

However, this does not always translate into measures specifically designed to scale up CDR. 

Only the EU has adopted a binding, quantified removals target into law – namely, the goal to reach 310m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) of annual net removals in the land sector by 2030.

Overall, conventional CDR is the main focus of policy, with various governments focusing on tree planting to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.

Among G20 nations, only the UK and Australia have set specific goals to scale up novel CDR, such as BECCS and DACCS, over the coming decade.

The report highlights some nations, including Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, as taking proactive steps to incentivise CDR. 

The authors point to national strategies, financial support for CDR and efforts to integrate it into emissions trading systems (ETS) as examples of effective policy making.

(The report also stresses that the US, which was previously a “leader” on CDR, has now “frozen or dismantled funding and support” for CDR under the Trump administration.)

Most of the successful policies highlighted in the report focus on supporting the supply of CDR, with “less attention so far on creating demand”. 

This is significant because CDR “generally lacks a natural market”, meaning there are not automatically buyers willing to spend money on emissions removals. Therefore, the authors say, policy interventions are important to create markets and boost demand.

“Compliance” carbon credits – referring to credits that can be used to meet legally mandated emissions targets – provide a way to support demand, according to the report authors. 

Only some ETSs, such as those used in New Zealand and Australia, allow the use of credits based on forest-related removals for compliance. (It is worth noting that such credits are controversial, as removals by forests are not always permanent.)

The report also highlights the need for “foundational policies to create a governance framework for CDR, including rules for quantification of removal, guidelines for community engagement and the minimisation of negative environmental impacts”.

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03.05.24

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The post Q&A: The current state of ‘carbon dioxide removal’ around the world appeared first on Carbon Brief.

The Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, in partnership with Kaiser Permanente, launched a new Food is Medicine Toolkit to provide clinicians and medical practitioners an evidence-based guide to improve health outcomes through nutrition interventions.

“If you care about health, nutrition has to be at the top of the list. Not top five, not top three, top of the list. Poor nutrition is the single leading cause of death and disability in the United States and around the world,” says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian—Director of the Tufts University Food is Medicine Institute.

“We need to make sure that we’re implementing the right programs… built on the most promising evidence… so that they can be most effective. Because at the end of the day, what we want is improved health outcomes and lower cost of care,” asserts Pam Schwartz, Executive Director of Community Health at Kaiser Permanente. The Toolkit is designed to help practitioners and patients alike, featuring comprehensive modules and infographics based on the most relevant dietetic evidence.

The toolkit offers templates for structuring food is medicine (FIM) programs tailored to fit the needs of specific institutions and patient populations, recognizing that “there is no single best model.” These templates aim to assist care teams with community partnerships and the successful implementation of FIM interventions.

While coverage for healthcare-administered dietary intervention programs varies across states, the Toolkit represents a positive shift in how clinicians and patients understand the relationship between food and personal health.

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Photo courtesy of Eduardo Cano, Unsplash

The post Putting Food at the Forefront: Tufts Unveils New Toolkit for Clinicians appeared first on Food Tank.

By 2050, recycling could fulfill half of Europe’s demand for critical raw materials, according to a new analysis. The final report of the European Union-funded Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials (FutuRaM) project provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of what the authors call Europe’s “urban mine”—seven different waste streams that contain materials necessary for green energy, digital technology, and modern industry.

Critical raw materials are a set of 42 elements identified by EU officials as key to the green transition but vulnerable to supply chain disruptions due to geopolitics. They include materials needed for batteries, electric vehicles, and solar and wind power infrastructure.

Today these materials are mostly sourced from outside the EU, including cobalt from China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, lithium from China and Australia, and platinum from South Africa. Such materials may be reusable in theory, but are often lost when products containing them are discarded today.

In the new study, researchers took stock of critical raw materials across all 27 countries in the EU, plus the UK, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway. They mapped several waste streams containing these materials in greater detail than a previous iteration of the project had done, and added a few more.

The new analysis details critical raw materials in electrical and electronic waste; end-of-life vehicles; batteries; retired wind turbines; industrial slags and ashes; debris from building construction and demolition; and mining waste.

The researchers made their data available on the Urban Mine Platform, a website that helps visualize critical materials in waste streams across the bloc using a common and transparent methodology.

 

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In 2022, 5.2 million metric tons of critical raw materials were embedded in goods that entered the market, with 2.1 million metric tons embedded in discarded wastes and 1.4 million metric tons recovered, the researchers calculated.

A greater and greater mass of critical raw materials will be in circulation as electrification, renewable energy, and digital technologies accelerate. By 2050, between 8.4 and 12.2. million metric tons of critical materials could be placed on the market annually, annual waste generation could reach 5.2 to 6.4 million metric tons, and recovery could be 4.7 to 5.7 million metric tons.

More critical raw materials in circulation means more potential for recovery even in a business-as-usual scenario. On the current trajectory, recycling could replace about one-third of new critical raw materials needed by 2050. That figure rises to 47% with better recovery systems and up to 56% if strong efforts are made to develop a circular economy.

Currently, five critical raw materials including platinum and rhodium have well developed recycling programs and with recovery rates over 80%. But as many as 17 of the elements, including cobalt, lithium, and rare earth metals such as dysprosium and neodymium, could achieve recovery rates of more than 80% by 2050, the researchers assessed.

Recycling critical raw materials would improve the security of supply chains and enhance Europe’s technological and industrial independence, the report argues.

It would also save carbon emissions. Already, the net climate benefit of recycling critical raw materials from European waste streams amounts to about 39 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. By 2050, the emissions benefit could reach just over 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Unlike past assessments, the new report moves beyond quantifying the amount of materials present in waste streams and analyzes which ones are actually recoverable into usable secondary materials. The researchers adapted a UN approach to assess the feasibility of mining and energy projects to apply it to recycling. An online tool based on this rubric will help gauge which recycling efforts are most worth pursuing, reducing uncertainty for investors and aiding scale-up of recycling infrastructure.

Source: Iattoni G. et al. “Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials: Project Final Report.” 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine.