News Feeds

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 18 SEPTEMBER 2026 SLF-2007-061 The Sakhalin Papers LI: The Billion-Rouble Exit Price — Novatek, Gazprom and the US$1 Billion Shell Still Could Not Simply Collect In April 2023, the Russian government put a precise price on the 27.5% Sakhalin II interest Shell had declined to take in the replacement Russian operator: 94.8 billion roubles. Novatek was approved as purchaser. Shell’s response was immediate — no money had been received and its legal rights remained intact. Eleven months later, Moscow cancelled the Novatek arrangement and substituted a Gazprom-owned company at exactly the same price. The stake changed hands. The cash did not simply pass to Shell. By 2024, the 94 billion-rouble pot had become entangled with restricted-account rules and a much larger Russian claim against Shell. The corporate exit announced in February 2022 had become a battle over who was entitled to the exit proceeds. 1. A price finally appeared

The previous instalment followed Shell out of the operating Sakhalin II project.

By April 2023, Moscow had reached the next stage.

Russian Government Order No. 890-r, dated 11 April 2023, approved the sale of the unclaimed 27.49999998621683%interest in the new Sakhalin Energy LLC for:

94.8 billion roubles

and designated Novatek Moscow Region LLC as purchaser. Interfax reported that the order had been published through Russia’s official legal-information system. (Interfax)

At the exchange rate quoted in contemporaneous Reuters reporting, that amounted to approximately US$1.16 billion. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

The precision of the Russian order is striking.

Not simply “about 27.5%.”

Not simply “approximately 95 billion roubles.”

The legal instrument identified the interest to fourteen decimal places and fixed the price at 94.8 billion roubles.

But fixing a price was not the same thing as paying Shell.

2. This was not a conventional Shell sale

The legal structure needs to remain clear.

Shell had not negotiated with Novatek and signed an ordinary share-purchase agreement transferring its original Bermuda-incorporated Sakhalin Energy shares.

Following President Vladimir Putin’s June 2022 decree, the operating rights and obligations of the old Sakhalin Energy Investment Company had been moved, under Russian law, into a newly created Russian company.

Mitsui and Mitsubishi elected to participate in that company.

Shell did not. (Interfax)

The 27.5% interest being allocated by Moscow in 2023 was therefore an unclaimed interest in the replacement Russian operator.

That distinction matters because Shell has continued to state that it retains legal rights connected with its 27.5% minus one share interest in the original Bermuda company. (BOE Report)

The Russian state was arranging disposition of the new Russian-company interest.

Shell was preserving its legal position concerning the old one.

Those were related, but not identical, propositions.

3. Novatek appeared to have won

Novatek had publicly expressed interest in acquiring the interest.

The Russian government then approved it as buyer at the 94.8 billion-rouble valuation. (Interfax)

Contemporaneous Reuters reporting described the transaction straightforwardly as Moscow approving the sale of Shell’s former 27.5% stake in Sakhalin II to Novatek. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

From outside, the sequence appeared simple:

Shell had left.

Russia had valued the interest.

Novatek would buy it.

Shell would receive compensation.

But almost immediately, Shell inserted an important qualification.

4. Shell: “No payments have been made”

On 4 May 2023, Shell Chief Financial Officer Sinead Gorman was asked about reports that the Sakhalin interest had been sold to Novatek.

Her answer was concise:

“No payments have been made and we retain our legal rights.”

Interfax recorded Gorman emphasising that Shell was aware of Russian press reports but had not received the proceeds. (Interfax)

That sentence is one of the key documentary markers in Shell’s Russian withdrawal.

Moscow had selected a purchaser.

Moscow had fixed a price.

Russian media were discussing the foreign-exchange consequences of transferring nearly 95 billion roubles.

Yet Shell said it had received nothing.

The difference between a government-approved disposition and a completed payment was already becoming apparent.

5. Russian rules contained another obstacle

The Russian mechanism did not simply say:

buyer pays 94.8 billion roubles;

Shell receives 94.8 billion roubles.

Interfax reported that foreign partners could receive proceeds only after determining and offsetting compensation for alleged damage connected with implementation of the project. (Interfax)

That qualification descended directly from the special legal machinery imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent rupture with Western companies.

In other words, the 94.8 billion roubles represented a valuation and sale price.

It did not necessarily represent an unconditional debt immediately payable to Shell.

That difference would later become crucial.

6. The money briefly became a foreign-exchange story

During April 2023, Russian reporting even linked the proposed Shell payment with movements in the rouble.

The suggestion was that conversion and repatriation of nearly 95 billion roubles could create significant demand for foreign currency.

Russian officials pushed back against exaggerated interpretations.

Interfax reported Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev pointing out that large foreign-exchange transactions connected with corporate exits were subject to restrictions imposed by the Central Bank. (Interfax)

This episode illustrates how real the expected payment appeared at the time.

Markets were discussing how Shell might convert the money.

Shell was saying it had not received it.

7. The Novatek deal then stalled

The expected transaction did not proceed to the straightforward conclusion implied by the April 2023 order.

Almost a year passed.

Then Moscow changed the buyer.

On 23 March 2024, the Russian government issued Order No. 701-r.

The Novatek order was declared invalid.

In its place, the government approved Sakhalin Project LLC as purchaser. (Interfax)

Sakhalin Project was part of the Gazprom group.

And the price?

Exactly the same:

94.8 billion roubles

There was no newly negotiated valuation.

The state changed the buyer.

The figure survived unchanged.

8. Moscow gave no public explanation for replacing Novatek

Reuters reported that the Russian government nullified the year-old decision to sell the interest to Novatek without explaining why. (Business Standard)

Interfax likewise recorded that Gazprom had replaced Novatek as purchaser and that the April 2023 order was no longer valid. (Interfax)

The archive therefore should not invent an explanation.

It is possible to speculate about commercial, political or legal reasons.

There is no need.

The documentary fact is sufficient:

Novatek was approved in April 2023.

The Novatek transaction did not move forward.

Gazprom’s vehicle replaced it in March 2024.

The 94.8 billion-rouble price remained unchanged.

Anything beyond that requires evidence.

9. Gazprom ended up controlling nearly 78%

Before the restructuring, Gazprom had held just over 50% of Sakhalin Energy.

Mitsui retained 12.5%.

Mitsubishi retained 10%.

The acquisition of the former Shell allocation took Gazprom’s effective interest in the replacement operator to approximately 77.5%. (Interfax)

The ownership transformation was therefore substantial.

Shell, which had once led development of Sakhalin II, was outside the Russian operating company.

Gazprom now exercised overwhelming control.

The Japanese partners remained.

The project itself continued producing LNG.

But Shell’s financial rights connected with the exit were still unresolved.

10. Shell again reserved its rights

When Reuters reported the Gazprom transaction in March 2024, Shell did not describe the matter as a normal completed sale from which it had received the purchase price.

Its statement was carefully worded.

Shell said it could not comment on matters relating to the Russian government decree process and added that it reserved all legal rights relating to its 27.5% minus one share interest in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. (BOE Report)

This language is significant.

Shell was not accepting the proposition that Moscow’s disposal of the replacement-company interest had extinguished every right Shell associated with its original investment.

Nor did Shell publicly acknowledge receipt of the 94.8 billion roubles.

The legal position had become layered:

Russia had transferred the project into a Russian entity.

Shell had refused to join it.

Russia had valued the unclaimed interest.

Russia had designated Novatek.

Russia had cancelled Novatek.

Russia had designated a Gazprom company.

Gazprom had acquired the interest.

Shell continued reserving its rights.

That is not a conventional divestment.

11. The dollar value changed even though the rouble figure did not

There is an instructive detail in the contemporaneous reporting.

When Novatek was approved in April 2023, Reuters valued 94.8 billion roubles at approximately US$1.16 billion. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

When the Gazprom-controlled buyer was approved in March 2024, Reuters valued the same 94.8 billion roubles at approximately US$1.02 billion. (Business Standard)

Nothing had changed in the Russian government’s nominal valuation.

The exchange rate had.

That is another reminder that even if Shell ultimately became entitled to the full rouble amount, the value of the compensation in Shell’s reporting currency was not fixed.

Time itself was changing the economics.

12. Gazprom’s accounting tells another part of the story

The Russian buyer did not subsequently account for the Sakhalin interest as though 94.8 billion roubles represented the full economic value of what it obtained.

Gazprom’s financial reporting later recognised a very large gain associated with increasing its Sakhalin II interest.

Bloomberg reported that Gazprom provisionally recognised a gain of approximately 167.4 billion roubles in the first half of 2024 after purchasing Shell’s former 27.5% allocation. (The Star)

Later reporting said that figure was revised upward.

The accounting point is important but should not be overstated.

A bargain-purchase gain does not prove that Russia deliberately cheated Shell or establish what Shell would have obtained in an unrestricted arm’s-length sale.

Accounting fair-value measurements and politically constrained exit prices are not the same thing.

What it does establish is that Gazprom itself recognised an economic value from the acquisition materially greater than the cash price it paid.

13. The 94.8 billion roubles did not disappear

By October 2024, the compensation figure reappeared in an entirely different context.

Russia’s Prosecutor General brought proceedings against eight Shell-group entities.

Interfax reported that the Russian claim was approximately comparable in scale to the 94.8 billion roubles paid for the Sakhalin interest. (Interfax)

Shell’s own SEC filing later explained the position much more precisely.

According to Shell, the Russian prosecutor seeks a declaration allowing Gazprom Export to take approximately 94 billion roubles purportedly set aside for Shell for Sakhalin equity compensation from a Type-C account, and to offset that money against part of an alleged debt owed by Shell Energy Europe to Gazprom Export. (SEC)

The money had therefore travelled conceptually through several stages:

a valuation;

a proposed Novatek acquisition;

a Gazprom acquisition;

a restricted compensation pot;

and finally a potential litigation set-off.

Shell still had not simply collected the exit price.

14. The separate Russian claim is much larger

The 94 billion-rouble fund is only one component of the current dispute.

Shell’s latest annual reporting states that the Russian prosecutor also seeks approximately:

€1.5 billion

from Shell Energy Europe Limited for alleged unpaid gas deliveries during 2022. (Shell)

The prosecutor also seeks declarations concerning what it characterises as Shell’s unlawful abandonment of support for Sakhalin Energy Investment Company.

These are allegations.

They are not findings of liability.

That distinction is particularly important because the Russian proceedings remain unresolved in Shell’s latest authenticated annual report. (Shell)

15. The Sakhalin compensation became collateral in another dispute

This is perhaps the most revealing development in the entire exit-price saga.

The 94.8 billion roubles originally looked like compensation for an asset Shell could no longer operate.

By late 2024, Russia was seeking to use approximately that same pool of money to satisfy part of an entirely different alleged obligation.

A compensation mechanism had become a litigation asset.

That is why describing the March 2024 transaction simply as:

“Gazprom bought Shell’s Sakhalin stake for US$1 billion”

is incomplete.

Gazprom did acquire the replacement-company interest for that price.

But the documentary record does not show Shell simply receiving an unrestricted US$1 billion equivalent.

Shell’s own latest disclosures say the compensation is caught inside the dispute.

16. Shell still owns shares — but not the operating project

There is another apparent paradox.

Shell’s latest reporting continues to identify its 27.5% minus one share interest in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd, the Bermuda-incorporated predecessor entity.

At the same time, Shell notes that this company purportedly no longer holds the licences, rights and obligations associated with Sakhalin II. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

This is why phrases such as “Shell sold its Sakhalin stake to Gazprom” require qualification.

Economically, Gazprom acquired the 27.5% allocation in the new Russian operating company corresponding to Shell’s former position.

Legally, Shell continues to preserve rights connected with shares in the predecessor company.

The operating interest and the original corporate interest are no longer the same thing.

17. The project itself continued

None of this stopped Sakhalin II from producing LNG.

Interfax reported production of approximately 11.5 million tonnes of LNG in 2022. (Interfax)

Reuters later reported that production exceeded 10 million tonnes in 2023, with cargoes continuing to move principally to Asian destinations including Japan, South Korea and China. (BOE Report)

This is another important part of the story.

Shell withdrew.

The corporate vehicle changed.

Ownership changed.

The dispute over compensation persisted.

But the physical asset kept producing.

The project Shell had spent decades building did not disappear with Shell’s exit.

Its economic life continued under a different ownership structure.

18. The Japanese shareholders demonstrate the alternative path

Mitsui and Mitsubishi chose a different course.

They accepted interests in the replacement Russian company.

That decision preserved their direct participation in the operating project.

Shell chose not to.

There were obvious political, sanctions, governance and corporate-policy reasons for Shell’s withdrawal after Russia invaded Ukraine.

This archive does not suggest that remaining would necessarily have been preferable.

The comparison matters for another reason.

It shows that the subsequent compensation dispute was not an unavoidable consequence for every foreign shareholder.

It followed from Shell’s decision not to enter the replacement corporate structure and Russia’s imposed mechanism for disposing of the resulting unclaimed interest. (Interfax)

19. Was 94.8 billion roubles a fair price?

The documentary record does not permit a definitive answer.

Russia determined the valuation under a state-created mechanism after fundamentally restructuring the project.

The sale was not an unrestricted international auction.

Shell did not negotiate the transaction as seller in an ordinary commercial process.

Gazprom later recorded a substantial accounting gain from acquiring the additional interest. (The Star)

Those facts provide context.

They do not establish what an arm’s-length market price would have been.

Accordingly:

Established: Russia fixed the interest’s sale price at 94.8 billion roubles.

Established: Novatek was initially selected.

Established: Gazprom’s vehicle eventually acquired the interest at the same price.

Established: Gazprom subsequently recognised a substantial accounting gain associated with increasing its Sakhalin interest.

Not established: that 94.8 billion roubles represented fair market value.

Not established: that Shell was legally entitled to receive that full amount free of offsets or restrictions.

Not established: that Gazprom’s accounting gain measures any loss legally recoverable by Shell.

20. Shell’s latest position: uncertainty

The most recent authenticated Shell position is contained in its 2025 Annual Report and Accounts, published in March 2026.

Shell states that the Russian proceedings remain ongoing.

It says that the magnitude and timing of any possible obligations or payments cannot presently be estimated reliably.

It also describes a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the ultimate outcome and potential effects on future operations, earnings, cash flow and financial condition. (Shell)

Four and a half years after Shell announced its intention to leave Sakhalin II, that is where the documentary record stands.

Not with a clean closing statement.

Not with a confirmed payment.

But with:

an old Bermuda shareholding;

a Russian operating company Shell did not join;

a 94.8 billion-rouble acquisition price paid by a Gazprom entity;

a restricted compensation account;

and unresolved Moscow litigation.

Documentary Findings

Established: Russian Government Order No. 890-r of 11 April 2023 fixed the sale price of the unclaimed 27.5% Sakhalin Energy LLC interest at 94.8 billion roubles and selected Novatek Moscow Region LLC as purchaser. (Interfax)

Established: In May 2023, Shell CFO Sinead Gorman said Shell had received no payment and retained its legal rights. (Interfax)

Established: The Novatek transaction did not proceed as originally contemplated.

Established: Russian Government Order No. 701-r of 23 March 2024 replaced Novatek with Gazprom-controlled Sakhalin Project LLC while retaining the 94.8 billion-rouble price. (Interfax)

Established: Reuters reported the Gazprom entity’s acquisition of the 27.5% interest for approximately US$1 billion in March 2024. (Business Standard)

Established: Shell responded that it reserved all legal rights associated with its interest in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. (BOE Report)

Established: Shell’s latest annual reporting says approximately 94 billion roubles purportedly set aside for Shell’s Sakhalin equity compensation is held in a Type-C account and is now the subject of a Russian request for set-off against an alleged debt. (Shell)

Established: The same Russian proceedings seek approximately €1.5 billion from Shell Energy Europe for alleged unpaid 2022 gas deliveries. (Shell)

Alleged: The Russian prosecutor’s assertions concerning Shell’s conduct and unpaid gas obligations remain allegations in pending litigation.

Not established: that Shell has received the 94.8 billion roubles.

Not established: that Russia’s valuation represented unrestricted fair-market value.

Not established: that Shell will ultimately recover the compensation or be liable for the claims now asserted against it.

Commentary

Shell’s Sakhalin exit is a useful demonstration of the difference between leaving an asset operationally and leaving it legally.

Operationally, Shell was gone quickly.

Its directors resigned.

Its personnel were withdrawn.

Its influence disappeared.

The Russian state transferred the project into a replacement company.

But ownership rights, compensation rights, LNG-contract disputes and alleged gas-payment liabilities survived.

The 94.8 billion-rouble figure became the thread connecting all of them.

First it was an exit valuation.

Then it was Novatek’s purchase price.

Then Gazprom’s.

Then a compensation pool.

Now Russia wants to use that same pool against Shell in litigation.

A neat corporate exit never occurred.

What occurred was a transfer of control followed by years of legal aftershocks.

Source Record

The principal Russian-government action in 2023 is Order No. 890-r of 11 April 2023, approving Novatek Moscow Region LLC as purchaser of the 27.49999998621683% interest for 94.8 billion roubles. Interfax reproduced the operative terms and recorded publication through Russia’s official legal-information portal. (Interfax)

Interfax — Russian government approves Novatek purchase, 12 April 2023

Shell CFO Sinead Gorman’s May 2023 statement provides the clearest contemporaneous Shell response: no payment had been received and Shell retained its legal rights. (Interfax)

Interfax — Shell says no Sakhalin payment received, 4 May 2023

The principal 2024 Russian action is Order No. 701-r of 23 March 2024, replacing Novatek with Gazprom-controlled Sakhalin Project LLC at the same 94.8 billion-rouble price. (Interfax)

Interfax — Gazprom replaces Novatek as buyer, 25 March 2024

Reuters contemporaneously reported the Gazprom transaction and Shell’s continued reservation of legal rights. (BOE Report)

Reuters report — Gazprom acquisition of former Shell allocation

Shell’s latest authenticated position is contained in its 2025 Annual Report and Accounts and SEC reporting, which describe the continuing Moscow litigation, the approximately €1.5 billion alleged gas debt and the attempt to access approximately 94 billion roubles held for Sakhalin compensation. (Shell)

Shell Annual Report and Accounts 2025

SEC — Shell Russia contingency disclosure

Archive disclaimer: This instalment distinguishes between Shell’s original interest in the Bermuda-incorporated Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, the unclaimed interest in the replacement Russian operator, and the Russian-government mechanism used to dispose of that interest. Russian prosecutorial claims are identified as allegations and are not presented as findings of liability. No inference of unlawful expropriation, unfair valuation or legal entitlement to compensation is made beyond what the cited documents establish.

Site-wide disclaimer applies.

Next instalment The Sakhalin Papers LII: The Type-C Account — €1.5 Billion in Gas Claims, 94 Billion Roubles in Compensation and the Moscow Lawsuit Shell Cannot Yet Close

The 94.8 billion-rouble exit price did not end the Sakhalin story.

It became part of another dispute.

In October 2024, the Russian Prosecutor General sued eight Shell-group entities.

The claim reaches beyond Sakhalin ownership itself.

Russia alleges that Shell Energy Europe failed to pay approximately €1.5 billion for gas delivered in 2022.

It also seeks access to the 94 billion roubles purportedly reserved as Sakhalin equity compensation so that those funds can be applied against the alleged debt. (Shell)

Shell says the outcome remains highly uncertain.

The next file follows the litigation itself:

What is Russia alleging, how did an LNG supply dispute become tied to Shell’s Sakhalin compensation, what has happened inside the Moscow court, and why does Shell still say it cannot reliably estimate what — if anything — it may ultimately have to pay?

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 18 SEPTEMBER 2026 was first posted on September 18, 2026 at 7:24 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

On Friday, a coalition of 15 civil-society and press-freedom organizations demanded that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release renowned Miami-based journalist Luis Galeano. The letter’s signers include Free Press, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders and the Society of Professional Journalists, among others.

Read the letter.

ICE detained Galeano on Sept. 14, 2026, while he was working as a rideshare driver to support his primary role as director of the news outlet Café con Voz. Galeano came to the United States in 2018 from Nicaragua. His reporting in Nicaragua had exposed the government’s significant human-rights abuses. Later, the Ortega-Murillo regime stripped nearly 100 journalists of their Nicaraguan citizenship as a penalty for covering the government’s totalitarian tactics.

Since arriving in the United States, Galeano has conducted Spanish-language reporting for communities throughout Florida. He has a Social Security number and a work permit, with a pending asylum case filed nearly seven years ago.

“The U.S. government’s targeting and detention of Galeano are a troubling escalation of attacks on journalists and media workers, particularly immigrant journalists, who consistently provide much-needed journalism and civic information for their communities,” the letter reads. “In the case of Galeano, there are severe dangers should the U.S. government seek to ignore his asylum case and move to deport him. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) withdrew temporary protected status (TPS) for Nicaraguan immigrants starting in July 2025. That would mean any unfounded punitive actions taken against Galeano that might lead to his deportation could very well place him in dire circumstances upon return to Nicaragua, where he was a vocal leader in the press community advocating for human rights.”

Free Press Senior Counsel Nora Benavidez said:

“When the government arrests and detains a journalist and prevents them from doing their work, it sends a chilling message to other reporters and civilians considering speaking truth to power. It’s horrifying that Luis Galeano is now the latest in a long line of journalists who came to the United States to report on issues of the day and instead face deportation.

“To be clear: These cases aren’t just about cracking down on immigration. They are about cutting off community access to vital coverage and scaring reporters from holding those in power accountable. If our government can close off channels of exchange and the free flow of ideas, it is no more than a dictatorship. This coalition has joined together to urge for Luis Galeano’s release — and we will continue to advocate for press freedom as essential to our democracy and collective dignity.”

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rights of Nature in Tamaqua, CELDF is sharing an interview with Cathy Miorelli and CELDF’s Education Director Ben Price as the two recall some of the events and impacts that led to the historic ordinance adoption in 2006.

The post 20th Anniversary of Rights of Nature appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Ukraine may be heading toward one of its strongest harvests since the start of the full-scale war. But in 2026, the central question is no longer how much grain the country can produce. It is how much of that harvest can actually reach buyers.

According to the Ukrainian Grain Association, Ukraine’s combined grain and oilseed harvest could reach 84.6 million metric tons in 2026, up from roughly 80 million metric tons in 2025. As of September 15, 2026, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine reported over 24.9 million metric tons of wheat and 6.4 million metric tons of barley being harvested. The country is expected to harvest 32.1 million metric tons of corn. If logistics operate without major disruptions, Ukraine’s export potential could approach 52 million metric tons in the 2026/27 marketing year, compared with 41.1 million metric tons in the previous season.

These figures highlight the extraordinary adaptability of Ukrainian agriculture. Farmers continue to work through air raid alerts, cultivate land near the front lines and in mined lands, and cope with labor shortages, damaged machinery, unstable electricity supplies, and rising production costs.

These numbers are impressive, although they should not be read in isolation. For many producers, the situation on the ground remains considerably more difficult than aggregate harvest data would suggest.

Yet a strong harvest alone does not guarantee food system resilience. Ukraine’s challenge is increasingly shifting from production to access. Farmers may be able to grow the grain, but whether they can move it efficiently, safely, and affordably to international markets will determine the real value of the 2026 harvest.

For Ukraine, that difference matters not only for export revenues. It will also shape farmers’ ability to finance the next planting season, maintain stable production, and remain economically viable under prolonged wartime conditions. And for the rest of the world, the stakes extend far beyond Ukraine’s borders. The country remains a key supplier to global grain markets, meaning that disruptions to its exports can reverberate through food prices, trade routes, and economies dependent on food imports. Ukraine may have the harvest. The harder question is whether the world will be able to receive it.

The harvest is there. Logistics are the bottleneck. In August and September, the scale of Ukraine’s logistics challenge became especially clear. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, between August 1 and 26 the country exported 1.423 million metric tons of grains, oilseeds, and processed agricultural products—only about one-third of its potential export volume. Grain exports alone totaled 822 thousand metric tons, or roughly 21 percent of the potential volume needed. Logistics issues worsen grain storage shortages, with slow exports threatening an 8–11 million ton domestic deficit by November.

The problem, then, is not a lack of grain or a lack of buyers. It is the physical ability to deliver agricultural products from Ukrainian farms to global markets. Black Sea ports remain essential to Ukraine’s agricultural trade. According to the Ukrainian Grain Association, seaports handle around 90 percent of the country’s grain and oilseed exports, while overland and other alternative routes cannot fully replace maritime shipping. Due to continuing logistics constraints caused by the war, Ukraine could lose nearly US$10 billion in potential agricultural exports.

There is another problem—the cost of alternatives. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, shifting agricultural exports to alternative routes in August increased logistics costs by at least US$50 per metric ton. In particular Atria Brokers reports an increase in freight rates for shipping corn on 6-thousand-ton coasters from Danube River ports to the Mediterranean reaching US$105 per ton as of September 10, 2026, compared to US$28 in June-July 2026. For a relatively low-value bulk commodity such as grain, that additional cost can absorb a significant share of a farmer’s margin. The result is a striking paradox. Global grain prices can rise as Black Sea supplies become tighter, while prices received by Ukrainian farmers can fall because grain accumulates inside the country. In other words, the same disruption that makes Ukrainian grain more valuable on the world market can make it less profitable for the farmers who produce it.

Global markets are already responding to lower Ukrainian supplies.This is no longer only a Ukrainian problem. In August, the FAO Food Price Index rose to 133.3 points, up 1.9 percent from the previous month and 2.5 percent from a year earlier. The FAO Cereal Price Index increased by 2.2 percent, while international wheat prices rose 2.6 percent over the month and were already 15 percent higher than a year earlier. FAO identified disruptions to Black Sea logistics as one of the factors contributing to higher prices. The wheat market has reacted even more sharply. According to Reuters, by August 20 Chicago wheat futures had risen by more than 17 percent since the beginning of July.
Black Sea wheat was trading at roughly US$260-280 per metric ton for August-September arrivals, while replacing those supplies with Australian wheat could cost Asian buyers around US$315–320 per metric ton. For wealthier countries, this mostly means paying more for grain. For import-dependent economies, the consequences can be far more serious. According to Reuters, Egypt sourced more than 82 percent of its imported wheat from Russia and Ukraine combined during the first half of 2026. Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and other major importers also remain highly dependent on supplies from the Black Sea region.

For these countries, higher grain prices are not simply a trade issue. They can translate into larger food import bills, greater pressure on public budgets, and higher prices for basic foods. That is why disruptions to Black Sea trade are increasingly shifting from a regional logistics problem into a driver of global food price inflation.

When Ukraine cannot export, other countries fill the gap. One of the clearest signs of how global grain trade is shifting comes from Argentina. According to Reuters, Argentina’s corn exports are expected to reach a record 10 million metric tons in August and September 2026 while the usual export volumes for August-September reach about 3 million tons. Argentina is also getting more active in the global sunflower and soybean oil and meal markets due to tighter supply from the Black Sea region, increasing competition. This is especially relevant for India and the EU, which remain key destinations for both Argentine and Ukrainian products.

Competition is also increasing in oilseed markets. Argentina is expanding its supplies of soybean and sunflower oil to Europe and India, while Brazil continues to strengthen its position as a major soybean supplier to China. Russia is also redirecting grain and vegetable oil exports to alternative markets, further intensifying competition for Ukraine.

One reason is that buyers are looking for alternatives to Ukrainian supplies disrupted by the war and constraints on Black Sea shipping. The shift is especially visible in North Africa, a region that has traditionally been an important market for Ukrainian grain. During the first seven months of 2026, Argentine corn shipments to North Africa increased by 45 percent. Morocco’s imports of Argentine corn jumped 133 percent year over year, while Egypt increased purchases by 48 percent and Algeria by 10 percent. These figures point to an important economic shift. When Ukraine loses export capacity for several months, the consequences extend beyond lost revenue. Buyers find new suppliers, shipping companies reorganize routes, and commercial relationships begin to shift toward competitors.

And once those relationships are established, they may not immediately reverse. Even if Ukraine restores the full capacity of its ports, regaining some export markets could take time. The longer disruptions persist, the greater the risk that what begins as a temporary logistics problem becomes a longer-term loss of market share. In this sense, the cost of disrupted exports is not measured only in the grain that fails to leave Ukraine today. It may also be measured in the markets Ukraine has to win back tomorrow.

The biggest risk is not this year’s harvest, but the next one. Ukraine’s export problem is quickly becoming a liquidity problem for farmers. Grain sales finance the next production cycle. They pay for seeds, fertilizer, fuel, land rent, wages, machinery repairs, and loan repayments. When grain remains in storage, a farmer’s working capital is effectively locked up with it. That is why a large harvest can paradoxically weaken the producer who grew it. As of September 15, 2026, at Ukrainian ports, prices for food and feed wheat stood at $167-177 per ton and $146-155 per ton CPT port, respectively. If farmers are forced to sell at depressed domestic prices while absorbing higher logistics costs, they may respond by cutting fertilizer use, delaying machinery purchases, or reducing the area they plant the following season. Small and medium-sized farms are particularly vulnerable because they typically have less working capital and less capacity to store grain while waiting for better prices.

A U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization assessment of more than 2,800 rural households across nine frontline regions of Ukraine illustrates the scale of this pressure. One in three surveyed households reported declining income over the previous year. Among families that rely primarily on agriculture for their livelihoods, 48 percent reported income losses. More than three-quarters of surveyed households were already drawing down savings, borrowing money, or cutting essential expenses, including spending on health care and education, to cope with financial pressure.

These figures point to a broader lesson about agricultural resilience. Resilience cannot be measured only by how many tons of grain Ukraine harvests this year; it should be assessed in terms of the production sustainability, which depends on whether farmers have enough liquidity to buy inputs, maintain equipment, keep workers employed, and plant again next season. A record harvest today means little if producers cannot afford to produce another one tomorrow.

Storage can buy time, but it cannot solve the problem. If export constraints persist, Ukraine will face another challenge—where to store the new harvest. Logistics issues worsen grain storage shortages, with slow exports threatening an 8–11 million ton domestic deficit by November. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, international partners have already confirmed around US$10.5 million in support for temporary storage solutions, including grain bags. Ukraine is also finalizing discussions with the World Bank over an additional US$25 million in assistance.

This support is important, especially for smaller farms and producers in front-line regions. But storage can only buy time. It does not create a buyer. It does not lower transportation costs. And it does not restore the working capital that farmers need for the next production cycle. Temporary storage can help prevent immediate losses and give producers greater flexibility in choosing when to sell. But it cannot substitute for functioning export routes. The real solution is stable and predictable access to international markets. Without such access, additional storage risks becoming nothing more than an enlarged “waiting room” for grain that still has nowhere to be sold.

One question is will Europe and the Danube replace the Black Sea? The European Union has already helped build one of the most important backup logistics systems for Ukrainian trade. According to the European Commission, the EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes have enabled the export of nearly 230 million metric tons of Ukrainian goods since May 2022, including around 94 million metric tons of grain, oilseeds, and related products. Without these routes, the consequences of disruptions to maritime trade would have been far more severe. But August 2026 also showed the limits of an overland solution. According to the Ukrainian government, between August 1 and 26, roughly 600,000 metric tons of agricultural products moved by rail and another 600,000 metric tons through the Danube, while road transport accounted for only about 80,000 metric tons.

For grain, this difference matters. Maritime shipping can move enormous volumes of relatively low-value bulk commodities over long distances at lower cost. Moving the same quantities by thousands of railcars and trucks is slower, more expensive, and constrained by border capacity, infrastructure, and transshipment bottlenecks. The Danube, rail links, and road corridors are therefore indispensable as alternative routes. They provide resilience when Black Sea access is disrupted and reduce Ukraine’s dependence on a single export channel.

But due to their limited throughput capacity, they cannot fully replace deep-water seaports. Europe’s overland routes should be treated as a strategic backup and a permanent part of a more diversified export system—not as a substitute for secure Black Sea shipping. For Ukraine’s grain economy, resilience ultimately requires both: strong connections to Europe and reliable access to the sea.

Ukraine needs more than one corridor. It needs a resilient food system. Ukraine’s first priority must remain the security of maritime exports. That means protecting ports, transport networks, and energy infrastructure, while expanding war-risk insurance mechanisms for shipping companies and agricultural businesses.

The second priority is protecting farmers’ financial cycle. Affordable credit, guarantees, grants, warehouse-receipt financing, and access to insurance can help producers avoid being forced to sell grain when domestic prices are at their lowest. Without that financial buffer, even a strong harvest can leave farmers short of the cash they need to plant the next one.

A third priority is expanding the capacity of the Danube, rail, and border infrastructure. The EU–Ukraine Solidarity Lanes have already demonstrated their strategic value. But the current crisis also shows that these routes need greater capacity, faster border procedures, and continued investment if they are to serve as a reliable long-term component of Ukraine’s export system.

And Ukraine needs to move further up the agricultural value chain. Producing more flour, animal feed, vegetable oils, starch, bioethanol, and other higher-value products would reduce the country’s dependence on a model in which economic performance is determined largely by how many tons of raw grain can physically leave through a port. Processing cannot replace grain exports. But it can diversify revenue, create jobs, reduce the value lost to high transport costs, and make the agricultural economy more resilient to logistics shocks.

Ukraine also needs predictable trade rules with the European Union. Farmers make production decisions months before harvest. Uncertainty over quotas, transit conditions, or national restrictions adds another layer of risk to an already unpredictable wartime environment. The broader lesson is that Ukraine does not need a single replacement for the Black Sea. It needs a diversified food and export system in which secure maritime trade, European land routes, financial support, storage, processing, and predictable market access reinforce one another. Resilience will come not from one corridor, but from having multiple options when any one of them fails. Ukraine will have bread. The question is what the world will pay.

Ukraine does not currently face a physical shortage of grain for domestic consumption. The Ukrainian government has stressed that the country is producing enough to meet its own food needs. But the global market is already feeling the effects of disruptions to Black Sea trade.

Ukrainian grain can theoretically be replaced by supplies from Argentina, Australia, the United States, Canada, and other major exporters. But that substitution comes at a cost. It reshapes trade flows, lengthens shipping routes, increases freight and insurance expenses, and adds pressure to food-importing countries that are often the least able to absorb higher prices. That is why Ukraine’s 2026 harvest is more than a test of the country’s agricultural sector. It exposes one of the central vulnerabilities of the global food system: producing food is not enough. Food must also be moved safely, predictably, and affordably to the people who need it.

There is also a broader point here. Ukraine’s experience since 2022 has shown how closely agricultural production, transport security, trade policy, and global food security are now connected. Treating them as separate policy questions no longer makes much sense. Ukrainian farmers have already proven that they are capable of continuing grain production under the extraordinary conditions of a full-scale war. The question now is whether the international community can help ensure that this grain reaches global markets. Because the success of Ukraine’s harvest should not be measured only by what is grown in its fields. It should also be measured by whether that food can reach the tables that depend on it.

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

Photo courtesy of Raimond Spekking, Wikimedia Commons

The post Will Ukraine’s Record Wartime Harvest Reach Global Markets? appeared first on Food Tank.

A version of this piece was featured in Food Tank’s newsletter, released weekly on Thursdays. To make sure it lands straight in your inbox and to be among the first to receive it, subscribe now by clicking here.

At major events like Climate Week NYC, we do a lot of talking. Over the course of the week, hundreds of experts and inspiring changemakers cross our stage. I almost always have a water bottle with me when I’m moderating these discussions, because my voice gets tired!

But we can’t just talk about addressing the climate crisis. We have to do something. There’s a reason phrases like “actions speak louder than words” and “leading by example” are repeated so often: They’re 100 percent true.

The discussions we’re having—from Climate Week NYC next week to COP31 later this year and beyond—are most valuable when each of us takes what we’re hearing and learning and translates these into on-the-ground solutions. In this newsletter last week and this week, we’re highlighting 13 (a baker’s dozen!) of the many steps that are already being taken across the global food system.

Find out more about our amazing lineup for Climate Week NYC—featuring more than 225 speakers and performers from September 20 to 25—by CLICKING HERE. And all 13 of our Summits are being livestreamed, so you can tune in from wherever you live!

Here’s this week’s crop of seven solutions:

Telling people-centered food stories

I’ve said before that storytelling can change the world, and that’s no exaggeration! Films and documentaries—and other forms of media, from books to podcasts to articles—can bring viewers to the front lines of food system action, forge powerful personal connections to complex topics, and elevate success stories that can then be shared and replicated for even broader impacts.

“There is a love story in every practice of agriculture, and as we face an increasingly mechanized world, stories coming from the heart are the path towards a more sustainable, prosperous, and empathetic future,” says Haven Worley, the director of “Irish Farmers: A Love Story,” Food Tank’s debut documentary short.

Teaching optimism to future food leaders

Over many decades as one of the country’s top food policy experts, professor and nutritionist Marion Nestle—who celebrated her 90th birthday last week!—has guided generations of eaters, students, and policymakers toward a deeper understanding of the food system. One of the countless lessons I’ve learned from Marion is that true mentorship is not just about navigating the world as it is today; it’s about seeing the world as it could be and developing the tools to make that into reality.

“I deeply believe that setting goals—even those that seem highly unattainable—is a useful public health strategy,” Marion wrote in a 90th birthday reflection blog post. “Unrealistic goals can educate, expand expectations, promote critical thinking, motivate action, attract resources, and encourage accountability.”

Integrating food into the school day beyond the cafeteria

Organizations from Pilot Light to Wellness in the Schools are redefining food education, ensuring that children from a young age are thinking critically about where food comes from, developing tools to fuel their bodies and minds, and reflecting on how they can be agents of change to drive climate action.

“Incredible work is already happening in food education, but the question now is how we build on it so every student has the opportunity to learn about food,” says Alex DeSorbo-Quinn, Executive Director of Pilot Light.

Making better consumer choices feel achievable

Food Tankers know how impactful our food choices are: What we eat matters not just for our individual bodies but for the entire food system, too. But educating consumers—and getting folks to actually change their behavior—is easier said than done, which is why any accessible resource goes a long way. For example, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch provides well-researched recommendations that encompass some ¾ of U.S. market seafood and half of global seafood, plus restaurants and major companies committed to sustainable blue food systems.

“I think it really is important to know that the choices we make do matter at the grocery store. They do mean something,” says Wendy Norden, Director of Science and Global Strategies at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “And they help us do our work and improve, because we want to celebrate seafood.”

Giving chefs a platform as food systems leaders

Here’s an idea: What if our food policy were influenced less by politicians taking donations from major food corporations, and instead shaped by people who know food better than anyone: Chefs! While the Trump-Vance Administration was reshaping the “food pyramid” of dietary guidelines for all Americans, Chef Sean Sherman, a.k.a. The Sioux Chef, had a better idea. He created what he calls the Regional Indigenous Nutritional Guide, or the RING Diet, which helps us eat in ways that match the places we actually live.

“The RING Diet is a living guide, and one you could actually use,” Chef Sherman, the founder of Native American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS) writes. “You can use it to learn about your own region, its seasons, its plants and animals and the precious nutrients they offer and how they work within our bodily systems. A tool to teach your kids, to plan a week of eating, to reconnect with the specific foods of the specific place you stand on.”

Working smarter to nourish the future

It’s easy to list off a couple examples of foods that are healthy and a couple that are not. It’s much more difficult to explain why—what specific biomolecules make up our foods and how each one impacts systems in our bodies. This is why I both admire and am awestruck by the Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI), which is creating data systems to map out these biomolecules and translate that research into action.

As PTFI Global Director Selena Ahmed and other experts write in a joint Op-Ed, “We cannot fix what we do not measure. … Without knowing what’s actually in our food, the tens of thousands of molecules, we cannot design food systems that sustain health.”

Embedding resilience into entire supply chains

We typically think of certifications like organic in the context of individual farms or food producers—but what about entire supply chains? Take a new carbon insetting program in the organic dairy industry, for example: Collaboration across the supply chain is creating a model for private-sector companies like Organic Valley, UNFI, and Whole Foods Market to work together to reduce emissions and build resilience. This is a step toward the kind of big-picture thinking we need to see across the entire food system!

“When we collaborate across the value chain, we unlock new ways to reduce emissions, meet climate goals, and support the people at the heart of it all—our farmers,” says Jessica Luhning, Organic Valley’s Senior Sustainability Manager.

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

Photo courtesy of Polina Kuzovkova , Unsplash

The post These Solutions Are a Roadmap to a Stronger Food System, Part II appeared first on Food Tank.

RUSH, COLO. (September 18, 2026) — Brett Gray Ranch, located in Colorado’s eastern plains, is the latest ranch to achieve the National Audubon Society’s Bird-Friendly Land...

'They hid the facts and continued business as usual, which meant causing sickness and deaths.'

Source

Press Release: CNX’s Expanded Radiation Monitoring and Disclosure Fall Short. FracTracker calls for comprehensive radiation testing and enforceable public reporting requirements across Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry.

The post CNX’s Expanded Radiation Monitoring and Disclosure Fall Short appeared first on FracTracker Alliance.

The wealth explosion among the ultra-rich has led to soaring demand for luxury private jets and the infrastructure to serve them, including expanded private aircraft hangers and runway capacity at local and regional airports. Meanwhile, transnational corporations wanting to shield their top managers from interactions with the public are also expanding their private jet fleets, even as more shareholders are trying to rein in private jet excess.

A vital new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, High Flyers 2026, reveals just how much this private jet-setting is costing taxpayers and the planet.

Key findings:

• Private jets and charter services account for roughly 16 percent of FAA-handled flight operations. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates noncommercial private jets account for 7 percent of the airspace activity yet contribute less than 0.6 percent of taxes that flow into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund that helps finance FAA operations.
• An estimated 256,000 people, or roughly 0.003 percent of the population, fly on private jets, including the ultrawealthy who use fractional ownership or private charter jets.
• Private jets are one of the most super-polluting forms of transportation, with direct carbon emissions 10 to 14 times greater per passenger than commercial aviation travel –along with additional contributions to global warming from effective radiative forcing, which can be two to four times greater than those from CO2 emissions.
• The National Business Aviation Association spent approximately $2 million on lobbying in 2025 in favor of legislation that gives massive tax breaks for private jet owners, like the permanent accelerated depreciation tax of 2025.
• Private jet ownership and use has accelerated as the number of ultra-high net worth individuals and billionaires has grown. There are 3,428 global billionaires as of this year. The median wealth of a private jet owner is $190 million, while the median wealth of a fractional owner of a private jet is $140 million.
• A luxury tax of 10 percent on used jets and 5 percent on new jets could have raised more than $3 billion in 2025, funds that could be invested in sustainable ground transportation.
• More than a third of all Airport Infrastructure Grants awarded through 2026 went to airport projects that may primarily benefit private jets, amounting to more than $1.13 billion in grant funds.
• Between 2019 and 2025, fractional jet ownership increased 65 percent.
• Substituting so-called “sustainable aviation fuels” (SAFs) is a greenscreen distraction. While there may be some potential for electrification of small scale short hop aviation, there is no scalable or cost-effective alternative to kerosene-based jet fuels developing at the speed of climate change.

“The rest of us should not have to pay for the luxury excess of the private jet billionaire class. Our hard-earned tax dollars shouldn’t subsidize their reckless air travel habits that further harm our warming planet,” said report co-author Chuck Collins. “At a time when most ordinary people are struggling to afford groceries, rent, and healthcare, our report exposes how the ultra-rich and greedy corporations are private jet-setting at the expense of the rest of us, while trying to dodge accountability for fueling the climate crisis.”

The Institute for Policy Studies worked with the worldwide community of 20,000+ open-source trackers to build a new tool (the Private Jet Emissions Tracker, or PJET) that analyzes the private-jet flights into and out of specific locations and times—like the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, or every game of the World Cup.

One key solution: make private jet-setters pay their fair share.

For starters, Congress should strip a private jet tax avoidance provision from the pending air traffic safety legislation, the ALERT Act. “The private jet lobby is cynically and shamelessly inserting yet another tax break for private jets into legislation to respond to the Potomac river aircraft-heliocopter crash in January 2025,” said Collins.

Champions like Stephen Prince have publicly announced they have given up private jets. Meanwhile, high-profile jet-setters like Taylor Swift who have drawn scrutiny recently have yet to change their travel habits.

“Since we first released our analysis on the costs of private jet travel to taxpayers and the planet in 2023, we’ve seen a shocking and irresponsible rise in the use of private jet travel,” said report co-author Omar Ocampo. “Unfortunately, the private jet lobby has worked hard to lower the tax obligations of the ultrawealthy. Meanwhile, the aviation industry pushes false solutions on the climate crisis. It’s time to stop making taxpayers subsidize luxury private jet travel and use our resources to green other industries.”

Other key policy solutions:

• Stop another pending private jet tax break.
• Repeal one-year accelerated bonus depreciation of private jet purchases and pass the End Subsidies for Private Jets Act.

• Increase tax on private jet fuel.
• Levy a luxury tax on private jet sales.

• Roll back secrecy provisions.
• Stop funding and constructing new private jet infrastructure, just as some institutions have committed to no new fossil fuel infrastructure.

“At a time when billionaires and the ultra-wealthy get to avoid the enshittification of commercial air travel experience, taxpayers and the planet shouldn’t bear the costs of their luxury private jet-setting,” concluded Collins.

Read the full report: https://ips-dc.org/report-high-flyers-2026

The company has until November to formally appeal the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s order to directly assign some costs of transmission. Dominion Energy has an October deadline to propose compliant policy changes.

Iran has experienced multiple crises over the past few years, including economic challenges and war. So far, however, these have not appeared to affect one of the most practical initiatives developed by local conservation leaders in northern Iran: Gavbangi.

In Farsi Gavbangi refers to the call of the maral (also known as Caspian red deer, Cervus elaphus maral), who live in the green mountains in northern Iran from early September to early October. Maral habitat in Iran spans forests from the Azerbaijan-Iran borderland in the northwest to Golestan National Park in the east.

In autumn the forests in the north display beautiful, colorful leaves, and local people commonly hear a sound like a cow that they call Gav (cow) bangi (call). It is both inspiring and reassuring to hear the charismatic calls of deer echoing through the forests, a reminder of a functioning ecosystem. As a former conservation volunteer in Iran and a current Ph.D. student in natural resources at the University of Vermont, I experienced Gavbangi in northern Iran’s protected areas. During that time I witnessed firsthand the vital role of community collaboration in maral’s conservation.

I have also seen the importance of this collaboration: Poachers know this is the ideal time to find deer, specifically males.

A herd of maral in Kiasar National Park, Iran. Photograph by Hamed Tizrooyan. Used with permission.

Maral are a protected species in Iran, but according to the Iranian Department of Environment they face two main threats: habitat loss and poaching. During Gavbangi volunteer conservationists collaborate with rangers and protected area managers to address both threats in protected areas and potential habitats.

Volunteers stay in scheduled locations across the habitat, listening to deer calls and ensuring that poachers do not take advantage of this vulnerable period. Volunteers are divided into small groups assigned to remote areas that are difficult to monitor with a small number of rangers. Their visible presence alone acts as an obstacle, discouraging poachers from entering.

These days economic pressure may be driving an increase in poaching, although there is no reliable data. Human development like expanding road networks also makes these efforts more critical than ever.

A male Maral pictured by Hamed Tizrooyan at Kiasar National Park, Iran, Photo by: Hamed Tizrooyan. Used with permission.

Social media and wildlife photography have played a significant role in promoting awareness of species and habitat protection in Iran. Many young volunteers became interested in conservation activities by seeing the beauty of nature and its residents.

The most interesting social aspect of Gavbangi is how volunteers gather. In my experience social media, activists, and the role of wildlife photographers are crucial, as they showcase the beauty of nature and its diverse forms. These individuals typically work closely with rangers to manage volunteers and identify the best locations. This is an excellent example of collaboration between the public sector and volunteer conservationists, which began around 15 years ago.

A group of volunteers at Gavbbangi, Kiasar National Park, Iran, 2025, Photo by Amirhossein Gohardehi (used with permission)

Many experts say it’s necessary to see interested individuals as an opportunity to preserve biodiversity. The main advantage of these activities is that they involve more people in conservation, which could lead to more effective conservation of the red deer.

There is an ongoing debate among conservationists about whether participation in Gavbangi should remain purely voluntary or be integrated into ecotourism programs, where participants pay to join. Although hosting a tour can bring money to the area and invest it in conservation, it can attract irresponsible individuals and increase the human population, which can negatively affect the project’s goal and compromise the area’s safety.

To me another aspect of Gavbangi is that it provides amateur volunteers with the opportunity to explore the ecosystem in the wild, which could be an excellent driver for enhancing conservation.

As a former volunteer turned professional conservationist, I feel it essential that volunteer initiatives like Gavbangi be closely monitored as they grow to ensure they stay on the right path, especially in engaging younger generations in protecting the Maral during its most vulnerable period. To achieve this, it would be beneficial if local conservation groups collaborate with conservation experts to train the volunteers. And Gavbangi leaders can benefit greatly from engaging local residents on conservation efforts.

Based on my conversations with several experts involved in Gavbangi, Iran’s ongoing challenges have not had a direct impact on the event so far. However, conservationists in the country are under considerable pressure, and we may see the effects of these crises in the next Gavbangi event.

It is our collective responsibility to ensure that future generations can still hear the haunting call of the deer echoing through the northern forests of Iran.

References:

Hadi Pourmosa, S. M. G. (2024). Habitat suitability modeling of the Caspian Red Deer (Cervus elaphus maral) in the central zone of the Hyrcanian region: Identification of priority conservation areas. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.13823908

Kiabi, B. H., Ali Ghaemi, R., Jahanshahi, M., & Sassani, A. (2004). Population status, biology and ecology of the Maral, Cervus elaphus maral , in Golestan National Park, Iran. Zoology in the Middle East, 33(1), 125–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/09397140.2004.10638071

Kolahi, M., Sakai, T., Moriya, K., Yoshikawa, M., & Esmaili, R. (2014). From paper parks to real conservations: Case study of social capital in Iran’s biodiversity conservation. https://www.sid.ir/en/VEWSSID/J_pdf/108220140111.pdf

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Incredible Journeys: How Hoofing It Helps Deer and Caribou

The post Gavbangi: Iran’s Long-Running Conservation Effort Relies on Volunteers — and Turns Them Into Habitat Protectors appeared first on The Revelator.

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

Join the Clean Air Council in participating in the Pretzel Pedal Challenge! Log your bike rides from September 1-30 to automatically earn points that qualify you for discounts and prizes! Create a Share-A-Ride profile to join!

Image Source: WHYY

WHYY: SEPTA gets $80 million federal grant to make ADA upgrades at trolley stations – Federal grant money has been awarded to SEPTA, through the All Stations Accessibility Program. $80 million has been allocated for the reconstruction of the 22nd Street, 33rd Street, and 36th Street trolley stations, building elevators, and a complete overhaul of facilities. The upgrades should be completed in 2-3 years, coinciding with the implementation of new accessible trolleys, slated for arrival in 2029.

Image Source: 6ABC

6ABC: Local athletes develop lifelong passions atop bikes with Independence Youth Cycling – Independence Youth Cycling is a local nonprofit that connects kids with cycling through bike-share programs, coaches and teams, and team rides. The nonprofit supports series across Philadelphia, south Jersey, and Montgomery County. Teams include introducing kids to mountain biking as a sport through race and adventure events, and trail rides in different parks across Philadelphia.

Image Source: BillyPenn

BillyPenn: The status of the Spring Garden Connector project – The Spring Garden Street corridor has been waiting for improvements and upgrades since 2009. The corridor improvements include protections for cyclists and pedestrians, increased access to green space, and better connectivity to the nationwide East Coast Greenway Project. The project did succeed in 2016 with a public art installation along I-95 underpass outside Spring Garden Station. However, the core concept, protected bike lanes, is still to come. The project is still in the design phase, with hopes to find construction contracts in 2029.

Other Stories

Mass Transit Mag: New Garden State Initiative report says NJ Transit needs performance-based review, not just more funding

The Inquirer: Burlington County’s free shuttle bus will finally hit the road next week

Transit Forward Philadelphia: The Impact of Trolley Modernization on Philly Students

Philadelphia Today: PHL Airport Buys 31.6-Acre Property for $42 Million to Fuel Future Expansion

Mass Transit Mag: NJ Transit advances bus technology upgrades to add Wi-Fi, better bus tracking

Pittsburgh Business Times: Amtrak creates board committee to guide expansion as Pittsburgh gains second daily train

Türkiye and Australia risk losing their credibility as hosts of this year’s COP31 UN climate summit if they keep betting on fossil fuels at home, climate policy experts have warned. 

As governments are expected to continue fraught talks over how to advance the global transition away from oil, coal and gas in Antalya this November, both of the co-host countries are pursuing fossil fuel expansion at home, without a national timeline to phase out their use.

Türkiye has accelerated its rollout of wind and solar energy in recent years. But that progress has yet to make a dent in the country’s dependence on fossil fuels for power, as demand growth has outpaced the renewables build-out, new analysis by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has found.

The share of electricity generated by burning coal and fossil gas – 56% in 2025 – has barely changed since 2019, and total fossil fuel use in the power sector, and the emissions it produces, are still rising, according to the report released on Friday.

The Turkish government has also signalled that fossil fuels will remain a central component of its energy mix and has outlined plans to expand the country’s burgeoning domestic gas production in the Black Sea. 

‘Need to demonstrate seriousness’

Australia, which will chair the Antalya negotiations, relies on fossil fuels for over 60% of its electricity, with coal alone still supplying 45%. According to experts, it lacks an ambitious plan to shift away from fossil fuels at home, relying heavily on carbon offsetting to reach its climate targets. 

Australia is also the world’s third-largest fossil fuel exporter and has plans to expand its coal and gas production, which is backed by significant government subsidies. It recently upset climate groups by approving an extension of the Saraji open-cut coal mine in Queensland.  

Türkiye says it has “final decision” at COP31 despite Australia running negotiations

Jennifer Morgan, a senior fellow with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and former climate envoy for Germany, said Türkiye and Australia need to demonstrate their seriousness about their COP presidency roles by leading by example on the energy transition.

“They have made progress in renewable energy,” she told reporters this week. “But I think their credibility – and their ability to therefore bring momentum and good outcomes to the COP – will depend on their taking further action at home.” 

Türkiye’s electrification homework

The co-hosts’ fossil fuel policies are being scrutinised in the run-up to the annual UN climate summit, with much riding on the signal climate diplomacy sends on the energy transition.

Türkiye has so far stopped short of putting any overt political capital behind the fossil fuel transition itself. It has instead been rallying support for a new global electrification target of 35% by 2035, seen as the centrepiece of this year’s non-negotiated Action Agenda put forward by Ankara.

Electrification emerges as COP31 priority

COP31 president Murat Kurum said last week the push to electrify economies – through measures like electric vehicles and heat pumps – will “automatically” lead to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels.

Türkiye’s own energy plan projects the country’s electrification rate would fall short on the global target and only hit 25% by 2035, according to the CAT report, which called for a “substantial step-change” in electrification policies and the deployment of more renewable power and grid infrastructure. 

Coal still dominant

CAT’s analysts also warned that, without a parallel phase-out of fossil fuels, rising electricity demand risks being met in part by coal and gas, failing to deliver the emissions reductions the electrification target is meant to achieve. 

Türkiye has had some success in its clean energy build-out: the share of electricity generation from wind and solar rose to 22% in 2025, up from 12% in 2020, according to the CAT report.

But coal’s role in Türkiye’s electricity mix has also grown, in both its share and absolute terms, over the past decade. And while reliance on fossil gas has declined overall, it still plays an important role in Ankara’s energy policy, which is pushing to boost domestic gas production in the Black Sea.

Pilot boats assist the Osman Gazi as it navigates the Bosphorus on its way to the Black Sea on May 29, 2025 in Istanbul, Turkey. The platform will dock at the Filyos Port in the Black Sea and will stay for a 20 year mission and will provide double the natural gas intake of Turkey to 20 million cubic meters per day. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images) Pilot boats assist the Osman Gazi as it navigates the Bosphorus on its way to the Black Sea on May 29, 2025 in Istanbul, Turkey. The platform will dock at the Filyos Port in the Black Sea and will stay for a 20 year mission and will provide double the natural gas intake of Turkey to 20 million cubic meters per day. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Dr Niklas Höhne from the NewClimate Institute said the government could demonstrate leadership as COP31 president by building on its recent successes in increasing its renewable energy capacity and announcing targets and plans to phase out coal and gas ahead of the summit. 

According to CAT, Türkiye should phase out coal by 2040 and fossil gas by 2045 at the latest to align its power sector with global efforts to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial times. 

Türkiye quiet on fossil fuel roadmap

Ümit Şahin, coordinator of climate change studies at the Istanbul Policy Center (IPM), said Türkiye’s strategy is to approach the fossil fuel debate exclusively from the “end-use point of view”. 

“I don’t expect any push from the Turkish presidency to the producer countries in terms of fossil fuel production,” he told reporters. 

Neither does Şahin believe the Turkish presidency will throw its political weight behind another big-ticket item for COP31: a new global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. 

Brazil took on the responsibility to voluntarily draft this document outside of the formal negotiations as a way to break the deadlock at last year’s UN summit in Belém when governments clashed over whether to develop one. 

The outgoing COP30 presidency will deliver the roadmap in early November – but it will be up to Türkiye and Australia to guide countries towards a decision on how the blueprint will be taken forward, either inside or outside the negotiations.

Leadership needed

Australia’s Chris Bowen, COP31’s president of negotiations, promised to lobby producing countries to deliver a “meaningful step forward” on the fossil fuel transition in an interview with The Guardian earlier this year. But he has been quiet on the role Australia sees for the fossil fuel transition roadmap. 

Natalie Jones, senior policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), said the COP31 co-presidents “must provide clear leadership” on this process. 

“This roadmap cannot be left in a dusty drawer,” she told journalists. “Rather, it must be translated into action, with all countries identifying what elements they can adopt or develop in their own national roadmap.”

• Sep 11, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Made in Nigeria: The race to build an African solar industry from scratch A solar power revolution is gathering pace in Africa and Nigeria wants a slice of the fast-growing industry, but competing with Chinese imports won’t be easy Read more
• Sep 8, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier China’s industrial engine starts to break its fossil fuel habit Despite a rebound in coal generation this year, clean energy from wind and solar is gaining ground on the fossil fuels that have powered decades of industry growth Read more

Like Türkiye, Australia has yet to produce a national blueprint for winding down coal, gas and oil. Rather than moving toward a phase-out, state and federal governments have kept expanding fossil fuel licensing over the past year, according to a new analysis published this month by Climate Analytics. 

Under existing policy, both coal and gas are on track to remain in Australia’s power system as late as 2050 – a trajectory the report defines as incompatible with the 1.5C limit the country says it’s committed to. 

No binding end dates for the Netherlands

Analysts are watching out for national transition roadmaps as a bellwether for governments that claim to be leaders in the global shift away from fossil fuels.

The climate and environment ministers of Colombia and the Netherlands, which are co-hosting the Santa Marta conference, embrace on the podium during the high-level segment in Santa Marta, Colombia, April 28, 2026 (Photo: Colombia Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development) The climate and environment ministers of Colombia and the Netherlands, which are co-hosting the Santa Marta conference, embrace on the podium during the high-level segment in Santa Marta, Colombia, April 28, 2026 (Photo: Colombia Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development)

The Netherlands, which co-hosted the first fossil fuel transition conference in Santa Marta this year, published its own domestic roadmap earlier this week. The document followed through on a pledge that “leadership on transitioning away from fossil fuels must be backed by concrete action, not just ambitious words”, said a spokesperson for Stientje van Veldhoven, the Dutch minister for climate policy.

But experts criticised the plan for failing to set a binding end date for the country’s fossil fuel production and use. While targeting a rapid increase in renewables capacity, the Dutch government only commits to phasing out oil, gas and coal “in the energy and feedstock system to eventually zero, and to minimise fossil use” by 2050. 

Yvo de Boer, a former Dutch diplomat and executive secretary of the UN climate body, said the Dutch roadmap falls short of what’s needed to give industry the confidence to deploy capital in support of the energy transition with greater predictability. 

“Ultimately, a roadmap without deadlines is nothing more than a footpath paved with good intentions,” he added, writing on LinkedIn. 

The post Fossil fuel expansion threatens COP31 hosts’ credibility, experts warn appeared first on Climate Home News.

This is a first-hand account by Margaretha Winda, a journalist based in Pulang Pisau, Central Kalimantan, on Indonesia’s wildfires, which has produced hazardous smoke that chokes its people and wildlife, and has spread to neighbouring countries Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, and the Philippines. 

There is something ironic about forest and land fires. A blaze may start on a single plot of land. But the resulting smoke and haze do not recognize boundaries of ownership. They move past fences, roads, villages. They enter homes, schools, and the lungs of people who never lit a match. Those who never started the fire are the ones who end up paying for it — and that is as true a few kilometers from the fire as it is a few hundred.

What it’s like here

I remember one morning this season waking up to a sky already overcast, the sun reduced to a faint, sickly yellow smear behind the haze. The smell hits before anything else — burning peat, sharp and distinctive, the kind that settles into your chest until it’s hard to take a full breath. And yet life around me didn’t stop: women were still washing clothes at the riverbank with no protection at all, no masks, no thought given to a health check. Children rode their bicycles to school through thick smoke, unmasked, because no notice had come telling schools to close.

This year is worse than anything I remember from three years ago. Back then, fires happened too, but the smoke never got this thick, and it was brought under control quickly. This year’s fires spread everywhere, and the response never caught up.

Where I live, in Pulang Pisau, 1,503 hotspots and 38 fires have burned 334 hectares this season. Jabiren Raya alone accounts for 1,303 hotspots and 257 hectares — including peat near the Tumbang Nusa bridge up to 40 meters deep, among the deepest burning in the regency. It smolders underground and resists rain rather than burning out quickly.

A Forest and Land Fire Control Brigade worker tries to extinguish a fire in Pulang Pisau, Central Kalimantan province, on Aug 12, 2026. Photo: Reuters/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana

I am not writing this from a distance. I’m a journalist, and this season my job has put me at the fire sites themselves, working right up against the smoke. The one thing that’s changed for me is that I now have to wear a mask more carefully than ever, just to avoid getting sick myself — though for most people around me, that choice doesn’t even exist. Work doesn’t stop for haze. There is no version of survival here that includes staying home.

It has reached my own family, too. I have two children, and both came down with acute respiratory infections during this haze season that simply wouldn’t clear — coughing, flu, and at one point diarrhea. They were not the only ones. Children and elderly people across my community have ended up in hospital, struggling to breathe.

Other impacts I’ve seen

Nationally, Indonesia’s health ministry recorded nearly 51,000 acute respiratory infection cases tied to the haze in July and August alone. Two volunteers fighting fires in Central Kalimantan died this month from breathing difficulties. An orangutan was found on a plantation in West Kalimantan and later died of suspected smoke inhalation; firefighters elsewhere have found snake and pangolin carcasses in burned areas.

I’ve seen versions of this closer to home too. In Pulang Pisau, in the early morning and evening, visibility here drops to about one meter. The wildlife I’ve seen displaced is mostly snakes, turtles, and monkeys — animals whose habitat simply burned out from under them. A duck farm near one of the fire sites was directly hit as well, its surroundings caught up in the same blaze. On schooling: some areas of Pulang Pisau have shifted to distance learning, but others are still holding regular in-person classes in the middle of all this smoke — there’s no consistent rule, just whatever each school decides on its own.

And the government’s presence has been strangely uneven. Even as fires grew large across the district, official attention stayed narrowly fixed on Desa Tumbang Nusa, while other areas burned with far less response. 

Smoke doesn’t stop at the borders

I’ve lived through enough dry seasons here to recognize the warning signs: the sky dimming to a dull yellow-grey before the smoke rolls in for good. The wind carries the smoke north toward Palangka Raya. This year, it even crossed the Java Sea and kept going — and by the first week of September, four other countries were living inside it too.

• Singapore. On September 4, residents woke up to a smoggy sky as the air quality index crossed into unhealthy territory. By late afternoon, IQAir’s global rankings placed the city with the third-worst air on the planet.
• Malaysia. In Sarawak state, the capital Kuching had already been ranked the world’s most polluted city for over a week straight, with a hazardous reading of 311. On September 4, its Air Pollutant Index in the town of Serian surged past 500 — a level that can halt nonessential work and outdoor activity — prompting Malaysia’s king to consent to a state of emergency there. A Serian resident told reporters, “Even when I turn on the air conditioner, I can still smell the smoke in my house.” Days earlier, the health ministry reported asthma cases up 259% and upper respiratory infections up 124% in a single week.
• The Philippines. Officials declared air quality “acutely unhealthy” across Manila’s metro area, the Visayas, and Mindanao — three separate island groups, hundreds of kilometers apart, choking on the same haze. The health department was telling people to mask up..
• Brunei. Hazy conditions have blanketed the sultanate since mid-August, with no clear end in sight as the fires behind it keep burning.

The city center blanketed in thick haze in Kuching, Sarawak state, Malaysia, on Sept. 4, 2026. Photo: AP Photo/Xpin Voon.

We may live in very different places, but our fears are starting to sound the same. Families in Sarawak are now doing what mine has done all season — watching their children for coughs, keeping them inside, waiting for the air to clear. Those who contributed least to causing this crisis are so often the first, and the hardest, hit by it. 

An estimated 10.67 million people are affected by this haze here in Indonesia alone.  Citizens have taken this to court before. In 2017, a group of Palangka Raya residents won a citizen lawsuit against the Indonesian government over its failure in handling forest and land fires and in preventing a haze disaster — a court found the state guilty of unlawful negligence, a ruling upheld on appeal and again by the Supreme Court in 2019, only to be dismissed again in a judicial review on 2022. But winning in court hasn’t meant winning in practice: judgments like this one have gone largely unenforced. 

So when people elsewhere start watching their children for coughs and keeping them indoors, waiting for the air to clear — I recognize that fear completely. It’s the one my family has lived inside all season, without the world watching.

Why this keeps happening

Landowners are responsible for safeguarding their land. Companies are responsible for ensuring their operations don’t create risk. Government is responsible for making sure all of this is actually enforced — not just showing up once a fire is already large.

And I want to be precise about who is actually burning, because this gets misunderstood constantly, both inside and outside Indonesia. Dayak communities here largely stopped clearing land by fire a long time ago. The fires happening now are not, in my experience, a story about traditional farming practices gone wrong. 

Part of why these fires catch and spread so easily  goes back decades, to how this land was managed. Much of Kalimantan’s peat has been drained for industrial agriculture, including oil palm, leaving it dry enough to burn like fuel instead of holding the water that once kept it from catching. Indonesian law requires companies operating on peatland to keep it wet, but those rules are widely ignored, and to make it worse the President dismantled the ad hoc government agency that tasked specifically for peat restoration last year, leaving accountability gap that no other institutions seem to prepared to fill.

Burnt peatland in Central Kalimantan province, Indonesia, in August 2026. Photo: Krismes Santo Haloho/Mongabay Indonesia.

What’s also changed is the climate in which we now live. Longer, hotter dry seasons — the kind scientists tie to the broader climate crisis – are setting the stage for fires to start faster and burn longer. Layered on top of this year’s own strong El Niño, fires can now burn underground indried-out peat for months.

The way forward

Communities here already practice gotong royong — mutual cooperation, neighbors carrying each other through hardship. I opened a volunteer relief post in the Kahayan Hilir subdistrict this season to supply logistics to Masyarakat Peduli Api — the volunteer firefighters actually on the ground putting these fires out. A lot of people have stepped up to donate food and drink for them. But those volunteers are still going out without basic equipment — hoses to fight the fire, fuel for the pumps that draw water. That gap shouldn’t be theirs to fill alone, and it shouldn’t have to substitute for a government or companies acting before the smoke crosses a border, rather than after.

This haze disaster isn’t new, and it isn’t only this year’s story — it comes back every long dry season, and every year the response arrives just as unprepared as the last. My ask, to the government and to anyone reading this far: don’t let this become an opportunity for a handful of elites remain unaccountable while residents’ rice fields burn, while elderly people, children, and pregnant women are hospitalized, while the actual cost gets absorbed by people who had no hand in causing it.  In the end, polluters are darkening our collective skies and must pay for the damage they’ve caused. From burning fossil fuels that heat up the planet to clearing forests for plantations, it’s the actions of big corporations, not small farmers, that are setting our forests on fire. 

These are the very forests and lands that have given life to our communities for generations that deserve better than to be reduced to smoke. Governments must step up and hold the polluters accountable, so that our forests, our country, and all of us who live here can finally breathe freely again.   

 

The post The Haze We All Breathe: A Letter from Kalimantan, Indonesia appeared first on 350.

A Mississippi facility will produce transformers in the 10 MVA to 160 MVA range, designed for voltages up to 230 kV. The additional capacity “is expected to help alleviate industry-wide supply constraints,” a Hitachi official told Utility Dive.

Picture a world where half the planet’s cattle ranches simply aren’t there anymore. Where does all that land go? What do farmers grow instead? And who wins or loses in the process? A major new analysis in Nature finally puts real numbers behind those questions.

The team modeled what would happen if the world actually switched to sustainable diets, rather than sticking with business as usual. The results are dramatic: cattle production could fall by half by 2050. The amount of land devoted to farming fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes could rise by 1.5 million square kilometers—more than twice the area of France—while the land area used to farm wheat, corn, rice, and other grains might fall by a similar amount.

The goal was “to recognize, a little more honestly, what would be the magnitude of these changes,” says Daniel Mason-D’Croz, an economist at Cornell University and one of three lead authors on the study. And importantly, “what kind of disruptions and dislocations it would mean for [food] producers?”

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Relocating global croplands could produce the same food on half the land with 70% less emissions

 

The work grew out of a string of findings over the past few years. In 2018, a team that included Mason-D’Croz predicted the environmental footprint of global food production would grow 50 to 90% by 2050, driven by growing populations, rising wealth, and more meat-eating. They also found that staying within planetary boundaries would take multiple fixes at once: less food waste, better agricultural technologies, and worldwide dietary change. Around the same time, the EAT-Lancet commission reported that eating less meat and more plants would cut rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers—while also helping the planet.

So what does the reshuffled map actually look like? They found that by 2050, reduced livestock farming would free up vast stretches of grassland unsuitable for most crops—land that might go to wind or solar power, rewilding, or other uses. Production of sugar crops, such as cane, could drop by roughly a third. Some farming would shift to entirely new locations, depending on the crops and the health of local soils and water supplies. Prices of meats, dairy, and grains could fall by 15 to 30 percent, while those of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes might rise a few percentage points.

“The challenges are really big,” says Mason-D’Croz—and if the food transition is to succeed, it will need to address them. “Livestock is a really important source of income in rural communities,” he says, citing one example. Any food transition will need to find new pathways and futures those local economies. “If you ignore these things, you probably won’t have the political will to make some of these changes.”

Gibson, et al. “Food systems transformation would reshape global agriculture.” Nature. 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

.

68 disputed documents, allegations concerning disclosure of Kent Quinlan’s identity, a reserved Supreme Court judgment—and ASIC has already been urged in Parliament to examine the case

The long-running litigation between former ERM Power executive Kent Quinlan and Shell Energy Operations Pty Ltd has reached another potentially important stage, with the Supreme Court of Queensland being asked to determine how legal professional privilege interacts with Australia’s statutory protections for corporate whistleblowers.

At the centre of the latest hearing are 68 documents that Quinlan is seeking from Shell.

According to a detailed report published on 18 September 2026 by Michael West Media, Shell maintains legal professional privilege over the disputed material, while Quinlan’s legal team argues that at least some communications may fall within the crime/fraud—or iniquity—exception to privilege. (Michael West)

Justice Soraya Ryan has reserved judgment and reportedly indicated that she hopes to deliver her decision by 7 November 2026. (Michael West)

This is an interlocutory dispute. The underlying allegations made by Quinlan remain contested and have not been determined at trial.

The 68 documents

Quinlan, formerly a senior executive at ERM Power before the company was acquired by Shell in 2019, has for years pursued litigation arising from matters he says he reported internally.

His allegations include claims concerning sham electricity transactions, insider trading, market manipulation, inflated profits, disclosure of his identity as a whistleblower and subsequent retaliation.

Those are Quinlan’s allegations. They are not findings of wrongdoing by a court.

The latest hearing concerns whether Shell can withhold the 68 documents on the basis of legal professional privilege.

Michael West Media reports that Tony Morris KC, appearing for Quinlan, invoked the exception under which privilege does not protect communications made in furtherance of crime, fraud or certain improper conduct attracting civil penalties. (Michael West)

Morris reportedly argued that if communications were created in furtherance of the misconduct alleged by Quinlan, privilege would not attach merely because lawyers were involved.

Shell’s position, according to the same report, is that Australia’s 2019 whistleblower reforms do not override legal professional privilege. (Michael West)

That leaves the court confronting an unusually important question: what happens when documents over which privilege is asserted are themselves alleged to contain evidence relevant to breaches of statutory whistleblower protections?

Shell evidence and 50 disputed documents

One reported feature of the hearing deserves particular attention.

According to Michael West Media, Shell’s own evidence identifies 50 of the 68 disputed documents as disclosing Quinlan’s identity as a whistleblower without his consent. (Michael West)

That statement should presently be treated as a report of evidence and argument before the court—not as a judicial finding that Shell unlawfully disclosed Quinlan’s identity.

Whether the circumstances amounted to a breach of the Corporations Act protections, and what consequences might follow, are matters for the court.

Nevertheless, the number illustrates why the privilege dispute is potentially consequential.

This follows the June disclosure judgment

The present hearing is not an isolated development.

In Quinlan v Shell Energy Operations Pty Ltd [2026] QSC 115, the Supreme Court dealt in June with a series of interlocutory applications concerning disclosure and redactions.

The court ordered some further disclosure while refusing broader relief sought by Quinlan. Importantly, however, the challenge concerning legal professional privilege was left for later determination.

That is the issue which has now returned to court.

Our previous coverage can be found here:

Kent Quinlan v Shell: Court Fast-Tracks Evidence After Terminal Cancer Diagnosis (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

And Parliament has now entered the picture

There is another reason the latest hearing deserves attention.

Only two weeks ago, Senator Paul Scarr raised the Quinlan litigation during a hearing of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services.

Addressing ASIC Chair Sarah Court, Senator Scarr referred to corporate defendants seeking suppression orders concerning evidence connected with allegations of corporate wrongdoing and asked:

“Doesn’t that raise red flags that ASIC should be looking into this matter?”

He subsequently encouraged ASIC to take a serious look at the case.

Sarah Court responded:

“Yes, Senator, we can do that.”

Our report on that intervention is here:

Senator Paul Scarr Urges ASIC to Examine Kent Quinlan’s Shell Case After Raising “Red Flags” (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

The parliamentary exchange did not establish the truth of Quinlan’s allegations and did not amount to an ASIC finding against Shell.

It did, however, put the regulator’s possible examination of the circumstances firmly on the public record.

Why the privilege ruling could matter beyond Shell

The immediate dispute concerns Quinlan and Shell, but the legal issue has potentially wider significance.

Australia strengthened its corporate whistleblower regime in 2019. Among its central protections is confidentiality surrounding the identity of qualifying whistleblowers.

Legal professional privilege is itself a longstanding and important protection, permitting clients to obtain confidential legal advice.

The difficulty presented in the Quinlan litigation is the collision between those principles where a party argues that privileged communications themselves may be relevant to alleged prohibited conduct.

Quinlan’s case therefore poses a question with implications extending beyond Shell:

Can legal professional privilege protect documents alleged to form part of the very conduct that whistleblower legislation was enacted to prevent?

Justice Ryan’s eventual reasons may provide an important answer—or at least clarify where Australian law draws the boundary.

A decision expected before Quinlan gives evidence

There is now a significant timetable.

Justice Ryan has reserved judgment and reportedly hopes to give her decision by 7 November 2026. (Michael West)

Quinlan is then scheduled to give evidence for approximately two weeks from 7 December 2026, based on an evidence-in-chief statement reported to run to almost 4,000 pages. (Michael West)

His evidence timetable has particular urgency because of his serious illness, which has previously led the proceedings to be accelerated.

That makes the coming weeks potentially important both for Quinlan personally and for the wider litigation.

What has—and has not—been established

Given the seriousness of the allegations, the distinction is essential.

Established from the public court and parliamentary record: litigation is continuing; disclosure and privilege have been contested; the latest privilege hearing has occurred; judgment has been reserved; and Senator Scarr has publicly asked ASIC to examine circumstances surrounding the case.

Reported from the latest hearing: 68 documents are disputed; Shell’s evidence reportedly identifies 50 as containing disclosure of Quinlan’s whistleblower identity without consent; Quinlan invokes the iniquity exception; Shell relies upon legal professional privilege.

Not established: that Shell or any other defendant committed insider trading, market manipulation, sham transactions, unlawful whistleblower disclosure, retaliation or other wrongdoing alleged in the proceedings.

Those allegations remain contested.

The next date to watch

The immediate date for the diary is 7 November 2026.

If Justice Ryan delivers the anticipated judgment by then, the court may provide considerably greater clarity about the disputed documents and, potentially, about the relationship between legal professional privilege and Australia’s corporate whistleblower regime.

After years of litigation, the Quinlan proceedings have now attracted judicial, parliamentary and potentially regulatory attention simultaneously.

That makes the next judgment considerably more than another procedural waypoint.

Sources: Michael West Media — 18 September 2026 | Previous RoyalDutchShellPlc.com Quinlan coverage | 4 September ASIC/Parliament report

Shell Whistleblower Case: Queensland Court Weighs Legal Privilege Against Whistleblower Protection was first posted on September 18, 2026 at 12:51 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

Despite millions of dollars in grants and technical help for African businesses to power farming and other food production activities with renewable energy, most efforts remain stuck at the early stages because they struggle to find the investors, markets and expertise they need to grow.

This was the message from a coalition of global institutions working on energy, water and agriculture at this month’s Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, Rwanda.

“Energy, agriculture, water and nutrition actors rarely design solutions together,” the Agri-Energy Coalition said in a Call to Action on powering food systems with clean energy.

Using more renewables – especially solar power – to drive food systems would reduce food losses, ensure year-round availability and affordability of healthy foods, and improve productivity, income and resilience among farmers, food processors and other small enterprises, the coalition added. 

In an interview with Climate Home News at the forum, Olamide Niyi-Afuye, CEO of the Africa Minigrid Developers Association (AMDA) – a body representing private-sector developers of small-scale, off-grid electricity systems across the continent – said its members are starting to recognise this interdependence and are increasingly considering businesses that combine energy with agricultural activities.

• Sep 3, 2026 Energy More support needed to power Africa’s food systems with renewables, experts say Renewable energy could help African food businesses boost productivity and competitiveness, but the upfront cost, fragmented markets and limited financing stand in the way Read more
• Sep 8, 2025 News Second Africa Climate Summit seeks to jump hurdles to green industrialisation A report on progress since the first summit in 2023 says financial, infrastructure and trade obstacles are hampering “climate-positive growth” on the continent Read more

This, Niyi-Afuye added, could lead to greater supply and use of clean power for key processes like irrigation, food processing and storage, creating new sources of revenue for both sectors. 

CHN: Conversations at the Africa Food Systems Forum highlighted how organisations working in energy and agriculture often operate in silos. What has hampered their collaboration, and how has that affected Africa’s economic development?

A: Most mini-grid companies in Africa were primarily incentivised to achieve connections. If you look at some ongoing projects, you see a cost-per-connection model [of revenue]. When a subsidy is tied to achieving a connection, regardless of whether it is a productive connection, you might not notice the problem until five years down the line, when you realise the cash flows are not what you projected.

Despite African walkout, fractious land COP ends without drought deal

So now we’re in a “come-to-Jesus moment” as an industry, where we’re righting the wrongs and adjusting our business models to make sure companies do not go bust and there is some level of sustainability over the long term.

The saying is not wrong that we’ve been working in our own silos because we’ve focused on the smaller things instead of the helicopter view. There needs to be cross-pollination [between the energy and agriculture sectors] because, if we are thinking about industrialisation, energy is a key driver of industrialisation. We will not achieve that if we’re not in the room and part of those conversations.

CHN: Productive use of energy is intended to ensure electricity access goes beyond lighting homes to improving livelihoods, creating jobs and powering equipment. But what happens when farmers cannot afford the equipment they need to do that? How can energy, agriculture and equipment players work together to make the transition more accessible?

A: That’s why we’re having conversations with companies set up to de-risk the agriculture sector. By leveraging that connection, we’re able to aggregate potential energy needs and develop instruments that make equipment more affordable through bulk procurement.

We can have arrangements that make it easier for farmers and food producers to lease equipment and eventually own it over a period. There’s no real pressure to recover the capital very quickly because you’re looking at scale.

Rice farmer Danjuma Okuwa adjusts his newly installed electric rice milling machine at his compound in Rukubi, Nasarawa, Nigeria, September 27, 2022. (Thomson Reuters Foundation/Afolabi Sotunde) Rice farmer Danjuma Okuwa adjusts his newly installed electric rice milling machine at his compound in Rukubi, Nasarawa, Nigeria, September 27, 2022. (Thomson Reuters Foundation/Afolabi Sotunde)

There is a whole lot across the agricultural value chain that needs energy, from farming and harvesting to food processing and value-addition. We need to understand the energy needs across the value chain and bring our members in to provide solutions.

Developers do not necessarily need to provide every productive-use solution themselves. They can partner with equipment suppliers, financiers, agribusinesses and other service providers to enable customers to use electricity productively. The objective is simple: do not just electrify communities; enable economic activity that uses that electricity.

CHN: When Africa’s industrialisation is discussed, you hear things like renewables cannot provide enough baseload, while some food processors are sceptical about switching to renewable energy because of these concerns about reliability. What is your response?

A: It’s not a controversial statement to say that a typical baseload is usually from the grid, and it’s usually from multiple sources including renewable energy. For large-scale operations, we can look at blending multiple sources of energy. But how do we solve the problem of a mid-sized farmer? We can solve it with a mini-grid using renewable energy.

Comment: Every country needs a model to help optimise its energy transition

If you go to a small farmer in a rural area, they don’t care about what source of energy they’re getting. They just want something that can help them get from A to B. If you look at the direct energy needs of farmers and food processors, I’m sure 90 percent of their consumption can be solved by renewable energy. Let’s start with that problem first. Then, as they scale, they might need to ramp up, and we can start talking about a bigger baseload.

CHN: How much agricultural value is lost because farmers and food businesses lack reliable, affordable electricity?

A: If you look at, for example, the fact that we need to maybe plant tomatoes or strawberries in Jos before it gets to Lagos [Nigeria], which most likely is by road, I can assure you that a good chunk, if not stored properly, would be bad by then. So the fact that we do not have energy is in itself a lost opportunity to maximise the potential of the agriculture sector. So until we’ve solved the energy problem, we will not salvage waste – and for me that is a lost opportunity. 

CHN: AGRA, an institution focused on scaling agricultural innovations to help smallholder farmers, estimates a massive shortfall between current investments in the continent’s food systems and what is actually needed to build a resilient, profitable agricultural economy – to the tune of $180 billion per year. Can integrating energy into food systems help bridge that gap?

A: Yes – if energy can help unlock the potential to earn more money, investors will follow the money. Investments go where there is certainty, and until there is certainty around cash flow and revenue, investment will be limited.

My vision is to see more Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) being signed between energy players and the agriculture sector. We can start by getting people into the room, understanding their pain points, crafting a framework and documentation that works for both parties, and then seeing deals happen.

This interview was shortened and edited for clarity.

The post How clean energy can boost business for Africa’s food producers appeared first on Climate Home News.

The drought hits hardest peasant farmers practicing subsistence agriculture who were forced onto marginal lands after being stripped of their ancestral territories.

The post Guatemala: Drought, Hunger, Dispossession, and an Unfulfilled Agrarian Agreement appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.